• Adweek, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 12:01 AM

Perhaps nothing illustrates ESPN's rapacity quite like the college football bowl season. After blowing Fox Sports out of the water with a $500 million bid, ESPN won the rights for the Bowl Championship Series through 2014. It now plays host to 33 of the 35 bowl games, including the Oregon-Auburn title match on Jan. 10. And here's the corker: Despite the towering expenses associated with hosting the BCS games, ESPN could air the championship event commercial-free and still walk away fat and happy.

In exchange for its broadcast feed and hi-def simulcast, Bristol charges cable and satellite operators an average of $4.40 a month per subscriber, according to SNL Kagan data. Multiply that by 99.8 million subscribers, over 12 months, and ESPN's annual affiliate revenue haul works out to be $5.27 billion.

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