Byron Allen: ‘Historic Deal’ HBCU GO Deals With the SWAC, CIAA ‘Long Overdue’
HOUSTON, TEXAS – Byron Allen believes his Allen Media Group’s partnership of free digital streaming platform HBCU Go with SWAC and CIAA are landmark deals. Few can disagree.
The importance of these long-standing HBCU athletic entities, established over 100 years ago—Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1912 and Southwestern Athletic Conference in 1920—is significant. Corporate America and major broadcasters have ignored or failed to recognize the economic benefits of membership at HBCU conferences.
Comedian and television producer Byron Allen, founder and CEO of Entertainment Studios, sued Comcast and Charter Communications for racial discrimination. Xxx Business Series Hosted By Paul Brunson053 Jpg Usa Ca; Photo credit: © Robert Hanashiro, USAT
For example, State Farm, Procter & Gamble, United, Wells Fargo, Invesco QQQ, Tyson Foods, and Cricket Wireless are some companies that have sponsored HBCU-related sporting events. Nonetheless, the record with the three and four letter broadcast networks has an overwhelming track record with HBCUs – for many years.
AN HBCU GO-TYPE PARTNERSHIP “LONG OVERDUE”
The SWAC agreement with HBCU GO is a “long-term partnership to strengthen and expand the sports floor program,” Byron Allen told me. “This is the support that is long overdue to help them get the attention, the revenue they need to fund these programs, the schools and ultimately the education of these children. It is a very important deal and a historic deal.”
For HBCU conferences, history can stretch all the way back to 2022 when the media began recognizing the value of partnering with Jackson State, Florida A&M, Grambling, Southern, Howard, Southern, or South Carolina State brands. On the other hand, removing years of Madison Avenue disenfranchisement would require commissioners, presidents, and athletic directors to make transformative decisions for these brands.
HBCUs have been offered three choices over the years. First, we don’t do business with you. Second, we’ll reassure you with a touch of support – just enough to keep you calm. Third, corporate boardrooms will invite HBCUs to the table and strike new lucrative deals.
Question. Are we already there?
TO COMPARE OR NOT TO COMPARE, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Following this week’s mega-announcement of the $7 billion Big 10 television rights deal with FOX, CBS and NBC, are the HBCU conferences poised to jump into similar long-term deals?
The media mogul noted he was “very proud” to have signed the multi-year deal with SWAC but declined to disclose the financial terms of the new alliance. “I can’t share the details. But it’s a long-term partnership that we both are [SWAC and HBCU GO] very excited,” Allen said.
A source told me it was a 10-year, $120 million agreement between SWAC and HBCU GO. I contacted the SWAC conference office to verify the details. A representative would only confirm that the SWAC has signed a multi-year distribution deal with Allen’s free-streaming platform.
Allen confirmed some details from our first conversation in February 2022. “We made a deal with them [SWAC] for over 2000 live sporting events. This is football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s volleyball, other sports; it’s everything, the whole spectrum.”
HOW HBCUs ARE WATCHED WITH HBCU GO, CBS
On August 16, Allen Media Group officially announced that HBCU GO will distribute conference content through CBS-owned and operated duopoly stations after signing separate distribution partnerships with SWAC and CIAA. Additionally, HBCU GO has secured distribution with captive broadcasters including Nexstar, Gray, Cox, Scripps, Tegna, Sinclair, Lockwood, Allen Media Broadcasting, Hearst, Circle City Broadcasting, McKinnon Broadcasting, Cowles, Graham, Block, Sun Broadcasting , Tougaloo College , Sagamore Hill and Marquee.
“These games will be some of the first games ever to be broadcast digitally and over cable simultaneously,” Allen noted. “So that will be on the HBCU GO streaming app and the Grio streaming app, Local Now, SPORTS.TV and over-the-air broadcasts. This is the syndication we’ve put together to host for TV networks with CBS Nexstar, Gray, Cox, Scripps, Tegna, Sinclair, Lockwood, Allen Media Broadcasting, Hearst, Circle City Broadcasting, McKinnon Broadcasting, Cowles, Graham, Block, Sun Broadcasting, Tougaloo College, Sagamore Hill and Marquee and our cable network. The Grio has more than 50 million homes for more than 50 million homes.”
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A few weeks ago, AMG (Allen Media Group) acquired Black News Channel (BCN) and its assets for an alleged $11 million from bankruptcy. Allen converted and merged BCN into The Grio. “Anyone who wants to watch an HBCU game will have no trouble accessing it digitally, over the air, and via cable. It’s 100 percent penetration across the board,” Allen explained.
IMPACT AND REACH OF HBCU GO FOR SWAC AND CIAA
SWAC and CIAA grant HBCU GO the rights to the sporting events of their conferences for transmission via cable, linear, streaming, broadcast, VOD [video-on-demand}, and pay-per-view. Syndication becomes a possibility for HBCU GO to be packaged in future deals for distribution on other networks. For clarity, neither AMG, Allen, nor the SWAC verified with HBCU Legends that the conferences would or would not receive revenue from syndication of their content on HBCU GO.
Byron Allen mentioned the CBS deal would place HBCU GO in “approximately 60% of all US households, and approximately 67% of all African American households.”
The HBCU GO platform will have a global reach for HBCU sports fans to access games and events.
Even Jackson State’s head coach understands how this will impact the families of the young men on his football team. Deion Sanders was very candid with Allen and told him, “We need some support. These young kids are here and they want their mamas to see them play. So we’re help them to make sure their mamas can see them play,” Allen exclaimed.
ARE HBCUs NOW IN A POSITION OF POWER?
“We’ve gone from zero to now a deal has been done. Is it a multi-billion dollar deal? It is not. Have they [HBCUs] there and available for over a century and decades? Yes. Were they ignored? Yes. We’re beginning the process of reversing that.”
Allen continued, “The biggest trade deficit in America is the trade deficit between white corporations in America and black Americas. In 2022, why will Byron Allen be the first person to take sports content and bring it to digital broadcast and cable, and drive the conversation to enable distribution and economic integration for HBCUs? Some pretty big companies out there that haven’t seemed to care so far.”
He’s right. HBCUs are now appealing to advertising agencies to seek new partnerships and promote the so-called “black agenda” among their client’s consumers. As compelling as it may seem, business and profitability must become the central concerns for the SWAC, CIAA, MEAC, CIAC and other HBCU conferences and their member institutions.
Should HBCUs and their fans embrace these deals today, later, or at all?
It’s not my place to say that.
One thing is clear. Now is the time for the conferences to capitalize and take a position of power to dictate the new partnership terms. If they don’t, it will be the same old business as usual for historically black colleges and universities.
During our conversation, Byron Allen told me that Dr. Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, once shared this wise statement. “The greatest weapon we have is the truth.”
Will the truth give HBCUs the freedom to control and direct the economics of their media rights and future businesses? Will the commissioners Dr. Charles McClelland (SWAC) and Jacqie McWilliams (CIAA) keep their respective conferences protected and profitable? And will HBCU GO help revolutionize HBCU esports in SWAC and CIAA? Once again, Byron Allen thinks it would.
We will see.