FOX Sports has bowed out of the race for the Bowl Championship Series.
In a statement released Monday, FOX announced that it would not match ESPN’s $125 million per year offer for the rights to the BCS, a 50% increase from the current price of $82.5 million per year. FOX had offered to pay $100 million, a 25% increase.
This almost assures that ESPN will acquire the rights to the Bowl Championship Series in its entirety, starting in 2011. For its part, FOX seems to confirm that this will be the case, noting in the aformentioned statement that “the University presidents and BCS commissioners … decided to take their jewel events to pay television.”
This would mark the first time in over a decade that a major sport’s championship event aired exclusively on cable. The National Hockey League Stanley Cup Finals aired on various cable networks from 1981-1994.
