KU Resigns with ESPN
But this time, we’re making a little more money. We’ve made just about 1.7 million a year for the TV for the last contract. This one, Diamond Lew negotiated that we be making thrice that.
That’s right….thrice that.
According to the Star:
The Kansas athletic department has signed a seven-year contract extension with ESPN Regional Television that will bring substantially more revenue to the athletic department.
Contract figures revealed by the school Thursday showed a more than 300-percent increase in the yearly income KU will receive from ESPN. The deal will net Kansas $40.2 million, or about $5.74 million per year.
Diamond Lew is happy:
You can safely say this is one of the largest agreements in the country,” KU athletic director Lew Perkins said Thursday night. “I’m telling you, this is huge. We’re not talking about peanuts here. We’re playing in the big time now.”
This also answers the question that has been on many a person’s mind: Where will the money come from for the new Scoreboard?
Says Lou: Perkins said he’ll use more than $4 million of the ESPN money to pay for a new scoreboard at Allen Fieldhouse.
* Have the Phog Blog come to you! * Subscribe to Comments
One Response to “KU Resigns with ESPN”
Leave a Reply
Comment Policy:Be polite.You must be logged in to post a comment.


April 22nd, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Interesting. I know how the Big Ten and ACC deals with ESPN went, but I did not know single schools could sign deals with ESPN. I guess the Big XII handles television contracts a little differently than the other power conferences.
Do you know if Kansas will still own the rights to the games, or will the rights now be owned by ESPN? The reason I ask is in the Big Ten, if ESPN decides to not televise a game (say for example an early season game between Michigan State and St. Mary’s of the Blind) the local affiliates will have to pay ESPN for the right to broadcast that game, and it is normally not worth their while, so they never do it.
Since I used to live in Kansas City, I remember seeing even Kansas’ exhibition games on TV through JTV sponsored by some dentistry company I think.
With this new deal with ESPN, will Kansas still be able to show those games on TV, or will the same problem hit Kansas that has hit many teams in the Big Ten and ACC for early non-conference games and even exhibition games?
If so, while the money could be good, it could also be a problem for many Kansas fans that were watching those games on ESPN Game Plan before this agreement.