(02-08-2019 04:20 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-08-2019 02:33 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The sheer number of game sis more than will be consumed.

The average college fan likes their school and maybe top 40 vs top 40 games. They will consume 4 a week, 6 if they are nutty. With rare exception top 40 vs top 40 are P5 vs P5 games.

The value of the others is much lower. Sure the AAC has the last couple of years had 3 or 4 compelling games. But they have far more Memphis vs Tulsa, ECU vs SMU, Tulane vs USF that nobody cares about anymore than EMU vs Kent or SJSU vs New Mexico.

The best the AAC can do is package maybe one game a week of potential value. The question is, do the networks care? A big problem the AAC has is they compete with the SEC, ACC, B12 and B1G for eastern and central time zone slots. Their best game is going to be going head to head with Alabama vs Tennessee, Ohio State vs Michigan State, Oklahoma vs West Virginia, Clemson vs Virginia Tech, Wisconsin vs Iowa, South Carolina vs Georgia, Florida State vs North Carolina, or similar set of games at any given time slot.

The best package the AAC could come up with is probably Friday Night football with their best match up of the week. That might have some value. ESPN has MLB playoffs in October (why MACtion is November), so useful weeknight slots are not available. Still niche slot packaging is the best hope to get more than a G5+ contract. Lost of Friday Night games for teams with strong rankings or records.

People keep saying things like that---but that battle has already been fought and the results are in. The ratings over the past 5 years show that the AAC is able to carve out a solid audience DESPITE going head to head against the SEC/ACC/Big10/Big12--often in the less viewed broadcast windows. The AAC ratings are the AAC ratings. All the networks know the numbers and know the AAC is delivering solid audiences for a really low price.
The only real question is will ESPN pony up enough money to buy all the AAC content---or will NBC or some other network peal off some of the more attractive rights by outbidding ESPN?

Shorter version, the SEC/ACC/Big10/Big12 also have that problem. They don't exist in a vacuum any more than the AAC does.