Hijacked this thread from BN but it is an interesting article:
Federal inquiry looks into ESPN's college sports practices
Richard Sandomir
New York Times
27 June 2004
The Justice Department's antitrust division has opened an inquiry into how
ESPN acquires and uses its college football and basketball programming, two
television industry executives said.
A lawyer for the antitrust division has begun to contact the athletic
conferences.
ESPN and Justice Department officials declined to comment.
The investigation, the executives said, may be examining the practice of
warehousing, under which ESPN televises only a small portion of the games it
has acquired from a conference, then restricts the conference from making
deals with any other television entities.
They said the inquiry could also focus on how ESPN uses football and
basketball as leverage with conferences, and how it schedules football games
at nontraditional times like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights
to give colleges national exposure for recruiting.
College football and basketball is omnipresent now on numerous networks. But
by any measure, ESPN is the biggest force. It carries several hundred games
on ESPN and ESPN2, through syndication and pay-per-view. ABC Sports, its
corporate sibling under the Walt Disney Company, carries a full schedule and
the major bowl games.
For decades, college football was run by the NCAA. But 20 years ago, the
Supreme Court ended the NCAA's control over the market for televising
college football by regulating the number of appearances teams could make
and how much it can charge the networks.
The court ruled that the NCAA had in effect become a "classic cartel." The
7-2 decision was the result of an antitrust suit filed by the University of
Georgia and the University of Oklahoma in 1981.
ESPN has the rights to numerous conferences, including the Atlantic Coast,
Big East, Big Ten and Southeastern in football and the Big East, Big 12, Big
Ten and ACC in basketball.
ESPN and ABC recently renewed their deal to carry ACC football for seven
years, at $260 million to $270 million, and to add a conference championship
game in 2005. ESPN is in arbitration with the Big East to determine what to
pay the conference because of the loss of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston
College to the ACC.
Federal inquiry looks into ESPN's college sports practices
Richard Sandomir
New York Times
27 June 2004
The Justice Department's antitrust division has opened an inquiry into how
ESPN acquires and uses its college football and basketball programming, two
television industry executives said.
A lawyer for the antitrust division has begun to contact the athletic
conferences.
ESPN and Justice Department officials declined to comment.
The investigation, the executives said, may be examining the practice of
warehousing, under which ESPN televises only a small portion of the games it
has acquired from a conference, then restricts the conference from making
deals with any other television entities.
They said the inquiry could also focus on how ESPN uses football and
basketball as leverage with conferences, and how it schedules football games
at nontraditional times like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights
to give colleges national exposure for recruiting.
College football and basketball is omnipresent now on numerous networks. But
by any measure, ESPN is the biggest force. It carries several hundred games
on ESPN and ESPN2, through syndication and pay-per-view. ABC Sports, its
corporate sibling under the Walt Disney Company, carries a full schedule and
the major bowl games.
For decades, college football was run by the NCAA. But 20 years ago, the
Supreme Court ended the NCAA's control over the market for televising
college football by regulating the number of appearances teams could make
and how much it can charge the networks.
The court ruled that the NCAA had in effect become a "classic cartel." The
7-2 decision was the result of an antitrust suit filed by the University of
Georgia and the University of Oklahoma in 1981.
ESPN has the rights to numerous conferences, including the Atlantic Coast,
Big East, Big Ten and Southeastern in football and the Big East, Big 12, Big
Ten and ACC in basketball.
ESPN and ABC recently renewed their deal to carry ACC football for seven
years, at $260 million to $270 million, and to add a conference championship
game in 2005. ESPN is in arbitration with the Big East to determine what to
pay the conference because of the loss of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston
College to the ACC.
. Any network can sign a conference. If ESPN is paying the most then they should get the rights... it shouldn't matter if they are showing the games or not. If CBS wants the conference rights they can shell out big bucks...