by Dick Rosenthal on Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:23 pm
I don’t think ESPN has the balls to freeze out the Big 10. Remember, Notre Dame essentially told ESPN to get fucked around 30 years ago which has cost ESPN some of the most highly watched games each season—including the most watched college game in history and five of the top 10 of the last 30 years. And this all happened while Notre Dame greatly underperformed its historic norms in terms of rankings, etc. And what did ESPN do when Notre Dame had these marquis games at home (to be televised on NBC)? They showed up and did College Gameday at Notre Dame for (a couple of Notre Dame-FSU, a couple of Notre Dame-USC games, a couple of ND-Michigans, a ND-Nebraska, an ND-Ohio State, an ND-Texas, and an ND-Clemson). Sure, ESPN’s coverage of Notre Dame football over the last 30 years is like watching a spurned girlfriend passively-aggressively go after an ex-boyfriend she is still pining for, but when Notre Dame was drunk and made a booty call, ESPN dutifully showed up and sucked his dick. And while they’ll be salty about it, they will still show up for USC-Ohio State at the Horseshoe in November when national championships are on the line.
What’s interesting is that this has been talked about in Notre Dame circles since before the USC-UCLA move. The reported number Notre Dame was asking for to stay independent—which the Big 10 and the SEC want if they themselves can’t land Notre Dame—was $75 million to $100 million a year. NBC purportedly was amenable to that deal because (a) the ratings are very good, as is the ad revenue from the Notre Dame brand and (b) the 3:30 ND start would be a fantastic lead for the prime time Big 10 game. Notre Dame has made it clear that they only want one home night game per year because more than half of their road games are typically prime time ESPN or ABC (USC/Stanford, the Shamrock Series, Michigan, Clemson/FSU/VA Tech/Miami) so that arrangement works for Notre Dame’s purposes as well. Will be interesting to see when NBC announces that deal.