Notre Dame is heading into its 32nd season with NBC as its broadcast partner for home football games. The current deal between the 2 parties runs through the 2025 season after a 10-year extension (twice as long as the previous extension) was signed in April 2013. As reported by CBS Sports a month ago, Notre Dame is seeking $75 million per year in a new deal with NBC with the interesting verbiage that this amount would allow the Irish to remain independent.
As we brought up in Friday’s Rambler, the Jack Swarbrick Q&A session from last Wednesday brought plenty of strong overtones that Notre Dame feels no need to drop its independence.
For its part, NBC (as reported by CBS) would only feel comfortable raising Notre Dame’s valuation by that much if it came with ‘shoulder programming’ in the form of other Power 5 games before or after the Irish games to boost their overall college football coverage.
According to multiple reports, that shoulder programming is coming in the form of a $350 million annual deal with the Big Ten and a weekly slot in the primetime Saturday night game.
As I mentioned in the most recent Five Wide Fullbacks, I’ve had the bones of today’s article questioning the ND/NBC partnership teed up for a few months. It’s pointless because Notre Dame is going to negotiate a new contract at some point with NBC, that feels like a 97.4% lock unless they wait a couple years and more realignment carnage ensues. The impending deal with the Big Ten surely seals the deal for Notre Dame and their decision, too.
But, should the Irish continue with NBC after 2025?
It’s interesting that the $75 million figure has been reported and is already being floated by Notre Dame–presumably there’s an intent there. Is Notre Dame actually okay with $60 million and aiming high? How will people feel if the new deal is lower than $75 million after these reports about such a high figure?
What other options are there for Notre Dame?
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Fox would be an interesting one. The benefit of this deal would be still being in the Big Ten sphere of influence (remember the Big Ten media deal will include Fox, CBS, and NBC), the bulk of Notre Dame games would follow up the Big Ten’s prime noon game slot, and the Irish would have a larger presence on the network’s Big Noon Kickoff studio show (featuring Brady Quinn) which has outpaced ESPN’s GameDay on content and opinion in recent years.
While this would be a bold move by Fox you have to question if they have the appetite and overall money to make such a decision.
Since they exited talks with the Big Ten we now have ABC/ESPN sitting there ready to swoop in and sign Notre Dame. In many ways, this is the biggest mover for Notre Dame. For one, Disney could offer the most money on any contract. There’s been talk that since they’re saving money backing away from the Big Ten that ESPN can easily scoop up the Big 12 and Pac-12 on friendly deals in the future. Someone should tell them signing Notre Dame would be a coup and is money better spent.
You also couldn’t beat the exposure from Disney while ESPN GameDay remains the standard in the industry, plus the flexibility with ABC and the ESPN family of networks. It would be a clear step away from the Big Ten (while nudging up closer to the SEC and their ESPN deal) but if Notre Dame truly is serious about independence this would be the bombshell to keep it that way.
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The question also pops up whether Notre Dame gets more out of the relationship with NBC or if there’s more to be gained from some other broadcast partner. After weeks of rumors, the New York Post confirmed that NBC is moving Jac Collinsworth for play-by-play and Jason Garrett for color commentary into the Notre Dame booth to replace Mike Tirico and Drew Brees.
NEWS: Jac Collinsworth & Jason Garrett will succeed Mike Tirico & Drew Brees on Notre Dame games for NBC, The Post has learned.https://t.co/QJlQCAAEuy
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) August 14, 2022
This will be the 9th play-by-play and 13th color commentator to work Notre Dame home games for the Peacock Network. Some might be excited that Collinsworth (2017 graduate) is an alum in the booth. Others (myself included) do not like the stench of nepotism and settling for a booth that might be an insult to call even JV-level. It’s so poor, and frankly odd, that you wonder if Notre Dame agreed to it if the money savings in contracts will go into the next TV deal.
Although he’s worked with NBC as far back as 2013 (straight into the sideline team as a college freshman must be nice!) Collinsworth’s first play-by-play gig came this past spring when he worked a USFL booth with Garrett which was also the former NFL coach’s first experience in broadcasting.
On Sunday, Ross Delenger from Sports Illustrated published a very detailed look at the moving pieces with the college football media rights and had this very interesting passage regarding Notre Dame:
Like many others, [Fox Sports President Bob] Thompson believes that the Big Ten’s inclusion of NBC ensures Notre Dame’s independence, something its own athletic director suggested to reporters Wednesday. The Irish, as expected, don’t seem to be in a hurry to join any league and are now likely to use the new market rates to mine NBC for more cash.
Thompson says NBC’s new role with the Big Ten now provides Notre Dame an opportunity to “marry” its game with a weekly Big Ten game in a smorgasbord of high-level college football action on a network that for so long had mostly stayed out of the sport. “NBC will try to make Saturday night college football like Sunday night NFL,” Thompson says. “It’s a big show.”
That doesn’t sound like a bad deal for Notre Dame.
But I do wonder if there’s an element to this where the Fighting Irish are relegated to second fiddle on NBC. One could argue the Big Ten won’t offer quite the amazing matchup every week and Notre Dame’s stock is still really high and hopes to keep it that way in the Marcus Freeman. Still, it’s an entire conference against one team with Notre Dame deciding to go with the USFL B-team announcing its games doesn’t necessarily feel awesome. Especially when NBC will now have to build up brand-new college football talent for its Big Ten contract and that work is likely to result in a better television product than Notre Dame. In fact, you could argue Notre Dame is going with a Collinsworth-Garrett booth precisely because all of the other top talent is headed to the Big Ten side of things.
Dozens of people are familiar with this TV booth.
From the perspective of broadcast quality, definitely yes. It’s always something with NBC — in the 2000s, the broadcast quality was fine but the announcers (Hammond and Haden) were terrible. Announcer quality improved a lot recently (Tirico and Dungy/Brees) but now we’re a laboratory for NBC’s dumb new cameras and streaming service. The new announcing booth is pretty embarrassing, as you say. ABC or CBS would be upgrades (not FOX) and I think NBC needs to feel some competition here. They’re too comfortable that they’ll never lose this contract.
HOWEVA, all of this is complicated by the role the networks play in realignment and the future of college football. I don’t think we want to throw in with ABC/ESPN right now.
If the money is right, they should stay. If it’s not the biggest offer, then leave. The USFL-b team line is sad but true. I cut NBC some slack because they don’t currently have a huge roster of announcer talent (and SNF is the priority, as it should be) but it’s tough to give so little to the ND broadcast.
My unpopular opinion is Notre Dame should explore the streaming area. By 2026 it will be more normalized. Amazon is getting NFL and has said they want to target big brand names with built in audiences. If only to use them to get CBS/NBC/Fox to bid more, go for it. Wouldn’t be too afraid to sign with Amazon either, if it comes to that. Should be a 4-5 year contract anyways, ideally.
Agree with ACS below that ABC/ESPN should be out. They are the SEC network. The others are more Big10 aligned. Even though some of the ND games are with the ABC/ACC package, makes sense to not align fully with that. Also gives ND that unique independent perk of being in their own lane and crossing more than most big programs on all the channels.
I agree – take the biggest deal (slightly adjusted for most exposure).
Amazon seems like an avenue I would be considering a lot. I don’t know if it’s the right time the writing seems to be on the wall that streaming is the way this is all going. I think its better to be on the front of the wave than the back. Amazon has the $$$, the question is if this is something they’d want on their platform. I’m sure there are pros and cons here. Probably more than I can think of, but I think it should be looked at hard.
Agreed amazon seems like a great situation but not sure they are ready for college yet. ND home games is not quite the same as 15 primetime NFL games and top of the line announcers, etc.
I could see them doing something in the future – but I’m not sure what. Maybe it would includ something with the pac 12/big 12.
Won’t the announcers get better in 2025 when NBC will have multiple teams of announcers?
Sadly, as an ND fan my bar is pretty low for announcing. Though getting the B-team does hurt more after having our best play-by-play guy ever probably.
The good news is that it cannot ever, under any circumstances, get worse than Doug Flutie in the booth.
Collinsworth already is worse. Incredibly bad choice.
He (a) did not attend or play for BC and (b) presumably will not tell us nonstop Uncle Rico stories about how he threw a football over them mountains that one time 40 years ago.
Therefore Collinsworth is better than Flutie.
It was a helluva pass and get the mute button ready.
You mean you all listen to the announcers during the game????
My uncle taught me a long time ago: mute the game, put on the radio or music, and you get an infinitely better experience.
I get a spotify playlist going, and can definitely vouch for it reducing my blood pressure, especially during some of the flutie era game where I just knew he was fawing over some 5th year QB with moxie who completes like 55% of his passes.
OK, but to be fair, it was VERY funny listening to Flutie insist that SC had us right where they wanted us in 2017 when they were….down 28-0 at halftime.
/plays b roll footage of Collinsworth as a sideline reporter while missing a crucial third down
I don’t know how Collinsworth will do…but i think everyone forgets how terrible Tom Hammond and his big, giant head were. The guy knew nothing about football, didn’t bother to learn even the most basic lingo, didn’t bother to learn how to pronounce the players’ names. The one and only thing he had going for him was a broadcaster’s voice. It cannot get worse than Hammond.
Hammond really was a doozy. Nothing like opening the broadcast with a closeup of his white pancake makeup that was apparently done in an Old West brothel.
I will never understand why NBC chose a guy whose background was in horse racing, and who moonlighted as a southern basketball announcer, to announce ND football. He could not have cared less about the sport.
I don’t think he even had an announcer voice with his weird accent. “They’ll may-zhure here to see if the Ireeeesh got a first down.”
WELL HERE’S CHRIS STEWART THE FIFTH YEAR OFFENSIVE LINEMAN AND WOUKD YOU BELIEVE HE’S IN LAW SCHOOL
HO HO HO I BET HE OBJECTS TO THAT HOLDING CALL
EXCUSE ME TARGETING THAT WAS TARGETING
NBC Announcer Rankings in Modern Times:
Play-by-Play
#1 Tirico – By a thousand miles.
#2 Burmeister – Solid pro, I like his voice.
#3 Hicks – Solid pro, a little too vanilla for me.
#4 Hammond – An abomination.
Color
#1 Dungy?? – He was actually pretty good.
#2 Haden – Weirdly pro-ND at times, dragged down hard by Hammond.
#3 Brees – He was fine for someone so new, but could be bad at times.
#4 Mayock – Great info, negative 6 billion personality.
#5 Flutie – Not good, didn’t seem prepared a lot. Just a weird fit.
With you 100% on pxp, shouldn’t be much of a debate there, that one is pretty cut and dry.
I honestly kinda dug Mayock on the broadcasts, thought he was plugged in and his knowledge came across really well. I liked Brees in the role more than I thought too. Dungy, #1, really?
I remember Mayock like this:
70% great technical descriptions of plays, really great at explaining things to the common fan.
30% Regurgitating info from NBC meetings with players/coaches. Leaned on this stuff way too much.
That’s it. He adds nothing else to the broadcast (some might argue that’s fine!) but I think he’s really difficult to call games with because of his lack of personality.
I liked him at first but his robotic ways really started to bother me. I’d argue him working with Hammond was just about as bad of a booth from a chemistry/intriguing/fun standpoint as you’ll find.
I recall one time Hammond made a quip about something (I want to say it was a comment on an off-field interest for a player) and it went on a little too long for Mayock and he said something like, “Okay, well let’s get back to the football.” It was the rudest thing I’ve ever heard and I don’t want to defend Hammond but…
So Collinsworth and Garrett get slotted above Hammond and Flutie? (Until proven otherwise). I actually liked Mayock to, would put him next to Haden.
I think Collinsworth will be okay, although does anyone think his Kentucky accent is way stronger than his dad’s?
Garrett is a bowl of plain oatmeal, that might slot him ahead of Flutie no matter what.
When ND was the only lady at the dance, NBC had to show ND games. I wonder if NBC or another network that has multiple games to pick from decides to show team B vs C for control of X division instead of ND vs ACC, or ND gets moved USA Network or Peacock. Of course that happened to ND with NBC only having ND to showcase.
I guess, in essence, I worry about this with whichever TV partner they have:
However, if ND can get the money they need to keep the athletic department relevant as an independent in Football and competitive in the Olympic sports, then it is a win, even if I do have to figure out how to watch USA Network once a year.
Do we know what the pecking order is between Fox/CBS/NBC? I thought NBC, at best, gets the third choice of B1G games on any given week, right? This would still basically guarantee ND either the normal 3:30 spot or flexed down to the primetime spot each week they’re at home. Not sure where the remaining 5 B1G conference games go each week, but with FS1, FS2 & BTN able to also broadcast the games, seems like there’s still plenty of airtime.
NBC and CBS are paying pretty much the same amount of money, so I’m guessing they basically swap who gets the 2nd and 3rd picks. That’s how it worked with the ESPN/FOX pairing for the B1G on this contract – the two networks essentially drafted which week they got, with FOX always having the first pick of weeks. That’s why ND/OSU is on ABC – they picked week 1 to have the top choice.
What’s with the time slots though? I thought NBC basically signed up for the 7:30PM time slot with whatever game they get. Is that true?
Who gets picks 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8? Because either way, the ND matchup on any given week only has to be more compelling than, at worst, the 5th B1G conference game, right?
Fox – 1st pick
CBS – 2/3 pick
NBC – 2/3 pick
NBC presumably would have time slots to fill – noon, mid, primetime. Slotting in the 2/3 pick still allows for 2 other time slots on any given week with only 5 conference games (assuming conference play, where all 16 B1G teams are playing each other -8 total games) left to go around with 5 potential channels – Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN and NBC. So, assuming NBC even gets a 2nd game, they’d have the 2/3 best B1G game every week, an ND home game and somewhere in the 4th-8th best B1G matchup.
That’s 3 games in 3 time slots every week ND has a home game. I’d guess on weeks where ND doesn’t have a home game, NBC would want to push the games closer together and they can show their golf/racing stuff earlier in the day.
Assuming NBC gets more than 2 games, the ND matchup would then only have to be “better” than the 5th best B1G matchup. If NBC only gets 2 games and 2 timeslots, ND’s matchup still only has to outdo the 4th best B1G matchup of any given week, if I’m thinking this through correctly.
I think everybody is moving past the ESPN/ABC option way too quickly. I will continue to not understand why fans care about the money; I’ve said it before, but the school has a $13 billion endowment. They got donors to pay for a $300 million renovation to the football field. TV dollars should be the last priority here. Instead, exposure would be my #1 priority. Yes, Gameday sucks. Yes, the rankings shows suck. Yes, pretty much everything on ESPN since Lou Holtz and Mark May just screamed at each other all day has sucked. But it is still the most watched and most influential football network. If they are willing to even be in the same neighborhood as NBC or Fox, I would take that deal in a heartbeat.
(Also, I cannot think of a single play-by-play guy in the ESPN world who is anywhere close to as terrible as Jac Collinsworth. He is so inexperienced and so grating. Why in the world would NBC partner him with a rookie commentator?)
I said this before as well; the endowment is not paying for football.
And so the TV money makes it possible to keep up with what it costs to play big-boy football (paying coaches, etc.).
I do think it’s important to consider exposure but I’m not really sure how much ESPN/ABC would be more exposure than the future of NBC (or Fox for that matter) if NBC is building its own college gameday type experience with the big 10 package.
And I said this before: the ND football program already makes so much money that it contributes the leftover back to the school. The football program is never ever lacking for money.
This is the opposite of your original statement.
Original statement: who cares about the money because ND has a huge endowment.
Now: ND football doesn’t get any money from the endowment.
Your 2nd statement is precisely why ND should seek as much money as possible more or less from a TV deal. It doesn’t get any money from the endowment and even gives up to the school some of the money it makes.
I don’t know how you can conclude it is never lacking money if somehow other programs make and spend more than ND. It could always use more money if it wanted to be on the same level as the other elite schools – for facilities, pay its coaches, etc.
The football program COULD right now, spend tens of millions more dollars and still turn a profit. The football program does NOT spend tens of millions more dollars because of a TV contract; it doesn’t spend tens of millions more dollars because the leadership of the University thinks that would be gaudy, bad for the school’s reputation, and inconsistent with the purpose of a University. Adding $50 million per year to the TV contract will simply add $50 million more to the University’s budget. It won’t add anything to the football program, because the football program isn’t running up against a revenue wall; it’s running up against a John Jenkins wall.
You are going to have to show a little bit of evidence before I think this is true. Just because there were some limits in the past doesn’t mean those limits will be the same going forward. Has Jenkins said anything specific about a new deal that you know of?
I think that ESPN influence is a bit overblown. Of the top 5 highest rated games last year, only 1 was on ABC, none were on ESPN. The highest rated game (on Fox) almost doubled the top ABC game up in terms of total viewers. Still can get plenty of eyeballs and attention without the “worldwide leader’s” echo chamber, even though it’s a loud one.
The University of Notre Dame’s endowment isn’t the football program’s war chest, quite the opposite really, so I don’t see why that would even be a factor in any regard. Of course they should want to make the most money.
I could see Beth Mowins or some other bland announcer taking ND coverage for the 12pm kickoff against Marshall on ESPNU (because ESPN has 2 other better games…) Notre Dame loses a lot of uniqueness if they slide right into the masses of a large portfolio, I’d be as weary of that as I would the positives of ESPN talking them up a little more for being in the fold (which, would happen. But ND isn’t that special or going to get a ton more exposure when it becomes all SEC all the time on the Disney stations).
On the bright side, if we have 11:00 a.m. kickoffs announced by Beth Mowins like Iowa does, we can make it to Chicago in time for dinner.
We surely should be able to do better than Collinsworth or Mowens! ND is among the biggest brands in sports, big league all the way. Those two aren’t in the same galaxy.
How are you factoring in the networks splitting college football up along geographic lines, though? In a few years here, ABC/ESPN will broadcast southern teams, and NBC/FOX will broadcast northern and western teams.
If this were 2010 or so, I’d agree with you about giving ABC/ESPN priority to replace NBC. But the roles that the major networks play in reorganizing the sport as a whole are a lot different now.
That’s an interesting thought I hadn’t considered. Personally, I wouldn’t mind ND being on the Southern network, but who knows if ABC/ESPN would have a ton of interest in that.
UNLV game on peacock.
What’s the spread? I actually this is the least desirable matchup of the season and is probably not worth signing up for month to watch this game.
Toledo last year was already a sneaky tough (good) matchup. This is not that.
I wonder how many signed up last year and how many of those same people will sign up this year.
Apparently it was a thing that neutrals and haterz were scrambling to watch the Toledo game when it was close/there was a chance Notre Dame could lose. Not sure how much that moves the needle, but there was a lot in the social media zeitgeist about increased interest due to how the game unfolded. Not a new thing, the same happened on a PPV game where Army flirted with upsetting Oklahoma a few years back.
Hopefully that situation….won’t happen this time around.
And again, they’re not intending the large pool of people interested in ND Football to pay simply for one game, they’re wanting people to have a gateway to see the library of content available across the Peacock platform. The scheduling tactic for a streaming game isn’t just based primarily on the action, it’s to continue driving home the point that if you want full and complete access to ND Football (spring game, post-game shows, whatever other extras they have) that you need Peacock.
I’ve seen the Peacock library of content, as recently as last night and unrelated to this announcement. We passed on it, easy decision.
^Cool
I can’t find a spread but last year’s Sagarin ratings suggest it would be about ND -32, which sounds right to me. This is a matchup worthy of being broadcast on a Gameboy Printer.
Put it on Peacock Minus, no tv cameras and we just have to wait for telegraph reports of the game the next day.
ND will show some deference to NBC as a long-time partner who made a financial investment in the Irish. However, NBC must acknowledge the changing media landscape in college football. That deference to NBC is Jack’s $75 million per year, a bit over $10 million per game. ESPN is paying the SEC over $20 million per game for 15 games and eight basketball games. Open up the bidding and the Irish could get a significant increase. $12 million per game equals $84 mill, and $15 mill equals $105 million. ESPN could be attracted to a package of ND and SEC games or Fox with their featured Big game. ND should be considering the growth of Big and SEC over a ten year contract to prevent a widening gap. And in streaming services, a package of Olympic sports, a national audience and some very attractive future games, we do not want to sell ourselves short.