As the former executive chairman of DAZN Group, former president of ESPN, and co-founder of Meadowlark Media, John Skipper has been around the block a few times when it comes to the business of sports.
As such, he tends to have many big thoughts about the direction and future of sports leagues and sports media.
Often, he’s on the mark, like when he said the NBA was in excellent shape a few months back while others panicked. He also said the WNBA would more than triple its broadcasting rights revenue on its new deal (it quadrupled them). He predicted that Netflix would double down on live sports to keep pace in the streaming wars. And he predicted that ESPN Bet would have an “uphill battle” to be competitive, which it certainly has.
He’s also been adamant that the Super Bowl will be a streaming exclusive in the foreseeable future. We’ll see how that one pans out.
Skipper’s latest prediction revolves around March Madness. Specifically, the college basketball side will eventually take some cues from the college football side and consolidate its power to create a new version of the NCAA Tournament.
“Look, colleges, athletic departments, college presidents have demonstrated that to get more money, they will do pretty much anything,” Skipper said on the most recent episode of Pable Torre Finds Out. “I don’t know why there’s already discussions with SEC and Big Ten sort of bullying into ‘we’re going to get more guaranteed slots in the College Football Playoff.’ So they got the mindset already that, that we’re going to keep other people out.
“Why wouldn’t you create four super conferences, 64 teams, and that’s your governing body? Your governing body is we run ourselves like most leagues do. Who else has a governing body which is an independent third party? The NFL does their own thing, NBA does their own thing. Major League Baseball does their own thing. Why don’t four college conferences go, ‘We’re going to do our own basketball tournament, 64 teams, and we’ll sell that for a billion and a half dollars, and we’ll divide that among our schools and we will further separate the haves from the have nots.”
“I hate that,” responded David Samson, who was disturbed by the notion that this idea would destroy what is so special about March Madness.
“You know how much money there is in the two words upset alert?” asked Samson, “Upset alert is a foundational concept of the March Madness tournament.”
Skipper was unmoved by the plight of the St. Francises and Robert Morrises of the world.
“You still have an upset alert,” he said. “You put 64 teams in. They are the 64 teams that make up conference A, B, C, and D. And then when the 15 seed from the SEC upsets the number three seed from the Big Ten, that’s an upset alert. And it’s two teams that more people care about.
“And forget for a minute whether it’s a better aesthetic event. What do you think any of the college commissioners and presidents care? They want more money. Haven’t we talked on this show over and over? The fans are never considered.
“The individual conferences end up getting 35 million, 40, 50, 60 million. If you could look at splitting up a billion and a half, that’s $375 million distributed to 16 schools. So I’m not suggesting I think it’s more poetic or more interesting. I’m just suggesting the economic value of that $375. I can’t quite do the math with 16, but it’s 20. It’s close to $25 million a school.”
Skipper’s perspective certainly might sound craven and financially motivated at the expense of tradition and fan enjoyment, but then again, isn’t that exactly what’s driven college football and conference realignment for the last 30 years?