07-04-2018, 03:26 AM
Next stop on the road to crazy town...
A long while back, I threw out the idea of partnering with a G5 league to gain carriage for the SECN in different markets outside our footprint. It probably wouldn't work for several reasons, but the advent of streaming has got me thinking. The following is an adaptation of that idea.
For now at least, I'm sticking with the notion that a conference that has larger numbers is at an advantage when it comes to media negotiations. The more content under one roof, the more risk a network takes on when they say 'no' to a league's demands. That league can easily go elsewhere in a new media world and the network that loses out could hurt for content. If we ever get to the place where there are more bidders for content than leagues offering content then the tables might truly have turned in the conferences' favor. This is one of the reasons that major pro sports leagues are so filthy rich. They have a unified portfolio to present to a network and it's up to the media corporation to convince the sports league why their platform is best.
So it's also my belief that major networks like ESPN, that have nothing to gain from that dynamic, would try to stop it from happening at the college level if possible.
Now, I'm not sure we'll ever see a day where all the Power conferences would negotiate as one entity without formally being under the same banner. Lots of egos, disparate priorities, and imbalance in the quality of content could lead to as many problems as solutions. Maybe it will happen that way, but who knows...
Anyway, what if a league like the SEC created a strategic partnership? Something to increase the amount of content under one roof without greatly increasing the size of the conference as it's commonly understood.
Here's what I mean...
Not all schools value all sports equally. Not all fan bases are equal. Not all markets are equal. In the world of college athletics, there's really no reason every school should be treated equally in every way. Now to be sure, you have to avoid the sort of favoritism and unbalanced payment scales like you saw in the old Big 12. When it comes to Power schools of good quality then everyone needs to be on level footing. Other than that, you just need to do what lifts everyone's boat. It doesn't have to lift everyone's boat to the same heights.
What if you applied this sort of approach to how revenue is created, not just to how it's distributed?
What's the SEC's strength? Football, right? What's a relative weakness? Basketball, right? We're also strong in some of the key Spring sports, but those aren't as attractive on TV and so the revenue is somewhat negligible. We just hope entities like baseball and softball can pay for themselves more often than not while helping the league stay relevant in the headlines.
What if we thought in terms of acquiring properties that shored up weaknesses rather than absorbing properties that magnify our strengths? Of course, we can do both, but college conferences don't typically think in terms of the former. I say do both and increase the amount of content simultaneously.
Example:
What if we went to the powers that be in the ACC and Big 12? A meeting of the minds, if you will, and offered them a unique deal? Not a straight up merger, no, I've done threads on that already. I'm talking about creating a partnership that could more than double the amount of content we possess under one roof.
1. The SEC, ACC, Big 12, and a few key G5 properties combine into one entity.
2. Instead of forming a single league, we form 3 that serve different functions. Yes, we're still one entity legally speaking, but that doesn't mean the way the athletic teams compete with each other is necessarily congruent.
3. Payments are not equal among schools, but are based purely on which league you reside in.
A long time ago, I proposed the 'SEC 2' concept. What? That wasn't a hit with you? Ok fine, this isn't like that anyway. I promise!
Let me take a shot at how this might break down practically so you can see what's going on in my head.
The SEC could add a few key schools as full-fledged members and these would be the schools that bring significant football value and/or require a political exception.
Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Notre Dame, Virginia, Virginia Tech, UNC, and Duke
This is the collection of the highest profile athletic programs within the 3 conferences. That creates a 24 team SEC and this serves as the anchor for the entire entity. This 24 team unit will compete with each other in all sports and bring down the biggest payday.
The rest of the schools still get a home though...
Instead of creating an amalgamation of nearly 40 schools, we're going to get really crazy now and form 3 different leagues that serve 3 different functions.
I'm about to pick basketball schools that also minor in football...
Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest from the ACC will join Kansas and Iowa State from the Big 12. They will then be accompanied by UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, and Memphis from the G5 ranks.
We'll call this the ACC as the name retains some brand value.
This creates a 10 school league that focuses on basketball, but they will compete with each other in all sports. The basketball quality will form the core of their value. During those long Winter months, this league will be pretty darn attractive to TV viewers. Monetarily, I'm going to say they should be guaranteed half of what the SEC is making...on a per school basis that is. For most of these schools, that is probably hands down the best deal they could get and they simultaneously get to focus their efforts on what makes them unique in the first place.
The next league is for schools that take pride in their football, but don't necessarily produce top notch results with any consistency. Either that or their market value is limited and they couldn't really pay their way into the premier division.
Georgia Tech, NC State, and Louisville from the ACC will join West Virginia, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and TCU from the Big 12. They will be joined by Houston, South Florida, Central Florida, and East Carolina from the G5 ranks.
We'll call this league the Big 12 as the name would retain some brand value.
This is a 12 school league that focuses on football, but they will compete with each other in all sports. They get to focus on their bread and butter while not having to compete directly with the bigger programs. I would say guarantee this league 2/3 of what the SEC is making on a per school basis.
Here's the clincher. The 3 leagues will operate as one in certain respects...
1. We'll have one conference network that can reach into multiple strong markets as long as linear TV is relevant.
2. We'll play most of our non-conference match-ups in all sports against each other to maximize revenue and keep things in house.
3. The rights deals will be negotiated in unison and tiers will be established that reflect more so what each league brings to the pot.
For example, 1st tier rights will include access to football games from the SEC. Lots of good options there.
2nd tier rights will include access to Big 12 football including a dedicated Thursday night game.
3rd tier rights will include access to ACC football including a dedicated Friday night game along with basketball rights to all 3 leagues.
4th tier(yeah, I just invented that) rights will include all other sports.
There are 46 schools involved here so the massive amount of content for the whole Eastern side of the country should produce a lot of leverage in favor of this "conference."
The tiered payment system should keep costs down though and help each league maximize their purpose in the rights structure.
A long while back, I threw out the idea of partnering with a G5 league to gain carriage for the SECN in different markets outside our footprint. It probably wouldn't work for several reasons, but the advent of streaming has got me thinking. The following is an adaptation of that idea.
For now at least, I'm sticking with the notion that a conference that has larger numbers is at an advantage when it comes to media negotiations. The more content under one roof, the more risk a network takes on when they say 'no' to a league's demands. That league can easily go elsewhere in a new media world and the network that loses out could hurt for content. If we ever get to the place where there are more bidders for content than leagues offering content then the tables might truly have turned in the conferences' favor. This is one of the reasons that major pro sports leagues are so filthy rich. They have a unified portfolio to present to a network and it's up to the media corporation to convince the sports league why their platform is best.
So it's also my belief that major networks like ESPN, that have nothing to gain from that dynamic, would try to stop it from happening at the college level if possible.
Now, I'm not sure we'll ever see a day where all the Power conferences would negotiate as one entity without formally being under the same banner. Lots of egos, disparate priorities, and imbalance in the quality of content could lead to as many problems as solutions. Maybe it will happen that way, but who knows...
Anyway, what if a league like the SEC created a strategic partnership? Something to increase the amount of content under one roof without greatly increasing the size of the conference as it's commonly understood.
Here's what I mean...
Not all schools value all sports equally. Not all fan bases are equal. Not all markets are equal. In the world of college athletics, there's really no reason every school should be treated equally in every way. Now to be sure, you have to avoid the sort of favoritism and unbalanced payment scales like you saw in the old Big 12. When it comes to Power schools of good quality then everyone needs to be on level footing. Other than that, you just need to do what lifts everyone's boat. It doesn't have to lift everyone's boat to the same heights.
What if you applied this sort of approach to how revenue is created, not just to how it's distributed?
What's the SEC's strength? Football, right? What's a relative weakness? Basketball, right? We're also strong in some of the key Spring sports, but those aren't as attractive on TV and so the revenue is somewhat negligible. We just hope entities like baseball and softball can pay for themselves more often than not while helping the league stay relevant in the headlines.
What if we thought in terms of acquiring properties that shored up weaknesses rather than absorbing properties that magnify our strengths? Of course, we can do both, but college conferences don't typically think in terms of the former. I say do both and increase the amount of content simultaneously.
Example:
What if we went to the powers that be in the ACC and Big 12? A meeting of the minds, if you will, and offered them a unique deal? Not a straight up merger, no, I've done threads on that already. I'm talking about creating a partnership that could more than double the amount of content we possess under one roof.
1. The SEC, ACC, Big 12, and a few key G5 properties combine into one entity.
2. Instead of forming a single league, we form 3 that serve different functions. Yes, we're still one entity legally speaking, but that doesn't mean the way the athletic teams compete with each other is necessarily congruent.
3. Payments are not equal among schools, but are based purely on which league you reside in.
A long time ago, I proposed the 'SEC 2' concept. What? That wasn't a hit with you? Ok fine, this isn't like that anyway. I promise!
Let me take a shot at how this might break down practically so you can see what's going on in my head.
The SEC could add a few key schools as full-fledged members and these would be the schools that bring significant football value and/or require a political exception.
Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Notre Dame, Virginia, Virginia Tech, UNC, and Duke
This is the collection of the highest profile athletic programs within the 3 conferences. That creates a 24 team SEC and this serves as the anchor for the entire entity. This 24 team unit will compete with each other in all sports and bring down the biggest payday.
The rest of the schools still get a home though...
Instead of creating an amalgamation of nearly 40 schools, we're going to get really crazy now and form 3 different leagues that serve 3 different functions.
I'm about to pick basketball schools that also minor in football...
Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest from the ACC will join Kansas and Iowa State from the Big 12. They will then be accompanied by UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, and Memphis from the G5 ranks.
We'll call this the ACC as the name retains some brand value.
This creates a 10 school league that focuses on basketball, but they will compete with each other in all sports. The basketball quality will form the core of their value. During those long Winter months, this league will be pretty darn attractive to TV viewers. Monetarily, I'm going to say they should be guaranteed half of what the SEC is making...on a per school basis that is. For most of these schools, that is probably hands down the best deal they could get and they simultaneously get to focus their efforts on what makes them unique in the first place.
The next league is for schools that take pride in their football, but don't necessarily produce top notch results with any consistency. Either that or their market value is limited and they couldn't really pay their way into the premier division.
Georgia Tech, NC State, and Louisville from the ACC will join West Virginia, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and TCU from the Big 12. They will be joined by Houston, South Florida, Central Florida, and East Carolina from the G5 ranks.
We'll call this league the Big 12 as the name would retain some brand value.
This is a 12 school league that focuses on football, but they will compete with each other in all sports. They get to focus on their bread and butter while not having to compete directly with the bigger programs. I would say guarantee this league 2/3 of what the SEC is making on a per school basis.
Here's the clincher. The 3 leagues will operate as one in certain respects...
1. We'll have one conference network that can reach into multiple strong markets as long as linear TV is relevant.
2. We'll play most of our non-conference match-ups in all sports against each other to maximize revenue and keep things in house.
3. The rights deals will be negotiated in unison and tiers will be established that reflect more so what each league brings to the pot.
For example, 1st tier rights will include access to football games from the SEC. Lots of good options there.
2nd tier rights will include access to Big 12 football including a dedicated Thursday night game.
3rd tier rights will include access to ACC football including a dedicated Friday night game along with basketball rights to all 3 leagues.
4th tier(yeah, I just invented that) rights will include all other sports.
There are 46 schools involved here so the massive amount of content for the whole Eastern side of the country should produce a lot of leverage in favor of this "conference."
The tiered payment system should keep costs down though and help each league maximize their purpose in the rights structure.