Fox to announce deal to air BCS bowls in '06

[Apis Bull]

Fox to announce deal to air Fiesta, Orange, Sugar bowls in '06

In TV college football, Fox will start at the top.

On Monday, Fox will announce a four-year deal to carry four Bowl Championship Series games, according to an executive familiar with the negotiations, starting with bowls after the 2006 regular season. In displacing ABC, Fox will break into college football by paying at least $20 million annually each for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls as well as a new fifth BCS bowl to be played at the site of the national title game about a week before that game.

Fox's $80 million total for four BCS games is up from the $76.5 million total that ABC averages for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls. Through an existing deal, ABC keeps the Rose Bowl  and thus the BCS title game every four years.

Weird. Only in the crazy quilt of college football's method of crowning a champion could a network step up to buy the biggest games. It's as if Fox, whose main college football coverage consists of less-than-marquee Pacific-10 and Big 12 games on cable's Fox Sports Net, didn't carry the NFL  but got to buy the AFC and NFC title games and the Super Bowl.

But expect Fox, which relies on big sports events to help build its network, to keep shopping for college sports. College games, along with the package of eight NFL games on Thursday or Sunday now up for grabs, could help Fox launch a cable sports channel meant to compete with ESPN. But even if that doesn't materialize, Rupert Murdoch's Fox already has opened up another front in its TV sports' rivalry with Disney's ABC and ESPN. And the big winner, so far, are the colleges who've found another buyer for the exploits of their student-athletes

Fox to announce deal to air BCS bowls in '06

[smazza]

it helps to have $$$$$$$$$$$

[Jim Johnson]

It would be interesting to see if Fox would be willing to bid for the rights to the Big East... with some of the major media markets - and a desire to take on ESPN... It could be a start for Fox... of course, they may have to carry some basketball as well...

But with ESPN re-negotiating the contracts, perhaps we could be watching FOX Sports next year??

(Speculation and perhaps wishful thinking if it means more $$ for USF...)

I wonder what that would do to very successful the ESPN Regional partnership USF has.... it would be a shame to lose it.

[GarySJ]

It'll be good to have the non-championship bowls off of ABC. They were so concerened about BCS "branding" that they totally failed to notice that the game matchups sucked. Attendance and viewership for these games in non-championship years is way down.

I hope FOX will elevate the non-championship bowls, plus the Cotton Bowl (which they already carry), to what they once were: great rewards for a great season, rather than the random, NIT-style pairings that the BCS branding process reduced them to.

Furthermore, FOX might be a tad less zealous than ABC/ESPN about cramming the "Only our BCS championship determines the national title, and don't you forget it!" party line down the CFB world's throat all season. FOX might be willing to embrace controversy, rather than try to pretend it doesn't exist in their perfect system.

[Jim Johnson]

Furthermore, FOX might be a tad less zealous than ABC/ESPN about cramming the "Only our BCS championship determines the national title, and don't you forget it!" party line down the CFB world's throat all season. FOX might be willing to embrace controversy, rather than try to pretend it doesn't exist in their perfect system.

Gary - FOX will still be driven by ratings to justify the prices they will charge for advertising for these games... figure that the new "fifth bowl" will be less than their BCS game... so they will try to get Super Bowl numbers for it... and the best way... "Home of the True National Champion"...  

As long as the TV network is the control factor for Division I-A, we will have this unfortunate mantra.  It will only disappear when we get the I-A playoff the fans all really want.

[bulls96go]

wonder if fox will push for cotton bowl to get 5th bowl soon

if fox gets BE th Bball would more than make up for the football

here is hoping espn gets competition!

[GarySJ]

Jim,

You missed my point. FOX is paying not just to air the national title game, but three other very expensive bowl games a year. They have a financial interest not just in the title game, but also in the Sugar, Fiesta, and the 5th BCS bowl whatever it may be. ABC obviously didn't make money on this deal (or else they would have renewed it) so I expect FOX to go in a new direction.

ABC's BCS formula has royally screwed the non-championship games. The Sugar, Rose, Orange, and Fiesta have been saddled with out-of-region, non-traditional matchups, and attendance/viewership has suffered. These games have seen their LOWEST attendance figures in decades with matchups like Florida-Syracuse in the Orange, FSU-Ohio State in the Sugar, and Oklahoma-Washington State in the Rose.

Maybe the "national title game" did well financially, but the rest of the four-game package lost so much value that the entire package wasn't worth renewing at the same price. Even though it gives ABC/ESPN a monopoly on the national title game. Aww, did the big bad mighty BCS fall short of revenue expectations?

Anyway, I expect FOX to take a different tack with the non-championship bowls, since whatever ABC did didn't work.

If nothing else, competition is a good thing. ABC will have the Rose Bowl, and FOX will have the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange. It'll be fun to see them jockey for position and squabble over teams.

I mean, could you imagine if this was the case this year? Now that ABC's only major bowl holding is the Rose Bowl, can't you just hear Kirk Herbstreit making an impassioned plea about how important it is that the Rose Bowl preserve its traditional Big Ten-Pac-10 matchup? And how important it is that USC/Auburn/Oklahoma/Utah all get a shot for the national title, in spite of the Orange Bowl's "national title game" designation? And can't you see the Fox Sports Desk people arguing the opposite position?

Competition is good. No, it's not good that "TV network is the control factor for I-A", as you put it. But better two networks than one. I look for Fox to do some good things with these games. Have the national title game, but let the SEC champ go to the Sugar Bowl, let the Big XII champ go to the Orange or Fiesta, let the major-bowl worthy teams like Texas land in the big games, and let the 15th-ranked 3-time losers fall to the lesser NYD bowls where they belong (Boston College, ACC, I'm looking at you).