The National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Case Study

Before conferences played prominent roles in the television market, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began negotiating deals in the television industry. In 1952 NCAA first executive director Walter Byers negotiated the first college football television contract with NBC for 1 million dollars over 12 games. It was the beginning of something special and contract consultation netted over 281 million dollars over the next thirty years. That is including 74 million dollars alone in 1983. In 1981 the University of Notre Dame and University of Pennsylvania scored on separate TV deals with ABC and Dumont networks. Other collegiate football teams were intimidated that allowing free access of live games that were televised would create a downturn spike in game day attendance. This notion created

animosity among collegiate teams, and a national television package was initiated restricting the number of televised games a team appears on TV. This led to funds being dispersed equally among teams, so the opposition would be rewarded financially. This theory was later found false; after university official discovered the high level of exposure their university teams could potentially receive on game day. Schools such as the University of Georgia and Oklahoma felt that it was unethical for the NCAA to have ownership over television contracts.

As media exposure grew over the years there were a number of Universities that were against the NCAA controlling the television market. Schools felt that the NCAA limited their exposure, and strained the potential possibilities of other revenue streams synthesized with broadcasting. This led to sixty-one schools forming the College Football Association (CFA) in 1976. Members under the NCAA TV guidelines threatened to abscond from the NCAA; and battled the National Collegiate Athletic Association in court for the right to sell their own games for display. In 1984 the supreme-court ruled in favor of the CFA, and athletic events were solely the property of the schools. Although the NCAA lost their privilege to sell college games, they still had owned the rights to men’s Division 1 Basketball tournament, and formed a partnership with CBS in 1995. College football was growing at a rapid pace and fans were growing by the thousands. Soon the television market began to grow, which led to the decline of the print, and radio

media.
Now that generating revenues is controlled at a Conference level, it is time to analyze the broadcast agreement impact for each of the “power six” conferences. The South Eastern Conference (SEC) has authority to televise games on CBS and ESPN starting in the 2009 season. Each network agreed to pay each team in the SEC 3 billion dollars over a 15 year period. Calculating the funds for each team estimates 17 million dollars annually. SEC commissioner Mike Slive stated, “There’s no downside to this deal…What I try to sell to people is that (conference schools) are inexorably tied to one another, and our helps all of us.” Mike Slive is actually right considering the national exposure Florida received from winning the 2006, and 2008 BCS National Championship. Let’s not forget Tim Tebow, and he was a marketing parable. No matter the circumstance society gravitated to Tebow, whether it was embracing him or criticizing him. People would pay to see Tim Tebow on the their television set. Then another SEC powerhouse like Alabama, 3 National Championships in a four year period. LSU is another university that is successful on the gridiron. Those three schools alone have the power to lure broadcasting companies to televise their games yearly.