The possible consolidation of March Madness rights under one media company in 2033

[doublejman]

It will cause players who disagree with what Fox News propagates to refuse to play in leagues that air on Fox.

In baseball, such players will play in an overseas league instead of MLB, unless they just refuse to play in games Fox televises.

In the NFL, these players will demand to play on an AFC team because the AFC is usually on CBS, thus, their team is on Fox 2-3 times a season at most and thus would be inactive for 2-3 games at most.

In college sports, these recruits will turn down conferences that have media rights deals with Fox.

Do you have sources that the leagues or players don’t want fox to broadcast their games? I would love to read it. Or are you just pulling this out of your butt?

 

[KevFu]

The consolidation of the Men's and Women's TV rights into one contract makes very little sense.

The argument being that the MBB contract is huge, the WBB contract is undervalued and by combining them into one deal, you could get a much bigger price for both, AND have changes to the TV schedule for the tournaments that lead to more WBB coverage. And that would be a good thing.

While the dollar amount for the WBB tournament is ridiculously low, those rights are bundled with the rights to between 25 and 50 other NCAA championships that would be financial losses for the network if they were separated. (For example, while St. Peter's was beating Kentucky, the NCAA wrestling championships were on ESPN2 or ESPNU).

So the logic that applies to combining them is actually the same logic working against combining them.

The real question is the most efficient use of bundles. Perhaps instead of bundling WBB and "The Rest" in one deal, you create a few more bundles. So WBB being the marquee item bundled with a half dozen other sports. Men's College World Series and another half dozen. Women's College World Series and another half dozen... etc.

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Why don't sports cater to the OTA market?

Doesn't Stadium have access to some games?

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

The consolidation of the Men's and Women's TV rights into one contract makes very little sense.

The argument being that the MBB contract is huge, the WBB contract is undervalued and by combining them into one deal, you could get a much bigger price for both, AND have changes to the TV schedule for the tournaments that lead to more WBB coverage. And that would be a good thing.

While the dollar amount for the WBB tournament is ridiculously low, those rights are bundled with the rights to between 25 and 50 other NCAA championships that would be financial losses for the network if they were separated. (For example, while St. Peter's was beating Kentucky, the NCAA wrestling championships were on ESPN2 or ESPNU).

So the logic that applies to combining them is actually the same logic working against combining them.

The real question is the most efficient use of bundles. Perhaps instead of bundling WBB and "The Rest" in one deal, you create a few more bundles. So WBB being the marquee item bundled with a half dozen other sports. Men's College World Series and another half dozen. Women's College World Series and another half dozen... etc.

I was talking about men's March Madness only.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Do you have sources that the leagues or players don’t want fox to broadcast their games? I would love to read it. Or are you just pulling this out of your butt?

You know what they say. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.

And Fox News is what is spoiling Fox Corporation.

 

[doublejman]

You know what they say. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.

And Fox News is what is spoiling Fox Corporation.

So that’s a no to my question then.

Personally it wouldn’t bother me one bit if Fox News or even CNN or msnbc were gone tomorrow but I know that’s not going to happen.

No league is going to drop Fox because it’s news channel has a differing viewpoint from you.