Expect ESPN to be very aggressive in trying to keep three of its core sports TV properties in place.
With women’s college basketball, the NBA and the College Football Playoff all due for new television deals in the near future, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus said this week that the network intends to try to preserve a foothold in all three.
ESPN currently holds women’s college basketball as part of a larger package of NCAA sports in a deal that expires after the 2023-24 season. If the NCAA seeks a standalone media rights deal for the women’s basketball tournament, adopting a recommendation from the Kaplan report which said that those rights are currently devalued, ESPN says it will be very aggressive to bid on those rights.
“Oh, I think we’ll be very aggressive,” Magnus said in a phone interview Tuesday in a wide-ranging conversation about ESPN’s present and future plans. “You know how much pride we’ve taken in that sport and that tournament for many years. Last year was a confluence of a dream matchup (LSU–Iowa) and transcendent players and it paid off to the tune of 9.9 million viewers (for the championship game), which is a number that you just don’t see in our business very often in any sport. At the same time, I did start referring to it as a…
