Report: Notre Dame targeting $75 million annually in next TV deal in goal of staying independent
Notre Dame has long accepted the trade-off of keeping its football independence. The Irish understand they’re making less money on their own than they would if they joined a conference.
It’s a reality Notre Dame seems willing to live with even as the Big Ten and SEC are poised to push $70 million per school in annual media rights distributions in a few years and could reportedly approach $100 million by the end of the decade. But not without a significant increase in its own revenue itself, apparently.
Notre Dame would remain independent if it can secure an annual payout of at least $75 million in its next television deal, according to a report from CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. The school’s contract with NBC runs through 2025 and pays an average of $15 million per year, though Dodd reports it’s a back-loaded deal and is now giving Notre Dame $22 million.
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Going to $75 million would be a more than 300 percent increase of the current $22 million payout from NBC, which has been Notre Dame’s TV partner since 1991. Is that large a jump realistic? It’s feasible, per Dodd, if NBC can secure “shoulder programming” from another Power Five conference to supplement Notre Dame telecasts and add to its college football inventory.
The Big 12 is a “strong option” to fill that need, Dodd reports. Its current media rights deal with FOX and ESPN also expires after the 2025 season. Incoming commissioner Brett Yormark said the league is open to all bidders. The Big Ten was previously reported to be an NBC target and still could fit. It is expected to announce a new TV contract in the coming weeks with FOX as the primary broadcast partner, but per Dodd, is still seeking other networks to air a smaller portion of its games.
Dodd reports NBC negotiations are expected to extend across the next two or three weeks.
All told, it sounds a bit like an ultimatum. But one wonders if Notre Dame would truly make the move to a conference immediately upon learning a month from now that $75 million per year from NBC is unattainable, if that’s what the network decides.
Notre Dame’s football games are a TV commodity that would presumably have other interested bidders. The ACC’s viability as a home for its non-football sports and the next format for the College Football Playoff are also factors in independence’s viability, among other things.
No schools have left the ACC since UCLA and USC announced their move to the Big Ten June 30 and set tremors through college athletics. Its media rights deal runs through 2036 and could cost a full member more than $300 million to buy out at this point in the contract.
The CFP, meanwhile, said this winter it will not alter its four-team format before the end of its 12-year contract with ESPN, which runs through 2025. A new format would need to be proposed and approved before media rights negotiations can begin.
Notre Dame has the leverage with any conferences interested in adding it (all of them, surely) to wait and see how playoff expansion, the ACC’s future and other factors. But money is a key one with that cost of independence trade-off becoming harder to ignore in the wake of the Big Ten’s imminent new contract. And it seems the Irish could learn a lot about their future financial prospects with NBC before long.
