Part 1 – Where Did Little League Media Rights Originate?

The year is 1982, Kirkland National Little League from Washington State has just won the Little League World Series in dramatic fashion shutting out Taiwan 6-0 in a previously unwinnable game according to the media and everyone who had been following the overage accusations of Taiwan since 1969.

ABC had taken over the broadcasting rights from CBS for the Little League champoinship game in 1960 and had been delivering the Little League world series on television in a live or tape delayed fashion since paying media rights revenue to Little League on a game by game basis ever since. Once the drama unfolded in 1982, this gave Little League the leverage to demand more from television coverage. As a result, Little League and ESPN signed a deal that would guarantee that the Champoinship game of the Little League World Series would be continued to be broadcast on the networks of ESPN and ABC from 1983 onward.

Fast forward to 2001. Little League secured a new Media Rights contract, more lucrative than any other youth sports organizaion, with ESPN allowing for the expansion of the Little League World Series from 8 to 16 teams. Little League built Volunteer Stadium and the addition of living quarters, with the yearly $1.25 Million contract to accommodate the additional games and ESPN began broadasting Regional Champoinship games for all eight of the United States regions at the 12 year old division alone.

At this point in time, Little League Charter fees, at the time were $18 U.S. Dollars per regular season team were assessed to each league participating in regular season chartered Little Leagues. The revenue generated from the Charter fees alone was $2.4 Million U.S. Dollars in 2001 which accounted for twice the amount of revenue generated by the ESPN Media Rights deal.

In 2001, the Bronx Little League scandal took hold and the 14-year-old Danny Almonte was eventually the catalyst for the Bronx NY team being disqualified after the World Series had been completed marking the most impactful scandal in Little League history, consequently in a contract extension year with ESPN.

This was the beginning of the Media Rights stranglehold on Little League beginning in 2001.

This is the first in a series of blog posts that will expose the relationship and financials between ABC/ESPN/Disney and Little League International.