NCAA and ESPN extend media agreement for FCS playoffs (among others)

[Professor Chaos]

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39241071/ncaa-espn-extend-broadcast-deal-8-more-years

Worth $115M annually and extends their current deal for 8 years from 2024-2031 - this represents a 238% increase over the previous deal which was $34M annually. Hopefully this means 16 playoffs seeds will be finalized this offseason and will be in place for next season's playoffs.

https://twitter.com/SamHerderFCS/status/1742947252409168334

[clenz]

Just wait for the seeds to magically match up with what regionalization looked like by complete coincidence.

[taper]

Just wait for the seeds to magically match up with what regionalization looked like by complete coincidence.
I've actually been pleasantly surprised by the seeding in recent years. 2022 especially, it would have been very easy to pair #1-4 SDSU/NDSU and Sac/MTST on the same side of each half bracket, but they split conferences. Far cry from years past.

[OhioHen]

Just wait for the seeds to magically match up with what regionalization looked like by complete coincidence.
Exactly the argument I've made against "seeding" 9-16.

[Professor Chaos]

Exactly the argument I've made against "seeding" 9-16.
The notion that the ADs on the selection committee are in cahoots to save the NCAA money is proven wrong many more times than it is proven right. Case in point - NDSU should've absolutely been podded with SDSU or USD in this year's bracket yet they weren't. It caused an extra flight so the selection committee broke the explicit rules they were supposed to abide by to avoid pairing the strongest unseeded team with the #1 or #3 seed.

I don't pretend to think that politics don't come into play when the selections are made and the bracket is put together but the notion that it's done to save/make the NCAA money is pretty easily disproved.

[putter]

$80MM more a year hopefully also helps the schools. I wonder if the NCAA will continue to take 75% of gate to help them pay for the playoffs.

[Catbooster]

$80MM more a year hopefully also helps the schools. I wonder if the NCAA will continue to take 75% of gate to help them pay for the playoffs.

Probably won't help either of our schools. No longer a sure thing that we'll host since it should be based on seeding rather than bids.

And the corollary of hosting based on seeding is that it increases the chances for schools with lower attendance to host, meaning less income for NCAA from attendance (probably still much smaller reduction than the increase from the TV deal) and smaller crowds in the stands for appearances on TV.

However, it should be a net positive for the playoffs with more rational match-ups, reduced regionalization and the opportunity to play teams that typically don't see each other.

Rather than reducing the NCAA cut of the gate (even though some schools claim they lose money by hosting) I hope they increase the money for the travelling teams. IIRC, it isn't enough to pay for the expenses of travelling. But doing both would be ideal.

[Professor Chaos]

Probably won't help either of our schools. No longer a sure thing that we'll host since it should be based on seeding rather than bids.

And the corollary of hosting based on seeding is that it increases the chances for schools with lower attendance to host, meaning less income for NCAA from attendance (probably still much smaller reduction than the increase from the TV deal) and smaller crowds in the stands for appearances on TV.

However, it should be a net positive for the playoffs with more rational match-ups, reduced regionalization and the opportunity to play teams that typically don't see each other.

Rather than reducing the NCAA cut of the gate (even though some schools claim they lose money by hosting) I hope they increase the money for the travelling teams. IIRC, it isn't enough to pay for the expenses of travelling. But doing both would be ideal.
I've never understood the bolded claim. The only way I can see a host school losing money on a playoff game is if they overbid to host. The NCAA takes 75% of the net gate (not the gross but the net meaning ticket sales minus host school expenses) or the bid amount - whichever is higher. Meaning if you bid reasonably you should be making money as a host school in the playoffs - probably not a lot getting only 25% of the net receipts but it's a free home game where you don't have to pay the visiting school a guarantee or any other kind of travel expenses.

With 16 seeds it should basically take bidding for home games out of the picture entirely (assuming a host school can meet the minimum financial guarantee - which I think is something like 20k for the first round increasing 10k each round up to 50k for the semis) since it'll be very unlikely that 2 unseeded teams will ever meet again in the playoffs being that they'd be 2 of the bottom 8 teams based on the committee rankings and they'd each need to win 2 road games to get to the quarterfinals before they could face each other.

[Libertine]

The only way I can see a host school losing money on a playoff game is if they overbid to host. The NCAA takes 75% of the net gate (not the gross but the net meaning ticket sales minus host school expenses) or the bid amount - whichever is higher. Meaning if you bid reasonably you should be making money as a host school in the playoffs - probably not a lot getting only 25% of the net receipts but it's a free home game where you don't have to pay the visiting school a guarantee or any other kind of travel expenses.


There's a line of varying thickness between bidding reasonably and getting roasted by your fanbase for "not caring enough about the program". Case in point: JMU made the playoffs in 2011 but didn't put in a high enough bid to host and the JMU admin got kicked around in the press and on the message boards over it. Cut to the Dukes' next playoff appearance in 2014 and they bid $200K to ensure that they hosted the opening round. I don't know what the going rate is now but, at the time, $200,000 was an absurd amount to put down, especially given that JMU's AD later admitted that they didn't actually have the money for it when they made the bid.

[taper]

I've never understood the bolded claim. The only way I can see a host school losing money on a playoff game is if they overbid to host. The NCAA takes 75% of the net gate (not the gross but the net meaning ticket sales minus host school expenses) or the bid amount - whichever is higher. Meaning if you bid reasonably you should be making money as a host school in the playoffs - probably not a lot getting only 25% of the net receipts but it's a free home game where you don't have to pay the visiting school a guarantee or any other kind of travel expenses.

With 16 seeds it should basically take bidding for home games out of the picture entirely (assuming a host school can meet the minimum financial guarantee - which I think is something like 20k for the first round increasing 10k each round up to 50k for the semis) since it'll be very unlikely that 2 unseeded teams will ever meet again in the playoffs being that they'd be 2 of the bottom 8 teams based on the committee rankings and they'd each need to win 2 road games to get to the quarterfinals before they could face each other.
Curious why you doubt the claim about losing money. Nearly all college athletic departments are in the red without subsidies. It's pretty common for 1st round games to have <4k attendance. With a minimum bid of $30k you need almost $10 net per person just to break even. Not everybody charges NDSU ticket prices and revenue isn't the same as profit. You're probably paying around $1k in wages just to staff the ticket office and gates for the day.

[Professor Chaos]

Curious why you doubt the claim about losing money. Nearly all college athletic departments are in the red without subsidies. It's pretty common for 1st round games to have <4k attendance. With a minimum bid of $30k you need almost $10 net per person just to break even. Not everybody charges NDSU ticket prices and revenue isn't the same as profit. You're probably paying around $1k in wages just to staff the ticket office and gates for the day.
I was assuming the minimum financial guarantee was 20k for first round games but looked it up and it's actually 40k (page 16 at https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/football/d1/2023-24D1MFB_PreChampManual.pdf)

That is more problematic than I was thinking especially for games that draw less than 4k. I don't think netting $10 per ticket sold is that much to ask but maybe I'm wrong - I've got no idea what a typical budget looks like for these games but I'm pretty sure the minimum guarantee for first round games used to be 20k so I'd assume/hope the reason that has doubled in recent years is because the vast majority of schools have no trouble hitting it.

[Hammerhead]

Curious why you doubt the claim about losing money. Nearly all college athletic departments are in the red without subsidies. It's pretty common for 1st round games to have <4k attendance. With a minimum bid of $30k you need almost $10 net per person just to break even. Not everybody charges NDSU ticket prices and revenue isn't the same as profit. You're probably paying around $1k in wages just to staff the ticket office and gates for the day.

Does the host institution also have to pay for an ambulance on-site and security, if used for game days?

[Libertine]

Does the host institution also have to pay for an ambulance on-site and security, if used for game days?

Yes, but security and ambulance services are typically contracted by the school across multiple sports, not just football.

[bonarae]

Bummer for the international FCS fans like me and some alumni posters of AGS. In the article, it suas that ESPN still has exclusive international rights of March Madness and some other postseason events of the NCAA.

I hope DAZN or some other internationally-oriented sports streamer picks us up through sublicensing.


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