ESPN has paid $125 million for the rights to broadcast the Bowl Championship Series from 2011-2014.
ESPN’s president, George Bodenheimer, said the network planned to keep all of the games on ESPN and not broadcast any on ABC, but would not charge cable providers a premium. ESPN is available to about 98 million homes on an extended basic-cable tier. Disney owns ESPN and ABC.
Lessee, if there are 300 million-plus citizens of the United States, then there may be 150 million homes (obviously a S.W.A.G.). That would mean that up to 50 million homes have no access to ESPN and thus no way to see the Bowl Championship games unless the residents all go to sports bars or neighbors' homes on New Year's Day and the following weekend.
Way to go, university presidents. You've just cut off many of your potential customers from the biggest college football games of that four-year period. Ah, but Greed is Good, right?
Posted by Linkmeister at November 19, 2008 10:49 AM | TrackBack