This ESPN article includes some interesting recommendations for the future of college football.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...l-calendar

(08-06-2022 08:32 AM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  This ESPN article includes some interesting recommendations for the future of college football.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...l-calendar

I like the idea of a bracket buster of G5 teams. Though the MAC Conference teams have been doing much better at getting Home/Home series with other G5 teams, we still have the range of payday games
& cupcake FCS games.

Don't get me wrong, we need those payday games to exist, but it's nice to have a couple of completive non-
conference games on the schedule.

SBJ Media (Ourand): Big Ten Talks in the Home Stretch.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB...08/08.aspx

This could create some more conference realignment dominoes. You can be sure that Andrew Marchand has excellent sources and is connected.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewMarchan..._d95orAAAA

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewMarchan...C_95orAAAA

(08-08-2022 08:32 PM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  SBJ Media (Ourand): Big Ten Talks in the Home Stretch.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB...08/08.aspx

This could create some more conference realignment dominoes. You can be sure that Andrew Marchand has excellent sources and is connected.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewMarchan..._d95orAAAA

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewMarchan...C_95orAAAA

Maybe this will open up some TV slots on ESPN/2/U that the MAC can fill.

(08-09-2022 07:48 AM)zibby Wrote:  

(08-08-2022 08:32 PM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  SBJ Media (Ourand): Big Ten Talks in the Home Stretch.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB...08/08.aspx

This could create some more conference realignment dominoes. You can be sure that Andrew Marchand has excellent sources and is connected.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewMarchan..._d95orAAAA

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewMarchan...C_95orAAAA

Maybe this will open up some TV slots on ESPN/2/U that the MAC can fill.

We can only hope would love to see MAC back on ABC Saturdays at noon. Alarming big 10 will be the first to generate 1 billion in TV money. And we are hoping for 15 to 20 million lol.

(08-09-2022 07:48 AM)zibby Wrote:  Maybe this will open up some TV slots on ESPN/2/U that the MAC can fill.

This would really be nice, but ESPN will have options.

This reminds me of about 20 years ago when the Big Ten basically vacated the regional over-the-air television they were doing in the noon spot in Middle America. For a moment there, it seemed like the MAC might be able to get in there with its own ESPN-produced syndication. But it never really stuck. I'm not entirely sure why.

It's official, ESPN and the Big Ten are going their separate ways.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/st...9692846080

(08-09-2022 10:29 AM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  It's official, ESPN and the Big Ten are going their separate ways.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/st...9692846080

Prime time Maction LFG

(08-09-2022 10:29 AM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  It's official, ESPN and the Big Ten are going their separate ways.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/st...9692846080

Hope we do the same eventually.

It crossed my mind that maybe this could hurt us with ESPN. All those Big Ten games may have created some synergy with the MAC given the geographical overlap. If ESPN starts emphasizing the SEC and the ACC (or whatever), that might lead to more synergy with the Sun Belt and less with us.

I'm speculating here. Another way of looking at it is that it least the MAC would be one college football property that would give viewers in Middle America a reason to pay for ESPNU, ESPN+, etc.

I guess we'll find out how ESPN wants to play this. Maybe it doesn't matter at all.

And, to epasnoopy: I disagree. I can't imagine a better home for MAC football than ESPN. If someone were to offer us more money, we'd have to consider it, but no realistic alternative is going to give us as much national visibility.

(08-09-2022 11:30 AM)epasnoopy Wrote:  

(08-09-2022 10:29 AM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  It's official, ESPN and the Big Ten are going their separate ways.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/st...9692846080

Hope we do the same eventually.

Agreed! I would love to see the MAC Media Rights hit the open market. Perhaps Fox and CBS would be interested in adding MAC content.

There doesn't seem to be much likely impact on the MAC directly from shifting around among the P5 conferences ... it may make the Big12 more likely to get an all-ESPN contract, with Fox having the same share of a now larger Big Ten inventory, including more flexibility for prime time games for FS1, but the MAC is not competing in that part of the market.

As far as indirect impacts, the Big Ten is not going to let CBS put Big Ten games on CBSSN, so CBS shifting from the SEC to the Big Ten as its mid afternoon Game of the Week partner doesn't seem likely to change the opportunity to place MAC games on CBSSN.

The new, larger SBC gives even more flexibility than presently exists to schedule midweek SBC games in September/October. But the SBC / AAC would continue to be less interested in midweek games in November when the weather is nice (for most of their schools) and whomever is doing well is getting their conference championship race attendance boosts.

So it may well be that the main impacts boil down to ... same situation as before. Saturday ESPN+ September/October, with the occasional CBSSN and ESPNU game sprinkled in, November ESPN2/ESPNU/CBSSN MACtion games with ESPN+ catching any overflow.

Same as always, if the MAC wants to get on the ESPN mother-ship, its up to the MAC to put on an attention grabbing race, as over a decade back when both NIU and Kent were ranked and in the Access Bowl race and the NIU MACtion game got on ESPN while the Kent MACtion game got on ESPN2.

(08-09-2022 12:08 PM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  It crossed my mind that maybe this could hurt us with ESPN. All those Big Ten games may have created some synergy with the MAC given the geographical overlap. If ESPN starts emphasizing the SEC and the ACC (or whatever), that might lead to more synergy with the Sun Belt and less with us.

I'm speculating here. Another way of looking at it is that it least the MAC would be one college football property that would give viewers in Middle America a reason to pay for ESPNU, ESPN+, etc.

I guess we'll find out how ESPN wants to play this. Maybe it doesn't matter at all.

And, to epasnoopy: I disagree. I can't imagine a better home for MAC football than ESPN. If someone were to offer us more money, we'd have to consider it, but no realistic alternative is going to give us as much national visibility.

As long as I get to watch South Dakota beat Bowling Green, I'm cool with ESPN too.

I like our deal w/ ESPN.

Just:
limit games to one or 2 home games per team
limit to Fridays & Thursdays (no Tuesdays & Wednesdays)

Few attend games on Saturdays in 30 degree weather in November anyways, especially if the teams don't have a chance at the MACC. Face it.

I also can't see ESPN not being interested in us. They need content. Especially w/ ESPN+. Same reason they're interested in the FCS conferences.

They want CFB content on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. They have other conferences on Thursdays and Fridays. That ship sailed years ago. That’s how the MAC gets max $$. The MAC could always take a lot less to go up against P5 games on other days, but why would they?

With the B1G going to NBC/Fox/CBS (in whatever %s), the MAC has some leverage when its contract with ESPN ends in spring 2027. ESPN bought the all-tier rights so it could gain live content for Tuesday-Wednesday (now called MACtion), but ESPN does not "own" those airtimes or streaming times. In fact, the MAC wisely kept hold of its MACtion tagline. ESPN is there now because it's the only one there now for the MAC.

But the MAC and B1G have long had a kind of in-the-neighborhood synergy, and I doubt the B1G and its media trio will tolerate a continuing incursion "underneath" by ESPN. They squeezed ESPN out of the big time in those markets; they'll want them out, even in the snaller geographically-related markets.

This may not be a high priority for the B1G and its media trio, but 2027 is 5 years on. They have bigger things to deal with these days. But it might be worth keeping an eye on.

(Note: one good thing about the $800,000-plus per year each MAC school gets is the ESPN-contract requirement that the money pay for producing the content ESPN wants. By now that's done, and the schools own that equipment and capability, which can be used anywhere).

Just some thoughts.