UT To Unveil 20-Year, $300M Deal With ESPN For Longhorn Network

[Atlas]

Holy shit at the deal, and now I hope they become an independent:

By John Ourand & Michael Smith, Staff Writers, SportsBusiness Journal
Univ. of Texas to receive $15M annually from ESPN as rights fee for Longhorn Network
The Univ. of Texas today will announce a 20-year, $300M deal with ESPN to create the Longhorn Network, the first-of-its-kind channel to broadcast live UT athletic events, shoulder programming and non-sports university content. The Longhorn Network will launch in the fall and will be owned by ESPN, which will pay the school a rights fee that averages $15M a year, sources said. In addition, ESPN has committed close to $400M in production value to the channel over the 20-year term. IMG College, the Longhorns’ multimedia rights holder, negotiated the deal with UT.

All three parties – UT, ESPN and IMG – signed the contract, sources said, because some of the rights had to be sublicensed from IMG, while other rights came directly from the university. In addition to the channel, Texas makes more than $10M a year from its multimedia rights agreement with IMG, which will give the school an annual revenue stream of about $25M for its multimedia rights and the channel combined. The Longhorns’ budget for the '10-11 fiscal year, already the nation’s richest, is $137M.

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Morning-Buzz/2011/01/19/Texas-ESPN.aspx

 

[FedEx227]

Conflict of interest?

 

[EmpireWF]

So the school will be making about $15 million a year off of this network whose main pull is airing athletic events...but the student athletes won't see a dime of that money (besides perhaps improved school amenities?).

 

[Maynard]

does this help create a football playoff system?

 

[Bear Pand]

There's actually enough people who'd want to watch this?

Seems like outside of football games this would be a terrible channel.

 

[strahanfan92]

This doesn't remotely interest me one fucking bit. The only thing similar to the Big 10 channel that I'd think would be a success would be an SEC channel, if they just played classic SEC games especially over the last decade I'd love that.

 

[killgod]

Dumb idea, further exploitation of the student athlete.

Sounds like business as usual for the USA.

 

[Senser81]

Rick Barnes just shit himself...and he hasn't even heard about this yet.

 

[FedEx227]

Dumb idea, further exploitation of the student athlete.

Sounds like business as usual for the USA.

Further exploitation of the facade that is the "student-athlete"

 

[BrntO4Life]

Well, things are looking pretty good at this point for my family. Lots of new work about to roll in.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

So the school will be making about $15 million a year off of this network whose main pull is airing athletic events...but the student athletes won't see a dime of that money (besides perhaps improved school amenities?).

Why should the student athelets see a dime of that money?

If they don't want to be "exploited", they can go play intramurals or pick up games at the park.

Nobody is forcing these kids to participate in the so called evil machine of collegiate athletics.

 

[JeremyHight]

Why should the student athelets see a dime of that money?

If they don't want to be "exploited", they can go play intramurals or pick up games at the park.

Nobody is forcing these kids to participate in the so called evil machine of collegiate athletics.

But all they are getting is $20,000 worth of tuition (at least), free lodging, free food, praise around campus, free tutoring, free physical therapy, free personal trainers, and numerous other perks. How are they to survive without getting a flat screen, too?

 

[BrntO4Life]

If they don't want to be "exploited", they can go play intramurals or pick up games at the park.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4T26x6GZEw[/ame]

 

[Herm]

IMG hasnt lived up to their word of helping to get a new arena built for Uk basketball so f them.