(02-02-2021 10:31 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: (02-01-2021 05:19 PM)JRsec Wrote: I am not saying this is likely, but it's time for the SEC to strategize its end game and to think in terms of using their new payouts to push for that end.
This is why I suggested that perhaps we should think the unthinkable and consider offering Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma to the West and Duke, North Carolina and Florida State to the East. That's 6 bluebloods 3 in football and 3 in basketball. Then the SEC could set up these divisions:
Northeast: Florida State, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Southeast: Auburn, Duke, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida,
Southwest: Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Northwest: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
Duke and UNC would have a home and home in hoops as would Kentucky/Florida, and Kansas/Missouri. For hoops you would play 8 games (home and home) in division and 1 out of division school home and home. That's 10 games against 5 teams. You would play 1 game against each of the other 14 for a 24 game conference schedule and play the other 8 against OOC competition. That's plenty of inventory for basketball and with 4 major national brands in the conference and strong regional brands that's an extremely nice lineup.
It balances the SEC football with maximized branding and content games and it provides the same in hoops. These 6 additions truly maximizes the SEC total value.
In a move to 20 moving first for the final maximization of value will be key.
Let the Big 10 move next and then have a two 20 team conferences of the best of the rest for 80 total schools.
In my way of looking at it, if the SEC wants to strategize and get the most value then they will have to break the rules.
Right now, the rules are of ESPN, by ESPN, and for ESPN.
When the networks say "we'll pay you this much for these games or these programs" then what they're really saying is this is the most advantageous for "us." Or "we're happy to do business with you as long as you do it our way." I can't think of another major media product that simply allows network TV to call shots for them. College sports is basically it.
College football is the second most watched sporting product in America. When you couple that with a pretty popular product in college basketball, especially when you consider the Big Dance, as well as the ancillary value of having filler programming like baseball, softball, and others, then it really is a nice value for sports networks to buy into a conference or two for a relatively small investment on their part.
And it seems the conferences are happy to do it this way. They are so happy to do it this way that they will squander opportunity after opportunity just to get a leg up on other institutions in other parts of the country. It doesn't make any sense.
ESPN is not a business partner. They are renting our property so they can make money off of it. Nothing wrong with that, but it's about time the SEC leaders and others started thinking that way. They do not give a crap about us or any other college conference.
If you want to win the game then start thinking in terms of what the rules are. The rules are basically this...ESPN makes a premium off of certain match-ups and access to certain markets. That's fine and up until now, we have been more or less content to play it that way. You want to break the rules? Then force ESPN's hand by leveraging your value...
There are a lot of ways to do it, but basically you have to think in terms of what is valuable to ESPN. They need content and they need to fill air time or have streaming options as it were. They don't want to pay an equal rate per school for larger conferences because that messes with their value equation. But whose value equation are we talking about? ESPN's and that's literally it.
One of the reasons I've always questioned the idea of incremental expansion is because it gives ESPN every reason to keep things within their control. The only way to shake their grip is to strategize outside of their paradigm. You start talking about adding 6, 10, or even more schools and all of a sudden ESPN has to look at the equation differently. The reason is simple...supply and demand. Control the supply and you can manipulate demand.
If the SEC started thinking in terms of a media structure that wasn't simply the best product, but was actually the lion's share of the product then you've flipped the leverage. Sure, ESPN could decide they don't want to increase their end of the ledger. Who cares? They can start acting like a business partner or we take the product elsewhere. ESPN won't play that card because far too much of their content is centered around college sports. They would literally have to admit that college content simply wasn't very valuable and just refuse to do business. They won't do that because they have built a freaking empire on college sports. Admitting it had less than premier value would be admitting they've been running a charity the last few decades. Of course, that's foolish. We all know they've made plenty of cash doing what they're doing. They won't simply give it up.
Even if ESPN played hardball, and they would because they're better at it, then all you have to do is take whatever new product you create and shop it to another network. ESPN loses exclusive access and we get more simply by obtaining a premium amount from other media partners. No one in professional sports gives a crap about miffing some executive in New York or CT. The reason is because they control the supply...they are unified. They also tend not to heave over their content in whole chunks without a second thought. They parse out their packages and they are perfectly happy to eschew synergy in favor of making sure they get the best balance of exposure and revenue.
College conferences, by contrast, are hurting themselves because they compete against each other. ESPN likes the idea of numerous conferences competing for airtime. They win in that fight because they get to pick what they like the most and tailor their payouts accordingly.
I do not believe for a second that ESPN really wants to reduce the number of leagues down to 3 or 2 and certainly not 1. They would lose their butt at the negotiating table in that scenario.
Something sticks out to me when I read this Forbes article.
The NFL rakes in nearly 6 billion annually and their new rights deal will increase that mark. That's divided up among 32 teams. Now, I'm not dumb. I know the NFL is a good bit more valuable than college sports because it attracts more viewers and does so nationally. But am I really to believe the NFL is THAT much more valuable than college content?
The SEC is getting 3 billion over 10 years for their 1st tier, for example. I cannot accept that the best college content is simply potatoes compared to the NFL. If you combine all the P5 leagues together then everyone made about 2.9 billion in 2019. Well, that sounds about right, doesn't it? About half of what the NFL makes? Well, that's divided up among 65 power schools. More importantly, it also includes absolutely everything...all media rights of any kind. It's radio money and bowl money...
It also includes the basketball product, the postseason tournaments from the CFP all the way to the Women's College World Series. It's literally all forms of conference revenue outside of tickets sales and the like. Some of this stuff is absolutely a bargain for networks like ESPN because they can fill so much time. That in itself has value. The NFL attracts a lot more viewers per game, but they also only have a premium number of events available.
I'm not suggesting that every single school is of equal value one way or the other in whatever they produce. No, I'm simply suggesting that the market is not being allowed to work.
Pretty soon, we're going to have to start paying players. Pretty soon, a ton of fans are going to get sick of paying exorbitant rates for tickets and supplying large donations at the same time. The best way to supplement the income is simply to stop being stupid.
The SEC should start by forming a media partnership with the 2 leagues that are about to have their contracts end. Forget about raiding them for Texas and Oklahoma.
Create a partnership with the Big 12 in which we have an annual football game. We could increase our in-house total to 9 games as well to match what the Big 12 and PAC 12 are doing.
In the meantime, create a "10th game" by setting up match-ups with all the Big 12 schools. If the Big 12 thinks they can expand by a couple and add to the party then that's even better. Personally, I think BYU is a pretty good target for them. The key here is this media partnership would own all the new games created. Instead of a 10th game for the conference and keeping it in house, you create an extra game for 20 schools. That's 10 brand new games and all P5 quality. Combine all that with a 3 game basketball challenge where everyone actually gets to participate to some degree. Combine that with the whatever media value the new Big 12 contract is worth.
This isn't expansion. It's cooperation from one conference to the next and we share media values in some respect. But we don't just share value of new games created. The Big 12 is going back into the marketplace and what if they had the strength of the SEC behind them? This is why I originally suggested merging with them years ago. If you have 24 quality schools operating as one then you can really change the market.
Now, I'm going to get crazy...
Bring the PAC 12 into the same deal. Combine the media values on the market and create extra games. It's easy for the SEC and Big 12 to get together. The PAC 12 and the Big 12 could have another round of games between themselves. I don't know that the SEC would want to add that sort of travel on a regular basis, even for football, but they could consider a few more feature games with the PAC 12...a few more basketball games...a Spring sport challenge by getting baseball and softball teams together.
This is pretty rudimentary actually. The larger increases in revenue would come from more broad partnerships down the road, but I think you see where I'm going.
This is absolutely the issue. When I started posting on the topic in 2006 on a Georgia site that is now defunct this was one o the issues I raised. The conferences absolutely need to work together as the Networks have inordinate power dealing with us separately. It's why I've often referred to it all as a hostile takeover of college sports by the corporate networks.
If the SEC and Big 10 (the conferences which still have some leverage) have the fortitude to invite who they wish, refuse to sign GOR's with the networks (which isn't a requirement) and grow their own marketability as you suggest rather than allowing themselves to only grow with schools acceptable to networks, and if they quit telling the networks in advance what they want to do, or tipping their hands by asking valuations on teams they are considering, then all of realignment would have turned out very differently, more natural in it's organization than just expanding for new markets, and the game would be much healthier.
Had the first two additions to the 10 member SEC been Florida State and Clemson then the Big East and ACC would likely have merged. And if the SEC had expanded again it would have still been into Texas. But I think it would have been a very healthy expansion if it had occurred at all.
Had the SWC and Big 8 seen a growth of the SEC solidifying Florida and moving into South Carolina then perhaps the Big 8 would have warmed up to Arkansas as a member and they might have moved on a Utah school to 14.
An ACC/Big East union with basketball only members would have created a healthy hybrid.
Georgetown, Seton Hall, St.Johns, Villanova, Providence and one or two I may be forgetting as basketball only members.
Boston College, Maryland, Miami, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, N.C. State, South Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest
That would have made for a heckuva healthy East Coast Conference.
If Maryland still departs to become the Big 10 #12 then the Irish join in their slot, if Notre Dame isn't the Big 10's #12 which the ND administration at the time favored.
We have what we have because ESPN wanted to keep strength down in all of them but the SEC and Big 10 where neither would have signed with them if there had been an attempt to weaken them.
So the PAC stays at 12, the SEC moves to 12, the Big 10 moves to 12 and the ACC and Big 12 move to 14 football members. Louisville and TCU never get the initial promotion.
Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State
Join:
Arkansas, Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and possibly B.Y.U. to form the 14 member Big 14.
Now tell me how any of those conferences would be worse off than today?
Big 10:
Indiana, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue
Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin
SEC:
Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Kentucky
Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
PAC:
Arizona, Arizona State, California U.C.L.A., Southern Cal
Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State
(perhaps they add Nevada with Utah)
While this is a hypothetical listing my point that it illustrates is that all of these remain much more compact and regional which helps with all minor sports, gives fans reasonable travel games, but does not give the networks the market spread they wanted from just a couple of conferences at the expense of everyone.
They are the ones who intentionally blurred the lines to create what they thought would be pull from two viewing audiences when a Missouri played a Kansas, a Pitt played a West Virginia, or F.S.U. played Florida, or Clemson played U.S.C. and while they got some of what they wanted it never panned out in a glorious way and too many people got frustrated.
Now I ask you with that 12 member SEC what else do we need? And every school in it is very much like the others with regard to football save Vandy and Kentucky but then each division needs a patsy.
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When expansion occurs, the SEC should move to 10 conference games.
