While the American Athletic Conference’s new 12-year, $1 billion extension with ESPN is regarded as a good thing for the conference as a whole, the UConn Huskies program begs to differ.
The deal complicates a tradition of UConn basketball games broadcast on the SNY Network and so far it is unclear how much the ESPN contract will impact that partnership.
“We at UConn have been a dedicated and enthusiastic charter member of the AAC,” UConn president Susan Herbst said. “The level of play in the conference has been outstanding, and our university colleagues in the conference are a pleasure to work with. That said, I am deeply concerned about potential exposure for UConn men’s and women’s basketball.”
ESPN will broadcast a host of games including UConn men’s and women’s basketball not only on traditional, linear networks such as ESPN2 and ESPNU, but also digital streaming service ESPN+. The worry from UConn is this will force fans who traditionally watch the Huskies play on SNY, which has been the program’s TV partner for the past six seasons, to purchase an over-the-top service such as Roku or Chromecast to watch the team play.
“It’s not about technology,” Herbst said. “Our fan base is of course sophisticated in the ways of digital media. But exposure on ‘linear’ television is vitally important to us because many Husky fans gather to watch UConn basketball as a social event — when traveling, in restaurants or bars, or in the living room with family and friends. Right now, wherever I am, I can tune in easily and see our student-athletes in action.”
ESPN and SNY are expected to come to some sort of agreement on the matter, though ESPN and the AAC have been mute on the subject so far.
“It’s such a great relationship,” said Gary Morgenstern, SNY’s senior vice president of programming before the deal was finalized Wednesday. “I think it’s been really good for the university and we know it’s been really good for SNY. And it would be a shame if it weren’t able to continue.
SNY reaches about 12 million homes in the Northeast, while ESPN+ has around 2 million subscribers.
Not only is this a risk for Husky fans, but the new deal isn’t expected to make enough of an impact financially for UConn to warrant such a shift in viewership. According to the Hartford Courant, UConn’s athletic department reported a $41 million deficit for the 2018 fiscal year, among the worst in Division I athletics. UConn, and the rest of the AAC, will receive $6.94 million a year, which significantly tops the $2.16 million number from the previous deal, but isn’t enough of a revenue boost to fix all of the program’s problems.
UConn and SNY are in a “wait and see” mode and will have to hope for the best as ESPN, the AAC and SNY come to an agreement. In the end, SNY doesn’t have much leverage in the matter and may be at the mercy of ESPN and the AAC.
“We’re just sitting on the sidelines waiting on the call to really understand what the next step would be,” Morgenstern said. “Clearly, if we’re left out of that, that’s not good for the fans. That’s what we strive to do, is put a service out there that satisfies what the fans want. But we just don’t know how it’s going to play out.”
Habst added this isn’t a change UConn or Husky fans want to take without SNY still in the mix. “We do not want our amazing Husky fan lifestyle disrupted. Period.”
