Awhile back I posted about how Disney and Fox were going head to head bidding on the broadcast rights for the BCS Bowl games.
After years of being with Disney, Fox has broadcasted the last 2 years and the concensus was that there was a significant dropoff in terms of the quality of the broadcast. This may be in part due to the fact FOX broadcasts ZERO games during the regular season.
Below is a poll taken on Bucknuts which was confirmed by other polls I posted on CFB sites all of which followed the trend of a large majority dissaproving of Fox’s coverage compared to ABC.
All was quite on this front until last week ESPN (now part of Disney) made a bid of $500 million for the rights in 2011-2014 (125 per year). This was very unexpected as a) it was $25 million more per year then Fox had bid and b) ESPN is cable and not a network. Kind of a head scratcher why Disney would want ESPN to have the games and not ABC, but hey Monday Night Football has gone that route as well.
Today Fox formally announced they would not match the offer leaving this one in the bag for ESPN.
From my perspective, this is good as the announcers, production, editing, and promtion was far inferior on Fox then ABC. Mustberger is the best play by play guy doing college football and it was a shame to here Thom Brennan’s voice making the calls when he hadn’t announced a game all year.
This is a good thing for college football. Now how about a playoff? Obama’s pushing hard for it.
