While JMU Athletics has recently been no stranger to the spotlight, the Dukes have previously struggled to find a streaming service to launch JMU into a national brand. As the Dukes transition to the Sun Belt, JMU joins the conference’s partnership with ESPN, earning the university about $100,000 per year, according to USA Today.
ESPN+ may be a new platform for the Dukes, but the success of JMU’s past endeavors with College GameDay and a smattering of nationally televised games on ESPN suggests the partnership will be successful.
“College athletics, if you’re talking from a brand standpoint, it’s about relevancy,” Kevin Warner, JMU assistant athletic director for communications, said. “What makes you the most relevant in the sports landscape? That’s ESPN … It’s no secret that most people are still consuming their sports content on ESPN.”
JMU’s history with ESPN
When it comes to national exposure on ESPN, FCS teams get limited opportunities compared to their FBS counterparts. The FCS typically has national broadcasts on ESPN and ESPN2 for the quarterfinals and semifinals of the FCS playoffs, and ABC broadcasts for the FCS Championship and Celebration Bowl.
“If you look at the analytics from our FCS playoff appearances, we were always on that upper-tier of the other schools in the FCS,” Warner said. He coordinated the 2015 and 2017 College GameDays featuring JMU with ESPN. “Even our College GameDay appearances were higher than a lot of FBS schools in terms of the viewership numbers.”
College GameDay’s visit to JMU in 2017 drew 1.8 million viewers, trailing only the opening weekend matchup between then-No. 1 Alabama and then-No. 3 Florida State for the most-watched College GameDay broadcast of that season. The Dukes finished No. 2 in the FCS that season, losing to North Dakota State in the National Championship.
According to HeroSports’ data for the 2021 FCS Playoffs, the Dukes drew 666,000 viewers on ESPN2 for their quarterfinal matchup against Montana and cracked 1,150,000 viewers on ESPN2 against North Dakota State, a Friday night game in the semifinals. For all 2021 college football games, ESPN averaged 1,733,000 viewers and ESPN2 averaged 643,000 viewers. The 2019 FCS Championship between JMU and NDSU had 2,680,000 viewers on ABC — the most-watched FCS game of all time.
National exposure
Seven Sun Belt football games eclipsed a million viewers on ESPN networks and ESPN+ during the 2020 season. In July 2021, the Sun Belt extended its partnership with ESPN through 2031. The new deal increases the number of the conference’s football games shown on TV in addition to streaming on ESPN+ by 50%, with 40% more games broadcast on Saturdays, per the Sun Belt’s July 21, 2021, press release.
With over 22 million ESPN+ subscribers as of May 2022, JMU student-athletes will have more eyes on them than ever before, which could lead to name, image and likeness
(NIL) opportunities.
“The value you’re bringing from an NIL standpoint is all about your exposure,” Warner said. “If a brand were to want to partner with you, what visibility do you bring that brand? That has to do with what kind of stage you’re playing on, what attention you’re getting based upon your achievements, and it can tie in a little bit of personality.”
Former JMU softball pitcher Odicci Alexander gained visibility from ESPN’s coverage of the 2021 Women’s College World Series (WCWS). She’s amassed more than 96,000 Instagram and 33,000 Twitter followers to date and signed an endorsement deal with Under Armour in August 2021.
“None of that happens without ESPN,” Warner said. “Look at how many people were talking about Odicci Alexander … There was tremendous talk about that Women’s College World Series run.”
JMU Athletics events were originally live-streamed on the free service MadiZONE. In 2019, the CAA signed a four-year, seven-figure deal with FloSports to become the first conference to make a direct-to-consumer streaming service its primary media partner. Of the 10 CAA-member schools, JMU was the only one that opposed the deal, according to the Daily News-Record.
“To go from a free consumer model to a model that was charging over $12 a month, we thought was really going to hurt our brand and hurt our fanbase,” Warner said. “We had a model where we felt like we were making revenue and maximizing how many people could watch it versus a model where the league revenue significantly increased.”
The FloSports paywall negatively affected JMU’s viewership on the platform compared to its viewership on MadiZONE, Warner said. As reported by the Daily News-Record, the Dukes averaged 7,186 viewers for home football games broadcast on MadiZONE from 2015 to 2018. JMU’s average viewership for home football games dropped to 4,851 on FloSports from 2019 to 2021. ESPN+ charges $6.99 per month, almost half the price of FloSports.
“The product when we’re on ESPN+ — from a James Madison standpoint — the viewer is going to get the same product they’ve been receiving in terms of the product itself,” Curt Dudley, JMU director of broadcast services emeritus, said. “The biggest difference is the delivery platform. You had FloSports, which was not user-friendly and not a very popular brand, versus ESPN+, which is user-friendly and is a popular brand and comes with a lot of weight to it.”
JMU Athletics events will no longer air on NBC Sports Washington as they did previously under FloSports. Instead, any TV broadcast will air only on ESPN networks.
“Their support has been really helpful as we’ve grown,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said of the conference’s “tremendous” partnership with ESPN. “I do think it will be an asset for JMU and do think it will be something great for their fans in terms of, it will be kind of easier to find things.”
JMU Athletics hired Corey Spector as its broadcast coordinator beginning in 2021 and brought on Kelly Bowmaster as director of live productions this spring. Both were brought on to raise the quality of JMU Athletics’ broadcasts, which Dudley said helped build JMU’s internal production operation.
Furthermore, Dudley said, JMU Athletics plans on increasing its number of broadcasts, which means it’ll need multiple commentators, producers, camera operators and other media personnel to broadcast multiple games simultaneously.
The increase in broadcasts produced by JMU on ESPN+ will bring attention to some of the less watched sports, like golf, which the Sun Belt Conference produced, Gill said — “not every conference does that.” Tennis, Gill said, can be seen on ESPN+ but not always on linear TV.
Beyond athletics, Warner said that JMU as a university will benefit from increased exposure on ESPN.
“This partnership with ESPN is not just a sports thing,” Warner said. “It brings tremendous visibility for James Madison University and people around the country noticing us.
Contact Logan Skinner at skinnela@dukes.jmu.edu. For more sports coverage, follow the sports desk on Twitter@TheBreezeSports.
