This Saturday at noon ET, ESPN is televising its first college football game of the season… from overseas. During the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, where No. 10 Florida State will take on Georgia Tech, the crew of Joe Tessitore, Jesse Palmer, and Katie George will be live from Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland calling the action.
For the first time in its 37-year history, College GameDay Built By The Home Depot — which precedes the game — will broadcast from an international location. The pregame show will come to audiences live from College Green outside Trinity College in Dublin.
This exciting broadcast speaks to college football’s global popularity and ESPN’s unwavering commitment to college sports. It’s also an example of the kinds of big events that brands want to be associated with through The Walt Disney Company’s powerful advertising engine.
When the game begins and the 2024-25 College Football season kicks off with it, fans and advertisers will witness the company’s “continued global embrace of college football,” Rita Ferro, President of Global Advertising at Disney, said. “Disney Advertising is excited to help our advertisers create impactful connections with sports fans worldwide, celebrating the sport’s dynamic reach and universal appeal.”
Multinational Production, International Expansion
ESPN serves sports fans anytime, anywhere. This weekend that means Dublin, but the whole world is a field for ESPN and college sports.
“Acquiring global rights to our collegiate events has long been a priority” for ESPN, Nick Dawson, Senior VP of Programming & Acquisitions, said. Dawson and his team negotiated both ESPN’s recent College Football Playoff media rights extension through the 2031-32 season, and the network’s deal with NCAA on an eight-year media rights agreement.
“We want to continue to grow interest in college sports internationally given the increase in foreign born student-athletes that participate,” Dawson said. “Showcasing those performances as part of championship level events via the CFP and NCAA deals is a natural fit and an important piece of our international collegiate offering.”
Being a part of The Walt Disney Company doesn’t hurt, either. Due to distribution that Disney can reach on its owned platforms and via syndication, ESPN is available to a wider global audience.
Long-Term Stability for Consumers and Advertisers
Fans can expect these types of broadcasts from ESPN for a long time to come.
“Sports is core to our business, and we recognize the significance and cultural resonance that these games have with audiences year-round,” Ferro said. “Our legacy of leadership in the marketplace directly translates to the longevity of our brand relationships – with double-digit increases in multi-year deals this Upfront, a testament to our reach and impact.”
ESPN is bringing the most essential of must-watch college sports programming to its audience, like the College Football Playoff and 40 NCAA championship events over the next eight years.
Because there’s only a finite amount of championship games to broadcast, “to have the opportunity to strike long-term agreements to extend our partnership with these two entities and make ESPN the continued home into the early 2030’s of nearly every major collegiate national championship event was special,” Dawson said.
While ESPN is going where the biggest sporting events are, it’s also making those events available wherever the fans are.
“In addition to serving as a pillar of our live event sports content on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, we have three linear networks that are fully devoted to college sports in ESPNU, SEC Network and ACC Network, and college sports is by far the largest supplier of live events for ESPN+ annually as well,” Dawson said. “Ensuring that we buttress that robust regular season offering with the pinnacle moments of these sports (i.e., the national championships) was critical, both from a programming perspective and in terms of maximizing our ability to drive ad revenue and distribution value.”
Fans and advertisers will both know that Disney has a long commitment to college sports, and that ESPN is a place they can come to for engaging with their favorite sporting events.
“Inviting Brands to be Part of the Story”
“Live sports are an attractive conduit for advertisers to reach consumers in real time and are important drivers in the direct-to-consumer space,” Dawson noted. “In addition, sports fans are filled with passion and loyalty that translates to so many of our businesses.”
ESPN is leading the way in making those deals with leagues across established popular sports, championship level games, and areas finding a broader appeal than ever before.
One example is women’s sports, “which have exploded in popularity both with fans and advertisers,” Dawson said. “Our investment with the NCAA positions us at the forefront of driving continued growth in women’s sports.”
ESPN is continuing its evolution to further extend its lead as the top outlet serving sports fans, both on linear networks, but also into the digital future, where the brand enjoys a bountiful number of ways to connect with consumers.
“From the power of ESPN (linear, digital, social and DTC), to the broad reach of ABC, and the various other touch points we can offer across TWDC, our partners value the reach and brand power we are able to bring to the table and the impact we are able to have on the growth and exposure of their brands and content,” Dawson said.
For college football alone, that’s translated to more than 265 total advertisers across over 100 categories for Disney. Among those, nearly 30 have multi-year deals, with 3 coming since this year’s Upfront presentation.
Some of those brands that look to advertise on ESPN’s college football broadcasts are Home Depot, Allstate, and PepsiCo. Much like Disney, those companies represent leading companies with heightened brand recognition in their industries. And they all want to be a part of the sports story that Disney is telling.
“Sports have the power to unite, inspire and engage audiences across the world,” Ferro said. “These timeless moments and shared experiences resonate deeply with fans, staying with them for a lifetime — and we’re inviting brands to be part of the story.”
