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ESPN Lands New ACC Football and Basketball Rights

Overcoming spirited bidding from Fox, ESPN landed the football and basketball rights contract for the ACC for the next 12 years.  That bidding by Fox drove the price up from an expected $125 million per year to $155 million per, still well south of the SEC's $205 million from its new CBS and ESPN contracts.  The new contracts take effect with the start of the 2011-12 season and represent a substantial increase from the existing contracts with Raycom and ESPN, paying the conference an average of $73-$75 million.  Each member school will go from earning about $5.6 million to an average of $12.9 million.

Although Sports Business Journal indicated that Fox helped drive up ESPN's bid, as mentioned above, according to ACC sports.com, Fox was not given a chance to match ESPN's bid, as the league decided that ESPN's reach was too broad to give up.  That may prove a problem for Fox as it looks to the Big XII and Pac-10 down the road.

The ACC has the misfortune of its contracts expiring with the end of the 2010-11 season and therefore being in a position of having to act now before the after-effects of Big Ten expansion will completely sort itself out. Whether the contract takes into account the possibility of future expansion of the ACC is not known, but if it does not also add an additional $13-$15 for each additional school added to the league upon expansion, then this contract will be a major hindrance to the league when it comes time to deal with the after the Big Ten announcement.  Since the ACC chose not to pursue the establishment of its own network when the option was presented to it by Comcast, it will be all the more vital that this contract have the flexibility to reward the league for improved numbers in the event of expansion.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on May 17, 2010 (boomark / email).