MVC, ESPN announce new media rights deal

The number that stood out to Northern Iowa Deputy Athletics Director for External Operations Steve Schofield was 90 million.

While he and other representatives from Missouri Valley Conference member schools sat around a conference room table at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., that's the number they were told represents households who have access to ESPN3.

So when the MVC and ESPN announced an extension to its media rights agreement for another 10 years (through the 2023-24 academic year) that guarantees every basketball game and a 'minimum of 820 events” each year, it meant the Panthers - and nine other schools - would be in 90 million homes, too.

'That's pretty huge for us to be in 90 million homes from a league perspective and specifically from a UNI perspective,” Schofield said Thursday. 'It gives us the kind of distribution we've really never had before.”

A buzzword throughout a conference call on Thursday with ESPN Vice President for College Sports Programming Ilan Ben-Hanan, MVC Commissioner Doug Elgin and other representatives from member schools was 'exposure.”

Elgin called the availability for MVC athletics through the agreement and new co-branded digital network called The Valley on ESPN3 an 'exponential increase,” and in addition to men's and women's basketball, will cover every MVC-sponsored sport - baseball, softball, cross country, golf, men's and women's soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field and volleyball.

'One other thing that differentiates our deal from the others is the tonnage, the sheer number of events that are going to be produced by our campuses and by The Missouri Valley for distribution on ESPN3,” Elgin said. 'I think through the years we've had probably seven or eight different contracts with ESPN. This one kind of fills in all the cracks.”

The deal does protect local media rights agreements - such as MC22 - and doesn't necessarily add games to ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, rather simply ensures every game not already airing will do so on ESPN3.

Under the new agreement, each member school will be responsible for producing the broadcasts, and the idea is to provide students on campus opportunities to get real-world experience in production trucks, running cable, operating cameras and various other off-camera tasks.

It's a mutually beneficial part of the deal.

'We all see the on-campus production initiative as an opportunity for both academic and athletic programs at the member institutions, with benefits that include hands-on experience for students and unprecedented exposure for sports that might otherwise not have been shown on television,” Ben-Hanan said. 'The opportunity for a deal like this to help deepen and diversify our talent pool, find future people that can work for us or other media companies, is a great asset and part of this deal, something we're excited about.”

In the short term, the new method of production for these games is going to cost MVC schools a varying amount of money, depending on what they are already set up for equipment-wise. Some of that will be covered by the league, but most will be from each school individually. Schofield said UNI is in an advantageous position compared to others with recent equipment upgrades, and upgrades they do need to make won't be substantial.

As for bringing in money from the rights agreement itself, Elgin declined to comment on the financial aspects, saying, 'Unfortunately, we're not in a position to talk about the finances of contracts that we have with media companies. I can't really expound upon that.”

Schofield didn't mention any specific numbers, but did say money was part of the deal, but not its focus. If the schools will be able to profit from this deal remains to be seen, and whether that could come from advertising dollars during broadcasts still is a question mark as well.

'I think it's more so about the exposure. There is a financial piece to it, but it's not going to change the way we live. It's not like Big Ten Network money by any means,” Schofield said. 'The financial part is probably secondary to the overall brand of the Valley and exposure Valley is going to get on ESPN3.

'When it comes to digital, I think everybody is trying to figure out exactly how it's going to be monetized in the future. The ad revenue numbers just aren't there yet. By the end of our deal, it could look vastly different than it does now, but I think that's anybody's guess now.”

Eyes on MVC sports was the overwhelming positive take-away from Thursday's announcement, and both Wichita State and UNI coaches Gregg Marshall and Ben Jacobson said The Valley on ESPN3 will only boost recruiting in the future.

How much exactly isn't known, but being in 90 million homes won't hurt.

'The opportunity to continue to get out there and be out there from a league standpoint is exactly what you're looking for and hoping for,” Jacobson said Thursday. 'There will be some positive feedback, and I can see it continuing to add to the momentum that we've got at our place and that we've got as a league right now. I would guess it would be hard to quantify it, but there isn't any question it's going to help.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com