MISSOULA — Conference realignment around the nation has been driven primarily by lucrative media rights, particularly multi-billion-dollar deals signed by the largest conferences in recent years.
As the demand for live sports has been increasing, the Big Sky Conference has been boosting its media rights portfolio. The league signed a deal with ESPN in 2021 to nationally televise a handful of games across football and basketball while streaming hundreds more contests on ESPN+.
The deal was extended for five years in 2025, giving the Big Sky an increase to four nationally televised football games. The first of those is No. 5 Montana hosting No. 8 Idaho at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
With more nationally televised games and easier, more reliable streaming through ESPN+, as well as a renewed deal with regional TV broadcaster Scripps, Big Sky teams and their fans have plenty of reasons to smile.
However, a different, similarly recent change has meant that Montana is making less in conference media rights fees than two decades ago.
That stems from a 2018 decision by the Big Sky Joint Athletic Council, which changed how the conference media rights money was distributed, as voted on by the athletic directors and approved by the university presidents.
Prior to that change, rights fees for live broadcasts of conference athletic contests were divided 60 percent to the host institution, 35 percent to the visiting institution and five percent to the conference.
After that change, the rights fees for live broadcasts of conference athletic contests were divided in equal shares to each member school and the conference office. Affiliate members each received a half share.
“The vote from the conference (was) to distribute everything equally,” Montana athletic director Kent Haslam told the Missoulian and 406 MT Sports about a change that doesn’t appear to have been previously reported anywhere.
“In the past, the rights were distributed benefiting the host team. You were given a bonus for being the host or for driving that revenue.
“For example, the Griz-Cat rights that are paid by Scripps to get that football game, Idaho State and Northern Colorado, they’re making the same amount as we’re making. So that’s the significant change.”
Jim O’Day, who was UM’s athletic director from 2005-12, said the Brawl of the Wild, the crown jewel of football conference games, had gotten a bid of about $100,000 from KPAX in his time. That meant $60,000 for the Griz when they hosted, $35,000 to MSU and $5,000 to the Big Sky.
Now, a $100,000 bid would mean $8,333.33 to each of the 10 members and the Big Sky office, and $4,166.67 to each of the two affiliate members. That would equate to a loss of over $51,000 for Montana, which O’Day said averaged around $100,000 per year in conference media rights in his tenure
Over a two-year period, things would even out for UM and MSU as one team got $60,000 and the other $35,000 on alternating years if the $100,000 bid was the same, Big Sky senior associate commissioner Jon Kasper explained.
That evening out would occur over those two years for every team Montana played when the conference was small enough to play everybody. That was no longer the case in 2012 when the Big Sky expanded from nine to 13 teams.
However, not every game got a bid as high as the Brawl. So although things evened out between Montana and, say, Idaho State over two years before expansion, the money they each got from that game was less than the rivalry.
O’Day said UM’s other Big Sky games got a bid of about $10,000 each. He recalled a game at Eastern Washington televised by the local ABC station being for only $2,500, which amounted to a mere $875 for the road team.
Some Big Sky teams didn’t always have games broadcast on TV back then, O’Day said. When they played Montana, Montana State or one of the few other teams broadcasting a game, those might’ve been the only times all football season they got media rights revenue from the conference.
“We divide everything equally,” Haslam said. “I’ve shared my opinion on whether that’s fair or not, but it’s voted to be distributed equally. So that’s an area that we rely on the conference to grow that revenue for us.”
He expanded on that: “I understand why there’s some equal distribution of some items, like ESPN+, everybody’s got the same amount of work to do in that, but I’ve always felt like that the linear rights should reward those schools who drive the value in those rights.”
The Big Sky’s deal with ESPN to televise and stream games has been a boon. The revenue has jumped up considerably compared to its previous deals with Root Sports, Eleven Sports and Pluto TV, and the availability of games has increased with no blackout restrictions for streaming.
When the Big Sky signed its first ESPN deal for the 2021-22 school year, Montana reported $83,183 in conference media rights that fiscal year. It became $77,768 the next year and $74,743 the year after that.
Those numbers were back to near the $76,808 the Griz got in 2017 before the distribution change, which then led to their share dropping to $18,500 in 2018 and $20,633 in 2019. They had gotten $83,335 in 2016 and $89,883 in 2015.
The percentage each school gets will go up next year even while the league expands, losing Sacramento State and adding Southern Utah and Utah Tech. The two new schools will get zero dollars from conference media rights deals with ESPN and Scripps, which run through 2029-30. That was part of their membership agreement to join the Big Sky, commissioner Tom Wistrcill said.
The dollar figure each returning member would get under the new deals was set to go up even before the percentage increase with one less member. The Big Sky’s most recent deals with ESPN and Scripps have each come with an increase in media rights revenue, Kasper said, although he noted that the conference doesn’t release specific dollar figures.
“We’ve delivered some pretty strong numbers for ESPN,” he said. “Both in the viewership on ESPN+ and on their linear broadcast, that yes, we warranted an increase in rights fees from them and they paid that. We are making more in media rights than we ever have and it’s not even close.”
UM’s reported revenue gives a glimpse into the overall dollar figure from all companies televising league games, which goes beyond ESPN and Scripps and includes SWX, KMAX, CW Sacramento and others. Not that it’s a surprise, but it’s nowhere near the multi-billion-dollar deals like the Big Ten, SEC or ACC.
The Big Ten reportedly distributed media rights in the low $50 million to each of its 12 longtime schools in 2024, while newer entrants are phased in. That figure is nearly double Montana’s total operating revenue for its entire athletic department, which was $28,659,832 in fiscal year 2024.
Earlier this year, the ACC settled a lawsuit with Florida State and Clemson in which 40 percent of TV revenue is evenly distributed among all conference members and the other 60 percent is based off every team’s viewership.
In another unequal distribution model, the Mountain West reportedly pays out $3.5 million to each school each year, with headliner Boise State getting an extra $1.8 million.
Dollar figures and distribution models for FCS conferences aren’t as publicly available, so comparisons are difficult to find. In one example, North Dakota State signed a three-year, $1.2 million football television deal in 2016, according to an athletic department news release.
Wistrcill said discussions of changing the distribution model have been brought up about three times by athletic directors or presidents in his nearly seven years leading the conferences. It has never made it to a vote.
“The question is, having unequal distribution, does that impact your conference in a negative way,” Kasper said. “Should a conference be equal since we’re all trying to achieve the same things? The conference, we have no say in that. We abide by what our schools vote and approve.”
Each Big Sky school still retains the TV rights for its nonconference home games and gets to keep 100 percent of that revenue. In the Grizzlies’ case, Haslam said they grant those to Learfield, their multimedia rights partner.
Money from those rights falls under a different line item on the revenue and expense report that includes sponsorships, licensing agreements, advertisements and more. The Griz have grown that area substantially, going from $897,816 in fiscal year 2015 to $3,298,672 in 2024.
That category has become the third-largest area of self-generated revenue. It sits behind contributions and ticket sales, the latter of which is the biggest driver of revenue for UM, which is the least subsidized athletic department in the Big Sky.
The Griz set a record in ticket sales the past three years and hit $6,667,306 in fiscal year 2024 (2023 football season). To Montana, that is of more importance than conference media rights.
“Every dollar is important but it’s not moving us like it would move other schools in other conferences,” Haslam said of TV rights. “You’re getting at the crux of why conference realignment is so frenzied.
“Part of the issue we face is the bulk of our revenue is generated off of ticket sales and value of multimedia rights. We have to have our fans get in their cars and drive here from Billings and Butte.
“We can’t have them staying home and watching games on TV because revenue generated off of TV is not enough to make up for the loss in ticket sales if they didn’t show up. That’s the real conundrum that we’re in.”
Frank Gogola is the Senior Sports Reporter at the Missoulian and 406 MT Sports. Follow him on X @FrankGogola or email him at frank.gogola@406mtsports.com.
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