College Football Wars | Title Fight | 1

0:11It's 1995 and in Pasadena, California, two executives from ABC TV enter a hotel lobby and head towards the ballroom. They've just flown in from New York to renew ABC's contract to broadcast the annual Rose Bowl football game. The Rose Bowl is an institution dating back to 1902. Every year, it hosts a showdown between the champions of the two leading college football conferences, the Big Ten and the Pac-10, and that game attracts millions of viewers. ABC executive Dennis Swanson leads the way. He's 57 and a TV legend who helped create the Oprah Winfrey Show. With him is Tony Petitti, vice president of sports programming.

0:57They're going to be furious. They're expecting more money. Yep. And we've really got no wiggle room at all? Zero. The accountants were clear. Not a cent more for the Rose Bowl rights. The ad revenue doesn't justify it. They reach the ballroom. Inside, the head honchos of the Rose Bowl are sitting around a large table. Among them are the commissioners of the Pac-10, with teams from the West Coast, and the Big Ten, with teams mostly from the Midwest. Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen leaps to his feet to shake Swanson's hand. Hey guys, hope you had a comfortable flight. We did, thanks. Hey Jim. Swanson waves at Jim Delaney, the balding commissioner of the Big Ten.

1:42Delaney nods back. Greetings over. Delaney gets to business. In recent years, TV networks have jacked up how much they pay for sports rights to stop cable channels like ESPN from grabbing their audiences. So the Rose Bowl's expecting a hefty bump in how much ABC pays for the game. Delaney leans forward. We're really excited to hear your offer. So what number have you got for us? Swanson sits back in his chair. Same as last time. $11.5 million a year. There's a shocked silence. Delaney's nostrils flare with rage. Same as last time? That deal's seven years old. Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen stands.

2:29Guys, I think you should wait outside. Swanson and Petiti leave the ballroom. From behind the closed doors, they hear shouts. A few moments later, Delaney emerges. So, Jim, what'd you all discuss? Throwing you out. We're extremely disappointed. This meeting's over. Okay, but understand this. The paradigm's changing. Viewers want to see the nation's best two college football teams go head-to-head. The Rose Bowl can't always be Big Ten versus Pac-10. You need to modernize this game, open it up to other conferences, eventually help get us to a playoff tournament. If you want more money, you're going to need to work with the other Bulls to create a national championship game.

3:21Petiti nods supportively, but he knows Swanson's making it up as he goes along. Delaney glares at them. You finished? Yeah. Then go! As he and Petiti leave, Swanson smiles. I think that went well. What? They kicked us out. Yeah, but now they know we're serious, and they gotta do something different to get more money. Just need to give them a plan they can work with. Petiti blinks in shock at his new assignment. College football is a regional sport. Its conferences, teams, and competitions are about as coordinated as bumper cars at a country fair. Now it's his job to convince them to join forces.

4:08But if they do, they could create one of the most lucrative TV franchises in all of American sports. A college football version of the Super Bowl. It's the start of a transformation. One that will enrich colleges with billions and fracture the alliance between Pac-10 and Big Ten, leaving one on top and the other face down in the dirt.

4:42When planning for your future, you want someone with a history of keeping their word year after year. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has been a trusted name in the industry. But that isn't just a number. It's experience that matters. It's 160 years of promises held, helping generations retire with confidence, protect their loved ones, and plan for whatever comes next. Whether you're looking for life insurance, employee benefits, or retirement income solutions, when your future is on the line, you want history on your side. And believe me, Pacific Life has been there, always there through changing times, always focused on your needs.

5:21Ready to secure your tomorrow? Ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you feel prepared for what's next. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life & Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona. Because with Pacific Life, you're not just planning for the future, you're partnering with trusted experience. Closing the books, getting your people paid, and bringing on new hires. Running a small or mid-sized business can be exciting and also a little chaotic. Workday Go makes simplifying your business, well, simple. Imagine all the important aspects of your company, HR, finance, and payroll, all on the AI platform.

6:03No more juggling multiple systems. No more worrying about growing too fast. Just the full power of Workday Go, helping small to mid-sized businesses like yours scale and run more smoothly. Think about what that means. Seamless onboarding for new team members, real-time insights at your fingertips, and payroll that works perfectly every single time so you can focus on the big picture and go after your big ambitions. And with Workday, you can activate quickly in as little as 30 to 60 business days. So simplify your business. Go for growth. Go with Workday Go.

6:45From Wondery, I'm David Brown and this is Business Wars.

7:13In this season, we tackle the enigma that is the business of college football. It's the amateur sport that fills university coffers with more than$3.3 billion a year. Its coaches earn multi-million dollar paychecks, but the players on the field don't get paid, even though games often fill stadiums with ease. And college football is poised to get even bigger. The annual college football playoffs is about to expand from a four-team contest to a title fight between 12 colleges, will likely send the sport's TV ratings and revenues soaring. But college football's rise to riches wasn't smooth. When the 90s started, it was a popular pastime, but a fractured business.

7:59College football was a patchwork quilt of rival teams, conferences, associations, and bowl competitions that seldom worked in sync. But then, the temptation of TV dollars changed it all. This is Episode 1, Title Fight.

8:22February 1996, the Four Seasons Resort Hotel, Las Colinas, Texas. In a meeting room, Roy Kramer's wrapping up his presentation to the Rose Bowl Committee. He's the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, or SEC for short. Last year, he helped create the Bowl Alliance, a coalition of the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls. The Alliance holds an annual championship game between two teams selected from the SEC and four other leading conferences. Every year, the host of the championship game rotates among the three bowls that belong to the Alliance. and the teams that play in it are picked via a poll of journalists and coaches.

9:02That's because the Rose Bowl, Pac-10, and Big Ten aren't on board. So now, Kramer's teamed up with the executives at ABC to try and convince the Rose Bowl to join them and create a real college football title game that involves all the teams from the biggest conferences. Kramer ends his presentation to the committee with a final plea. This would be great for the Rose Bowl. Great for us all. Tom Hansen, commissioner of the Pac-10, rises from his chair. Thank you, Roy. Okay, anyone have any questions? Kramer stands, smiling and waiting. But the Rose Bowl committee members in the room simply fold their arms and stay stone-faced.

9:48Hansen rubs the back of his neck. Well, then I guess that's that. Roy, it's been an interesting presentation. Thanks so much for coming by to share it with us. Kramer packs up his belongings and leaves in silence. Convincing the Rose Bowl to change its ways and join the Bowl Alliance is going to be an uphill struggle. But he and ABC aren't going to let this go. Over the next two years, Kramer and ABC executive Tony Petitti chip away at opposition to a national championship game. They attend countless meetings, hold conference calls, and send memos back and forth. The project seems constantly on the verge of failure.

10:34The Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls object to only getting to host a championship game every four rather than every three years. The Rose Bowl fears losing its identity. Instead of the Grand Dame of college football, the Rose Bowl would be reduced to a bit player. Conferences fret about creating a playoff system they can't control and debate how revenue from the title game should be shared among the various partners. Lawyers review legal agreements seeking a way to create a championship without getting sued. And everyone argues about the methodology for selecting the teams that will play in the title game.

11:13Slowly, over the course of many months, college football's power brokers start to lend their support to the plan. And as 1998 begins, the goal lines in sight.

11:31It's after 3 a.m., but at a lakeside resort hotel in Coeur d 'Alene, Idaho, the lights are still on in one meeting room. Inside it, college football's most powerful executives are trying to reach consensus on a plan to create a national championship game. And right now, it's at fourth and inches from the end zone. After months of discussions, proposals, counter-proposals, and butting of heads, there's just one blocker left. The Rose Bowl. A few hours earlier, Rose Bowl chairman Harriman Cronk nearly walked away. He's still in the room, but he remains unconvinced. I don't know. What if the Fiesta or Orange Bowls end up hosting a title game between the champions of the Pac-10 and Big Ten?

12:18There wouldn't be any point in holding a Rose Bowl game that year. SEC Chief Kramer responds. The Pac-10 and Big Ten seem ready to embrace the plan, but without the Rose Bowl, the dream dies here. Harriman, I've looked through the numbers, gone back through decades of college football results, I've done the math. Under the system we propose, the Pac-10 and Big Ten's champions would only have played, well, they would have only played the national title once in the past 50 years. Exactly. ABC executive Tony Petiti jumps in. You need to think about the upside. Every four years, the Rose Bowl will host the national championship game.

12:58That's huge. You're talking about turning that down just because you might miss out on a Pac-10, Big Ten matchup once every 50 years? Come on. The Rose Bowl's already popular. I see no reason to change. Kramer leans forward and points at Kronk. I'll tell you why you need to change. The NCAA. If we don't do this, they'll get their claws into the postseason the same as they did with basketball. This is how we keep them out of it. This is how we make sure the colleges, conferences, and bowls run the show. The entire room stirs from its tiredness. The NCAA makes more than$100 million a year managing the college basketball Final Four tournament.

13:40Keeping the NCAA out of college football's postseason has proven to be a rallying cry for all involved in these talks. By cutting the NCAA out, the top six college football conferences will keep the lion's share of the money. Kronk weighs his options, and as the minute hand on the wall ticks toward 4 a.m., he nods. Okay, we're in.

14:12It's June 1998, and in a newsroom in Alabama, a sports reporter is on the phone listening to the conference call announcing the formation of the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS. On the line, SEC Commissioner Kramer gives the media crowd listening in the lowdown. This year there will be a true national championship game. Every year, it'll rotate between the Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, and Rose Bowls. The first will be the Fiesta Bowl in January. The reporter makes a note to ask how they're going to pick who will play from the nation's pool of 456 teams. But Kramer's already way ahead of him. Our process for picking who will play takes a bit of explaining, so bear with me here.

14:57The reporter listens with growing confusion as Kramer rattles through the four-part process. First, we rank every team using two polls, the AP poll of sports writers, then a poll of coaches. We'll add these ranks together, then divide by two. Kramer pauses for breath and then continues. Next, we average three computer-generated rankings, but with a 50 % adjusted deviation factor in case the computers disagree. The reporter in Alabama scribbles that down verbatim and hopes he can figure out what the heck that means later. The third factor in the rankings is what we call the strength of the schedule.

15:36It's based on the win-loss records of teams that played each other during the season. The reporter's interest picks up. At last, college football team's actual performance on the field is being considered. But Kramer's not finished yet. The strength of schedule formula is then weighed two-thirds for the opponent's record and one-third of the opponent's opponent's records. The journalist screws up his face in confusion. Huh? Then we divide the final total by 25 and add a point for each game lost. Any questions? There's a moment of silence. Then the journalist poses the obvious question. Isn't this plan too complicated for the average football fan?

16:23Well, no system is perfect, but we believe it's sound and objective and rewards teams who excel against strong schedules. And as far as we're concerned, the winner of the game is our national champion. But while the calculations of the Bowl Championship Series befuddled the nation, the financial rewards are crystal clear. ABC's already inked an eight-year deal to televise the BCS until 2006, and it's worth more than$500 million. In January 1999, the first BCS National Championship game takes place in Tempe, Arizona. In it, the ACC's Florida State Seminoles battle the SEC's Tennessee Volunteers.

17:09The close game ends in victory for the Volunteers. But ABC's the real winner that night. The game grabs just over 17 % of the entire TV audience, an estimated 17.5 million homes. more than any of that season's Monday Night Football NFL games. The BCS lights a fire under college football. It pushes up viewer numbers, boosts ticket sales, and inflates the value of TV and merchandising deals. And now that he's got a taste of the big money, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney wants more.

17:52April 2004, Big Ten Headquarters, Park Ridge, Illinois. In a meeting room at Big Ten Headquarters, Delaney eyes the delegation from ESPN and then locks eyes with Mark Shapiro. That's a lowball offer and you know it. Don't insult me. Shapiro is ESPN's 30-something executive vice president of programming. He hasn't come here to overspend. Well, that's what's on the table if you want your contract with us extended. Take it or leave it. Now, I told your people before you came out here. Without a significant rights fee increase, I'm going to launch a new channel dedicated to the Big Ten. And that means more competition with you for viewers.

18:33You should think carefully about this, because maybe when you reconsider, this offer won't be here anymore. Well, if the offer we expect isn't here today, it won't be here then. If you don't take our offer, I want you to know you're rolling the dice. Consider them rolled. Shapiro rises from his chair and looks at Delaney with pity before heading for the door. He doesn't believe the Big Ten will succeed in delivering a TV network of their own. And when it all goes sideways, he's sure Delaney will have no choice but to come crawling back to ESPN.

19:20December can be a busy month for all of us. Finishing projects, planning for next year, maybe even wrapping a few presents, while your teams take a well-deserved break. Cyber threat actors don't. Stay protected this holiday season with Manage Engine. Their cybersecurity solutions ensure that your data is secure, even while your office lights are turned off. With 18 data centers around the world and over 20 years of experience securing global enterprises, Manage Engine can keep your business running safely, no matter how busy or hectic the world gets. This holiday, gift yourself and your business peace of mind.

20:00Visit cybersecurity.manageengine.com. That's cybersecurity.m-a-n-a-g-e-e-n-g-i-n-e dot com. As business owners and managers, you use software for your business every day. You use one piece of software to manage your customers, another to manage your employees, another to manage your finances, and the list goes on. You buy these pieces independently and hope they fit neatly together like a puzzle. And then you find out the hard way that they don't, and you end up with a mess at the heart of your business operations. Does any of this sound familiar? Well, fortunately, Zoho offers a solution to this chaos.

20:41It's called Zoho One. Zoho One is a suite of around 50 pre-integrated business applications that fit together beautifully. So instead of dealing with disparate software from multiple vendors with multiple contracts and price points, you deal with one vendor with all the pieces of the business software puzzle neatly put together offered at a very attractive price. Now, if this sounds interesting to you, you've got to check out Zoho One at Zoho.one. That's Z-O-H-O dot O-N-E. With Zoho, you're not just licensing apps. You're licensing peace of mind.

21:36Early 2006, Naples, Florida. On a white sand beach at the Ritz-Carlton, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney reaches into his pants pocket. I've got a paper napkin, will that do? The man next to him, Fox Sports Senior Vice President Larry Jones, grins. Yeah, that'll do. Around two years have passed since Delaney told ESPN to shove its offer and began plotting to start a Big Ten TV network. It took him months to convince the 11 colleges in the Big Ten to support his plan. But now, he's trying to solve the hardest problem of all. Distribution. The money on offer from Comcast, Time Warner, and other cable TV providers fell short of his expectations.

22:22So now he's hoping to join forces with ESPN's arch-rival, Fox Sports. Delaney starts sketching out a schedule on the napkin while trying to stop the sea breeze from blowing it away. Here's how, in general, I see it mapped out. In the fall, we've got football. Spring's the Olympic season. Basketball is here. We've got plenty of sports, enough to keep this network running 24-7, 365 days a year. Yes, but you need distribution. No distribution, no viewers. And that's why I'm talking to you. If we could get Fox's distribution arm to sell our network to the cable providers, we could get that distribution at a superior price.

23:03Well, true. But there's got to be a clear upside for us. I'm thinking an equity stake. Okay. In that case, let's talk finance. We'll give you equity if you give us the money and operational expertise to get the Big Ten network off the ground. Well, that could work. You know, I really like this. We bring the distribution, the capital, the experience. And we have the rights and the Big Ten brand. And we both market the network. You know, I think we've got a plan here. Let's see if we can make it happen. The two men smile and shake hands. But as the Big Ten and Fox talk, ESPN reappears on the scene, hoping to convince Delaney to drop his TV plan and rejoin the fold.

23:54But now that he's got Fox on his side, he's not interested. Instead, he sells ESPN the rights to a few dozen football and men's basketball games and keeps back hundreds of other college games that once aired on ESPN for the Big Ten's own network. That summer, Big Ten and Fox agree that the Big Ten Network will be a 20-year joint venture. The Big Ten will own 51 percent, and Fox will run it. And at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on August 30, 2007, the Big Ten Network arrives in 17 million homes. 11 schools, 252 varsity teams, one great network to cover it all. Welcome to the Big Ten Network, your ultimate source for Big Ten sports, featuring the games, passion and tradition of the nation's foremost athletic conference.

24:51It's August 30th, 2007, and an ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. Mark Shapiro returns to his office after a meeting and finds a gift-wrapped present waiting on his desk. He turns to his PA. What's that? Don't know. Courier delivered it a half hour ago. Shapiro sits down and unwraps the present. Inside is a bottle of champagne and a three-word note from Delaney. See? I did it. Shapiro scowls, picks up the bottle, and stomps toward the office kitchen. At the sink, he pops the cork and then pours the entire bottle straight down the drain. The Big Ten Network's not just a poke in the eye for ESPN.

25:34It's also a big earner. Every month, cable providers pay as much as$1.10 per subscriber for the network. And with around 17 million subscribers able to watch, the Big Ten network could be earning$220 million a year. But while the Big Ten network thrives, the Bowl Championship Series is under attack.

26:04It's April 2008, and at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida, college footballers' power brokers have gathered to discuss the future of the Bowl Championship Series. In a meeting room, John Swofford, the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, a league of 12 colleges on the eastern seaboard, urges his peers to embrace change. We need to evolve the bowl championship series. The plus one format makes a lot of sense. The plus one format would see the nation's top four teams play in two semifinals before the winners advance to the national championship game. The fans are crying out for it.

26:42People want champions who win on the field, not on a computer. It'd make the postseason even better, and we should do it before we lock ourselves into the 2010-2013 bowl cycle. This is our last chance to change up before 2014. Swofford sees the SEC's commissioner nodding along, but no one else is. He tries another tag. It would also avoid another controversy like Auburn. Everyone in the room knows what he means. Four years ago, the Auburn Tigers ended the season undefeated and tipped to become the national champions. But the Bowl Championship Series computers had other ideas. and rated them as the nation's third best, and therefore ineligible to play for the title.

27:29Fans and the media were outraged, and the BCS's reputation never recovered from it. Swofford hopes the Auburn debacle might win some hearts in the room. Auburn would have never happened under the plus one model. A lot of the heat we get from the fans and the media would disappear. Delaney shakes his head. I'm against this. It would amount to a playoff, and there's little support among my colleges for that. They don't want an extended postseason that lessens the importance of the traditional bowl games. Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen nods in agreement. He and Delaney rarely disagree, and the Big Ten and Pac-10's bond via the Rose Bowl remains solid as ever.