College Football Playoff expansion is set to move up a couple of years to 2024. Plus: Disney has acquired full control of BAMTech, longtime Turner Sports exec Lenny Daniels has left the retooled company, and more.
CFP set to expand in 2024 after Rose Bowl relents
The College Football Playoff is expected to soon announce that its expansion to a 12-team field will occur in 2024, two years ahead of schedule, according to multiple reports late Wednesday. The last obstacle to moving up the expansion — agreement from the Rose Bowl — was cleared Wednesday.
The Rose Bowl was the last of the relevant parties to agree to early expansion as it sought to condition its agreement on maintaining its late afternoon New Year’s Day timeslot beyond the current rights deal. The CFP in turn gave the Rose Bowl a deadline of Wednesday to agree to early expansion or be left out of the next deal.
Since the formation of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, the Rose Bowl has occupied the late afternoon New Year’s Day timeslot in all-but-two years — 2002 and 2006, when it hosted the national championship on a later date. The Fiesta Bowl occupied the traditional Rose Bowl slot in those years. (ESPN.com 11.30, CBSSports.com 11.30)
Disney acquires full control of BAMTech after buying out MLB
Disney has now acquired full control of BAMTech — the Major League Baseball-created streaming company formerly known as MLB Advanced Media — after buying MLB’s remaining stake for $900 million, per multiple reports Tuesday. Disney purchased a minority stake in BAMTech in 2016 and expanded to majority control the following year. (AP 11.29)
Turner’s Lenny Daniels steps down
Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels has departed the company after 27 years, the last eight of which were spent running the division, it was announced this week. Sports Business Journal was first to report the news. The move comes more than a year the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger and months after he was passed over for the role of overseeing the retooled company’s sports operations. (SBJ 11.28)
Plus: ACC/Big Ten Challenge, WNBA schedule, ESPN-AKC
ESPN announced this week the formation of a new ACC vs. SEC college basketball challenge starting next season that will replace the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The move is necessitated by ESPN’s loss of Big Ten media rights. … The WNBA announced its schedule on Wednesday, with each team scheduled for a league-record 40 games. The regular season is set to begin May 19 and run through September 10. … ESPN announced this week that it has reached a multi-year contract extension with the American Kennel Club to continue carrying AKC dog shows. The current deal began in 2019. (ESPN PR, WNBA)
