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State of the Screens

What’s An Eight Team College Football Playoff Worth?

By January 3, 2019No Comments

The big question: Fans want to expand the college football playoff from 4 teams to 8, but how much more revenue would it generate?

Quick math #1:
1)
ESPN pays $608M per year
2) 3 games are currently played
3)
ESPN pays ≈ $200M per game
4) 7 games would be played in the expanded field
5) If $200M/game held, then an additional round of 8 would generate $800M in additional revenue

Quick math #2:
1) ESPN subscribers — 86M
2) Annual cost to air college football playoff — $608M
3) ESPN is paying $7.15 per year for each subscriber to watch the college football playoff
4) That breaks down to $2.38 per game

Interesting thought: If ESPN chose to keep the rights for the entire playoff, then would they move one of the games to ESPN+ to drive subscriber growth?

Flashback #1: Return to New Year’s Day, Classic Rose Bowl, Boost CFP Overnights

Flashback #2: Big Ten TV revenue distribution reaches an insane $51 million per school

Michael Beach

Michael Beach is the Chief Executive Officer of Cross Screen Media, a media analytics and software company that enables marketers to plan, activate, and measure CTV and linear TV at the local level. Michael is also the founder and editor of State of the Screens, a weekly newsletter focused on video advertising that is a must-read for thought leaders in the advertising industry. He has appeared in such publications as PBS Frontline, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Axios, CNBC and Bloomberg, and on NPR’s Planet Money podcast.