• by Wayne Friedman , December 6, 2005

With big brand-name college football teams making it into post-season bowl games, ESPN and ABC's upcoming Bowl Championship Series--college football's version of playoffs--is looking to cash in.

Ed Erhardt, president of ESPN/ABC Sports customer marketing and sales, reports that BCS bowl series is in a strong advertising position with 85 percent to 90 percent of its inventory sold out.

Major title sponsorship packages are priced at around $1.8 million for a 30-second commercial in each of the four bowl games--the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Orange Bowl--according to media agency executives. That is a 5 percent to 7 percent increase on the BCS price of a year before.

Big-priced naming rights have been set for some time: Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Nokia Sugar Bowl, FedEx Orange Bowl, and the Rose Bowl presented by Citi.

Now, with less than a month to go, ESPN/ABC will be looking to sell smaller BCS packages and one-off commercials. Media agency executives say the Rose Bowl spots are priced around $500,000 a 30-second; the Orange Bowl is about $400,000; Fiesta Bowl is commanding $250,000; and Sugar Bowl is looking for around $200,000 a spot. Buying spots in all four would mean a $1.35 million price tag.

"Selling the last 15 percent is the hardest," said Larry Novenstern, senior vp and director of national broadcast for Deutsch Inc. "The first 50 percent comes from endemic advertisers, the Anheuser-Buschs', and others."

ESPN has about two-and-a-half weeks to sell the remainder of the time--as most media agencies will probably shut down on December 23rd. But Novenstern says with the last two bowl games played Tuesday, January 3 (FedEx Orange Bowl) and Wednesday, January 4 (Rose Bowl), advertisers have an extra day or so to make a decision as to whether to buy the event.

Advertisers who might make a late move would be doing so in the first days of the first quarter 2006 scatter-selling period--which could spell trouble for some media sellers. "There are big gaps in the first quarter to fill--such as with NBC, that needs to sell a couple of hundred million dollars for the Olympics," said Novenstern.

Traditional sports programming doesn't come with ratings guarantees, with the exception of the Olympics. But media buying executives say it is possible to get a household--not demographic--rating guarantee from ESPN for the BCS.

More than in previous years, ESPN's Erhardt is crowing that big brand-name college football teams will make this year's crop of games the most alluring and competitive for viewers in some time. "You have all the traditionally strong football teams doing well," he says. "College football continues in great demand."

Besides top teams such as USC and Texas playing in the Rose Bowl, there are other historically strong college football teams--Notre Dame and Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl; and Penn State and Florida State in the Orange Bowl. Other top teams that have been in and out of the BCS standings this season have been Alabama, Auburn, and UCLA. This season, TV sports programs have been a big attraction for advertisers, garnering significantly higher cost per thousand (CPMs) price increases--5 percent to 7 percent--than entertainment programs sold in the upfront, where price changes ranged from decreases of 3 percent and 4 percent at NBC to 5 percent increases at ABC.