(05-03-2011 12:05 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  High risk can pay high rewards, Frank...

BTW, I've seen this conference make some "no brainer" decisions. That's why Miami, VT, and BC left. It's also why Penn State isn't a member. Don't talk to me about "no brainer" decisons, I've seen far too many of such out of Providence...

I don't think any of those were "no brainer" decisions. In the case of Miami, the school's leadership had a goal of being in the ACC for many many years. Period. The fact that the BE was a hybrid had no bearing on that decision. Once the ACC came calling, there was literally nothing the BE could do to stop them. The BE even offered a Texas-esque imbalanced revenue scheme that would've guaranteed Miami more money than what they would've received from the ACC. It didn't matter. Once that happened, then fear took over in the form of Virginia politicians pushing UVA to admit VT, too, and then BC believed that being aligned with Miami was more important than anything else (so they followed).

In the case of Penn State, JoePa wanted PSU to keep ALL of the school's football TV revenue but share the basketball revenue equally in a new Eastern league. That setup would've made UT's actions with the Big 12 look like child's play. This is the reason why an Eastern football league was never formed (NOT because of the BE's basketball focus).

I'm sure you don't see those as no-brainer decisions. But that doesn't change the fact that The BEast worked against the best interests of eastern football for many years, which is why eastern football teams are scattered among the various conferences, instead of being united...

Yep

(05-03-2011 11:23 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ... Is it worth it for the BE football schools to split if they were to make $1 million more per year in a split situation compared to a hybrid? And even if it is worth it, how much of a guarantee is it that a split league is worth more than the hybrid?

That's really the issue. Regardless of whether you personally believe that the BE should split or not, I believe all of us can agree that it's a *high-risk* move (or at least the university presidents making the decisions believe that to be the case). If you're making a high-risk move, then small or even medium-sized rewards aren't good enough - you need to see big-time rewards at the end of the horizon.

Most thought that the Pac-10, which had the 2nd smallest BCS TV deal was taking a HUGE RISK in expanding to 12 teams, plus wanting to start up their own TV deal.

So how did that "high risk" pay off for the new Pac-12?

A) Increase from $60 Million per year to almost $300 Million per year.

B) Added value of a Championship Football Game.

C) Plus, the ability to start up their OWN TV NETWORK with their own INVENTORY of games...which, will most likely add millions of future $$$$ to the conferences and team's coffers.

High-risk = VERY, VERY HIGH Reward in this case.

What do we learn from this?

Inventory is king.

Did Colorado and Utah worth $20M each after joining Pac-10 or that Pac-12 with the addition of Colorado and Utah increase the value of each member to that value? I’m sure both schools have some value but it doesn’t seem to have any connection between them and conference or anything to do with association rather a simple volume like BE basketball not because all 16 are very valuable just some of them. Look at the ACC, really? They are worth that much. Would BE football worth more with ten rather than nine?

Remember the logic that was used in the past to gauge potential candidate, the overall current value of a conference divide by the current number of member then ask if such and such candidate can bring at least that much to the table. If not they were eliminated from consideration. That logic was used in the Big Ten debate or discussion.

IMO, we need ten just to stay with Big 12-2 in term of inventory. We may not get as much as other conferences but we have equal numbers.

Something to think about

(05-03-2011 05:14 PM)SO#1 Wrote:  What do we learn from this?

Inventory is king.

Did Colorado and Utah worth $20M each after joining Pac-10 or that Pac-12 with the addition of Colorado and Utah increase the value of each member to that value? I’m sure both schools have some value but it doesn’t seem to have any connection between them and conference or anything to do with association rather a simple volume like BE basketball not because all 16 are very valuable just some of them. Look at the ACC, really? They are worth that much. Would BE football worth more with ten rather than nine?

Remember the logic that was used in the past to gauge potential candidate, the overall current value of a conference divide by the current number of member then ask if such and such candidate can bring at least that much to the table. If not they were eliminated from consideration. That logic was used in the Big Ten debate or discussion.

IMO, we need ten just to stay with Big 12-2 in term of inventory. We may not get as much as other conferences but we have equal numbers.

Something to think about

Hhhhmmmm....wonder which poster stated that a long, long, LONG time ago?

Inventory of LIVE programming (more and more viewers DVR recorded shows, skip over commercials, makes those ads worth less), along with a new Conf Championship Game a major, MAJOR factor in in this new TV deal for the Pac-12.

(05-03-2011 03:22 PM)KnightLight Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 11:23 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ... Is it worth it for the BE football schools to split if they were to make $1 million more per year in a split situation compared to a hybrid? And even if it is worth it, how much of a guarantee is it that a split league is worth more than the hybrid?

That's really the issue. Regardless of whether you personally believe that the BE should split or not, I believe all of us can agree that it's a *high-risk* move (or at least the university presidents making the decisions believe that to be the case). If you're making a high-risk move, then small or even medium-sized rewards aren't good enough - you need to see big-time rewards at the end of the horizon.

Most thought that the Pac-10, which had the 2nd smallest BCS TV deal was taking a HUGE RISK in expanding to 12 teams, plus wanting to start up their own TV deal.

So how did that "high risk" pay off for the new Pac-12?

A) Increase from $60 Million per year to almost $300 Million per year.

B) Added value of a Championship Football Game.

C) Plus, the ability to start up their OWN TV NETWORK with their own INVENTORY of games...which, will most likely add millions of future $$$$ to the conferences and team's coffers.

High-risk = VERY, VERY HIGH Reward in this case.

I wouldn't call the Pac-10's expansion high risk at all. If anything, it ended up being the more "low risk" expansion as Colorado and Utah were natural fits that the conference had been looking at for a long time. Now, the Pac-16 proposal was *massively* risky.

We need to separate what was really cause and effect. Colorado and Utah certainly added the value of a championship football game, which has been valued at $14.5 million per year (the amount Fox is paying for it for the next couple of seasons). However, to state that Colorado and Utah were the reasons why the rights fees went up from $60 million per year to $230 million per year or so is completely disingenuous. By that logic, removing that same Colorado school along with Nebraska and *dropping* a conference championship game yielded a tripling of the Big 12's second tier TV rights. I would hope no one thinks that was the case, either, or else you'd be arguing that adding Colorado can triple your rights fees and subtracting Colorado can also triple your rights fees.

If there was a risk that the Pac-12 made that caused this rise in fees, it was really putting the Pac-16 proposal out there as opposed to adding Colorado and Utah themselves. The Pac-16 basically scared the crap out of ESPN, Fox and other networks to the point where they basically want to make all of the BCS conferences happy enough financially so that superconferences don't form. With multiple conferences having TV deals up at the same time combined with the general rise in the value of sports programming (as they are DVR-proof), this caused a feeding frenzy.

(05-03-2011 05:14 PM)SO#1 Wrote:  What do we learn from this?

Inventory is king.

Did Colorado and Utah worth $20M each after joining Pac-10 or that Pac-12 with the addition of Colorado and Utah increase the value of each member to that value? I’m sure both schools have some value but it doesn’t seem to have any connection between them and conference or anything to do with association rather a simple volume like BE basketball not because all 16 are very valuable just some of them. Look at the ACC, really? They are worth that much. Would BE football worth more with ten rather than nine?

Remember the logic that was used in the past to gauge potential candidate, the overall current value of a conference divide by the current number of member then ask if such and such candidate can bring at least that much to the table. If not they were eliminated from consideration. That logic was used in the Big Ten debate or discussion.

IMO, we need ten just to stay with Big 12-2 in term of inventory. We may not get as much as other conferences but we have equal numbers.

Something to think about

Spot on. Inventory is king. Also, when we add another member, people forget that member is instantly elevated like UL, USF and Cincy did when they joined. All their new matches will be that much better. As a conference as a whole, you simply can guarantee more games to a network with 10 vs. 9.

Some people here over emphasis all that stuff about tradition, fanbase etc etc. PAC-10 and B12-2 both proved it is just mostly BS. Some here even try to claim Duke/UNC are worth than entire BE basketball Yeah right. Some even try to insult my intelligence by claiming Indiana basketball in its crappy a** state is worth more than UCONN on TV . Please....

I am glad PAC-12 and B12-2 proved all those claims are pretty much baseless. At end of the day, it is still inventory that matters.

(05-03-2011 05:27 PM)KnightLight Wrote:  Hhhhmmmm....wonder which poster stated that a long, long, LONG time ago?

Inventory of LIVE programming (more and more viewers DVR recorded shows, skip over commercials, makes those ads worth less), along with a new Conf Championship Game a major, MAJOR factor in in this new TV deal for the Pac-12.

People generally have it backwards. Inventory can have a positive effect for basketball TV rights because it's a commodity - the ratings are generally the same for all regular season games and you can plug them into virtually any time slot on any evening. That's why basketball is really the meat and potatoes for the Big Ten Network and why baseball teams with their daily nature are able to launch their own regional sports networks so well. (This is also why a split doesn't make sense on this basis, as BE basketball has a monster amount of inventory.) For football, though, inventory in and of itself is overrated. What networks are paying for with college football are premiums for large ratings - they want ratings that are consistently the tops in sports outside of the NFL. Increasing BE inventory doesn't mean that they're going to get better time slots on Saturdays from ESPN.

Frank, are you saying the Pac Tin got all that money because their basketball inventory was increased? Did their football inventory have nothing to do with it?

(05-03-2011 05:36 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 05:27 PM)KnightLight Wrote:  Hhhhmmmm....wonder which poster stated that a long, long, LONG time ago?

Inventory of LIVE programming (more and more viewers DVR recorded shows, skip over commercials, makes those ads worth less), along with a new Conf Championship Game a major, MAJOR factor in in this new TV deal for the Pac-12.

People generally have it backwards. Inventory can have a positive effect for basketball TV rights because it's a commodity - the ratings are generally the same for all regular season games and you can plug them into virtually any time slot on any evening. That's why basketball is really the meat and potatoes for the Big Ten Network and why baseball teams with their daily nature are able to launch their own regional sports networks so well. (This is also why a split doesn't make sense on this basis, as BE basketball has a monster amount of inventory.) For football, though, inventory in and of itself is overrated. What networks are paying for with college football are premiums for large ratings - they want ratings that are consistently the tops in sports outside of the NFL. Increasing BE inventory doesn't mean that they're going to get better time slots on Saturdays from ESPN.

Believe most were talking FOOTBALL inventory and Football Games...since regular season football games are the ones that bring in most of the dough (i.e. vs regular season basketball games).

That's why FOX and ESPN are forking out the big bucks...as their big prize is more FOOTBALL GAMES...and in order to get that...they have to increase their coverage of basketball and other Olympic sports for said conference.

(05-03-2011 05:41 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Frank, are you saying the Pac Tin got all that money because their basketball inventory was increased? Did their football inventory have nothing to do with it?

No, that's no what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that inventory *in and of itself* is overrated. If your inventory is high quality, then sure, that's great, but the rights premiums are much more from the quality front as opposed to the inventory front. Maximizing the assets that the Pac-12 already had (USC, UCLA, the top teams in the Bay Area and Seattle, etc.) was the main factor. To the extent that Utah and Colorado added value, it was because they are now unambiguously Pac-12 markets for the purposes of ABC and Fox for over-the-air coverage. They are also flagships that can be truly carried on to carry their states. There's no debating that Colorado carries the Denver market no matter how horrible they are in football - they carry that market as a flagship and can be reasonably expected to do so win or lose. This wasn't just a market footprint or inventory grab by the Pac-12 - the 2 schools they added are now truly Pac-12 markets. The BE expansion candidates can allow the conference to enter into additional markets, but that doesn't mean that they'll deliver them (especially if there's direct ACC or SEC competition). If there was the equivalent of Utah available on the East Coast, the BE would've added them a long time ago. There simply isn't right now, though. The Big 12, if anything, showed that inventory is NOT king - it's about leveraging your top marquee brands and markets.

Colorado doesn't carry the Denver market at the moment. They want to see a decent team, and the Buffs ain't it...

(05-03-2011 05:36 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  Spot on. Inventory is king.

If inventory is King, why is the Big 10s's TV deal 10x more than C-USA's?

It is quality that matters, not quantity. The Big 12(10) and Pac 10(12) have good quality. Flagship level schools with long pedigrees in football and/or basketball like Texas, UCLA, Oregon, Arizona, Kansas, Texas AM, USC, Oklahoma. They didn't get these huge deals just because they had 10 or 12 warm-bodies to offer.

Sorry, but networks aren't stupid. Houston and ECU won't be "instantly elevated" to anything just because we slap the Big East label on them.

(05-03-2011 06:43 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Colorado doesn't carry the Denver market at the moment. They want to see a decent team, and the Buffs ain't it...

I am not sure they ever will. Denver is pro sports town with Broncos getting way more attention than Buffs. This is the same for many PAC-10 markets including the Bay Area. This is definitely pro sports oriented with 49ers/Giants/Sharks/As/Raiders dominating the local markets.

(05-03-2011 06:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 05:36 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  Spot on. Inventory is king.

If inventory is King, why is the Big 10s's TV deal 10x more than C-USA's?

It is quality that matters, not quantity. The Big 12(10) and Pac 10(12) have good quality. Flagship level schools with long pedigrees in football and/or basketball like Texas, UCLA, Oregon, Arizona, Kansas, Texas AM, USC, Oklahoma. They didn't get these huge deals just because they had 10 or 12 warm-bodies to offer.

Sorry, but networks aren't stupid. Houston and ECU won't be "instantly elevated" to anything just because we slap the Big East label on them.

Seriously? You are comparing CUSA to BCS conferences? I am sure even you know the difference

(05-03-2011 07:06 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  Seriously? You are comparing CUSA to BCS conferences? I am sure even you know the difference

Quo was disputing the statement that inventory is king. Apparently inventory is not king in that case.

(05-03-2011 06:58 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 06:43 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Colorado doesn't carry the Denver market at the moment. They want to see a decent team, and the Buffs ain't it...

I am not sure they ever will. Denver is pro sports town with Broncos getting way more attention than Buffs. This is the same for many PAC-10 markets including the Bay Area. This is definitely pro sports oriented with 49ers/Giants/Sharks/As/Raiders dominating the local markets.

I agree with Denver being a pro sports town, but there are few major markets that aren't outside of the Southeast. The threshold is more whether a college team can carry a market or interest that's at least comparable to a non-NFL pro sports team. (Comparing the NFL versus anything else is pretty much going to be landslide no matter where you are outside of maybe Jacksonville.)

In that respect, I believe Colorado fits that criteria. The Buffs aren't ever going to be more popular than the Broncos, but can they draw interest in line with the Nuggets or Avalanche? Absolutely - they've proven that before. They certainly can be counted on to deliver the Denver market and guarantee that ABC will always show a Pac-12 game there over a Big 12 game more than, say, BC delivering Boston.

One of the Pac-12's advantages that I've mentioned before but probably underestimated is that it has a complete BCS monopoly in its footprint. With the addition of Colorado and Utah, it is the only BCS league located in the entire Pacific and Mountain Time Zones. In contrast, every other conference has to compete directly with at least 2 other BCS conferences in their respective footprints. In the case of the Big East, it's competing in the footprints with all of the other BCS conferences except for the Pac-12.

(05-03-2011 09:55 PM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 07:06 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  Seriously? You are comparing CUSA to BCS conferences? I am sure even you know the difference

Quo was disputing the statement that inventory is king. Apparently inventory is not king in that case.

Perhaps I should have made it more clear that inventory for BCS conferences is king here. I always have stated the differences between all the BCS conferences in quality of play is nowhere a big gap like some have claimed here. SEC/B11 is always overhyped while BE/PAC-10 is always under hyped.

OTOH, quality of play between BCS and non-BCS is pretty huge. MWC closed the gap before all the defections, but that was the only non-BCS conference even came close.

PAC-12 is showing that its their turn to get paid.

(05-03-2011 10:34 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 06:58 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  

(05-03-2011 06:43 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Colorado doesn't carry the Denver market at the moment. They want to see a decent team, and the Buffs ain't it...

I am not sure they ever will. Denver is pro sports town with Broncos getting way more attention than Buffs. This is the same for many PAC-10 markets including the Bay Area. This is definitely pro sports oriented with 49ers/Giants/Sharks/As/Raiders dominating the local markets.

I agree with Denver being a pro sports town, but there are few major markets that aren't outside of the Southeast. The threshold is more whether a college team can carry a market or interest that's at least comparable to a non-NFL pro sports team. (Comparing the NFL versus anything else is pretty much going to be landslide no matter where you are outside of maybe Jacksonville.)

In that respect, I believe Colorado fits that criteria. The Buffs aren't ever going to be more popular than the Broncos, but can they draw interest in line with the Nuggets or Avalanche? Absolutely - they've proven that before. They certainly can be counted on to deliver the Denver market and guarantee that ABC will always show a Pac-12 game there over a Big 12 game more than, say, BC delivering Boston.

One of the Pac-12's advantages that I've mentioned before but probably underestimated is that it has a complete BCS monopoly in its footprint. With the addition of Colorado and Utah, it is the only BCS league located in the entire Pacific and Mountain Time Zones. In contrast, every other conference has to compete directly with at least 2 other BCS conferences in their respective footprints. In the case of the Big East, it's competing in the footprints with all of the other BCS conferences except for the Pac-12.

Then you need to tell me how PAC-10 got such crappy media deal previous to this. BE is screwed pretty much the same way. PAC-12 is getting paid and I have maintained that BE will get paid huge as well while some here have claimed BE is lucky to double its current $36M laughable TV contract.

The problem is you are focusing way too much on just the local markets. Most of these games will be on nationally and many will be watched by folks outside of teams' immediate media markets.