MouseSports: ESPN Has It's Limits

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ESPN has reportedly ended contract discussions with the Big Ten after rejecting the conference’s latest proposal, which was for a seven-year, $380 million extension. ESPN’s current deal with the Big Ten checked in at $190 million, and the extension talks didn’t include guarantees for the conference’s top games. If talks aren’t reopened, it’ll mark the first time in 40 years that ESPN won’t carry coverage of Big Ten football or basketball.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10044833-report-espn-rej…

Fuskie
Who notes rather than ESPN being damaged from the failed negotiations, the concern appears to be more for the future of the Big Ten…

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The issues with college sports have just seem to have gotten worse over time as more schools have become better known for their athletic programs than for the education they provide. When a college spends more money on football than on its teaching staff it is time the pick a school with a smaller sports program for example Harvard, Yale, Brown etc.

Walt

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The issues with college sports have just seem to have gotten worse over time as more schools have become better known for their athletic programs than for the education they provide.

The ascendancy of athletics, actually, only two, basketball and football, where colleges are the defacto farm system for the NBA and NFL, over academics, has been going on for a long time. There was a case here in Detroit, a few years ago, where a high school football player did jail time on an assault charge for body-slamming a security guard at his high school. A few weeks after getting out of jail on that crime, he beat up his girlfriend in the school. What was the local news concerned about? That the guy was a thug? Nope. The news nattered about how multiple convictions for assault might impact his college football career.

Quick question: who is paid the most, the President of a major college, or the football and basketball coaches at the same college? Who is paid the most: the Governor of a state, or the coaches at the state colleges?

College coaches dominate list of highest-paid public employees with seven-digit salaries

Michigan

• Highest paid public employee: Jim Harbaugh; University of Michigan football coach

• Annual salary: $7,504,000

• 2nd highest paid public employee: Mark Dantonio; Michigan State football coach

• Annual salary: $4,399,437

• 3rd highest paid public employee: Tim Lester; Western Michigan University football coach

• Annual salary: $800,000

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/23/these-are-th…

Meanwhile, the Governor of Michigan, someone who could make a difference in people’s lives, is paid $159,300/yr.

Steve

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Walt,

When a college spends more money on football than on its teaching staff it is time the pick a school with a smaller sports program for example Harvard, Yale, Brown etc.

Well, if one has what it takes to gain admission to those schools…

But most college-bound high school students don’t have what it takes. Serious applicants to those schools are out on the tail of the curve (top 2-3%) of intelligence and achievement (both academic and extracurricular), and the Ivies and other top schools admit a very small percentage of their serious applicants. At MIT, for example, our admission rate was four percent in the last two admission cycles (about 1,400 admitted from a pool of about 35,000 applicants, over 90% of whom are “serious”). Every year, I interview several truly phenomenal young people who don’t make the cut.

Norm.

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Fuskie,

ESPN has reportedly ended contract discussions with the Big Ten after rejecting the conference’s latest proposal, which was for a seven-year, $380 million extension. ESPN’s current deal with the Big Ten checked in at $190 million, and the extension talks didn’t include guarantees for the conference’s top games. If talks aren’t reopened, it’ll mark the first time in 40 years that ESPN won’t carry coverage of Big Ten football or basketball.

The only way that “talks aren’t reopened” is if the “Big Ten” gets a better offer from another television network. The conference is not about to forego television revenue, which represents a huge chunk of income for both the conference and its member schools.

That said, we might have reached the point where ESPN does not have to raise its offer because no other network is willing to match it.

Norm.

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