ESPN rights fees skyrocket for college football playoff

• ESPN's rights fees are expected to jump dramatically with the new college football playoff format
• NBC NFL analyst Tony Dungy draws high marks for trustworthiness in a celebrity recognition poll
• NBC Sports Network will import three announcers from Speed Channel when it takes over F1 coverage

College football's attempt to create a championship playoff seems a bit more complicated than getting things done in medieval Europe. Back then, you could get a prince from one duchy to marry a princess from another and maybe everybody got on the same page.

But as ESPN this week locked up TV rights through 2026 for Sugar and Orange bowl games that will host some semifinals in the four-team playoff format beginning with the 2014 season, college football might finally end up with a playoff in less time than it took to build some medieval cathedrals.

That the new system will fetch huge TV rights fee increases is a gimme putt. No matter how old you are, big-time TV rights fees have gone up throughout your lifetime. And with sports becoming the only programming reliably immune to viewers watching at their (tape-delayed) convenience and zipping through the ads -- which are, after all, the whole point of TV -- then college football's new playoff will cash in.

ESPN is the only TV outlet that has publicly expressed interest in the six bowls and one title game that will replace the current Bowl Championship Series package of four bowls and one title game. ESPN now pays about $125 million annually for its four BCS bowls and title game. Sports Business Daily estimates ESPN will end up paying $608 million annually for the new package of six bowls and the title game. If so, that's a 386% increase.

Whatever the total for that new seven-game package, ESPN will pay more for the three bowls in the new deal it signed than it pays for its current BCS package: The Rose, Sugar and Orange bowls, in the new deals, will cost $215 million annually.

Yikes. Especially as the difference is just two semifinal games between the current five-game BCS package and new seven-game package. As it stands in this year's BCS rankings, those semis would be Oregon vs. Notre Dame and Kansas State vs. Alabama. Would those games really be worth hundreds of millions?

What's also left to do is figure out a new name -- "Bowl Championship Series" will be ditched -- and decide who will be on the committee that will select the teams for the semifinals. Plus, the BCS needs to pick three more bowl sites -- to bring the total to six -- with the Fiesta, Chick-fil-A and Cotton Bowls as likely candidates. Those bowls, like the Sugar, Rose and Orange, would occasionally host semifinal games.

That's the simple version. And rather than mentioning anything medieval, the better analogy might be this -- byzantine.

Public trusts: Among prominent on-air NFL TV types, the biggest trend-setter is Fox's Erin Andrews. The best-known is Fox's Terry Bradshaw. The least-known: ESPN/ABC's Kirk Herbstreit. The most-trusted: NBC's Tony Dungy. And the public's trust of Fox's Troy Aikman is comparable to its trust in actor Jack Nicholson.

Says who? Says you. At least according to the Davie-Brown Index from The Marketing Arm, a Dallas-based research firm that measures public perceptions of about 2,900 celebrities. Based on weekly interviews with 1,000 consumers who are meant to represent the U.S. population, the index tracks about 2,500 celebs and measures whether the public can identify their name or picture.

About 83.3% can identify Bradshaw, compared to 20.6% for Herbstreit. (John Madden, still a video game superstar but gone from NFL TV games, is recognized by 85.7%.) Respondents who can identify the celebs are then asked if they would trust them, would be influenced by them or aspire to live their lives. In that category Dungy leads across the board.

Andrews, while recognized by just 30.8% of the public, is tops as a "trend-setter" at 71.8% compared to 44.8% for Fox colleague and lead game announcer Joe Buck. (CBS Sports lead announcer Jim Nantz is at 61.2% in the "trend-setter" rating.) Andrews' trust levels are comparable to actor Liam Neeson, who has saved lots of people in daring rescues -- in the movies. Buck's lower trust levels are comparable to those of actor William Shatner.

After scandals involving stars such as Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong, "Trust in sports people has definitely taken a hit," says Matt Delzell, a Marketing Arm managing director. But announcers, he says, are pretty safe: "They're likable because they kind of float along. They can't say anything really controversial because then they'd be shunned by leagues and players. And they can't lose games."

Let's not go overboard about ESPN: The blogosphere's obsession with ESPN is understandable, as it generates so much TV and radio tonnage that it's a constant source of gotcha moments for lampooning online.

But consider ESPN's reach, which in cyberspace is often described as almost god-like. As when awfulannouncing.com recently opined that "the national sports discussion is ESPN and what ESPN's talking about dictates and reflects what sports fans are talking about" and "almost everything you know and hear about sports is filtered through ESPN."

Wow. Now consider ratings. ESPN last Saturday, loaded with college football in a month when overall TV viewing levels are high, averaged 1.4% of U.S. cable/satellite TV households. ESPN2 averaged 0.4%.

The five NFL TV game slots on Sunday and Monday night are so far averaging 10.7% of all U.S. TV households -- for a ratings total of more than half the USA. That suggests people just might be hearing something about sports that isn't being filtered through ESPN.

Vrrroooom: When the NBC Sports Network cable channel inherits Formula One racing from Speed Channel next March, it will import three of Speed's F1 race-callers -- British announcers Steve Matchett and David Hobbs and Australian native Leigh Diffey. Some of the races will be called from race sites, while others will be called off the world TV feed. Diffey, replacing the retired Bob Jenkins, will also call NBCSN's IndyCar races.