Oh boy… This was an eye opening article from BroadCastingCable.com. ESPN could lose $20 Million on this year’s College Football Playoff Semi-Finals.
Despite the efforts of the College Football Playoff committee and some media outlets downplaying the financial hit ESPN took by being forced to televise the two national championship semi-final games on New Year’s Eve, media buyers say the network owes upwards of $20 million in ad makegoods for ratings shortfalls for the two games.
You think those ratings didn’t matter? Wow, I never thought ESPN would potentially take that big of a financial hit. Now they are left scrambling.
“As is standard practice with any sponsored television event, inventory is managed and contingencies are put in place to protect advertisers,” the ESPN statement reads. “The specifics of those deals vary and we work with our advertisers to make them whole in the event of a shortfall.”
Well the “shortfall” did occur and all this week, media buyers and ESPN sales folks have been negotiating locations where audience deficiency ad units or makegoods can be had sooner than later.
This is a case where ESPN may have overpaid for those rights fees. With the Big 10 negotiating their new rights, and the ACC trying to get a network going with ESPN among future potential business ventures, these are interesting times ahead for the 4 letter network.
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