(05-26-2012 02:23 PM)johnbragg Wrote: (05-26-2012 02:09 PM)attackfrog Wrote: (05-26-2012 01:55 PM)johnbragg Wrote: (05-26-2012 10:03 AM)CougarRed Wrote: If we have 14 members at 8 conference games, that means:
56 conference football games
56 nonconference games
Of the 56 nonconference, some will be on the road. Assume 38 of them (67%) are home games. Of those 38 home games, assume 26 are against FBS competition.
So that's a legit TV inventory of 82 games. Max TV inventory of 94 games. Plus the conference title game.
Surely there are 13 compelling matchups out of 82 games for an NBC game of the week.
So make a list of 13. Then see if you can read the list with a straight face and say "These are ESPN-quality matchups." Because NBC certainly isn't going to pay big money to have worse matchups on a given Saturday afternoon or night than ESPN-U does.
Or they will show what? ....NBC will counter with lumberjack competitions?
Every week every network must counter program against the SEC games of that week. With a straight face, can you say every weeks Big-12 or ACC, or Pac-12 matchup is as good as the SEC match-up?
The Big East will be able to place a an interesting match-up every week. No, it wont be Texas vs Oklahoma, but its likely to spark more interest than Kansas vs Baylor (post RGIII).
Whatever the matchup, it will score at least half the SEC rating and thats around what they will be paying the Big East.....and it will beat ax off the lumberjack competition (except in Oregon).
If they can get say 100,000 viewers with a lumberjack competition that they spend $50,000 for, that's $0.50 a viewer. That's actually more profitable than a football game that 500,000 people watch that they spend $2,000,000 for. That's $4 a viewer.
Will they show the Big East games? Probably--but not for power-conference prices.
Thats true. I think I also said we would get about half the SEC ratings for about half the price.
A couple of factors for you to consider.
The ad rates for 100K viewers are SUBSTANTALLY less than for 500K viewers. Ad rates do not increase on a straight dollar for viewer rate. Shows with twice the viwership sell for much more than double the ad rate.
Second, this is a network nobody watches. Driving eyeballs to the network will help additional network programming. Lumberjack competitions will not drive eyeballs to the network.
Third, NBC intends to compete head to head with ESPN. They cant do that with junk programming. I think CBS sports (my opinion) is looking to position themselves as the low cost sports advertiser and will be very frugal with its spending from here on.
NBC will have to spend a significant amount just to land the Big East. But for a network looking to compete head to head with ESPN, they will have to protect this investment and grow with it. To do that, they will need to pay enough to stablilize the conference and allow enough exposure to build the Big Easts's national brand in football. Honestly, this contract is chump change and will offer pretty competetive programming at an incredibly cheap price.
The real expenses for NBC will be obtaining some professional sports rights to team with the college programming. Profesional sports rights costs are not even in the same universe. From a cost standpoint, we are lumberjack competions when compared to the NFL or MLB. The reality is, that even at ACC prices, the Big East, with 20 teams located in mostly large cities, and a national scope, offers an incredibly cheap fountain of solid programming to a start-up network like NBC-Sports.
Or, NBC can pass, and wait three more years and try for the C-USA contract which expires after 2016. The first CUSA programming for NBC would be available in 2017.
