Assessing Demand for Intercollegiate Athletic Departments: An Investigation of Multimedia Rights Agreements

Abstract

Traditionally, attendance has been the prevailing measure of demand in the intercollegiate athletics industry. However, new sources have emerged, including television ratings and revenue from broadcast rights fees and sponsorship agreements such as apparel and naming rights contracts. Given that U.S.-based intercollegiate athletics departments receive an estimated $500 million annually via rightsholders such as IMG College and Learfield for their multimedia rights (MMR), these rights fees have emerged as an important source of revenue. This research breaks new ground by utilizing these rights fees in a model that estimates how much each institution should receive, and identifying those who have been paid more or less than predicted. Results indicate that in many instances IMG College has overpaid for rights, while Learfield has underpaid, and that rights are predicted by the institution’s performance in men’s basketball and demand for its football program, rather than institutional or market-related factors.

评估校际体育部门的需求：一项针对多媒体权利协议的调查

传统上, 出席人数一直是衡量校际体育产业需求的普遍手段。然而, 新源头不断涌现, 包括电视收视率、广播版权费所带来的收入及服装和冠名权合同等赞助协议。因为美国国际管理集团学院和利菲尔德等权利持有人拥有多媒体权利, 所以美国校际体育部门每年可以据此收到约5亿美元, 因此版权费已成为重要的收入之源。本研究取得了崭新突破, 它使用了某模式中的版权费数据, 此模式则用来估算每个机构应获费用的多少, 还确定了哪些机构与预期相比所获的费用更多或更少。结果表明, 在许多情况下, 美国国际管理集团学院得到了过高的版权费, 利菲尔德所得到的版权费则过低, 而且版权费的预测与各机构在男子篮球方面的表现和其足球项目的需求有关, 并非与制度或市场相关因素有关。

Keywords:

• Intercollegiate athletics
• demand theory
• multimedia rights
• broadcast rights fees
• sponsorship

关键词:

• 校际体育
• 需求理论
• 多媒体权利
• 广播版权费
• 赞助

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Jonathan A. Jensen (Ph.D., The Ohio State University, U.S.) is an Assistant Professor of Sport Administration in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His interests span sport marketing and sponsorship analytics, as well as sport consumer behavior. He is a North American Society of Sport Management (NASSM) Research Fellow, has twice been named a finalist in the research papers competition at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and was named an Emerging Scholar in Sport Marketing by the American Marketing Association’s Sport & Sponsorship-Linked Marketing Special Interest Group.

Jacob Spreyer (M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.S.) earned a B.S. in Sport Management from the University of Connecticut in 2016 and a M.A. in Sport Administration from the University of North Carolina in 2018. While at the University of Connecticut, he competed on the men’s tennis team and served as President of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

Javonte U. Lipsey (B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.S.) received his Bachelor of Arts in Sport Administration in 2016 from UNC-Chapel Hill. He is currently a second-year Masters student in Sport Administration, also at UNC-Chapel Hill, and is an athletic administration graduate assistant for the University of North Carolina Department of Athletics.

Nels Popp (Ph.D., The University of Louisville, U.S.) is an assistant professor of Sport Administration in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina. His research interests include revenue generation and ticket sales within sport organizations. His work has appeared in journals such as Sport Marketing Quarterly, Sport Management Review, and the International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship.

Robert Malekoff (Ed.D., Ashland University, U.S.) is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Previously Malekoff served as Director of Research for the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University and was a Senior Advisor for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s College Sports Project. Malekoff also had an extensive career in college coaching and athletic administration.