IMG was close to completing the acquisition of Host Communications late last week in a deal that would bring the collegiate multimedia rights owned by Host under the same IMG College Sports umbrella with Collegiate Licensing Co.
Host, founded in 1972 and a pioneer in collegiate sports marketing, controls some of the nation’s most prestigious properties, including Texas, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, Nebraska and Kansas.
Terms of the negotiations weren’t available, but word of IMG’s pursuit of Host spread throughout the industry last week. Since acquiring CLC in May and creating a College Sports division headed by senior vice president Pat Battle, it was believed that IMG would seek ways to deepen its presence in the college space.
With Host, IMG would own marketing and media rights to 11 schools and an array of other associations and conferences, including the Southeastern Conference.
IMG’s negotiations with Host also prompted the question, “What’s next?” Will IMG pursue other rights holders? It already owns the SEC’s licensing rights through CLC, and the acquisition of Host would give it marketing/promotional rights. Would IMG, a leader in sports programming and distribution, try to position itself as a potential partner to the league if the SEC forms its own network?
Many marketers in the college space have wondered if a company might try to consolidate the rights that are so fragmented in the collegiate space, either through a merger of rights-holder companies or a series of acquisitions. From marketing and promotional rights to licensing rights to stadium signage and media, sponsors seldom have the ability to cover all of that territory with a single call.
“This was more a matter of when than why,” said Relay Worldwide CEO Wally Hayward. “There’s tremendous opportunity for anyone that can make it one-stop shopping to activate those powerful college assets.”
But the conversation over consolidation can’t take flight without Learfield and ISP, which hold the rights to about 40 colleges each. Both are privately held and both say they are not available for purchase.
Greg Brown, Learfield’s president, said “under no circumstances” would the owners be interested in selling. Ben Sutton, ISP’s founder and CEO, was similarly adamant that his company was not for sale.
“I’m in it for the long haul,” Sutton said.
Other rights-holder targets could include Nelligan Sports (Louisville, Rutgers and West Virginia) and CBS Collegiate Sports Properties (Virginia, LSU, Maryland and Arizona State).
Perhaps the two most valuable sets of rights — Ohio State and Florida — are handled mostly in-house, but they also present the greatest opportunity if either school put its rights up for bid.
David Brown, Ohio State’s associate athletic director for marketing, anticipates that the Buckeyes’ rights will stay in-house for the foreseeable future. In fact, the athletic department has been adding resources to aid its sales staff, Brown said. The school generated more than $13 million in revenue from radio rights fees, coaches TV shows, corporate sponsorships, pouring rights and other marketing and apparel income.
Action Sports Media might be the most readily available entity. While Action CEO Gordon Whitener wouldn’t go so far as to say the company is for sale, he has hired a representative to field buyer inquiries, he said. Knoxville, Tenn.-based Action owns rights to the signage at 22 collegiate venues, including Rupp Arena and both the stadium and arena at South Carolina.
“I’m sure IMG is looking for ways it can become more involved with the entire collegiate marketplace,” said Doug Paschal, vice president and general manager of CBS Collegiate Sports Properties. “They’re obviously trying to augment what they’ve already acquired in CLC.”
The other way to aggregate rights is to win them school to school as those contracts come up for bid, but that would take some time given the long-term length of these multimedia contracts, which typically range from six to 10 years and sometimes longer.
Staff writer Terry Lefton contributed to this report.
