(02-12-2019 07:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  How so? E.g., let's say I'm right about the ESPN/Big East situation in 2012, that ESPN had a "right to match" clause that meant that the Big East had to bring ESPN a final offer from another network, in this case NBC, and if ESPN matched it, the Big East had to take the ESPN "match" with no discretion to refuse it in favor of NBC.

But you'e not, which ends this portion of the discussion. I actually worked in TV for a bit. Having read the initial BE contract and knowing people involved with the negotiations, the fear was not that ESPN would match a contract and the Big East would have no choice but to take it. The fear was the old line members would demand to take the ESPN offer, if they perceived all else as being equal, because they feared the unknown. Even if another media company gave them more exposure or promised to promote them better.

That was less an issue with the AAC because the majority of the older members were gone, and the remaining teams had experienced not being under a full ESPN contract. But NBC did design the contract in a way to ensure ESPN would not bother trying to match it. But they did. And the fear of the unknown ended up winning over,and they CHOSE to take the ESPN offer because when given the two options, staying visible on ESPN was a better choice.

(02-13-2019 01:27 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-12-2019 09:11 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(02-10-2019 09:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-10-2019 04:26 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I will be surprised if ESPN and AAC reach a deal in the exclusive window.

ESPN may very well come at with a good number but I would expect that is going to condition their offer on getting a decent chunk of content on ESPN+ and not reselling content to CBSSN and I can't see AAC going for that.

If anyone objects to reselling content to CBSSN it would be the AAC, not ESPN. And I don't really see why the AAC would object to that. CBSSN is a valid network with wide cable distribution. It might not be as ideal as viewing on the main ESPN channel, but it's not worth fighting much over, IMO.

Now putting stuff exclusively on PLUS, which ESPN will also almost surely want to do, I agree, that is likely to be a bone of contention for the AAC.

They got that exposure they wanted and did pretty good with it. Football conference had a access bowl contender almost every year.

If then the AAC could keep 20 weekend exposures FB and BB on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 then offload the remainder to ESPN+ for 2 million extra per school I don't see a reason why not to accept.

ESPN+ at 2 million subscribers doesn't sound like much at 5 dollars per month but its like having 0.20 carriage fee for 50 million distribution. A number several cable networks would be happy to have.

Because thats a much lower level of exposure than they have now. The AAC had 33 exposures on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU in 2018. Add to that, 13 CBS-Sports slots and 6 ESPN-News slots. Additionally, Navy had 1 CBS game and 5 CBS-Sports Network games. All told, the AAC had 58 of their 70 games on national linear networks. Only 12 games were on ESPN-3 and none were on ESPN-Plus.

Of those national linear TV platforms, the very worst one is CBS-Sports than has about 55-60 million subscribers. ESPN-Plus has barely 2 million subscribers (and it just hit that number after 600K signed up the night of the first UFC Night card).

Under what your proposing the AAC accept, the AAC would drop from 58 national linear telecasts to 20---and go from having 83% of their games on national linear networks to just 29% on national TV networks. That would be a disastrous move for a relatively new sports media property that is still growing its viewership.

What about a third option with ESPN? Coog other than maybe one year, I don't think you all were around for the old ESPN Contract. But it worked like the current ACC contract does. Games were slotted in this manner/order:

1st and 2nd tier games
ABC
ESPN
ESPN2
ESPNU

Just as it is now. But instead of the third tier of games going to CBS Sports Net, they would be syndicated and branded as the American Sports Network, and these games would be on either the local TV stations of the teams playing, and the non-local but in market RSN's, such as MSG, MESN, NESN, FSN (insert City/State), Sunshine Network, etc, or the games would be shown directly on the RSN's (The ACC has a mixture of both), and shown on ESPN 3 or ESPN+ out of market. The games would be regional instead of national, likely only shown on RSN's in states that have American members, and probably some neighboring areas. But where it loses the national footprint of CBS Sports, it makes up in those games being on basic cable and/or local TV in nearly every one of those markets. Note that the - let's call them 4th tier games - games against FCS schools likely still go on ESPN 3/ESPN+

With no major conference now syndicating games after this year, that would be a great way to take over the empty time slots. I think it's a far better option than the CBS Sports games (although perhaps a provision to allow Navy games to remain on CBS sports should be considered).