Here is a thought--what if conferences hung on to more than just their tier 3 rights for their conference networks? Rather than sell tier 2 rights to FOX, ESPN, NBC etc what if they kept them in house and made all the profits themselves? My thoughts are a conference like the SEC would have an SEC1 and SEC2 channel. SEC1 gets the tier 2 stuff while SEC2 gets the tier 3. Now I'm not talking about keeping the arrangement for the current SEC Network that they partnered with ESPN to create but a new, 100% conference owned network. What this could do is limit the supply available for the networks, driving up the cost of the Tier 1 rights.
Now here is where I might be getting too theoretical. What if the SEC were to snatch up control of more inventory to strengthen their negotiating position. Pull in 10 more schools, 2-4 from the Big 12 and 6-8 from the SEC. Create a Solid South where you control all of southern college football. You essentially set up two conferences of 12 teams. NCAA rules simply state that to hold a title game each team has to play everyone in their division. In SEC East you have two 6-team divisions (A & B) whose winners play in Atlanta. In SEC West you also have two 6-team divisions (X & Y) whose winners meet in New Orleans. Both the SEC East and SEC West champs would be near locks for playoff berths as only the Big Ten and Pac 12 champs and a strong Notre Dame team could lay claim to spots--What's left behind in the Big 12 and ACC would largely be treated like a tweener conference.
I'd structure scheduling such that you played your 5 division opponents, 3 cross division games (A vs B, X vs Y), and a potential/optional 9th game against someone from the other conference within the SEC League structure. You could use this last game to preserve Auburn vs Georgia and Alabama vs Tennessee (if not achieved in the initial SEC East/SEC West Divison structure) but for most everyone else it would be on a rotational basis.
As far as who to take:
Big 12--essential: Texas and Oklahoma
possible: Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, Kansas, and WVU
ACC--essential: Florida St, Clemson, a NC school (UNC preferred), a VA school
Possible: Georgia Tech, Miami, Louisville, Duke, the other VA school
Mega conferences have all kinds of financial benefits already and it's already a greed driven mess.
Under a B1G/PAC merger, you would have between 24-30 schools with plenty of content to be distributed on the B1G network (which I assume would take precedence over the PAC network). I'm not sure how it would work getting out of ESPN/FOX, but the lineup is certainly intriguing.
East
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Central
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Rice
Texas
Wisconsin
West
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah
Washington
Washington State
(10-23-2017 10:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: [ -> ]Under a B1G/PAC merger, you would have between 24-30 schools with plenty of content to be distributed on the B1G network (which I assume would take precedence over the PAC network). I'm not sure how it would work getting out of ESPN/FOX, but the lineup is certainly intriguing.
East
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Central
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Rice
Texas
Wisconsin
West
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah
Washington
Washington State
B1G-Pac was only going to be 24 schools but yes, this is the same concept. The premise with my Mega SEC proposal is the same--dominate your region so that if you want to the rights to college football content you are going to have to go through us and pay the premium we demand. Maintaining control of the Tier 2 in house adds to the scarcity. Aside from the early weeks of the season when the big conferences are hosting a lot of G5 and FCS and thus having more home games, this SEC league is going to have about 12 games a week available to broadcast. The best 4-5 become your Tier 1 package that you sell as a whole or piece meal to CBS/ESPN. SEC1 airs noon, 3:30, and 7:30 EST games, as does SEC2. You can also toss a weekly Thursday and/or Friday night SEC1 game.
(10-23-2017 09:38 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]Here is a thought--what if conferences hung on to more than just their tier 3 rights for their conference networks? Rather than sell tier 2 rights to FOX, ESPN, NBC etc what if they kept them in house and made all the profits themselves? My thoughts are a conference like the SEC would have an SEC1 and SEC2 channel. SEC1 gets the tier 2 stuff while SEC2 gets the tier 3. Now I'm not talking about keeping the arrangement for the current SEC Network that they partnered with ESPN to create but a new, 100% conference owned network. What this could do is limit the supply available for the networks, driving up the cost of the Tier 1 rights.
Now here is where I might be getting too theoretical. What if the SEC were to snatch up control of more inventory to strengthen their negotiating position. Pull in 10 more schools, 2-4 from the Big 12 and 6-8 from the SEC. Create a Solid South where you control all of southern college football. You essentially set up two conferences of 12 teams. NCAA rules simply state that to hold a title game each team has to play everyone in their division. In SEC East you have two 6-team divisions (A & B) whose winners play in Atlanta. In SEC West you also have two 6-team divisions (X & Y) whose winners meet in New Orleans. Both the SEC East and SEC West champs would be near locks for playoff berths as only the Big Ten and Pac 12 champs and a strong Notre Dame team could lay claim to spots--What's left behind in the Big 12 and ACC would largely be treated like a tweener conference.
I'd structure scheduling such that you played your 5 division opponents, 3 cross division games (A vs B, X vs Y), and a potential/optional 9th game against someone from the other conference within the SEC League structure. You could use this last game to preserve Auburn vs Georgia and Alabama vs Tennessee (if not achieved in the initial SEC East/SEC West Divison structure) but for most everyone else it would be on a rotational basis.
As far as who to take:
Big 12--essential: Texas and Oklahoma
possible: Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, Kansas, and WVU
ACC--essential: Florida St, Clemson, a NC school (UNC preferred), a VA school
Possible: Georgia Tech, Miami, Louisville, Duke, the other VA school
The short answer is--eventually--"yes".
The networks today simply function as a middle man. Since the beginning of the television era, TV networks provided the only wide distribution exposure available. There was no choice for college sports if they wanted wide public distribution. You had to sell your rights to a network as the cost of creating your own television network was huge. The barrier to entry was far too expensive. Your choice were to "sell your TV rights to the networks" or "dont be on tv".
Early on, with just a few networks, the networks had most all the leverage. However, that changed as more and more national cable networks came on line. As streaming eventually becomes the primary method of television consumption, that will again change. The barrier to creating a streaming network is virtually non-existent. Almost anyone can do it.
The reality is TV networks will only pay conferences the value of the TV rights minus production expenses and minus a healthy profit. A conference can never get full value of their rights from a middle man. Conferences can only get the FULL value of their rights by keeping the rights themselves and eliminating the "profit" portion of that equation. They do this by creating thier own streaming networks.
This is going to happen. My only question is will this eventually be conference streaming networks controlling these rights or will it become each individual school controlling thier rights via school based streaming networks. I think it will be the latter, because that works best of the king pin power schools and they typically control how this type of thing evolves.
(10-23-2017 11:11 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: [ -> ]The reality is TV networks will only pay conferences the value of the TV rights minus production expenses and minus a healthy profit. A conference can never get full value of their rights from a middle man. Conferences can only get the FULL value of their rights by keeping the rights themselves and eliminating the "profit" portion of that equation. They do this by creating thier own streaming networks.
This is going to happen. My only question is will this eventually be conference streaming networks controlling these rights or will it become each individual school controlling thier rights via school based streaming networks. I think it will be the latter, because that works best of the king pin power schools and they typically control how this type of thing evolves.
The correct question is not whether a college conference can get "full" value for their media rights, it's how can the conference get the most money that they can get for themselves. And we are a long way away from sports fans gravitating to a conference network the way they gravitate toward ESPN and OTA networks.
Here's an analogy: Suppose that you own the rights to the best vacuum cleaner ever made. You could start your own chain of vacuum cleaner retail stores, and your own website, and sell your vacuum cleaners exclusively through those channels, and keep 100% of the net profit. Or, you could instead make a deal to allow existing retail outlets to sell your vacuum cleaners and also sell them over the internet via Amazon. The latter option could make you more money, even if Amazon and retail stores get a cut of the profits, because you might get 10 times or 100 times as many shoppers looking at your vacuum cleaners.
(10-23-2017 11:30 AM)Wedge Wrote: [ -> ] (10-23-2017 11:11 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: [ -> ]The reality is TV networks will only pay conferences the value of the TV rights minus production expenses and minus a healthy profit. A conference can never get full value of their rights from a middle man. Conferences can only get the FULL value of their rights by keeping the rights themselves and eliminating the "profit" portion of that equation. They do this by creating thier own streaming networks.
This is going to happen. My only question is will this eventually be conference streaming networks controlling these rights or will it become each individual school controlling thier rights via school based streaming networks. I think it will be the latter, because that works best of the king pin power schools and they typically control how this type of thing evolves.
The correct question is not whether a college conference can get "full" value for their media rights, it's how can the conference get the most money that they can get for themselves. And we are a long way away from sports fans gravitating to a conference network the way they gravitate toward ESPN and OTA networks.
Here's an analogy: Suppose that you own the rights to the best vacuum cleaner ever made. You could start your own chain of vacuum cleaner retail stores, and your own website, and sell your vacuum cleaners exclusively through those channels, and keep 100% of the net profit. Or, you could instead make a deal to allow existing retail outlets to sell your vacuum cleaners and also sell them over the internet via Amazon. The latter option could make you more money, even if Amazon and retail stores get a cut of the profits, because you might get 10 times or 100 times as many shoppers looking at your vacuum cleaners.
That's a good analysis and a good analogy. I enjoy being able to watch SEC teams play as much as the next guy. But I would never subscribe to an SEC channel. In fact, I doubt I would subscribe to any conference owned channels. I could live with whatever games get picked up ala carte by the OTA stations, even if that means I get to watch less football.
Wedge--I like your vacuum cleaner anology but what we would be looking at in my expanded SEC proposal is that the SEC would literally be the only vacuum store in the entire South. I think that control of the product means that they still make a killing.
You could have two options for service--
Traditional cable subscriber fees
An annual fee for streaming service (sort in the same thread that you can pay Direct TV for NFL Sunday Ticket and get all of the out-of-market games--you pay a flat rate to get a year of streaming on your ROKU for the SEC channels)
(10-23-2017 10:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: [ -> ]Under a B1G/PAC merger, you would have between 24-30 schools with plenty of content to be distributed on the B1G network (which I assume would take precedence over the PAC network). I'm not sure how it would work getting out of ESPN/FOX, but the lineup is certainly intriguing.
East
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Central
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Rice
Texas
Wisconsin
West
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah
Washington
Washington State
Interesting.
One question. Where the hell did Rice come from? Talk about a program that has no business being involved in that discussion. Since it seems to be a Mega B1G/PAC/XII conference, you'd be better off with TCU or TT, or even OSU.
Other than that, sign me up!
(10-23-2017 11:44 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote: [ -> ] (10-23-2017 10:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: [ -> ]Under a B1G/PAC merger, you would have between 24-30 schools with plenty of content to be distributed on the B1G network (which I assume would take precedence over the PAC network). I'm not sure how it would work getting out of ESPN/FOX, but the lineup is certainly intriguing.
East
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Central
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Rice
Texas
Wisconsin
West
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah
Washington
Washington State
Interesting.
One question. Where the hell did Rice come from? Talk about a program that has no business being involved in that discussion. Since it seems to be a Mega B1G/PAC/XII conference, you'd be better off with TCU or TT, or even OSU.
Other than that, sign me up!
I was on the fence with that selection as well. It was purely an AAU/Texas market choice, which would benefit the B1G schools. Texas Tech/Baylor/TCU do not appear that they would fit in with the B1G/PAC set-up, whereas Texas/Kansas/Oklahoma/Iowa State all do. It can easily be switched out for another school.
(10-23-2017 11:43 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]Wedge--I like your vacuum cleaner anology but what we would be looking at in my expanded SEC proposal is that the SEC would literally be the only vacuum store in the entire South. I think that control of the product means that they still make a killing.
The SEC channel would be the exclusive outlet for SEC sports, but not the exclusive outlet for college football. Just like, in the vacuum cleaner analogy, you could sell your vacuum cleaners exclusively through your own stores, but shoppers could buy any other kind of vacuum cleaner from Amazon or Target or Bed Bath & Beyond or wherever the heck people buy those things.
The SEC-only outlet would get a lot of subscribers in the south, but there will always be a lot of people who don't want to pay a separate "extra" fee when programs are unbundled (i.e., when they can't just pay for ESPN or for their cable bill), and I think we would all be surprised how many fans just won't pay if there is a significant separate fee. I read an article several months ago about English soccer fans who just don't buy the Premier League packages from Sky and British Telecom because they don't want to pay an extra $20 a month. They just watch the games that are still on "free" TV and maybe check the scores of other games on a sports website. And English fans have lots of other soccer options (even though their first choice is likely Premier League); they can watch games from all of the other major European leagues. Just like college football fans in the south could still watch non-SEC football games on ESPN or Fox or wherever even if all SEC games are on an SEC channel that requires a separate subscription fee.
(10-23-2017 11:30 AM)Wedge Wrote: [ -> ] (10-23-2017 11:11 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: [ -> ]The reality is TV networks will only pay conferences the value of the TV rights minus production expenses and minus a healthy profit. A conference can never get full value of their rights from a middle man. Conferences can only get the FULL value of their rights by keeping the rights themselves and eliminating the "profit" portion of that equation. They do this by creating thier own streaming networks.
This is going to happen. My only question is will this eventually be conference streaming networks controlling these rights or will it become each individual school controlling thier rights via school based streaming networks. I think it will be the latter, because that works best of the king pin power schools and they typically control how this type of thing evolves.
The correct question is not whether a college conference can get "full" value for their media rights, it's how can the conference get the most money that they can get for themselves. And we are a long way away from sports fans gravitating to a conference network the way they gravitate toward ESPN and OTA networks.
Here's an analogy: Suppose that you own the rights to the best vacuum cleaner ever made. You could start your own chain of vacuum cleaner retail stores, and your own website, and sell your vacuum cleaners exclusively through those channels, and keep 100% of the net profit. Or, you could instead make a deal to allow existing retail outlets to sell your vacuum cleaners and also sell them over the internet via Amazon. The latter option could make you more money, even if Amazon and retail stores get a cut of the profits, because you might get 10 times or 100 times as many shoppers looking at your vacuum cleaners.
I agree we arent there yet---but we are heading that way. The issue with the streaming conference network is you have to already desire the product to seek it out. You doint just stumble onto streaming games on subscriber based networks. That probably doesnt matter early in the process because the big consumer base already exists, but not having the games widely available for free to the mass audience means you cut off one major avenue for building potential future viewers. That could cause issues down the road for this model. So, you might see a hybrid concept where a small package of rights (say one game a week) are sold to mass audience outlets while the majority of the rights are reserved for the conference (or schools) streaming network.
To be fair, the vacuum cleaner anology might be a little off. If there were only a few hundred vacuum cleaners to sell, would Walmart still be the best way to maximize the profit?
(10-23-2017 11:44 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote: [ -> ] (10-23-2017 10:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: [ -> ]Under a B1G/PAC merger, you would have between 24-30 schools with plenty of content to be distributed on the B1G network (which I assume would take precedence over the PAC network). I'm not sure how it would work getting out of ESPN/FOX, but the lineup is certainly intriguing.
East
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Central
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Rice
Texas
Wisconsin
West
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah
Washington
Washington State
Interesting.
One question. Where the hell did Rice come from? Talk about a program that has no business being involved in that discussion. Since it seems to be a Mega B1G/PAC/XII conference, you'd be better off with TCU or TT, or even OSU.
Other than that, sign me up!
I know it's all hypothetical, but if the intention is to cover the Houston market then the University of Houston would be a better non-P5 choice than Rice. And any of TCU, Texas Tech or Oklahoma State would probably get the nod over Iowa State.
Also where is USC?
A NFL type network "deal" 4 the SEC/BIG/ACC/Big 12/Pac 12
could easily happen by 2024
![[Image: 1-MoneyHand020208.jpg]](http://www.thetruthdenied.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/1-MoneyHand020208.jpg)
(10-23-2017 12:18 PM)HHOOTter Wrote: [ -> ]A NFL type network "deal" 4 the SEC/BIG/ACC/Big 12/Pac 12
could easily happen by 2024
WAY too many egos involved for that to ever happen. It will be cold day in hell before the Alabamas and tOSUs agree to equal sharing with the Iowa States and Baylors of the world.
If anything you'll see a couple conferences merging to share programming thru conference networks. Probably something involving streaming rights as well.
(10-23-2017 12:52 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote: [ -> ] (10-23-2017 12:18 PM)HHOOTter Wrote: [ -> ]A NFL type network "deal" 4 the SEC/BIG/ACC/Big 12/Pac 12
could easily happen by 2024
WAY too many egos involved for that to ever happen. It will be cold day in hell before the Alabamas and tOSUs agree to equal sharing with the Iowa States and Baylors of the world.
If anything you'll see a couple conferences merging to share programming thru conference networks. Probably something involving streaming rights as well.
The Mountain West gives schools a bonus when they appear on a big network. You could do the same with Mega SEC and give bonus payments each time a school appeared on the Tier 1 package. That gives the big players a little extra while still keeping the rest of the league content.
I thought Wedge was about to give my answer and then veered a bit.
If I am a university president and I look at the serious financial modeling done (I'm assuming they are now at the point that they do detailed studies) what I see if I vote for taking control of the rights is this.
Made up numbers for simplicity.
Best case scenario the conference nets $200 million per year if we retain and market the rights ourselves.
But because there are always variables the range of possible outcomes might look more like -$25 million on the bad side and +$200 million on the positive side.
Outcomes with at least a 15% chance of happening range from +$80 million to $200 million.
The most probable outcome might be +$185 million.
The television partners are offering $175 million and assuming all the risk.
Most university presidents are going to be more than happy to let the TV partners assume the risk and take the guaranteed money.
B1G and Pac-12 are the only high revenue leagues doing self-produced and they are doing with a less valuable subset of their content and in the case of B1G only owning 49% of the project.
Now P12 and B1G may view this as a toe in the water to better determine the risk or way to capitalize while hedging their investment with their sale of rights to conventional television.
But it will always be appealing to sell your rights and transfer the risk to another party.
I was wondering what if larger conference networks aired other conferences? Say the BTN aired BE basketball games? The two conferences geographies almost completely overlap. The B1G are the large state schools and the BE is the smaller city schools in that same region. It would draw more attention to the network as well as draw in more casual regional fans to BE games.
Another interesting one would be airing CUSA and Sun Belt games on a SECN.
It could work I guess with say a partnership between the BTN and P12N where the Pac-12 would produce the games and the BTN would air them.
(10-23-2017 10:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: [ -> ]Under a B1G/PAC merger, you would have between 24-30 schools with plenty of content to be distributed on the B1G network (which I assume would take precedence over the PAC network). I'm not sure how it would work getting out of ESPN/FOX, but the lineup is certainly intriguing.
East
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Central
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Rice
Texas
Wisconsin
West
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah
Washington
Washington State
Oklahoma, Utah, Oregon State and Washington State will not be added since they are not AAU schools.