(05-11-2017 01:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-10-2017 02:58 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-10-2017 02:29 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(05-10-2017 01:15 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-10-2017 01:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  This gets overlooked far too often on these boards.

It is all about the Branding.

Duke is a medium size private college - but they have built a NATIONAL Brand.

Oklahoma is a football brand. Regardless of what you think of Oklahoma, Nebraska, the B1G or the Big 12, an Oklahoma-Nebraska football game, especially if it was a conference game, is a NATIONAL event. Oklahoma, by virtue of being Oklahoma, draws eyeballs, even from viewers with no ties to Oklahoma or whatever conference they are in. Same with Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, etc.

I'd agree with this. While I was an early adopter of the importance of large markets for conference expansion and realignment, it doesn't take away the disproportionate value of large national brands (even if they might be located in smaller markets), as well. In 2009, most people mistakenly didn't even think of the value of large markets and just wanted "What have you done for me lately?" hot names on-the-field/court. Those people weren't looking at how much conference networks were changing how revenue is earned. However, in 2017, it has almost switched around where people (at least the conference realignment observers among us) are being blinded by markets for the sake of markets to the point where they're somehow undervaluing schools like Oklahoma football and Kansas basketball. I can't say this enough: THE BIG TEN WOULD TAKE OKLAHOMA AND KANSAS IMMEDIATELY. THERE IS NO DEBATE ABOUT THE NATIONAL VALUE OF THOSE FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL PROGRAMS (RESPECTIVELY). (And if the Big Ten would add them, you can surmise that any of the SEC, Pac-12 and ACC would add them.)

Beyond Oklahoma, the strength (or lack thereof) of Kansas football is completely irrelevant because it is one of maybe 4 to 6 schools where the basketball program is so prestigious and nationally-renowned that it completely overrides any other concerns. (The only others are Kentucky, UNC, Duke, and maybe Indiana and UCLA.) Kansas basketball is simply a VERY special case here when it comes to conference realignment. Comparing them to even very high-level basketball programs on the next tier (e.g. Louisville, UConn, etc.) is different - even those next tier schools need some type of football competency to be attractive. In contrast, those 6 other schools that are the bluest of the blue bloods (including Kansas) that I've named can go 0-12 in football every year and it legitimately doesn't matter because they can single-handedly prop up their leagues' respective basketball schedules. Note that basketball is actually pretty important programming for conference networks because that provides the the day-to-day programming that keeps the lights on for several months per year.

The conference network really set us toward the end of "market" because the issue became how many cable/sat subscribers can they deliver at the in-state price. Rather than the Nielsen markets it became the state as a market.

If we move away from a carriage fee economy to a subscription economy national brands with large and motivated fan bases become the gold standard.

Now it is going to be how many ESPN subscribers can you deliver at $45 a month? How many conference network subscribers can you deliver at $30 a month? How many seven day pass subscribers can you deliver at $20?

The answer for OU and KU is the same as the answer is for Nebraska, Michigan and Ohio State. A LOT.

If those are the right questions going forward, then the "little brothers" of OU and KU are not in a good position at all.

And if that business model lasts long enough, the likes of Ohio State, Texas, and Alabama will ask for a revenue stream that reflects their own power to attract subscriptions, rather than letting all that money flow into a pool shared by all of their conference-mates. Either they each get their own deal, or the distribution within the conference will look something like La Liga in Spain, where more than half of the TV revenue goes to two teams (Barcelona and Real Madrid) out of the 20 in the league.

I think the big difference between the Big 12 versus the Big Ten/SEC, though, is that the markets are distributed much differently. There's a reason why the Big Ten and SEC went to even distribution of conference revenue: it's because schools like Tennessee and Vandy are important to a school like Alabama since it's garnering revenue in Nashville and the rest of that state, and schools like Illinois and Northwestern are important to a school like Ohio State since it's garnering revenue in the Chicago market (the most important market in the Big Ten by far) that the Buckeyes otherwise wouldn't be monetizing. Every single school in the Big Ten has some combination of a large home market, top academics and/or top athletic brand. (The most valuable schools of them all have all three attributes, such as Michigan, Florida and Texas.) The same can be said for the SEC with the exception of maybe Mississippi State. Virtually everyone in the Big Ten and SEC is bringing *something* of value to the table, which is why they are much more open to sharing revenue evenly.

The Big 12 is much different since Texas delivers the conference's best academic school, biggest recruiting territory for football (and every other sport, for that matter), the largest number of TV households by far (including the league's 3 largest TV markets f Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio) and top national athletic brand all combined into one. It's no wonder why Texas is able to extract an "eat what you kill" revenue deal from the Big 12 on third tier rights - there's nothing close to the power that Texas has relative to its other conference mates compared to every other league.

To a point, yes. But Alabama doesn't need both Tennessee and Vandy to "be in" Tennessee, Michigan doesn't need both Indiana and Purdue for that purpose, etc. They've agreed to share media revenue equally for now. One reason the kings are willing to do that, for now, is because of their sources of other revenue. They sell out stadiums of 90,000-plus, they rake in obscene amounts from donors every year, but those revenue streams may have already plateaued. The kings may not see attendance drops, but to keep the seats filled now that everyone can stay home and watch 30 games each Saturday in HD, they may have to hold the line on pricing while still finding ever more revenue to keep up with their top competitors. They may not be satisfied forever with 1/14 of the media revenue.