(09-18-2013 09:46 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  I would say this is pure speculation and wishful thinking. I don't think any of the non B5 leagues or schools will get much more than they are now. The B5 leagues will take every buck they can and then some. We'll get scraps. jmo.

Maybe. Even though it's not very far off in the grand scheme of things a lot can happen between now and then. Membership may not even be the same.

If there is no further losses in the league I can see a deal with AAV of about $25 million. What is that about $1.7 per school?

Of course compared to the P5 schools is still crap but better than what it is now.

(09-17-2013 02:51 PM)OwlFamily Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

Attendance doesnt mean squat for TV deals. Its all about the number of sets in the market. In fact I would imagine that TV would want less attendance at games cause it means more folks are watching the tube.

Not saying its right but its the way it is.

I disagree. Attendance matters, not just because it suggest that a team will have more viewers, but because the average joe blow sitting in his living room or at a bar is going to flip through the channels to catch a game, if he sees an empty stadium as opposed to a full stadium on TV, the natural reaction is going to be "if it doesn't matter to them it must not be any good."

The aac contract proved that markets aren't all that important to the bottom line.

(09-18-2013 09:50 AM)randaddyminer Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:51 PM)OwlFamily Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

Attendance doesnt mean squat for TV deals. Its all about the number of sets in the market. In fact I would imagine that TV would want less attendance at games cause it means more folks are watching the tube.

Not saying its right but its the way it is.

I disagree. Attendance matters, not just because it suggest that a team will have more viewers, but because the average joe blow sitting in his living room or at a bar is going to flip through the channels to catch a game, if he sees an empty stadium as opposed to a full stadium on TV, the natural reaction is going to be "if it doesn't matter to them it must not be any good."

The aac contract proved that markets aren't all that important to the bottom line.

This is both partly true and partly false at the same time. There's no question that both market size and fan interest both play a role. You guys don't get the deal you get without Top 20 markets like Philly, Orlando, Tampa, NYC, etc.

(09-18-2013 09:30 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  Good for them. Short answer is yes this bodes well. I've gone over this a few times having spent way too much time talking to TV execs on this topic, so I'm going to skip all the detail.

Bottom line is our timing for renegotiation is good. Two new national networks have come online and college football is highly desired. The period between 2015 and 2019/2020 is the time to lock in a long term contract. Apple TV is a wildcard. Hearing it may be introduced early 2014. That will be a game changer. As discussed before that's the future.

Not only will we have the opportunity to lock in a long term contract at time where I believe contracts in the traditional sense will be at an apex we'll also be able to be early adopters of the online revolution. Hopefully, BB will be smart about building that in.

P5 schools are currently locked into TV deals that have purchasing power that's going to erode over time. AAC was so dumb to sign a deal as long as they did. Of course P5 schools can try to renegotiate contracts, so it's not like we're going to have an advantage for long but because every one of the P5 are locked into long term deals well into 2020's we'll have a good opportunity to capitalize on the network needs and we'll initially have value beyond what anyone else has in trying to integrate online broadcasting.

There likely will be few if any long term contracts going forward, unless you are the SEC.

Five years will probably be the norm, with renegotiation clauses built in that overwhelmingly favor the sports networks, particularly non BCS conferences.

The AAC did indeed sign a short term contract.

Market penetration is far more important than attendance, as pointed out by ESPN.

(09-18-2013 09:10 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:51 PM)OwlFamily Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

Attendance doesnt mean squat for TV deals. Its all about the number of sets in the market. In fact I would imagine that TV would want less attendance at games cause it means more folks are watching the tube.

Not saying its right but its the way it is.

In 2009, an ESPN announcer said just that in response to a comment about the lack of attendance at a Miami [Fla] game.
He said something like "there is more money to be made from the fan who stays home and watches on TV than if that same fan went to the stadium"


The current MAC TV contract doesn't expire until 2017, so I suspect that this is premature speculation at best, or more likely wishful thinking.

It is mostly speculation at this point, there haven't been any specific numbers announced but there have been hints of something happening as mentioned by various ADs, etc. This article is just the latest version of that.

It does have some traction though based on reports back in May that ESPN was willing to reopen negotiations with the MAC at the half way point of the deal with speculation that they were trying to lock down MACtion with new networks popping up, and the current payout to the MAC is peanuts. Story link.

Here's a chart of TV payouts as of 2012, word is AAC is right around 1.8 starting next year.


If this chart is accurate then increasing the MAC to approx $1.0m/yr/team puts them in the ball park with CUSA and MWC, which is probably more in line with the market value.

(09-18-2013 10:22 AM)perimeterpost Wrote:  

(09-18-2013 09:10 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:51 PM)OwlFamily Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

Attendance doesnt mean squat for TV deals. Its all about the number of sets in the market. In fact I would imagine that TV would want less attendance at games cause it means more folks are watching the tube.

Not saying its right but its the way it is.

In 2009, an ESPN announcer said just that in response to a comment about the lack of attendance at a Miami [Fla] game.
He said something like "there is more money to be made from the fan who stays home and watches on TV than if that same fan went to the stadium"


The current MAC TV contract doesn't expire until 2017, so I suspect that this is premature speculation at best, or more likely wishful thinking.

It is mostly speculation at this point, there haven't been any specific numbers announced but there have been hints of something happening as mentioned by various ADs, etc. This article is just the latest version of that.

It does have some traction though based on reports back in May that ESPN was willing to reopen negotiations with the MAC at the half way point of the deal with speculation that they were trying to lock down MACtion with new networks popping up, and the current payout to the MAC is peanuts. Story link.

Here's a chart of TV payouts as of 2012, word is AAC is right around 1.8 starting next year.


If this chart is accurate then increasing the MAC to approx $1.0m/yr/team puts them in the ball park with CUSA and MWC, which is probably more in line with the market value.

That chart is accurate to the best of my knowledge.
I won't argue that the MAC contract is currently undervalued.

That chart is not accurate particularly because so much has changed in the past year.

For example, C-USA's deal is $7 million from Fox and $7 million from CBS. That was $14 mil give or take a few thousand divided by 12 teams at that time.

The dollar value remained the same with 14 teams, so we're currently sitting at about $1 million per school. The actual take home will be somewhere closer to $900K though. There are expenses in there somewhere.

Let's revist the terms of contracts. This is just a list of the primary deals.

ACC = 14 year deal with ESPN

B10 = 10 year deal with ABC/ESPN (runs out in 2016)

B12 = 13 year deal with Fox/ESPN
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball...-deal-done

P12 = 12 year deal with ESP/Fox

SEC = 20 years with ESPN / SEC network
11 years with CBS

AAC = 6 year deal with ESPN/CBS

CUSA = 6 year deal with Fox
6 year deal with CBS (extended from original)

MAC = was an 8 year deal with ESPN

MWC = 10 year deal with CBS recently restructured but expires at the same time, 2015..

SBC = 8 year deal with ESPN

Form 990's show that the MAC received $1 million for it's TV contract last year and that each school received in the neighborhood of about $75,000, so yeah their TV contract was undervalued and more in line with what the Sun Belt was getting.

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

There's such a condensed population up there, throughout the region in which they reside. A lot of those folks have had connections to those universities for a long time and the competition between them has meaning.

One thing we have going for us is the proliferation of sports networks. It can't hurt to have Fox, NBC, and CBS as well as ESPN all trying to fill programming slots across multiple channels.

(09-18-2013 11:03 AM)chidave Wrote:  One thing we have going for us is the proliferation of sports networks. It can't hurt to have Fox, NBC, and CBS as well as ESPN all trying to fill programming slots across multiple channels.

Very true. I'm glad ESPN finally has competition

(09-18-2013 11:01 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

There's such a condensed population up there, throughout the region in which they reside. A lot of those folks have had connections to those universities for a long time and the competition between them has meaning.

good point. also, the MAC footprint is in the shadow of the B1G footprint so you have a lot of MAC grads that are Walmart Wolverines and Bandwagon Buckeyes. They're not going to commit a Saturday to going to a smaller MAC stadium to watch a game but if they're flipping channels and their alma mater is on TV they might stop and watch it.

(09-17-2013 03:02 PM)PGPirate Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:54 PM)Niner National Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:51 PM)OwlFamily Wrote:  

(09-17-2013 02:49 PM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  They do have some decent markets, but I'm not sure a single program averages over 20,000 in attendance per game.

Attendance doesnt mean squat for TV deals. Its all about the number of sets in the market. In fact I would imagine that TV would want less attendance at games cause it means more folks are watching the tube.

Not saying its right but its the way it is.

Have to think that # of people watching on TV factors in as well.

I've been very impressed with Charlotte's tv ratings so far. In our first three games we've beaten out every game in our time slot by a large margin each week...including games with UNC and NC State.

Because you are new. Period. Do that in five or ten years, and it will be something to write home about.

So are you suggesting that we should make a note on our calendars and come back in five or ten years before we talk about this? Of course we are new and that generates interest, but so what? Three weeks into our existance we have three solid showings in the ratings. This does not prove anything about where we will be in 10 years, but it does show that right now there is an appetite for 49er Football. We could not ask for more at this point.

(09-18-2013 09:30 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  Apple TV is a wildcard. Hearing it may be introduced early 2014. That will be a game changer. As discussed before that's the future.

Apple TV won't be a factor. The device sounds like a Roku with an Apple logo slapped on. The market currently has and will have other devices that provide the same function at a lower price. Those who will buy anything made by Apple are too few of a market to make a dent.

(09-18-2013 12:00 PM)NorthTexan95 Wrote:  

(09-18-2013 09:30 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  Apple TV is a wildcard. Hearing it may be introduced early 2014. That will be a game changer. As discussed before that's the future.

Apple TV won't be a factor. The device sounds like a Roku with an Apple logo slapped on. The market currently has and will have other devices that provide the same function at a lower price. Those who will buy anything made by Apple are too few of a market to make a dent.

No, Apple already has that.

This will be the TV itself with all the features for streaming content built in. I suspect the rumors are a little ahead of themelves. I believe they are further away than the first half of next year to bringing it to production, but you never know. Whether they are first or Google is or somebody else this is coming and will definitely be a game changer. Comcast and Verizon may be forced to get into this business as well. The Roku's will be put out of business.

(09-17-2013 03:13 PM)monarx Wrote:  Ive got to think CUSA has more fans and a much broader viewing audience than the MAC. I think this bodes well for CUSA. The interest in our teams, and sets in our markets and hunger for football is better. Maybe things wont be that bad after all.

But, in head-to-head competition in football in recent years, The MAC has been taking Conference USA "down thru there," haven't they? Does it seem to anyone else that both the Sun Belt and the MAC have been more aggressive in showcasing their gridiron prowess & marketing themselves athletically overall than Conference USA? This is the kind of deal C-USA needs to have in place or they could get left in the dust by the MAC & The Sun Belt.

"AAC was so dumb to sign a deal as long as they did."

what? the deal is only six years...and we have a "look in" period 2016 I believe.

(09-18-2013 03:41 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  "AAC was so dumb to sign a deal as long as they did."

what? the deal is only six years...and we have a "look in" period 2016 I believe.

I thought the same thing. 6 years is the shortest amount of time for all the FBS conference TV deals.