(07-04-2018 02:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 02:02 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 10:28 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 04:37 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 04:17 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  I agree. For six years, I have argued with fellow fans of AAC schools that say "we got a low-ball deal because the conference was unproven and unstable". As you say, all of these schools had been playing college football games, often against each other, and there was ample data as to what it was worth. And instability is easy to handle via opt-out clauses in the case that membership changes - which is what the 'group A' and 'group B' clauses were about.

I've always said our $20m a year deal was just the fair market value for our product at the time, but that I'd hope that as time went by, the schools would build their brands and become more valuable.

I think we have, which is why I'm expecting an increase to around $7m per school. But I will never believe that we got an artificially low deal in 2012. We didn't.

Exactly what data existed? The CUSA teams in the AAC had not faced one another on a national Nielson rated network for almost a decade. Half their games were not even nationally televised (Fox Sports SW). I think they had an idea what USF, Cinci, and UConn brought. Navy was another CBS-Sports property who was probably somewhat of a mystery. So, Im sure they had some decent numbers for about 25% of the league. The rest was largely guestimates.

I don't think so. Nielsen ratings are nice but there is other data available to networks. USF, Cincy, and UConn had plenty of ratings history, and schools like UCF, Houston, ECU, and Memphis were on TV as well from time to time. Navy was too. And are you saying Tulsa, Temple, and SMU never were?

There's little doubt the various networks had a good idea about the worth of the AAC circa 2012. We got paid that. Since then, we've done a good job building our brands. I think that means a higher pay day, around $7m a school.

We shall see.

Houston, UCF, and Temple are worth more today than when AAC formed.
That isn't a function of TV not having good data and shooting in the dark it is about Temple not being handy punchline to a joke about being inept in football, UCF won two CUSA football titles one with a four loss team and one with a three loss team. Houston went 1-2 in CUSA title game and won it with a 4 loss team, the only other league championship had been a decade earlier with a five loss team.

AAC will make more because the programs as a group have better value today.

That is my belief as well. Several schools have done a good job of building value. Not all, ECU and Tulsa really haven't, but most of the newcomers have.

We are collectively more valuable than 6 years ago so will get paid more.

Also the AAC schools as a whole have invested significant sums in their programs over that time as well.

I still think the AAC was undervalued. There wasnt a lot of solid national ratings data on the group (certainly none existed on the group "as a conference" in terms of would such a far flung assortment of spare parts draw eyeballs from one another for conference games---much less casual viewers). My sense is the thought going in for networks was that the AAC would not be much a of a draw and that there was significant near term downside risk in the product due to instability. A month or so later the ACC signed a GOR---largely ending a frenetic period in realignment. I think the AAC might well have a done a bit better had they signed just a few months later when the stability issue was resolved.

I have read this entire thread and it seems that everyone is concentrating on the annual per team payout or the annual conference receipts.
I have not seen any mention of the number of years the contracts might cover......3 years, 5 years, 10 years etc.

Also, there has been much discussion on this board, about when the next round of negotiations will begin with the various conferences and the next round of realignment.

There has been discussion on other boards by seemingly knowledgeable people about how the new TV contracts might be negotiated. That TV markets and conferences will not matter to the networks or other entities bidding on the contracts. They think it will be about individual team fan bases and what TV audiences they draw.

If 2023-25 is the magic time frame, wouldn't the networks want to know any plans for conference realignment, before committing to a long term contract? For example, if any combination of teams leave the Big12, that would likely mean the remaining Big12 teams would fill in with teams from the AAC. Knowing that, why would ESPN or any one else agree to a long term contract with the AAC or any other conference that could be affected?

If I understand correctly the AAC TV contract expires June 2020...two years from now. So would the networks only discuss a 3 year contract that ends when some of the other conference contracts end? Will the networks negotiate with the AAC based on individual teams fan basis and not a conference basis as some have speculated?

It seems to me there is a lot more involved than just negotiating a annual conference payout amount with the AAC.

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:27 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:14 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Definitely college-educated but probably nowhere near as affluent as golf, whose median viewer is old and rich as ****. Luxury-item producers get a lot of bang for their buck trotting out their cars and watches on a random Senior PGA stop than they would for almost anything else, my guess would be.

The college football audience skews older as well if Im not mistaken....and its much larger. Point being---its a very nice demo (maybe not quite as good as golf---but very close and much larger).

So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

(07-03-2018 03:55 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:27 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:14 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Definitely college-educated but probably nowhere near as affluent as golf, whose median viewer is old and rich as ****. Luxury-item producers get a lot of bang for their buck trotting out their cars and watches on a random Senior PGA stop than they would for almost anything else, my guess would be.

The college football audience skews older as well if Im not mistaken....and its much larger. Point being---its a very nice demo (maybe not quite as good as golf---but very close and much larger).

So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Cant answer for him---but my answer would be no. I am expecting something in the SAME range as those leagues he mentioned. Of course--that range extends from 75 million a year to 160 million a year. A 100 million a year deal for the AAC (which is below the middle of that range) would be a bit over 8 million per team. A 75 million dollar a year deal (bottom of the range) is a bit over 6 million a team. Just for grins, 160 million would be a little over 13 million a team (no, Im not expecting a top of the range deal). The exact center of that range projects to almost 10 million a team. The average (128 million) rounds to 11 million a team.

Could well be. My guess is the lower end of that range unless a bidding war emerges, but as an ODU guy, I'd certainly take it (I'd also take it as a VCU guy but I don't know how that works out without football -- how much of the pie does Wichita State get?)

(07-04-2018 04:59 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:27 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The college football audience skews older as well if Im not mistaken....and its much larger. Point being---its a very nice demo (maybe not quite as good as golf---but very close and much larger).

So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

It appears you are not aware that are current numbers are exactly the numbers you are talking about. They are occurring on Sat afternoons and evenings on national TV and cable, against those same teams you are talking about and pulling in the same numbers. We are averaging more games at a million + a year the. The next closest g4 has in the entire same time. Our numbers speak for themselves in the same time slots we would be bought for. ESPN has most likely paid for our contract with the money they have made from selling to CBS and CBS sports alone. Every other game all 94 of them over 1 million was pure profit.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

(07-04-2018 05:09 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 03:55 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:27 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The college football audience skews older as well if Im not mistaken....and its much larger. Point being---its a very nice demo (maybe not quite as good as golf---but very close and much larger).

So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Cant answer for him---but my answer would be no. I am expecting something in the SAME range as those leagues he mentioned. Of course--that range extends from 75 million a year to 160 million a year. A 100 million a year deal for the AAC (which is below the middle of that range) would be a bit over 8 million per team. A 75 million dollar a year deal (bottom of the range) is a bit over 6 million a team. Just for grins, 160 million would be a little over 13 million a team (no, Im not expecting a top of the range deal). The exact center of that range projects to almost 10 million a team. The average (128 million) rounds to 11 million a team.

Could well be. My guess is the lower end of that range unless a bidding war emerges, but as an ODU guy, I'd certainly take it (I'd also take it as a VCU guy but I don't know how that works out without football -- how much of the pie does Wichita State get?)

Wichita actually receives nothing under the current AAC deal. They begin to share TV revenue once the new deal is signed. My assumption is revenue will be split in the same way it was planned to be split in the original agreements signed with Houston, Boise, SMU, UCF, and SDSU. At that time, the C7 and Notre Dame were still part of the AAC (it was still the Big East then) as olympic sports members. The split was to be 70% of TV revenue would be allocated to all the football playing members--and 30% would be allocated to all basketball playing members. Thus--if a full payout to an all sports school was 10 million. Then a football only school (like Navy) would get 7 million. A basketball only school would get 3 million. If a full payout was 5 million---a football only member would would get 3.5 million and a basketball only members would get 1.5 million.

(07-04-2018 06:10 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 04:59 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

It appears you are not aware that are current numbers are exactly the numbers you are talking about. They are occurring on Sat afternoons and evenings on national TV and cable, against those same teams you are talking about and pulling in the same numbers. We are averaging more games at a million + a year the. The next closest g4 has in the entire same time. Our numbers speak for themselves in the same time slots we would be bought for. ESPN has most likely paid for our contract with the money they have made from selling to CBS and CBS sports alone. Every other game all 94 of them over 1 million was pure profit.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

TU, it's not clear from your post. Are you saying that you know how much money ESPN receives from the ads they sell on AAC games? You know how much money ESPN gets from CBS when they hand-off a game? You know the production costs for the games ESPN airs themselves? And you know how much profit ESPN has made on AAC content? Why haven't you shared this info with the board?

(07-04-2018 04:59 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 01:27 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The college football audience skews older as well if Im not mistaken....and its much larger. Point being---its a very nice demo (maybe not quite as good as golf---but very close and much larger).

So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

Lets say you are a major 3-letter TV network and you are currently fighting those big 5 million plus football games on other networks with a 3 hour car auction (that was literally what was on one Saturday on NBC opposite college football). A million plus football game sounds pretty darn good. Truth is--that AAC game that garners a million viewers on ESPN might well become a 3 million viewer game on a platform like NBC

Secondly, the networks ARE paying more for those P5 ratings---a lot more. Nobody sane is suggesting the AAC is really going to get an SEC sized pay check. However, if your offering up say--40-60% of typical P5 ratings----maybe getting 20-25% of a P5 pay check makes some economic sense.

(07-04-2018 08:09 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 06:10 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 04:59 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:


Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

It appears you are not aware that are current numbers are exactly the numbers you are talking about. They are occurring on Sat afternoons and evenings on national TV and cable, against those same teams you are talking about and pulling in the same numbers. We are averaging more games at a million + a year the. The next closest g4 has in the entire same time. Our numbers speak for themselves in the same time slots we would be bought for. ESPN has most likely paid for our contract with the money they have made from selling to CBS and CBS sports alone. Every other game all 94 of them over 1 million was pure profit.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

TU, it's not clear from your post. Are you saying that you know how much money ESPN receives from the ads they sell on AAC games? You know how much money ESPN gets from CBS when they hand-off a game? You know the production costs for the games ESPN airs themselves? And you know how much profit ESPN has made on AAC content? Why haven't you shared this info with the board?

According to the Wall Street journal and a advertising periodical 30 second ads on college football OTA/ESPN range from 50,000 to 100,000 for regular season games. There are about 100 commercials a game in college which has about 50 mins of ad time per game. The cost of the AAC contract alone is almost covered by our games on abc. The cost of producing the game is roughly the same regardless of teams playing. Meaning ABC/ESPN have been making quite a bit of money off the AAC.

(07-04-2018 08:18 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 04:59 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-02-2018 02:31 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  So advertisors are not looking for the 24-54 year old male market? Oh wait that's exactly who they look for. Just to put an end to that terrible line of logic.

Beyond that it seems odd to me that the per viewer average is roughly the same across all those different sports. That actually indicates that the live viewer has a set value. Thus whether that viewer enjoys body slams or birdies is irrelevant, they as a live viewer are worth x dollars.

Also everyone seems to think ESPN just does what ever it wants. This is not the 1990s where ESPN was an exclusive sports channels. The number of competitors for viewers is up. Thus ESPN didn't give anything to fox anymore than they let NBC sign Notre Dame. They were out bid for them.

ESPN can not just fill in the AAC spots with the sec or acc. Those conferences are contracted to show a certain number of games on their channel which is why cable providers picked them up and made the network valuable. That content is not available.

At no point did I say that nobody wants the college football demographic. That's an inference of your creation. What I pointed out was that golf's demographic is very upper class and very willing to spend on high-end merchandise, so that makes them super attractive to advertisers, which means networks are willing to pay more for broadcast rights than their raw ratings would indicate otherwise. In response to this:

Quote:Ratings are what matters. It's amusing to me that people think otherwise. This is premium live content with 94 games over a million people. Discovery just dropped a truck load of money for golf with the expectance that it will have lower ratings. MLS, Priemer, UFC all get paid roughly the same amount per viewer as the "power" leagues do. Yet somehow that won't matter for the AAC? Ratings are all that matter to tv excecutives, especially live viewers who sit through commercials.

Ratings matter, but so do demographics. Are you expecting a better deal than the leagues/organizations that you quoted there?

Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

Lets say you are a major 3-letter TV network and you are currently fighting those big 5 million plus football games on other networks with a 3 hour car auction (that was literally what was on one Saturday on NBC opposite college football). A million plus football game sounds pretty darn good. Truth is--that AAC game that garners a million viewers on ESPN might well become a 3 million viewer game on a platform like NBC

Secondly, the networks ARE paying more for those P5 ratings---a lot more. Nobody sane is suggesting the AAC is really going to get an SEC sized pay check. However, if your offering up say--40-60% of typical P5 ratings----maybe getting 20-25% of a P5 pay check makes some economic sense.

Your point is exactly right. I would not dispute it in theory. The important factor is whether or not ESPN (or whomever) can get a price on the AAC game ads that is low enough to attract ad buyers away from the P5 game and high enough to make a profit, if the rights fees go way up. Some big advertisers may buy both games. But some (I'm guessing many) will decide that getting their message on the P5 game is sufficient.

We , that is I, don't know what the money part of this business looks like. My point has been: Improving viewer ratings are great, and they will help sell the deal. But making a big profit isn't guaranteed to the ACC just because they are a really good conference. The media companies want big, ugly, emabarassing profits. They get that by promoting their golden geese in the P5 and trying to steal bargains from the others.

No factor in the negotiations will have a greater impact than the presence of mutiple bidders. Just my opinion

(07-04-2018 08:49 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 08:09 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 06:10 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 04:59 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-03-2018 08:14 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  Didn't you say you do media contracts? How are you so unaware of how advertising, the buying and selling of it, work in broadcasting? I'm not giving you a marketing course but if you don't understand that a million viewers equates to ad buys then it wouldn't matter if I did teach you the course.

Umm better? No. Those deals are all roughly a 100 million plus. Their numbers in comparison are equal to ours. I expect we will see a 100 million plus or 8-12 million a team.

I've never "did" a media contract, myself, but I'll take your word for it: "a million viewers equates to ad buys." That's one factor. Now consider that the competing programming is the same product, college football; in the same time slots, Sat. afternoon & evening; same target demographic; but generally featuring teams that have a much larger national following and receive better promotion from the media companies who are critically invested in them.

If you are one of those ad buyers, you would prefer to appear in the more highly visible program. That doesn't mean that the lesser program won't sell ads. But the price will not be in the same universe. One million viewers vs. five million viewers may represent a price difference for an ad that is greater than the simple factor of five. I don't know that for a fact 'cause I never did a media deal. But it seems likely to me.

I haven't read a post here that addresses the question of how much profit ESPN made on their AAC package. That matters A BUNCH. When they make their next bid it will matter not so much how good or bad the ratings were, or how exciting the games were. They will calculate in advance: "How little can we bid and still secure the media rights, and how high can we bid before the profit margin becomes uninteresting." And the smaller the profit, the more likely they concede these rights to a less risk-averse bidder.

Anybody got P&L data for the AAC/ESPN deal?

It appears you are not aware that are current numbers are exactly the numbers you are talking about. They are occurring on Sat afternoons and evenings on national TV and cable, against those same teams you are talking about and pulling in the same numbers. We are averaging more games at a million + a year the. The next closest g4 has in the entire same time. Our numbers speak for themselves in the same time slots we would be bought for. ESPN has most likely paid for our contract with the money they have made from selling to CBS and CBS sports alone. Every other game all 94 of them over 1 million was pure profit.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

TU, it's not clear from your post. Are you saying that you know how much money ESPN receives from the ads they sell on AAC games? You know how much money ESPN gets from CBS when they hand-off a game? You know the production costs for the games ESPN airs themselves? And you know how much profit ESPN has made on AAC content? Why haven't you shared this info with the board?

According to the Wall Street journal and a advertising periodical 30 second ads on college football OTA/ESPN range from 50,000 to 100,000 for regular season games. There are about 100 commercials a game in college which has about 50 mins of ad time per game. The cost of the AAC contract alone is almost covered by our games on abc. The cost of producing the game is roughly the same regardless of teams playing. Meaning ABC/ESPN have been making quite a bit of money off the AAC.

Thanks for the effort TU, but this doesn't exactly nail it down. The low end of the price range is $50,000.00? I'm skeptical. But I'll grant you that ESPN is probably making money on their AAC deal... so far.

Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Well—-use your own figures. If the lower end games sell for $10K—-then $10,000 x 100 spots per game is 1 million dollars for the worst games. The better games would be worth more. Don’t forget—advertising is just one revenue stream. Carriage fees make up the biggest part of the ESPN revenue model. And also don’t forget—basketball makes ESPN plenty of money as well. The Big East gets 4 million a year per team just for basketball.

So—here is probably the one thing you should think about. The AAC commissioner, Mike Aresco, is an ex president of the CBS Sports Division and a former long time executive of ESPN. He is going to have an extremely good idea of EXACTLY how much money the AAC makes for ESPN. That’s pretty good information to have. Given that knowledge base—if he is confident enough to be publicly optimistic about a big raise—then I’m pretty confident he knows we make lots of money for ESPN and there will be plenty of other bidders interested in making money off AAC content.

(07-04-2018 11:54 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Well—-use your own figures. If the lower end games sell for $10K—-then $10,000 x 100 spots per game is 1 million dollars for the worst games. The better games would be worth more. Don’t forget—advertising is just one revenue stream. Carriage fees make up the biggest part of the ESPN revenue model. And also don’t forget—basketball makes ESPN plenty of money as well. The Big East gets 4 million a year per team just for basketball.

So—here is probably the one thing you should think about. The AAC commissioner, Mike Aresco, is an ex president of the CBS Sports Division and a former long time executive of ESPN. He is going to have an extremely good idea of EXACTLY how much money the AAC makes for ESPN. That’s pretty good information to have. Given that knowledge base—if he is confident enough to be publicly optimistic about a big raise—then I’m pretty confident he knows we make lots of money for ESPN and there will be plenty of other bidders interested in making money off AAC content.

How many commerclals per game -- another good question.

NFL games have about 70 30-second spots per game. It seems like there are a few more in college games, so let's add another minute per hour for CFB and call it 77 for a 3.5 hour game.

IMO the carriage fees are primarily driven by big ticket items (which ESPN uses as loss leaders to keep the carriage fees high) and anything added by other programming is what you'd call incremental.

But still, $770,000 in ad revenue for a football game with 450,000 viewers would be nice, and even if that was all the ad revenue from the 17 AAC football games on ESPN/ESPN2/ABC last season (including CCG but not including bowl games), and even if the ESPNU broadcasts have little value (because everyone's ESPNU ratings are very low), then it's still $13.1 million/season gross ad revenue. What's the "net" for ESPN? Less, but I don't know how much less. Maybe the gross is higher and that amount is close to the net. We're guesstimating.

On the one hand, that means ESPN could pay more and still make a profit for themselves. On the other hand, roughly the same calculation would apply to other G5 conferences, including the ones that ESPN recently signed, and each of them got only a small fraction of the ad revenue that ESPN makes from their games. If we did the same rough calculations, we'd probably find that even the SEC is being paid less than half of ESPN's net profit from ad revenue on their games.

I doubt that ESPN pegs its bids to a percentage of ad revenue. At most, they would use ad revenue as a guideline on when to walk away if they think the price is too high. I think that those who have said it mostly depends on whether there are other serious bidders and on whether the AAC will take a premium to have the bulk of its content on ESPN+ are right... but we're all still guessing.

There are no facts available, other than negotiations start soon.

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Yeah, you're simply wrong. The cost on average was 92,000 two years ago.

The biggest problem here is the lack of knowledge about the current AAC deal and it's exposure which puts it in multiple time slots straight up with other conferences. This is not the MAC, MW, Sunbelt deals all three combined don't have the exposure the AAC does including multiple OTA games each year 4 on ABC, Fox has picked up AAC games, ND Navy and Army Navy are on CBS. Our numbers stack up fine. You all can try and twist and turn however you want but the AAC averages 19 games over a million plus viewers each year and is the only non-A5 producing 3 million plus.


Wall Street journal reference for the 100,000 and the article is from 2010. Which means the cost has gone u.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...75934.html



Article from Vulture, Nikita on the USA network (with far less viewers and reach then over the air) is 30,000 for a 30 second ad and 85,000 for an average ad on college football.

http://www.vulture.com/2011/10/commercia...tball.html



A break down of the value of college football audiences and their income, education levels, and resources from Nielson for 2016.


http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/ne...dable.html




As we all know things tend to get more expensive over time not cheaper. Ad rates are no different. Ratings over all have been on a decline but ad cost has actually increased. This is even more true for live sports which have fallen at a much slower rate than television series.

Quote:Cables -2% decrease can be attributed to both Entertainment and News programming. Sports, on the other hand, saw an +8% increase compared to the previous year.

Much of that increase can be attributed to NFL Network which saw +96% more ad revenue from national, in-game ads, after picking up an additional game compared to September 2016. Revenue around NCAA Football also increased by +3%. FOX Sports 1 saw the bulk of that increase with +33% more revenue. ESPN also saw an increase with +2% more spend.

This is the first time we’ve seen a decrease in Cable news since the 2016 election. Across all Cable News Programs, revenue fell -7% compared to September 2016. If you were to look at Q3, news programs would still be up by +2%, but this does show we’re starting to get to the heavy months of 2016.

http://salesfuel.com/smi-ad-market-growt...year-date/





Interesting quote from 2016 about college sports raitings remaining steady while NFL dips. Nissan moving more of it's advertising to college sports. Also another example of buy prices increasing for live sports.

Quote:Nissan is already highly visible on campus, having locked down sponsorships with 100 colleges after launching its successful "Nissan Heisman House" campaign with ESPN. The automaker is also an official sponsor of the College Football Playoff and National Championship Game, and has used the title tilt to break new creative.

All told, Nissan last season spent $39.8 million on in-game college football inventory, a tally that includes $11.7 million in bowl game advertising, according to iSpot.tv.

Nissan's revised football strategy will not have an impact on ESPN's NFL sales, as the automaker has a long-term deal in place with the network. Fox said Nissan's pro and college spend is on par with a year ago, while NBC and CBS declined to comment on the matter. An executive with knowledge of Nissan's dealings with NBC said it had not bought any in-game inventory during the upfront, but that talks between the two sides continued well into the summer.

Nissan did not explicitly confirm or deny that it has switched gears on its NFL game plan, although it did suggest that college football was paramount. "Our strategy is about leveraging big cultural moments and integrating our brand into where consumers are driving popular conversation," said Jeremy Tucker, VP-Nissan North America marketing communications and media, in a statement furnished to Ad Age. "As all things evolve, Nissan is focused now on taking our College 100 program to the next level, fully leveraging our 10-year partnership with the Heisman Trophy Trust and the upcoming Heisman House campaign, and amplifying another really big moment to be revealed soon. Stay tuned."

http://adage.com/article/media/nfl/305791/





I am fairly confident that 50,000-100,000 is an appropriate range on a 85,000 average, as backed up by the numbers from over the past 5-10 years for ad rates.

(07-05-2018 01:48 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 11:54 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Well—-use your own figures. If the lower end games sell for $10K—-then $10,000 x 100 spots per game is 1 million dollars for the worst games. The better games would be worth more. Don’t forget—advertising is just one revenue stream. Carriage fees make up the biggest part of the ESPN revenue model. And also don’t forget—basketball makes ESPN plenty of money as well. The Big East gets 4 million a year per team just for basketball.

So—here is probably the one thing you should think about. The AAC commissioner, Mike Aresco, is an ex president of the CBS Sports Division and a former long time executive of ESPN. He is going to have an extremely good idea of EXACTLY how much money the AAC makes for ESPN. That’s pretty good information to have. Given that knowledge base—if he is confident enough to be publicly optimistic about a big raise—then I’m pretty confident he knows we make lots of money for ESPN and there will be plenty of other bidders interested in making money off AAC content.

How many commerclals per game -- another good question.

NFL games have about 70 30-second spots per game. It seems like there are a few more in college games, so let's add another minute per hour for CFB and call it 77 for a 3.5 hour game.

IMO the carriage fees are primarily driven by big ticket items (which ESPN uses as loss leaders to keep the carriage fees high) and anything added by other programming is what you'd call incremental.

But still, $770,000 in ad revenue for a football game with 450,000 viewers would be nice, and even if that was all the ad revenue from the 17 AAC football games on ESPN/ESPN2/ABC last season (including CCG but not including bowl games), and even if the ESPNU broadcasts have little value (because everyone's ESPNU ratings are very low), then it's still $13.1 million/season gross ad revenue. What's the "net" for ESPN? Less, but I don't know how much less. Maybe the gross is higher and that amount is close to the net. We're guesstimating.

On the one hand, that means ESPN could pay more and still make a profit for themselves. On the other hand, roughly the same calculation would apply to other G5 conferences, including the ones that ESPN recently signed, and each of them got only a small fraction of the ad revenue that ESPN makes from their games. If we did the same rough calculations, we'd probably find that even the SEC is being paid less than half of ESPN's net profit from ad revenue on their games.

I doubt that ESPN pegs its bids to a percentage of ad revenue. At most, they would use ad revenue as a guideline on when to walk away if they think the price is too high. I think that those who have said it mostly depends on whether there are other serious bidders and on whether the AAC will take a premium to have the bulk of its content on ESPN+ are right... but we're all still guessing.

According to the Wall Street journal (as referenced in this article) the total time spent broadcasting a game has just over an hour of advertisments in it's 3 hour plus running time.

This includes commercials before kick off and after the final play. This is a more accurate number as it includes ad time sold even though it is not in actual game play as the USB graph shows. College football is a longer game and would likely average more.

http://dailysnark.com/graph-shows-just-m...al-action/

(07-05-2018 01:48 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 11:54 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Well—-use your own figures. If the lower end games sell for $10K—-then $10,000 x 100 spots per game is 1 million dollars for the worst games. The better games would be worth more. Don’t forget—advertising is just one revenue stream. Carriage fees make up the biggest part of the ESPN revenue model. And also don’t forget—basketball makes ESPN plenty of money as well. The Big East gets 4 million a year per team just for basketball.

So—here is probably the one thing you should think about. The AAC commissioner, Mike Aresco, is an ex president of the CBS Sports Division and a former long time executive of ESPN. He is going to have an extremely good idea of EXACTLY how much money the AAC makes for ESPN. That’s pretty good information to have. Given that knowledge base—if he is confident enough to be publicly optimistic about a big raise—then I’m pretty confident he knows we make lots of money for ESPN and there will be plenty of other bidders interested in making money off AAC content.

How many commerclals per game -- another good question.

NFL games have about 70 30-second spots per game. It seems like there are a few more in college games, so let's add another minute per hour for CFB and call it 77 for a 3.5 hour game.

IMO the carriage fees are primarily driven by big ticket items (which ESPN uses as loss leaders to keep the carriage fees high) and anything added by other programming is what you'd call incremental.

But still, $770,000 in ad revenue for a football game with 450,000 viewers would be nice, and even if that was all the ad revenue from the 17 AAC football games on ESPN/ESPN2/ABC last season (including CCG but not including bowl games), and even if the ESPNU broadcasts have little value (because everyone's ESPNU ratings are very low), then it's still $13.1 million/season gross ad revenue. What's the "net" for ESPN? Less, but I don't know how much less. Maybe the gross is higher and that amount is close to the net. We're guesstimating.

On the one hand, that means ESPN could pay more and still make a profit for themselves. On the other hand, roughly the same calculation would apply to other G5 conferences, including the ones that ESPN recently signed, and each of them got only a small fraction of the ad revenue that ESPN makes from their games. If we did the same rough calculations, we'd probably find that even the SEC is being paid less than half of ESPN's net profit from ad revenue on their games.

I doubt that ESPN pegs its bids to a percentage of ad revenue. At most, they would use ad revenue as a guideline on when to walk away if they think the price is too high. I think that those who have said it mostly depends on whether there are other serious bidders and on whether the AAC will take a premium to have the bulk of its content on ESPN+ are right... but we're all still guessing.

Taking content from the Sunbelt, MAC or CUSA and putting it in the AAC's spot means robbing Peter to pay Paul, since that content is for exclusive espn+. They also do not get the same ratings as the AAC does. The MW is a more viable replacement but again lack the ratings. Beyond that it's not just an ESPN view on ratings. It's NBC looking at that vs an infomercial on Saturday afternoons. It's CBS view on how the better conference basketball games can be interwoven into it's NCAA tournament build up. ESPN is far from the only player making decisions here.

(07-05-2018 01:36 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-05-2018 01:48 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 11:54 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Well—-use your own figures. If the lower end games sell for $10K—-then $10,000 x 100 spots per game is 1 million dollars for the worst games. The better games would be worth more. Don’t forget—advertising is just one revenue stream. Carriage fees make up the biggest part of the ESPN revenue model. And also don’t forget—basketball makes ESPN plenty of money as well. The Big East gets 4 million a year per team just for basketball.

So—here is probably the one thing you should think about. The AAC commissioner, Mike Aresco, is an ex president of the CBS Sports Division and a former long time executive of ESPN. He is going to have an extremely good idea of EXACTLY how much money the AAC makes for ESPN. That’s pretty good information to have. Given that knowledge base—if he is confident enough to be publicly optimistic about a big raise—then I’m pretty confident he knows we make lots of money for ESPN and there will be plenty of other bidders interested in making money off AAC content.

How many commerclals per game -- another good question.

NFL games have about 70 30-second spots per game. It seems like there are a few more in college games, so let's add another minute per hour for CFB and call it 77 for a 3.5 hour game.

IMO the carriage fees are primarily driven by big ticket items (which ESPN uses as loss leaders to keep the carriage fees high) and anything added by other programming is what you'd call incremental.

But still, $770,000 in ad revenue for a football game with 450,000 viewers would be nice, and even if that was all the ad revenue from the 17 AAC football games on ESPN/ESPN2/ABC last season (including CCG but not including bowl games), and even if the ESPNU broadcasts have little value (because everyone's ESPNU ratings are very low), then it's still $13.1 million/season gross ad revenue. What's the "net" for ESPN? Less, but I don't know how much less. Maybe the gross is higher and that amount is close to the net. We're guesstimating.

On the one hand, that means ESPN could pay more and still make a profit for themselves. On the other hand, roughly the same calculation would apply to other G5 conferences, including the ones that ESPN recently signed, and each of them got only a small fraction of the ad revenue that ESPN makes from their games. If we did the same rough calculations, we'd probably find that even the SEC is being paid less than half of ESPN's net profit from ad revenue on their games.

I doubt that ESPN pegs its bids to a percentage of ad revenue. At most, they would use ad revenue as a guideline on when to walk away if they think the price is too high. I think that those who have said it mostly depends on whether there are other serious bidders and on whether the AAC will take a premium to have the bulk of its content on ESPN+ are right... but we're all still guessing.

Taking content from the Sunbelt, MAC or CUSA and putting it in the AAC's spot means robbing Peter to pay Paul, since that content is for exclusive espn+. They also do not get the same ratings as the AAC does. The MW is a more viable replacement but again lack the ratings. Beyond that it's not just an ESPN view on ratings. It's NBC looking at that vs an infomercial on Saturday afternoons. It's CBS view on how the better conference basketball games can be interwoven into it's NCAA tournament build up. ESPN is far from the only player making decisions here.

TU, I envy your bouyant optimism. These AAC rights will be sold before long and you may me shouting "I told ya so!"

I often find myself looking at the half-empty glass. That's why I see that NBC infomercial or three-hour car auction as indicators that they don't wish to compete against the big dogs of college football on Saturday afternoons in the Fall. The ACC will surely find an audience for their games, but the question of ad sales introduces some risk for the media company. The infomercial will make money for NBC even if zero people watch it. The car auction reaches out to a different audience and different advertisers on Saturdays, so the income may be small, but so are the costs and the risks.

I hope your way thinking prevails in the eventual rights deal.

(07-05-2018 02:47 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(07-05-2018 01:36 PM)TU4ever Wrote:  

(07-05-2018 01:48 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 11:54 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-04-2018 10:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, the low end of the price range for college football ads has to be far lower than that.

This article, https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ad-p...201890660/ ...

... says in 2016, a 30 second ad on an ABC prime time Saturday CFB game cost $92,251.

ABC prime time Saturday games last season ranged from 3 million to just under 7 million viewers, excluding the Labor Day Bama-FSU game that pulled in 12 million viewers. Probably averaged about 4.5 million viewers per game not counting that first week.

Every week of the regular season there are about 10 games, sometimes more, with one-tenth that many viewers (ie 450,000) or less. And that's just on the metered networks (OTA plus ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and FS1). Doesn't include CBS Sports Network who doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, probably because their ratings are even lower and they don't want them ever becoming public.

How much would you pay for a 30 second spot on a game that has one-tenth as many viewers as the games that charge $92,000 per spot? Probably less than $10,000.

Well—-use your own figures. If the lower end games sell for $10K—-then $10,000 x 100 spots per game is 1 million dollars for the worst games. The better games would be worth more. Don’t forget—advertising is just one revenue stream. Carriage fees make up the biggest part of the ESPN revenue model. And also don’t forget—basketball makes ESPN plenty of money as well. The Big East gets 4 million a year per team just for basketball.

So—here is probably the one thing you should think about. The AAC commissioner, Mike Aresco, is an ex president of the CBS Sports Division and a former long time executive of ESPN. He is going to have an extremely good idea of EXACTLY how much money the AAC makes for ESPN. That’s pretty good information to have. Given that knowledge base—if he is confident enough to be publicly optimistic about a big raise—then I’m pretty confident he knows we make lots of money for ESPN and there will be plenty of other bidders interested in making money off AAC content.

How many commerclals per game -- another good question.

NFL games have about 70 30-second spots per game. It seems like there are a few more in college games, so let's add another minute per hour for CFB and call it 77 for a 3.5 hour game.

IMO the carriage fees are primarily driven by big ticket items (which ESPN uses as loss leaders to keep the carriage fees high) and anything added by other programming is what you'd call incremental.

But still, $770,000 in ad revenue for a football game with 450,000 viewers would be nice, and even if that was all the ad revenue from the 17 AAC football games on ESPN/ESPN2/ABC last season (including CCG but not including bowl games), and even if the ESPNU broadcasts have little value (because everyone's ESPNU ratings are very low), then it's still $13.1 million/season gross ad revenue. What's the "net" for ESPN? Less, but I don't know how much less. Maybe the gross is higher and that amount is close to the net. We're guesstimating.

On the one hand, that means ESPN could pay more and still make a profit for themselves. On the other hand, roughly the same calculation would apply to other G5 conferences, including the ones that ESPN recently signed, and each of them got only a small fraction of the ad revenue that ESPN makes from their games. If we did the same rough calculations, we'd probably find that even the SEC is being paid less than half of ESPN's net profit from ad revenue on their games.

I doubt that ESPN pegs its bids to a percentage of ad revenue. At most, they would use ad revenue as a guideline on when to walk away if they think the price is too high. I think that those who have said it mostly depends on whether there are other serious bidders and on whether the AAC will take a premium to have the bulk of its content on ESPN+ are right... but we're all still guessing.

Taking content from the Sunbelt, MAC or CUSA and putting it in the AAC's spot means robbing Peter to pay Paul, since that content is for exclusive espn+. They also do not get the same ratings as the AAC does. The MW is a more viable replacement but again lack the ratings. Beyond that it's not just an ESPN view on ratings. It's NBC looking at that vs an infomercial on Saturday afternoons. It's CBS view on how the better conference basketball games can be interwoven into it's NCAA tournament build up. ESPN is far from the only player making decisions here.

TU, I envy your bouyant optimism. These AAC rights will be sold before long and you may me shouting "I told ya so!"

I often find myself looking at the half-empty glass. That's why I see that NBC infomercial or three-hour car auction as indicators that they don't wish to compete against the big dogs of college football on Saturday afternoons in the Fall. The ACC will surely find an audience for their games, but the question of ad sales introduces some risk for the media company. The infomercial will make money for NBC even if zero people watch it. The car auction reaches out to a different audience and different advertisers on Saturdays, so the income may be small, but so are the costs and the risks.

I hope your way thinking prevails in the eventual rights deal.

They already do, with Notre Dame which they pay 2.5 million per home game for. Nor are we big dogs. At cost we are talking 35-60% of the cost of the A5.

As I have said I expect 8-12 million which falls in the guard rails of other similar rated live content. That isn't "Power 5" money. I'm not paying much attention to aresco's cheerleading and big talk other than he has been consitantly confident and seemingly more and more excited. To me that just indicates he has been getting positive feedback back. In particular he has been much more upbeat since the Navy CBSsports deal. Probably because he got a sneak peak at the process that will begin at the end of February 2019. If he was being cautious or trying to avoid the question I would say it was going rough and we should look for a below market value (4-6)