Here’s The College Football TV Money At Stake For Each Conference And Network

The pandemic could cause a lot of pain for college football.

Last week, NCAA president Mark Emmert told Congressional leaders College officials believe a possibility still exists that some schools will not play a football season this fall, College officials believe a possibility still exists that some schools will not play a football season this fall. In a report on football and the networks for its investors last week, Wells Fargo Securities, wrote “We think most college football will be canceled.” One reason: testing protocols and regulations vary by state and the NCAA cannot unilaterally rule for the seaoson to start.

Indeed, the richest college conferences have been reshaped the past decade or so by the big increase in money the networks have ponied up to televise college football. For 2020, for example, ESPN/ABC, Fox and CBS
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are on the hook for a combined $1.4 billion (see chart below), excluding the 12-year, $5.6 billion deal ESPN has to televise the playoffs. It also does not include conference networks, in which media companies also have sizeable investments.

Putting a precise tally on the dollars at risk is impossible because each contract is different. Conferences could, for example, still get all their money even with less games and make up the difference by giving more inventory to the network in the future. But there will be some pain if these conferences have significantly less action on the gridiron.