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What Are Three National Championships Worth?

There are various measures to value sports enterprises but none can effectively be applied to collegiate programs no matter how Forbes may try. Nevertheless, we have been given a rather picture of the relative worth of winning national championships in football and basketball.

The University of Florida just announced a 10 year licensing agreement with Sun Sports for local television, radio, online and multimedia rights. The rights include tape-delayed football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and Olympic sports. One of Sun Sports' most profitable shows is "Breakfast with the Gators," a Sunday morning replay of the previous day's football game.

The value of the license is $100 million and is reputed to be the highest in the country. The previous highest reported media contract was the University of Nebraska at 112.5 million, but that is for 13 years.

The timing of this deal is interesting, coming as it does just on the heels of the SEC meeting at which the formation of a SEC television network was discussed in earnest. This contract is likely a good indication that the SEC network won't be happening anytime soon. I also found it interesting that Florida was able to deal these rights on its own, without the involvement of the SEC. Unlike several other conferences that control local media rights in order to maintain the ability of the league to negotiate better contracts with national providers, apparently the SEC does not have local rights. As a result, Florida was free to go off on its own, as the University of Kentucky had previously done, and effectively scuttle the SEC network before a league wide decision could be made. It's certainly a good deal for Florida but whether it's a good one for the league remains to be seen.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on July 15, 2008 (boomark / email).