Potential media rights unbundling

The Desser Sports Media group conducted an addendum to the Kaplan report on media and sponsorships. There they estimated that the annual broadcast rights for the women’s basketball championship are currently “significantly undervalued” and will be worth $81-$112 million per year in 2025 — much higher than the $34 million annually that ESPN currently pays for the entire package of women’s basketball 28 other non-men’s basketball championships.

ESPN’S deal for that 29-championship bundle began in 2001, was renewed in 2011 and runs through 2024. The Desser addendum argues: “Because the NCAA has never put the Other Championships package up for competitive bid — either as a collection of properties or broken out individually (e.g., the WBBC bid individually), the NCAA has foregone the single most crucial negotiating tactic in assuring it is receiving fair

market value for its media property.”

“It’s sort of a more complex process because of the way the television contract works between ESPN and the NCAA,” Ackerman said. “It would take time to unwind that [package] but I would support the recommendation to test the market value of the women’s tournament, as well as selling independent sponsorships for the women’s championship.”

The Kaplan report asserts that the NCAA’S sponsorship model is structured in a way that only benefits the men’s basketball championship. Cbs/turner, which only owns the broadcast rights for the men’s championship, controls the sponsorship rights for all NCAA championships, which incentivizes sponsorship money to be directed toward the men’s championship. To boot, 0.1% of official sponsorship revenue was earmarked to support non-men’s basketball championships. “The practical effect of the present structure is that the NCAA has Corporate Champions and Partners of the MBBC, but not the NCAA,” Desser wrote.

“You’re not really getting a true sense of the commercial worth of the [women’s] tournament,” Ackerman said. “And I think it could be a revenue opportunity for the NCAA and certainly just as a matter of respect the women deserve the opportunity to have their worth tested.”

Broader strategy

The Kaplan report and Ackerman both support the creation of a chief business or marketing officer role within the NCAA, someone who could formulate a strategy for marketing, promoting and sponsorships across all sports.

But in this moment where women’s sports overall are on the rise and the spotlight on gender inequity refuses to go away, developing a robust plan to increase the visibility of a sport like women’s basketball yearround, and not just during the championships, would be beneficial to the athletes, sport and NCAA.

“There’s never really been a strategic vision around commercial possibilities,” Ackerman said. “And I don’t mean in sort of an exploitative way, it just means that like a promotional, increase visibility, giving women’s sports the credit they deserve for having potential in the marketplace. Frankly, other than men’s basketball, there’s never been, except in connection with the championships.”

And Ackerman isn’t kidding when she says there’s room for creativity in shaping a path forward. She posits: what if there was a way to co-sell women’s college basketball with the WNBA?

“It could be an interesting opportunity here to bundle,” Ackerman said. “There’s no overlap [in their seasons]. I think it would be an interesting conversation to see if someone could own ‘women’s basketball.’ ”