Mike Aresco spoke with Matt Murschel of the Orlando Sentinal earlier this week and defended what he thought were misconceptions about the American Athletic Conference’s new deal with ESPN. The commissioner addressed criticisms that the new deal makes it easy for marquee brands like UCF and Houston to leave the conference and that too many football and basketball games are going to be put behind the ESPN+ paywall.
“We basically have our own branded network on ESPN+ for certain kinds of events,” Aresco told Murschel. “Where the misconception is, we are getting more games on the ESPN primary linear channels than we had in the previous deal.”
The ESPN family of networks aired 26 American Athletic Conference football games in 2018. Under the terms of the new deal, it will carry 40 regular season games plus the conference championship game. There is also a promise that 21 of those games will air on either ESPN, ESPN2, or ABC.
Basketball was also discussed in the interview. ESPN and ESPN2 will carry at least 25 regular season men’s games as well as the conference tournament championship game. Adding ESPNU and ESPNews to the deal will see 65 AAC men’s games on cable overall.
Women’s basketball will be well-represented too according to Aresco. ESPN and ESPN2 have committed to carrying 13 women’s regular season games. Many will likely include UConn, one of the strongest college basketball brands in the country regardless of gender.
“UConn [women’s basketball] will have more games on the ESPN platforms, including ESPNU, than some of the premier men’s programs in the country,” Aresco said.
Aresco pushed back at the idea that the majority of AAC sporting events were going to be exclusively on ESPN+. He also said that for fans of Olympic sports, ESPN+ might actually offer a price drop to follow your school’s team in your favorite sport.
“Did you know to watch some Olympic sports on some schools’ websites, it costs more than $4.99 a month just to watch the Olympic sports, let alone watch football and basketball?”
