This report was written by Tim Arango and appeared in The New York Post -
ESPN, which in March launched its own college sports channel, ESPNU, has taken a series of steps — some out in the open and others behind-the-scenes — to undermine CSTV, according to numerous sources and documents.
The latest public flap began last week when CSTV put out an announcement saying it had inked a deal to air football games from three conferences that represent the so-called "historically black colleges and universities" — the Southwestern Athletic Conference, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
The deal, put together by the marketing agency New Vision Sports Properties, was quickly disavowed by the commissioners of the SWAC and MEAC, who had previously inked deals with ESPNU.
At the same time, ESPN has been trying to prevent Collegiate Images, an agency that licenses video clips, from providing content to CSTV, according to recent correspondence — obtained by The Post — sent by ESPN's Vice President of Business Affairs James Noel to Collegiate Images and CSTV.
In the letters, ESPN claims that its exclusivity rights to many of the college conferences prevent even clips not produced by ESPN — such as footage the school itself produces — from being licensed, a position that Collegiate Images has been fighting against.
"If ESPN's view is valid, Collegiate Images doesn't even have a business," said one source.
Meanwhile, CSTV and New Vision say their deal with the three black college conferences is valid. "Come September we'll be on the air with these games," said Chris Bevilacqua, co-founder and executive vice president of CSTV.
Mike Soltys, a rep for ESPN said: "We have our rights to those two conferences and they put out a press release that's not true."
However, Steve Malcolm, co-founder of New Vision claims, "this CSTV deal does not infringe on the ESPN deal."
Sources in the industry claim ESPN is engaging in what is known as "warehousing" — that is, securing rights to games not with the intention of airing them but in an attempt to keep them off the airwaves of other networks. The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating ESPN for allegedly engaging in warehousing.
A source said the letters regarding Collegiate Images have been turned over to the Justice Department.
Other moves by ESPN have been more petty: the network bickered over the size of its logo on a joint press release between ESPN, CSTV and Conference USA released in January, according to people involved in the announcement.
And also earlier this year, ESPN began barring CSTV's on-air talent from appearing on ESPN's morning show "Cold Pizza."
The warehousing ESPN does is one reason why the NBE never gets the full value for their basketball contract. The ACC's rights are with a minor sports network Raycom/JP Sports who then sell the rights to the really big games to ESPN/ABC and sell the rights to regional games they are not interested in airing to smaller sports networks.
With 16 teams, far too many sports networks will want to televise our games, even if on a regional basis to give ESPN rights to them.
Oh, did I mention that the ACC's basketball contract the last I checked was worth $25 million a year while the Big East's is only $15 million a year.
Cheers,
Neil
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