'It's going to be good business' - former ESPN president makes prediction that will irritate fans of the Tennessee Vols and every other major college football program

Skipper says pay-per-view could be coming to ESPN for top-tier college football games. 

"Get ready for something else that you will love, which is - and they've already done it on ESPN+ - if you want to watch the really high-profile boxing or UFC match, you've got to pay extra," Skipper said. "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 that we're going to charge an extra $4.99 for that game. It's called pay-per-view, but 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 big pay-per-view event. I've got other long-standing takes that are wrong, and this could be as well, but as they struggle with delivering the growth to the shareholders, they're going to say, 'how else can we make money?'"

On one hand, I can see why ESPN execs might think that gouging fans with another fee could be a financial success.  People indeed pay up because they want to see spectacles, and top-level college football is on that level of excitement. And fans have shown a willingness to accept fees on multiple different streaming services to get a number of college football and NFL games. Imagine putting the Third Saturday in October on pay-per-view.  If there was no other choice, Tennessee and Alabama fans would pay. 

However, the problem with Skipper's logic is that many other casual fans wouldn't.  The beauty of college football is fans tune in to watch games between teams they don't have a vested interest in because it's simply top-level entertainment. Same for NFL primetime games.  But if you make those same fans pay for it?  They're not going to tune in. 

Advertisers aren't going to be willing to shell out big money to the same degree if millions of eyeballs are getting shaved off of the viewership figures because the network got greedy.  When the top college football games are drawing 8-12 million, hat's a business model that simply won't work. 

As such, don't expect to have to shell out extra dough to watch the Vols play their biggest games in the near future despite what ESPN's former boss might project.