OU mod Alan H on their 247 site has posted a ton of propaganda about his vision of potentially all conferences being gone by 2025-basically that an entity like Amazon or Netflix is going to assemble super conferences made up of all national powers and offer to pay them double what the current power leagues can pay. He said no school should sign a GOR due to this. Doomsday talk of ESPN going bankrupt, schools being kicked out of the power club, etc. says that only the elite national brands(like OU) should feel safe.

He then backtracks and says "of course no one can predict the future, but..." Does he not realize that OU and other powers are able to win 9-10 games per year because of those supposed "lesser schools?" The whole idea sounds like a disaster, but he is adamant that his "contacts" in the media world see this huge paradigm shift coming.

What do you guys think? Hogwash? I think this idea of companies like Netflix coming in and blowing up conferences and known sports media giants like ESPN is highly unlikely.

Just to clarify, he sees "alliances or conferences" still due to scheduling needs among other things, but that these groups will be composed of the elite brands, and nothing else.

Blowing up the conferences is hogwash. The idea of Netflix and Amazon completely taking over cable system and involved with conferences, is very likely.

(08-05-2016 05:29 PM)uofl05 Wrote:  OU mod Alan H on their 247 site has posted a ton of propaganda about his vision of potentially all conferences being gone by 2025-basically that an entity like Amazon or Netflix is going to assemble super conferences made up of all national powers and offer to pay them double what the current power leagues can pay. He said no school should sign a GOR due to this. Doomsday talk of ESPN going bankrupt, schools being kicked out of the power club, etc. says that only the elite national brands(like OU) should feel safe.

He then backtracks and says "of course no one can predict the future, but..." Does he not realize that OU and other powers are able to win 9-10 games per year because of those supposed "lesser schools?" The whole idea sounds like a disaster, but he is adamant that his "contacts" in the media world see this huge paradigm shift coming.

What do you guys think? Hogwash? I think this idea of companies like Netflix coming in and blowing up conferences and known sports media giants like ESPN is highly unlikely.

I think that's as good a word for it as any.

(08-05-2016 05:46 PM)ULdave Wrote:  Blowing up the conferences is hogwash. The idea of Netflix and Amazon completely taking over cable system and involved with conferences, is very likely.

Aren't you essentially agreeing then? If Amazon takes over the cable world, diminishing companies like ESPN, but conferences are still around, wouldn't that confirm what he is saying? That elite like minded schools would be pooled together and the conferences we know now be no more?

I don't agree with that prediction.

If I were a fan of a B12 school I, too, might have desperate hopes for something, anything, to save my school from the hot mess that that the B12 has become. Be very, very happy if you're a fan of an ACC school. The old joke was that ACC fans hated loved their conference but hated their media deal while B12 fans loved their media deal but hated their conference. The B12 schools are stuck in a conference with no cohesion and lousy media revenues.

To think that some FSU fans thought their school would be better off in the B12! Any of you want to come forward now and say you were wrong?

(08-05-2016 05:31 PM)uofl05 Wrote:  Just to clarify, he sees "alliances or conferences" still due to scheduling needs among other things, but that these groups will be composed of the elite brands, and nothing else.

he's feeling vulnerable and dreaming of an apocalypse so his identity and ego aren't associated with the only power conference to be wiped from the earth.

That said, there is an intuition in his thinking and it's what I have repeatedly stated regarding the relationship I see forming between the SEC/ACC/ESPN.

I don't see it for a couple of reasons. Many contracts will not be expired by then. The cost of buying out those contracts will enormous.

Cable companies have a huge advantage in that they own the cable running to your house.

Netflix has made some critical errors. The biggest is producing original content at the expense of inventory (40% reduction in titles since they started their own production).

It's just off-season nonsense. People have been predicting this since the 70s.

This is a lot like the four superconferences idea that people continually predict will definitely happen (Barry Tramel predicted it today on satellite radio) but which almost certainly will not happen - at least not in any of our lifetimes.

It is not going to happen because the infrastructure is not set up for it to happen. There is no end game like people keep insisting there is because there is no central entity pulling the strings and none of these entities trusts the others.

The Power Five conferences are not run like a professional sports league, they're run like professional boxing – every man for himself. Until people come to understand and accept that reality, they're going to continually be surprised and disappointed with the results.

BTW, as I was listening to Trammell on the show I was listening to today as I was running errands, it is very clear that he and the people feeding him information still don't quite get it. They think ESPN wronged them.

It's ridiculously disingenuous. The Big 12 was overpaid for a 10-team league in the first place so that they would not go to the Pac-12 and so that ESPN could launch the Longhorn Network. However, they never expected this to last in perpetuity – it was supposed to float them through the tough times until they stabilized.

ESPN is also full of shitt about this expansion process. They've known for months and months now that the Big 12 is likely to expand and who they were going to choose. They are just posturing here. It's probably going to be a two team expansion but I still think they need four – and I also think they need four new, larger markets.

If it were up to me, I would definitely choose BYU and Cincinnati as teams Nos. 11 and 12. I would probably choose Connecticut and Central Florida as teams Nos. 13 and 14.

However, I think Houston's going to get one of those bids – which I could live with. However, if it is just a two-team expansion, Houston cannot be one of those teams.

I don't really understand Colorado State's candidacy and I definitely don't get the Memphis thing. I understand that they have more attractive geography than Connecticut but UConn literally has the Tigers beaten - often by a mile - on every other metric.

That choice is a complete no-brainer to me.

Maybe ESPN isn't posturing and you're just unwilling to give up on silly fantasies about the benefits of conference expansion. In fact, what would be the point of this "posturing?"

This is wishful thinking by an OU fan that wants the best for his school. It's no different than the Baylor fans that assured us that 6 ACC schools were going to break away and join the Big 12. Both scenarios solved those schools problems despite being having no basis in reality.

(08-05-2016 10:12 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  BTW, as I was listening to Trammell on the show I was listening to today as I was running errands, it is very clear that he and the people feeding him information still don't quite get it. They think ESPN wronged them.

It's ridiculously disingenuous. The Big 12 was overpaid for a 10-team league in the first place so that they would not go to the Pac-12 and so that ESPN could launch the Longhorn Network. However, they never expected this to last in perpetuity – it was supposed to float them through the tough times until they stabilized.

ESPN is also full of shitt about this expansion process. They've known for months and months now that the Big 12 is likely to expand and who they were going to choose. They are just posturing here. It's probably going to be a two team expansion but I still think they need four – and I also think they need four new, larger markets.

If it were up to me, I would definitely choose BYU and Cincinnati as teams Nos. 11 and 12. I would probably choose Connecticut and Central Florida as teams Nos. 13 and 14.

However, I think Houston's going to get one of those bids – which I could live with. However, if it is just a two-team expansion, Houston cannot be one of those teams.

I don't really understand Colorado State's candidacy and I definitely don't get the Memphis thing. I understand that they have more attractive geography than Connecticut but UConn literally has the Tigers beaten - often by a mile - on every other metric.

That choice is a complete no-brainer to me.

The B12 has sshown in the past that what looks to be a no brainer to everyone else results in their making a boneheaded decision.

(08-05-2016 09:59 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  It's just off-season nonsense. People have been predicting this since the 70s.

This is a lot like the four superconferences idea that people continually predict will definitely happen (Barry Tramel predicted it today on satellite radio) but which almost certainly will not happen - at least not in any of our lifetimes.

It is not going to happen because the infrastructure is not set up for it to happen. There is no end game like people keep insisting there is because there is no central entity pulling the strings and none of these entities trusts the others.

The Power Five conferences are not run like a professional sports league, they're run like professional boxing – every man for himself. Until people come to understand and accept that reality, they're going to continually be surprised and disappointed with the results.

There is Darwinian order evolving from the chaos. It's clearly happening and has been doing so since the late 80s. Those who don't conform and make obvious moves are being destroyed and reconfigured. SEC/ACC/B1G are stable with ACC and SEC under a network umbrella for a generation at least. PAC and B12 are both vulnerable. All it takes is a push of one or two major programs and the chaos will give us order reflective of what we have out east in the west.

(08-05-2016 10:12 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  BTW, as I was listening to Trammell on the show I was listening to today as I was running errands, it is very clear that he and the people feeding him information still don't quite get it. They think ESPN wronged them.

It's ridiculously disingenuous. The Big 12 was overpaid for a 10-team league in the first place so that they would not go to the Pac-12 and so that ESPN could launch the Longhorn Network. However, they never expected this to last in perpetuity – it was supposed to float them through the tough times until they stabilized.

ESPN is also full of shitt about this expansion process. They've known for months and months now that the Big 12 is likely to expand and who they were going to choose. They are just posturing here. It's probably going to be a two team expansion but I still think they need four – and I also think they need four new, larger markets.

If it were up to me, I would definitely choose BYU and Cincinnati as teams Nos. 11 and 12. I would probably choose Connecticut and Central Florida as teams Nos. 13 and 14.

However, I think Houston's going to get one of those bids – which I could live with. However, if it is just a two-team expansion, Houston cannot be one of those teams.

I don't really understand Colorado State's candidacy and I definitely don't get the Memphis thing. I understand that they have more attractive geography than Connecticut but UConn literally has the Tigers beaten - often by a mile - on every other metric.

That choice is a complete no-brainer to me.

I don't think so. What I do think is that ESPN or media consultants hired to liaison with them told the B12 that "no additional networks" were viable.

The B12 has displayed amazing hubris since it partially detonated back in 2011. Without a doubt the announcement of the ACC Network blindsided the B12. It was clearly a development none of them anticipated. Their public posture was shock and a reactionary about face on expansion.

This reflexive lurch toward expansion indicated a couple of things about their leadership. One is that they are delusional when it comes to their position in the world of college athletics. From "One True Champion", which ended up being two left out of the playoff, to their insistance that they have a championship with 10 teams, they expect the world to conform to them.

This has been a learning process for the B12 and more critically OU/Texas who appear to control the entire conference. ESPN didn't "know" anything because the B12 had made every move conceivable to avoid adding one of the great unwashed masses to their league.

Now the B12 is in a panic and in my opinion is making a short term cash grab. In doing so the B12 is acting like a petulant child trying to punish ESPN/FOX for not giving them a network deal when ESPN was able to plan one with the ACC.

That's exactly what's happening and I don't think ESPN could have anticipated it with any degree of certainty.

(08-05-2016 05:53 PM)uofl05 Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 05:46 PM)ULdave Wrote:  Blowing up the conferences is hogwash. The idea of Netflix and Amazon completely taking over cable system and involved with conferences, is very likely.

Aren't you essentially agreeing then? If Amazon takes over the cable world, diminishing companies like ESPN, but conferences are still around, wouldn't that confirm what he is saying? That elite like minded schools would be pooled together and the conferences we know now be no more?

I don't agree with that prediction.

No, I'm agreeing with part A, but not with part B. I don't believe the one causes the other.

(08-05-2016 05:53 PM)uofl05 Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 05:46 PM)ULdave Wrote:  Blowing up the conferences is hogwash. The idea of Netflix and Amazon completely taking over cable system and involved with conferences, is very likely.

Aren't you essentially agreeing then? If Amazon takes over the cable world, diminishing companies like ESPN, but conferences are still around, wouldn't that confirm what he is saying? That elite like minded schools would be pooled together and the conferences we know now be no more?

I don't agree with that prediction.

No, I'm agreeing with part A, but not with part B. I don't believe the one causes the other.

(08-05-2016 05:53 PM)uofl05 Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 05:46 PM)ULdave Wrote:  Blowing up the conferences is hogwash. The idea of Netflix and Amazon completely taking over cable system and involved with conferences, is very likely.

Aren't you essentially agreeing then? If Amazon takes over the cable world, diminishing companies like ESPN, but conferences are still around, wouldn't that confirm what he is saying? That elite like minded schools would be pooled together and the conferences we know now be no more?

I don't agree with that prediction.

No, I'm agreeing with part A, but not with part B. I don't believe the one causes the other.