Are we SURE Notre Dame is actually going to get this much of an increase in its next tv deal?
Would it surprise me in today's world of CFB $? Absolutely not. Did they conveniently bring in a former NBC exec as their next AD? Yup.
Butttt....why are they only NOW able to cash in on their purported worldwide value? What was the issue in the past? I'm sure most people were always surprised to find out how they were actually LOSING money in relation to being in a conference (even the ACC, I believe) all these years and that their independent TV money was absolutely meager in comparison to what people actually expected it would be.
So what's their case for demanding TRIPLE the money in a new deal. You think their brand value has TRIPLED? I'd also really like to see the demographic splits of what eyeballs Notre Dame brings. I have a hunch real targeted advertising based upon those brackets might involve reverse mortgages, catheters and investing in gold.
If people want to knock the "heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from another you been messin' around" nature of this, that's fine.
But I was told that the range on the offer was between $60M and $75M, with the low-end being "ND with an ACC scheduling arrangement" and the high-end being "ND with a Big 10 scheduling arrangement". And more recently I was told that NBC has signed off on $65M, with the assumption that sometime within the contractual term, ND will start playing "better" opponents.
So, do with that what you will. And, yes, there is some nepotism and incestuous relationship type stuff involved.
Now, if you're asking why ND was only getting $22M and is about to triple that, there are probably several factors...
---the ol' "Beta Blake" issue of signing an overly long contract that gets stuck when the open market begins to skyrocket
---the normal inflation going on in the college football rights marketplace
---the improvements ND made under Kelly during the life of the prior contract
---the lack of a mechanism to reset the prior contract to FMV, such as "conference expansion" when ND is a conference-of-one
Regardless...it's happening...