“Why a Single Seller for College Football Media Rights Makes Sense,” John Kosner’s Latest SBJ Column with Ed Desser
Original Article: Sports Business Journal, by Ed Desser and John Kosner, April 20th, 2026
College football is the second highest-rated TV programming in the U.S., behind only the NFL. A dozen schools’ games consistently produce NFL-like numbers at 4 million to 10 million-plus viewers. College football generates $3.9 billion in media rights, and … it is underperforming.
With its recent deals, the NBA leveraged competitive bidding, great demographics, and its (non-football season) spring primacy to dunk all others at $3.04 rights per viewer hour (RPVH). Meanwhile, audience growth with Nielsen’s Big Data actually drove NFL’s RPVH down to just $1.30. Hence, the NFL is reopening its deals (and potentially expanding to 18 games). We forecast this will increase the NFL’s RPVH by about 50% to $1.95 (once phased in). That’s 82% higher than college football’s $1.07 today.
Why is college football so popular, yet relatively undervalued? Mainly, it’s that the NFL and NBA negotiate and coordinate their national media rights centrally. With financial pressures in college sports, the need for a new single-seller approach to maximize football’s media opportunities becomes critical. Indeed, Sports Broadcasting Act revisions are in discussion.
A professional single seller negotiating college football media rights (similar to how the CFP is handled) could strategically optimize media planning, improve the schedule, launch valuable new products and increase bargaining leverage, enabling the sport to maximize its rights. In 1999, NASCAR shifted to be a single seller, centralizing all media rights previously held separately by tracks, then achieved 4X revenue growth. It wasn’t an accident (pun intended).
Of course, a single seller isn’t a magic wand. Those who run college football have to buy in, to materially impact the yield from rights. Also, there’s the question of absorption: How much/quickly can the market adjust to significant increases in these rights? Both the NFL and college football merit big bumps, but these will need to be partially phased in, carrying more aggressive annual escalating payments than the recent norm (higher than the typical 3%-5% per year).
We estimate that college football rights will more than double by 2034-35, when most key rights are rebid (to $8.4 billion from $3.9 billion) if the status quo holds (and conferences don’t renew their deals early, and ultimately under-market). But if the sport’s leadership embraces single seller and the following innovations, media rights could reach roughly $14.8 billion (76% higher than the fragmented status quo) by:
Offering a more limited set of national media packages (materially fewer than the dozen currently), creating more fear-of-loss aggressive bidding among rivals.
Choosing from a more robust selection of bidders — especially those who haven’t been able to purchase these rights previously. The Power Four conferences have licensed exclusively to traditional linear broadcasters, locking out all major digital streaming companies including Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, which have significantly higher market caps, much bigger/growing advertising businesses, global distribution, and demonstrated intent, having made billion-dollar rights purchases from single sellers NFL (Amazon, YouTube Sunday Ticket) and NBA (Amazon). All while streaming (47%) has surpassed linear viewing (43%) as the preference of Americans, per Nielsen.
Creating more good games (e.g., top 25 vs. top 25, Power Four vs. Power Four), limiting Power Four schools to just one mediocre matchup per year instead of two or three currently. In 2025, out of 408 total Power Four games, only 11% (45) matched ranked vs. ranked teams. These produced 32% of season viewership.
Spreading out the best Saturday games, instead of playing many head-to-head, using the same AI scheduling software as major leagues.
Placing (and requiring cross-promotion of) all ranked vs. ranked games where all fans can watch them on the most-viewed broadcast and streaming platforms.
Expanding the schedule with:
An enhanced opening weekend (currently Week 0) featuring season kickoff double/tripleheaders on Thursday, followed by a Friday-Monday lineup; then repeating that Labor Day weekend, prior to NFL kickoff.
Conference championships moving one week later, creating a climactic final Week 16, which opens up …
A full Week 15 of additional games.
Exploring flex scheduling (improving late-season time periods of games of greater consequence, as the ACC now does), late-season CFP “play-in” games and home-and-home matchups (as implemented in the new Pac-12).
Growth beyond $14.8 billion is also highly likely, if some other approaches are adopted:
Unified college football versions of “Sunday Ticket” and “RedZone.”
Comprehensive official sponsorships, making the sport more valuable to advertisers and marketers.
New packages such as:
All “rivalry games” (e.g., Ohio State-Michigan), as well as USC-Notre Dame and Oregon-Oregon State, neither of which is scheduled to be played in 2026.
Advanced data products to stimulate bidding from betting companies, prediction markets and the companies that service them.
A new set of universal rights including short-form video, real-time and condensed highlights, exclusive creator access and IP, designed to generate competitive bidding among TikTok, Instagram (Meta), Snap and YouTube. These huge ad platforms all benefit from college football content today without making any significant investments in the sport.
Nevertheless, we are sober about predicting the media business environment eight years from now, when the major college football rights are available again, and the possibility that the industry would choose to negotiate collectively. The pay TV industry is in systemic decline. Tech companies should fill that void and more, but sports is not the core business for any of them. But, critically, viewership for entertainment content continues to fragment, and is at greater risk for disruption from AI. And, you can’t build a big TV advertising business without sports, and nothing in sports except NFL is as big as college football. With financial challenges growing, leadership should explore the single seller approach. It’s perplexing if they don’t.
Ed Desser is president of consultancy Desser Sports Media Inc. (www.desser.tv). John Kosner is president of consultancy Kosner Media (www.kosnermedia.com). Together they developed league TV strategy and ran the NBA’s media operations in the ’80s and ’90s.
