There is reportedly interest within the College Football Playoff in loosening ESPN’s exclusive hold on the rights. Plus: the NHL plans to return to the Olympics and ESPN has announced Max Kellerman’s many replacements on “First Take.”
Report: some support in CFP for splitting rights in next deal
There is “support in some circles” for splitting rights to the College Football Playoff among multiple rights partners once ESPN’s current exclusive deal expires after the 2025-26 season, CBS Sports reported Thursday. ESPN has aired every game in the short history of the CFP and previously aired every Bowl Championship Series game from 2011-14. Corporate sibling ABC carried every BCS game from 1999-06.
Sources told CBS that rights to the playoff could jump anywhere from two to five times the current level of $475 million/year.
As described in the report, rights to each round of the expanded playoff — quarterfinals, semifinals and the National Championship — could be sold separately. That presumes an expanded playoff is in the offing, which per CBS is no longer a sure thing. ESPN currently owns the CFP through four separate rights deals: individual contracts with the Rose, Sugar and Orange bowls and a package deal for the Fiesta, Peach and Cotton.
Since the formation of the BCS in 1999, the only non-ESPN network to carry affiliated games was FOX from 2007-10. Even then, ABC still owned rights to the Rose Bowl, which included the 2010 National Championship at the site. [CBS 9.2]
NHL plans to let players compete in Olympics
The NHL announced Friday that it intends to allow its players to compete in the scheduled 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a return to what had been the norm prior to 2018, when the league skipped the Olympics for the first time since 1994.
The league included an Olympic break from February 3-22 in the schedule it released earlier this summer, but left open the possibility of rescheduling games for those open dates if it elected not to participate in the Games.
The decision to participate is not set in stone. The league said Friday that it still has the option to withdraw from the Games if it believes that COVID-19 conditions would make participation “impractical or unsafe.” [NHL 9.3]
ESPN announces Smith’s “First Take” sparring partners
ESPN officially announced this week that a rotation of guests will fill the vacancy left by Max Kellerman on Stephen A Smith’s “First Take.” Starting Monday, Smith will bookend his weeks opposite NFL Network’s Michael Irvin on Mondays and SEC Network’s Tim Tebow on Fridays, with an eclectic mix of ESPNers filling the rest of the week. [ESPN PR]
