ESPN to pay $80M/yr to broadcast the Big12/SEC Champions bowl. Add to that

[Hateful Hokie]

the Rose Bowl also got $80MM. i've heard they expect the "access bowls" to fetch ~$200MM annually as a package deal on average over the course of 12 years, and the championship game could be in the $100-120MM range. all told, even if the ACC only gets $60MM (on the low end IMO, but we'll see), the total post season package for the 6 bowls and the championship game could easily be in the $520-550MM/year range for 7 games. compare that to the $180MM the 5 BCS bowls generated last year...it's a lot of friggin money that will likely see ~70-80% stay with the 5 contract leagues. insanity.

Yeah, but where does that revenue come from? How many commercial does ESPN get in a 3-hour game? 75? Just to make back the initial $80 mm payout would require over $1 million per ad.

Dirty math:

You'll have about 20 million views for that game, maybe--if you're very lucky. The Super Bowl had 111 million viewers. That's 5.5 times more than the expected viewership of the Champions Bowl. The average Super Bowl ad was $3.5 million in 2012, which is 3.2 times more than the $1,066,000 average BCS ad. I just don't see how the numbers work, but obvioulsy someone thinks they do.