San Diego State Univ. earlier this month announced a 10-year deal with Fox Sports to manage the school's multimedia rights and sponsorship deals, and the school "will benefit in ways both obvious and subtle," according to Tod Leonard of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. SDSU Associate AD/External Relations Steve Schnall did not provide financial terms of the deal, but he said that the athletic department was “getting an immediate 30-percent bump in annual rights fees over the previous 10-year agreement with its former partner, Learfield Sports.” Schnall said Fox’ rights payment would “double that of Learfield’s over the decade.” A source said that the “initial annual revenue from the Fox deal” is more than $2M. SDSU could also “receive a much larger financial benefit if it reaches thresholds that trigger the sharing of revenue with Fox.” Schnall: “It’s not likely to happen in the first couple of years because this is a new project, but I think we’ll get to revenue sharing during the course of the deal.” Leonard notes Fox “started with only USC as a client” in ‘12. Since then, Fox has “signed up Georgetown, Villanova, Michigan State, Auburn and the Big East.” The “common factor” in those schools is that they are all from Power Five conferences. In what could “look like a nice coup years from now, SDSU became the first Group of Five program to work with Fox" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 2/23).
