Right now,
Big East football schools make $5 million a year from the current ESPN deal that expires in 2013. That is less than a quarter of what teams in the SEC and the
Big Ten bank. But that figures to change dramatically now that ESPN is not the only suitor.
The Big East, the last of the six
Bowl Championship Series conferences to renegotiate its TV package,
could have signed a deal with ESPN this past May that would have paid each of its football schools $11 million a year.
But current commissioner
John Marinatto and his staff understand that college football is viewed as the second most popular sport on TV and that the Big East footprint covers 30% of the households in the country and seven of the top 14 markets. He has decided to explore all his options before sitting down with ESPN in September of 2012.
The league is gambling that other TV networks are just as desperate for live sports programming, if not more. Representatives from
CBS,
Comcast (which wants a prime-time Saturday night game to compete with
ABC),
NBC Sports and
Fox were all conspicuous by their presence at Big East football media day here Tuesday and
sources indicate the bidding could escalate to between $15 million and $18 million for the rights, which would give Big East football more value than the ACC, whose teams make $13 million each in their deal.