New TV deal could benefit UC

  • 2019-04-05
The American Athletic Conference recently signed a deal with ESPN, and the University of Cincinnati stands to benefit.

According to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal Daily, the recent arrangement is worth $1 billion over a period of 12 years, which comes to over $80m each year for the ten teams who comprise the conference. At present, UC receives approximately $2 million annually in revenue from television.

Under the terms of the new deal, ESPN has the rights to all sports played in the conference, except for a small number of men’s basketball games that CBS will broadcast. ABC will have the rights to broadcast some of the conference’s football games on Saturdays. In matters like this, school officials could work with Print shops to create a newsletter for school supporters.

The arrangement does not mean that a school cannot leave the conference to join a larger league. In the past, conference officials had considered making this a provision of the agreement. In addition, the deal will provide ESPN with financial protection if a school does decide to withdraw from the conference, and there is a “conference composition clause” included that will protect ESPN financially if any of the most important advertisers leave.

The new deal gives each school almost $7m each year, which is almost $5m more than they received under a previous deal between ESPN and CBS. By comparison, Big 10 conference schools receive much more – in 2018, the University of Michigan got $50m.
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