(03-15-2014 04:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: Here is the problem.
The revenue stream of ESPN, BTN, SECN, etc., is primarily built on carriage fees.
The number of people who will get mad and change providers for lack of their team's games for the G5 is less significant (at least on a conference by conference basis) which means they do less for the advancement of generating carriage fee revenue. Now a high concentration of teams within a region could make it possible for a league to have that sort of leverage with a regional sports net but let's take Fox Sports Ohio for example. With the Reds, Cavs, Blue Jackets, and Crew they presumably have already pushed their leverage as far as they can in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland and the Ohio MAC schools would permit only a small if any increase and they would need an alternate outlet to go to.
The disparity in G5 and P5 TV revenue isn't a measure of the disparity in support but rather a measure of the disparity in leverage that their support produces. If I buy or sell stock it isn't likely to have any impact on the price. Warren Buffet on the other hand can send a price spiraling up or crash it if he chooses.
The G5 leagues are doomed to that disparity in revenue being permanent because they insist on copying the P5 model despite not having the same set of tools.
The G5 fail to recognize they are in essentially the same market position the P5 were in circa 1984. Because the primary broadcast windows on the more desired networks are not available they face roughly the same situation. The P5 are working with a vast array of good outlets today. In 1984 there was a single ESPN, ABC, NBC, and CBS, Fox had not even launched yet. The broadcast nets cleared very few games nationally, regional distribution dominated.
So if you man up and acknowledge that your situation is more akin to the 1984 power conferences than the 2014 power conference situation you reject copying the 2014 model and instead copy the 1984 model.
What was the 1984 model?
National distribution was under the CFA television contract. One entity negotiating on behalf of all. The entity negotiated two prices. One was a basic fee for the right to carry on a specific network or networks within specified windows. The second price was a per game price. ABC 2:30 national? Pay this. ABC 2:30 regional? Pay less. WTBS 7:00 pm? Pay even less.
The same model can be adopted to consolidate TV negotiation. If ESPN has bought the right for X number of Saturday 2:30 games, the price will dictate that they take mostly AAC and MWC games.
MAC schools might look at the price for Tuesday night and conclude it's not worth their trouble.
THAT happened under the CFA deal. There were times when the contract partner would call and ask the home team to change a kickoff time and the school would say no. If schools don't like the Tuesday price ESPN either has to increase the price or use cheaper programming that draws fewer viewers.
The other hallmark of the old model was the 11:00 am Saturday window. Companies like Raycom and Mizlou aggregated games to group of broadcast stations. When Comcast came to the SEC a few years ago offering to start an SEC Network, ESPN offered a blockbuster deal to reduce interest but the presidents and AD's were expressing their concern over the potential loss of the free viewer and the basic cable basic satellite viewer. The money has finally swept them over.
BUT
There are critical differences in local TV today vs. 1984.
With the digital sub-channel, the market that had four commercial stations in 1984 (ABC, CBS, NBC and an independent) now potentially has 12 channels on those same sticks with sub-channels and probably a couple low power or new full power stations have been licensed since then. The smaller broadcast radius of digital allows many markets to have added stations because interference is less of a concern.
And today many stations (most) receive a carriage fee. While their network programming is valuable, the viewer can spend the cost of a McDonald's meal each month and watch that programming on Hulu or wait a few months and see it on Netflix or Amazon. What makes local tv valuable is LOCAL programming and programming of local interest not available elsewhere.
The MAC isn't as valuable in Cleveland as the Indians, Cavs, Browns, Ohio State and I presume maybe the Blue Jackets but Cleveland broadcast TV cannot afford any of those rights. It can afford to open a 3.5 hour window for (at least initially) free programming that only requires they give up a set number of ad minutes.
If they are in a dispute with Dish over fees during games they can crawl the number for people to call Dish or as a Little Rock station did, give out the numbers for local cable and Direct.
So with a combined national contract improving compensation and regional OTA raising the profile of programs, the G5 can build larger but the cooperation won't happen.
I like the plan to a degree. It solves the problem of networks playing one conference against another to get G5 content cheaply. What it fails to do it generate exposure for the conference on a national basis. There are 2 places that the G5 are simply devalued to the point of not mattering. One is exposure and the other is having no real reward for winning the conference.
In order to increase the value of the G5 over time the product has to be exposed nationally to build an audience and the G5 champs have to have a post season destination that matters so the season has context.
My feeling is that the only way to solve that is via cooperation between the 5 G5 conferences. The first step would be to establish a national G5 network. Some of the CFP money would have to be set aside for this purpose. Each conference would place 4 games into the G5-Network inventory. The network chooses the games so the quality is solid. The network would be dirt cheap to the cable carriers---maybe .25 cents a subscriber. The idea would be to be a basic tier network that would have the kind of reach that ESPN enjoys. This way you have a 98 million home network with prime time slots for exposure.
A G5 Network will have G5 geared pre-game shows, a one hour talking head program a week for each conference. It could purchase 3rd tier games to fill its additional programming needs. Plus there would be plenty of volleyball, soccer, lacross, baseball, to fill the many hours of the day. The digital rights to games would roll to Netflix once the game is over so they could be viewd later much like ESPN-3. Some unsold 3rd tier games could be shown live on Netflix nationally to increase the total rights fee the network gets from Netflix.
That solves the major exposure problem. If the conferences wanted to throw the rest of their inventory into a CFA type organization, I see no reason why that wouldn't work as long as the G5-Network was done outside of this setup. As mentioned earlier, unsold games could go live to Netflix if there was no buyer. I figure the network would make 25 million or so in carriage fees, Netflix rights fees, plus ad sales. Lets say, after expenses it only makes 12 million. Ten million goes into the G5-Bowl fund, the rest is split evenly between the conferences.
The other problem is a destination for the G5 champs. The only decent destination is G5-BCS slot. Thats where the G5-Bowl Fund comes in. The 10 million for the bowl fund will go to create 3 G5 owned bowls to provide quality post season destinations for the champions of other 4 G5 conferences that don't go to the BCS. There would be---
Bowl #1 G5 #2 (pays 1 mil) vs P5 selection #3-5 (pays 3 mil)
Bowl #2 G5 #3 (pays 1 mil) vs P5 selection #3-5 (pays 3 mil)
Bowl #3 G5 #4 vs G5 #5 (pays 1 mil apiece)
This gives the G5 champs a solid respectable post season bowl destination EVERY year. This gives the football season for each G5 conference context and importance. It makes every G5 championship valuable and important. Those qualities are very important in building value. If done right, the bowls may end up making money that will flow back to the G5-network (which is then split among the G5 conferences). Over time, as the product becomes more popular--hopefully the carriage rate for G5 network can be increased and the growing popularity of the G5 can win the group greater inclusion in the post season.