Expect ESPN to be very aggressive in trying to keep three of its core sports TV properties in place.
With women’s college basketball, the NBA and the College Football Playoff all due for new television deals in the near future, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus said this week that the network intends to try to preserve a foothold in all three.
ESPN currently holds women’s college basketball as part of a larger package of NCAA sports in a deal that expires after the 2023-24 season. If the NCAA seeks a standalone media rights deal for the women’s basketball tournament, adopting a recommendation from the Kaplan report which said that those rights are currently devalued, ESPN says it will be very aggressive to bid on those rights.
“Oh, I think we’ll be very aggressive,” Magnus said in a phone interview Tuesday in a wide-ranging conversation about ESPN’s present and future plans. “You know how much pride we’ve taken in that sport and that tournament for many years. Last year was a confluence of a dream matchup (LSU–Iowa) and transcendent players and it paid off to the tune of 9.9 million viewers (for the championship game), which is a number that you just don’t see in our business very often in any sport. At the same time, I did start referring to it as a 25-year overnight success just to indicate to people how long we’ve been at it in terms of women’s basketball and the women’s tournament.”
The Wall Street Journal, via research from consultants Ed Desser and former ESPN executive John Kosner, concluded the women’s basketball tournament by itself could be worth $81 million to $112 million under a new deal starting in 2025. ESPN has held exclusive rights to the tournament since 1996. The company has consistently increased programming windows and content for the tournament. This year the title game aired on linear ABC for the first time.
“We take great pride in it,” Magnus said. “We call it our tournament. We don’t have the men’s tournament. We haven’t had that in any way, shape or form for many years. We love it. We’re thrilled that it’s succeeding. We know it’ll be competitive, but we hope very much to keep it.”
The current NBA media rights deal, worth $24 billion over nine years, is set to run out after the 2024-25 season.
“We have an unbelievable relationship with the NBA,” Magnus said. “… It’s a great game. It’s ascendant on a global level. It’s run by extremely smart people who are savvy about where we are at this point in time in the media landscape. It’s got an audience that is highly desirable in a world where live sports and the power of live sports is kind of undeniable. Long story short, we love it. We want very much to keep it.”
As The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov reported in May, the NBA seems likely to no longer constrain itself to mostly linear television in its national and local broadcasts, or to just ESPN, ABC and TNT. Vorkunov reported the exclusive negotiating window with incumbents Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery begins March 9, 2024, and is open for 45 days. After that, the league can test the market if there is no deal. There is an expectation that NBC Sports along with streamers Apple and Amazon will be interested in talking with the league.
Magnus said the NBA Finals were a “must-have” for ESPN in any NBA deal.
“I’m sure there’s little things, pieces of it, that could be changed or altered throughout the process,” Magnus said. “But we hope to come out of it with a package that looks pretty similar to what we have now. We hope that’s a relationship that goes on for many, many years.”
As for college football, ESPN’s current rights package — which includes all of the New Year’s Six bowls and the national championship game — expires after the 2025 season. Magnus again said the network wants it to return.
“I think this is another one we really love being a part of and intend to pursue aggressively,” Magnus said. “College football is something that’s foundational to what we do here, not just from a live event perspective, but coverage in general. We believe that the CFP and the commissioners did a really thoughtful job on the expansion plan, which we think will put that sport in an even stronger position in the future with a bracketed playoff. So we love it, we’d love to keep it, and I think we’re going to behave accordingly.”
The CFP will expand to include 12 teams starting in 2024, meaning a total of 11 games each year. Will the added inventory mean a second network has to get in the mix?
“I think it’s certainly possible it could be one (network),” Magnus said. “It’s only going from seven games to 11 games in total. So that’s not that big to begin with. If it were to be shared, I personally feel like it couldn’t or maybe rather shouldn’t be shared beyond two. I don’t know how you divvy up 11 games between more than two entities and get everybody equally invested in it. … So I think to drive maximum value, I think the more you divide it up, the more that potentially depresses price and value. But it certainly could be two.”
Read the full interview with Magnus on ESPN’s TV rights plans, choosing the SEC over the Big Ten, Jeff Van Gundy’s exit and more.
(Photo: Erica Denhoff / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
