FanPost

NCAA Documents: Television Contracts for Men's and Women's BB Championships



Today, the deadspin.com website released NCAA financial statements for the 2003-08 year period which it claimed had been protected but accidentally leaked by the NCAA itself.  The NCAA is claiming that these files have never actually been protected and have been freely available.

We'll let Deadspin and the NCAA fight over that one.  What was interesting for me were the statements on the relative sizes of the NCAA men's basketball and women's basketball championship contracts.  (The NCAA men's championship is hosted by CBS; the women's championship by ESPN.)

The relevant text follows.  You'll have to forgive the lack of formatting.

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Television and Marketing Rights Fees

On November 18, 1999, the NCAA entered into an agreement with CBS (the CBS agreement) that provides CBS exclusive television broadcast rights for the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship along with other championship and marketing rights effective from fiscal 2003 and continuing through fiscal 2013. The agreement is for 11 years, with the NCAA having an option to renegotiate after eight years. The rights fees include: telecast rights, including over-the-air cable, satellite, digital and home video,marketing rights, championships publication program rights, radio rights, internet rights, fan festival rights, and selected licensing rights. The contract also includes year-round promotion of the NCAA and its championships.

 
NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATIONAND SUBSIDIARIES

 Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements
August 31, 2008(with summarized financial information for 2007)

(Continued)The rights fee for this package is a guaranteed minimum of $6.0 billion over the 11-year contract. Pursuant to the agreement, for the year ended August 31, 2008, the NCAA received $529,000,000 ($490,000,000 for the year ended August 31, 2007). The NCAA will receive future television broadcast payments as follows:

Fiscal year ending August 31:

2009 $571,000,000
2010  617,000,000
2011  657,000,000
2012  710,000,000
2013  764,000,000

       $3,319,000,000

On June 29, 2001, the NCAA entered into an agreement with ESPN (the ESPN agreement) that provides ESPN exclusive television broadcast rights for the Division I Women’s Basketball championship alongwith broadcast rights to other NCAA championships, excluding those to which rights have been granted to CBS. The contract is effective from fiscal year 2003 and continues through fiscal year 2013. The ESPN agreement is for 11 years, with the NCAA having an option to renegotiate after eight years. The rights fee for this package is on a fixed, nonrefundable basis for the sum of $163 million over the11-year contract. Pursuant to the ESPN agreement, for the years ended August 31, 2008 and 2007, the NCAA received $14,800,000 and $13,800,000, respectively.The NCAA will receive future television broadcast payments as follows:

Fiscal year ending August 31:

2009 $15,800,000
2010  16,800,000
2011  17,900,000
2012  18,800,000
2013  19,100,000

         $88,400,000


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So basically, the contract for women's college basketball is 2 2/3 percent of that of men's college basketball.  Which is very strange, since I suspect that the average audience for a men's championship basketball game (or a women's game for that matter) is not 37.5 times the size of a women's game.  This implies - at first glance - that either CBS is paying way too much for its championship, or that ESPN is getting a hell of a deal.