(01-12-2016 04:51 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 04:32 PM)MasMack Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 03:06 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Good Lord folks. So much misinformation here.

1) This contract means nothing to us. It didn't "go down". The truth is this is the first baseline market negotiated contract for the current CUSA membership. Given that the majority of CUSA is former Sunbelt (who earn about $20k a yr for media), WAC members (who earn much less than MAC schools), or FCS move ups (who earn nothing in media dollars), then the value is not surprising and represents a significant raise for most members compared to thier earnings in thier previous conference homes. Our deal is based on our current membership. No reason to expect a drop when we have actually proven to be a better product than was expected.

2) ESPN isn't losing money. Not even close. Thier earnings are just not hitting the Disney targets.

3). This deal has nothing to do with ESPN. It's a Fox/CBS deal.

My opinion, you're right and you're wrong.

1) Agree with most of this. But not for all schools. And remember, the AAC negotiated their new TV contract fresh off the UCF upset of Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl, and with basketball seen as a much better product. So, have you actually proven a better product? 2015 has proven better then 2014, no doubt. But was it better then 2013, when the deal was made?

2) If your not hitting budgeted targets, your losing money. If you have projections and you build your budget off those projections, and you don't reach them, that's trouble. No other way to spin it.

3) Correct, has nothing to do with ESPN. But the AAC needs legit competitors to ESPN to drive their deal up.

Well---most accountants (as well as the IRS) would disagree with you. You are losing money when expenses exceeds revenue. Your are making money when revenue exceeds expenses (we call that net revenue profit). Make no mistake, ESPN is still making an obnoxious amount of profit. The issue is stock price. The current stock price of Disney is predicated on a certain expected future revenue GROWTH rate. That expected revenue growth rate is built into the current price of the stock. When that revenue growth projection is lower than expected--the stock price drops. That's why ESPN is cutting expenses. It's all about maintaining share holders stock value by maintaining a certain profit growth rate. It's not because ESPN is losing money.

**this. Once Disney posts fiscal YE 2016 data, go look at the entity level revenue. Dive into that specific sector of revenue ratios compared to expenditures, not forecasted numbers. Stock dropped due to the latter (missing forecasts) , not revenue.

The reason for the mass lay offs- all big companies do this when numbers look to likely miss forecasts in an effort to cut overhead in the final two quarters of the year in an effort to minimize costs to get closer to the forecasted numbers, not to 'stop bleeding or become profitable', as companies are responsible for adding value to shareholders. ESPN is fine.

(01-12-2016 01:39 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  CUSA has been distributing $1.2M per year per school in TV money.

That is expected to drop by $500K, or over 40%.

Source

This is just a sign of things to come, all leagues in D 1 will take cuts on their next contract. The bubble has burst on tv revenue as we have reached a saturation point.

(01-13-2016 08:49 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  I didn't even see them televised this year. Not surprised. How can you get money for something that gets so little play?

I didnt even see AAC game televised either. The truth is that no one outside of the AAC, MWC, or any G5 cares about their games. I live in Texas and Houston is never mention on sports talk radio its always Texas, A&M, TCU and Baylor. If Houston is mention, it is with the other G5 schools SMU, UNT, Rice.

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

(01-13-2016 08:59 AM)TopCoog2016 Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 01:39 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  CUSA has been distributing $1.2M per year per school in TV money.

That is expected to drop by $500K, or over 40%.

Source

This is just a sign of things to come, all leagues in D 1 will take cuts on their next contract. The bubble has burst on tv revenue as we have reached a saturation point.

I don't think we get a reduction of pay, but the chance of going to $5-6 million would be slim. We have Navy coming in that is highly valuable. We have a long list of teams that can get into the top 25. We get "decent" ratings. Our hoops side has value.

(01-13-2016 09:17 AM)Dawgxas Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 08:49 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  I didn't even see them televised this year. Not surprised. How can you get money for something that gets so little play?

I didnt even see AAC game televised either. The truth is that no one outside of the AAC, MWC, or any G5 cares about their games. I live in Texas and Houston is never mention on sports talk radio its always Texas, A&M, TCU and Baylor. If Houston is mention, it is with the other G5 schools SMU, UNT, Rice.

I call BS

The AAC was one of the main storylines this season with 4 teams ranked. Memphis over Ole Miss. Temple - Penn State on to ND..

If you didn't see a game its because you weren't watching TV.

All this talk is just disappointment in your contract and jealousy. And I can appreciate that.

I think the bidding war for content is over. ESPN has been driving the bidding and losing money while doing it. Ratings have been down as the networks have been flooded with content. It used to be that college football drew huge ratings because there was maybe 12 games on all Saturday (and I mean 10 years ago, not ancient history). Now there are more than 50. ABC, CBS, NBS, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN online, CBS Sports, FoxSport, FoxSports 1, FoxSports 2, FX, TBS, Longhorn Network, SEC Network, Big12 Network, and on and on and on.

So much content is now available they schedule good games at stupid times, further deflating ratings.

College football whored itself out too much. They let the networks have everything and do anything, control start times, stop play for TV timeouts (and then zoom in hold coverage for injuries, reviews, and other stupid things), and dictate bowl/playoff slots. The networks used this power to make the game nearly unwatchable without a TiVo (killing add revenue) and very frustrating when you're actually at a game (someone is going to stab that little man in the red shirt someday).

Revenues will drop. Start planning for it.

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

CUSA's deal has nothing to do with ESPN or the AAC. It's just a really bad product. An irrelevant product.

(01-13-2016 09:42 AM)JesseTU Wrote:  I think the bidding war for content is over. ESPN has been driving the bidding and losing money while doing it. Ratings have been down as the networks have been flooded with content. It used to be that college football drew huge ratings because there was maybe 12 games on all Saturday (and I mean 10 years ago, not ancient history). Now there are more than 50. ABC, CBS, NBS, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN online, CBS Sports, FoxSport, FoxSports 1, FoxSports 2, FX, TBS, Longhorn Network, SEC Network, Big12 Network, and on and on and on.

So much content is now available they schedule good games at stupid times, further deflating ratings.

College football whored itself out too much. They let the networks have everything and do anything, control start times, stop play for TV timeouts (and then zoom in hold coverage for injuries, reviews, and other stupid things), and dictate bowl/playoff slots. The networks used this power to make the game nearly unwatchable without a TiVo (killing add revenue) and very frustrating when you're actually at a game (someone is going to stab that little man in the red shirt someday).

Revenues will drop. Start planning for it.

Actually college sports are one of the cheaper streams of content that provides the most bang-for-buck at ESPN.

All of this doom and gloom because CUSA 3.0 (i.e. F_U, UAB, etc) is getting paid peanuts from the American network (or whatever network they are on) is absurd. You're linking two unrelated deals and drawing conclusions.

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

The CUSA isn't on ESPN. You are linking two variables that aren't related. Your network partner doesn't have enough eyeballs to justify a huge expenditure for a conference of startup programs.

(01-13-2016 09:43 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

CUSA's deal has nothing to do with ESPN or the AAC. It's just a really bad product. An irrelevant product.

But five years ago, 2011, ESPN probably would have thrown some chump change at it. And if ESPN didn't, Fox would, as they were moving to build up their ESPN clone. THey had the cash to spend, and the strategy of buying up the content first and figuring out how to air it later--you guys are reaping the results of that.

IF it comes down to it, and ESPN is offering the coverage you have now and ZERO dollars, and Fox/CBS/NBC/Time WArner/Yahoo are offering $50M, would you take the money over the exposure? You might, but ESPN isn't going to offer zero, and I don't think anyone else is going to put together $50M for the AAC as an anchor of their college sports programming.

ESPN's mandate to reduce spending on non-essentials (Cowherd, Grantland) could be rough news for any sports product that's not essential, read, that's not the NFL. VAlue is concentrated in highlight events, so they'll bid money for the Big Ten package because that gives you a half-dozen top-20 matchups every year.

(And yes, that means I'm very glad the Big EAst package is locked in for 12 years, and concerned about what happens after that.)

(01-13-2016 09:58 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 09:43 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

CUSA's deal has nothing to do with ESPN or the AAC. It's just a really bad product. An irrelevant product.

But five years ago, 2011, ESPN probably would have thrown some chump change at it. And if ESPN didn't, Fox would, as they were moving to build up their ESPN clone. THey had the cash to spend, and the strategy of buying up the content first and figuring out how to air it later--you guys are reaping the results of that.

IF it comes down to it, and ESPN is offering the coverage you have now and ZERO dollars, and Fox/CBS/NBC/Time WArner/Yahoo are offering $50M, would you take the money over the exposure? You might, but ESPN isn't going to offer zero, and I don't think anyone else is going to put together $50M for the AAC as an anchor of their college sports programming.

ESPN's mandate to reduce spending on non-essentials (Cowherd, Grantland) could be rough news for any sports product that's not essential, read, that's not the NFL. VAlue is concentrated in highlight events, so they'll bid money for the Big Ten package because that gives you a half-dozen top-20 matchups every year.

(And yes, that means I'm very glad the Big EAst package is locked in for 12 years, and concerned about what happens after that.)

The Big East contract is by far the most overpaid contract of any non-P5 conference. I expect their numbers to tank after their 12 years are up. The return on investment, though a fantastic basketball product, is not viable long term.

As for other comments throughout the thread:
1-you cannot compare apples to oranges, which is what is happening in this thread. CUSA and AAC/ FOX and ESPN are different and have variables of their own. They exist independently of one another and have no affect on one another.
2-CUSA's contract is the first contract where the current makeup of teams and markets are being valued. I'm not going to take a shot and say it's because of the teams 100%, out of respect. Market size has something to do with that too. You have two large markets in Miami and Houston, but very little eyes on this markets will watch the product, relatively speaking.
3-for the love of god, ESPN is not losing money. please take a look at financials (Disney is public, it's easy to find on their investor relations page).

(01-13-2016 09:58 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 09:43 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

CUSA's deal has nothing to do with ESPN or the AAC. It's just a really bad product. An irrelevant product.

But five years ago, 2011, ESPN probably would have thrown some chump change at it. And if ESPN didn't, Fox would, as they were moving to build up their ESPN clone. THey had the cash to spend, and the strategy of buying up the content first and figuring out how to air it later--you guys are reaping the results of that.

IF it comes down to it, and ESPN is offering the coverage you have now and ZERO dollars, and Fox/CBS/NBC/Time WArner/Yahoo are offering $50M, would you take the money over the exposure? You might, but ESPN isn't going to offer zero, and I don't think anyone else is going to put together $50M for the AAC as an anchor of their college sports programming.

ESPN's mandate to reduce spending on non-essentials (Cowherd, Grantland) could be rough news for any sports product that's not essential, read, that's not the NFL. VAlue is concentrated in highlight events, so they'll bid money for the Big Ten package because that gives you a half-dozen top-20 matchups every year.

(And yes, that means I'm very glad the Big EAst package is locked in for 12 years, and concerned about what happens after that.)

Fortunately the AAC has done a good job of maintaining relevance. In the era of conference networks, ESPN has made a solid effort to promote the AAC, which paid off this year in a gripping AAC football race that saw 4 teams vie for the conference title down the stretch.

Then, the conference champ went on to soundly defeat a perennial national championship contender in a NY6 bowl.

I think our story is one that ESPN has become vested in. It was definitely undervalued when that initial deal was struck, and over the course of the first 3 years, that agreement has paid dividends for the WWL.

Again... apples to oranges.

I'm sure the NBE contract will be referenced in ESPN's next agreement with the AAC. Fortunately, we have a little more time to keep building on the successes we've seen.

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

It's a sign that the money isn't just pouring out all over the place for any sort of college football programming.

I don't think ESPN is really in any sort of trouble. But things are shifting from TV viewership to online (TV ratings on the title game were down, but viewership of the game on the ESPN app was up by 500,000 viewers), and any time there's a shift in behaviour investors will get uneasy.

If the AAC can put up strong ratings and demonstrate that people want the product, then we should have nothing to worry about.

(01-13-2016 09:17 AM)Dawgxas Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 08:49 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  I didn't even see them televised this year. Not surprised. How can you get money for something that gets so little play?

I didnt even see AAC game televised either. The truth is that no one outside of the AAC, MWC, or any G5 cares about their games. I live in Texas and Houston is never mention on sports talk radio its always Texas, A&M, TCU and Baylor. If Houston is mention, it is with the other G5 schools SMU, UNT, Rice.

Well, Houston is mentioned a lot on Houston talk radio. Frankly, I don't buy this canary in the mine view of the CUSA contract.

Lets look at this logically. LaTech made what, $400K as a member of the WAC? Same for UTSA. Old Dominion was paid nothing for its rights in FCS. Charlotte, as a FCS start up was getting nothing for its rights. W Kentucky, N Texas, FIU, FAU, and MTSU were all getting less than $100K for their media rights in the Sunbelt. UAB, due to tom foolery in Alabama is now effectively a start-up FBS program little different from Old Dominion. Why would there be any expectation that putting them all in the same conference with S Miss, Rice, and Marshall would suddenly make them worth 1 million each?

Basically, these teams all got a RAISE to $670K by moving to CUSA. They also got a few years of earning 1 million dollars each because of a legacy contract that was negotiated when Houston, SMU, Memphis, UCF, ECU, Tulsa, and Tulane were still in CUSA. The current CUSA was never worth 1 million a year, the networks just paid that because it was only a few years left in the contract. Heck, it should have been obvious something was weird with the existing contract when CBS was paying 7 million a year for CUSA games, but wasn't showing all the games they had rights to---instead they PAID extra money to ESPN to replace CUSA games they already owned with AAC games they didn't own. In other words, they where more interested in the rights of the old CUSA teams, not the new ones.

The CUSA contract has nothing to do with the AAC's future contract value (or any other G5's). What you are simply seeing is the first time that the networks have placed a reasoned and thoughtful market value on CUSA's new line up. Over time, as the conference builds its fan base, future contracts will no doubt increase from this baseline amount.

Frankly, the new CUSA contract should be seen as good news for most CUSA schools. The vast majority of CUSA schools are going to be paid more than they were in their old conference homes prior to moving to CUSA (that doesn't sound like a bubble burst to me).

S Miss, Rice, and Marshall are the only ones that are looking at a decrease---and those schools have already been compensated for much of this anticipated loss of income by the exit fees paid by the exiting schools. By the way, those compensating exit fees were negotiated around 2012. In other words, everyone knew this was coming back in 2012-13, long before cable cutting or ESPN cost cutting was an issue. The new CUSA contract amount is simply about establishing a market value for the new CUSA for the first time-----its not some sort of cautionary tale involving the entire market place or a "bubble burst". If you think the sports rights "bubble" is bursting, just you wait and see how much the Big-10 gets when their rights go on the auction block in the near future. It will be record breaking.

(01-12-2016 03:18 PM)EDLUVAR Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 03:13 PM)ECBrad Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 03:09 PM)EDLUVAR Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:23 PM)ECBrad Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:16 PM)baruna falls Wrote:  This puts CUSA and Sun Belt on equaline footing. This is a huge blow for CUSa. Looks like the AAC is on its way to be a true tweeter conference.

I think the MCW is next for a big reduction. BoI see cannot sustain them and the West coast generally has poor college football ratings.

MWC footprint only has 20% of the population and you have to stay up late to watch their games.

MWC teams control their markets, they aren't 2nd or 3rd fiddle to other teams. This was pretty much proven when the AAC added teams like Tulane hoping to get a better deal and in fact getting much less than expected

Is this a ****** joke or are you genuinely stupid?

What other conference out there lost BCS status and went from projected 10 million per year, down to hopping to get 5-6 with sdsu and bsu, to settling for 2? I can't think of any that dropped that far. By the rational above when talking about cusa becoming the sun belt, the AAC became cusa. It is what it is.

at first we had Louisville, Rutgers, Boise, and SDSU...such is life...the only team that likes the MWC TV contract is Boise...that will cause internal issues in the MWC...I really like the the exposure and $$$ from our ESPN deal.

(01-13-2016 10:27 AM)Chappy Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 09:21 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 02:48 PM)Chappy Wrote:  Rough waters ahead. It will be very important for us to put up strong ratings these next few years.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if CUSA's deal is a sign of things to come for all G5's given ESPN's woes, etc?

It's a sign that the money isn't just pouring out all over the place for any sort of college football programming.

I don't think ESPN is really in any sort of trouble. But things are shifting from TV viewership to online (TV ratings on the title game were down, but viewership of the game on the ESPN app was up by 500,000 viewers), and any time there's a shift in behaviour investors will get uneasy.

If the AAC can put up strong ratings and demonstrate that people want the product, then we should have nothing to worry about.

Disagree....believe ESPN rightfully adjusted their tv deal with CUSA since almost all of the valuable teams from that conf bolted to the AAC and were backed filled with lesser valued programs, some that had recently jumped up from Div I-AA levels. (Doesn't mean teams aren't competitive or good...just that they bring less overall value to the network vs many of the programs that had replaced).

There is no question that the AAC has better followings in larger markets, which will equal a better deal than CUSA. When is the AAC contract up? Unless there are major changes in current trends, those brands won't be enough to keep you above 2 mil. Ratings are down for even premium content, the tides are a changing. Until someone comes up with a profitable, affordable (lol yeah right) system of delivery, the money will just keep going down.

This is CUSA...



Their distributors (network) give them monies commensurate to their place in the market.

Even though they are technically a cola, by and large they don't serve the same consumers as Coke/Pepsi/RC/etc.

Their contract is unique to them.

They aren't on ESPN. Hense, they are not in the same vending machine as we are.

If you want to buy their product, you really have to look hard for it. It's not in the lobbies of your everyday hangout.

They got paid accordingly.

(01-13-2016 09:17 AM)Dawgxas Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 08:49 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote:  I didn't even see them televised this year. Not surprised. How can you get money for something that gets so little play?

I didnt even see AAC game televised either. The truth is that no one outside of the AAC, MWC, or any G5 cares about their games. I live in Texas and Houston is never mention on sports talk radio its always Texas, A&M, TCU and Baylor. If Houston is mention, it is with the other G5 schools SMU, UNT, Rice.

your are either a lying, dont watch espn at all, or purposefully try to avoid aac content.....

we were on a espn network for atleast 50 games..including a ridiculous amount as the only game live/on because it was on a weekday ..we had 4 ABC games.. temple hosted gameday...midseason we were non stop talked about becuase we had 4 ranked team and their were nonstop talks that memphis could make the playoffs and reynolds breaking the NCAA record..and on atleast 4 different gamedays they had decidated AAC segments

i wont even mention the ridiculous amount of online articles from every major media outlet

you are either lying or dont watch espn or cbssports

and as for houston, the coogs have been the cover of the sports section in almost ever paper this year...we had 3 of the top 5 highest rated houston area games ..we have decided shows on both 610 and 790, so i have no clue what sport talk you are talking about as we are well covered on both. especially on 790.. herman actually does a show on each station once a week...the local abc and the local cbs have both had "gameday" replicas at aour games for their morning show

like i said you are either lying, or purposely avoid AAC content (or more likely avoiding anything not la tech related)..houston was very well covered in the city and aac content has been splashed everywhere this year

ill be shocked if a single (non bowl) c-usa v c-usa game had more than 400k viewers, i can point to a dozen AAC games above 1mill