Are we heading toward big college football games being available exclusively on pay-per-view via direct-to-consumer streaming services? Former ESPN president John Skipper says yes.
Appearing on Pable Torre Finds Out, Skupper discussed ESPN’s upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service, named ESPN. Among the topics covered was how the service will make money.
Skipper, who has long believed that the Super Bowl will become a pay-per-view exclusive, feels that big college football games will go down that road, as well.
“They’ve already done it on ESPN+,” Skipper said. “If you want to watch the really high-profile UFC match or a high-profile boxing match, you gotta pay extra. I will bet you this app has the capability to say, ‘You know, we would love to give you that Alabama-Georgia game free, but we decided this year we’re going to charge an extra $4.99 for that game.’ It’s going to be good business. People think pay-per-view has to be a big boxing match, a big UFC match. We’ve talked on this show before that the Super Bowl will be a pay-per-view event.”
Former ESPN president John Skipper says he can see college football games turning into PPV on the new ESPN streaming service. 😧
“I will bet you this app has the capability to say, ‘We would love to give you that Alabama-Georgia game free, but we decided this year we’re going to… pic.twitter.com/pPhEmAxacU
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) May 16, 2025
Torre then remarked that the Super Bowl eventually becoming a pay-per-view event is a “longstanding take” of Skipper’s.
“I got other longstanding takes that were wrong,” Skipper said. “This could be as well. But I’m consistent. But you’re going to have, as they struggle with delivering the growth to shareholders, they’re going to say, ‘How else can we make money?’”
While there’s certainly some validity in what Skipper is saying, there are also some holes in his logic.
One, events like boxing and UFC have long been featured on pay-per-view. That’s not the case with the kind of college football games he’s talking about. Sure, ESPN+ will cover games between smaller conference teams or maybe big conference matchups between teams far down in the standings. But games like Georgia and Alabama have long been available on network TV or widely-distributed cable TV stations, like ESPN.
Two, we also have to wonder what kind of a market there might be for regular-season college football games. Georgia and Alabama will generate huge viewing numbers. But if it’s a game people have to pay to see, the market gets cut significantly. A college football fan may tune into Georgia and Alabama on ABC. But if you’re not a fan of Georgia or Alabama, how likely are you to pay for it?
This is particularly relevant now, in an era of a 12-team (and likely expanding) College Football Playoff. If Georgia and Alabama are hands down the best two teams in the country, then they’ll certainly both be in the CFP. Furthermore, in that specific example — and in any example between two conference opponents — a regular-season matchup could be the first of three that we see that season.
That doesn’t automatically mean that Skipper is wrong. But given the backlash that a move like this would generate and the diminishing returns, it seems likely that even if he is right, the change will be short-lived.
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