ESPN sees huge boom in college sports ad revenue

One of the most significant growth areas of ESPN’s advertising business is coming from college sports.

According to a report by Mollie Cahillane in Sports Business Journal, the network has increased its ad revenue generated from college sports by 42% year over year. This, of course, coincided with the expansion of the College Football Playoff, which added eight additional high-wattage games for ESPN to sell to advertisers. (ESPN kept the ad revenue generated from the two games it sublicensed to TNT.)

According to the report, college sports now account for nearly 40% of ESPN’s total ad revenue, and close to 80% of all advertisers buy inventory on the network’s college sports properties.

But football is not the only college sport seeing increases. In total, 363 brands purchased ad inventory on college sports other than football and basketball. Baseball and softball are seeing substantial growth. Per Cahillane, those sports have combined for an 11% year-over-year increase in ad revenue. Volleyball is another growth property that ESPN is pleased with.

“For someone who has been at ESPN for almost 25 years, really trying to harness the energy around these Olympic sports, I just say to everyone, ‘Welcome to the party,'” ESPN SVP of production Meg Aronowitz told SBJ.

The network is clearly invested in college sports, too. ESPN recently signed a new eight-year deal worth $115 million per year with the NCAA which gives the network exclusive rights to the postseasons in every sport other than football and men’s basketball.

And with the growth of Olympic sports in the advertising realm, that deal seems to be paying off.