(07-18-2020 11:39 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-18-2020 11:03 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-18-2020 07:07 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-17-2020 08:11 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-17-2020 02:53 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Not sure what I changed? Not sure we disagree about much except:

I do think that despite the immense infusion of money in to college athletics these past 20 years, the *disparities* as we fans witness them on the field have not changed much, meaning:

In 1980 ...

Alabama was a huge national brand.

Purdue was obviously of lesser stature but reasonably well known.

Arkansas State effectively did not "publicly" exist.

In 2020 ...

Alabama is a huge national brand.

Purdue is obviously of less stature but reasonably well known.

Arkansas State effectively ... well, I would say they are more known than in 1980.

So despite the dollar difference between these three clearly having increased in the past 40 years, the only thing that seems to have changed in terms of overall brand awareness is that .... the least of these has actually increased its profile over that time relative to the others.

And that's the main point I was trying to make, which you seemed to miss in your ire at my perceived slight (none was intended, btw), which is that no matter what anyone else is doing, no matter how powerful Alabama is, no matter what machinations ESPN engages in, no matter what is going on with the NCAA, no matter how big the B1G media deal is and how small the Sun Belt media deal is, ANY school can build its program if it leverages its own assets.

The insinuation was closer to the top of your initial remarks, but your evidence is anecdotal. Specifically nothing has changed because the top brands are the top draws and the top draws earn the most and the distance between Alabama's earnings and even those of Purdue and Arkansas State has grown significantly because branding and content multipliers are the new payday for the networks.

Gone are market footprint issues except for T3 cable networks and when future consolidation occurs it will be to multiply the number of brand on brand games. So Quo TV money didn't change the order, it just changed the gaps in the order and streaming will stress all present arrangements even more before it is over.

I agree that the raw dollar gaps, even adjusted for inflation, have clearly gotten much larger than existed 40 years ago, though not sure on a percentage basis*. But qualitatively, I think if anything the gap has narrowed slightly between the bottom school, ARKST, and the other two, because while the media dollars gap has exploded, the exposure gap has not - in 1980, Arkansas State could go years without having any of its games televised and never went to bowl games, now basically all of them are, and it regularly goes to bowl games. So the media revolution has produced exposure dividends for G5-type schools.

Also, the growth in the money gap is not just attributable to TV money. Florida got around $2m from the SEC in 1995 and $45m today, but its budget has grown from $15m in 1995 to $160m today. That's about $100m in non-TV growth. That's because of the other things I mentioned, the stuff to dramatically leverage more money from the "local" fans via hugely increased fees in areas like parking, tickets, local sponsorships, aggressive fundraising from donors, etc.

We saw that here at LSU circa 2001, after Saban was hired. He wanted to build some big new facilities, and to do that LSU decided to introduce Personal Seat Licenses and make season-ticket holders re-apply for their seats based on their ability to pay the new higher fees and prices. There was a BIG uproar from many fans, along the lines of "my family has had 40-yard line season tickets since the 1960s, and now we can't afford them anymore! LSU is pricing the "little guy" out of the stadium in favor of the Fat Cats!". Lots of that griping in the local media. It happened anyway, raising huge new sums of money.




*E.g., if today Alabama pays its coach $9m a year, Ark State pays its coach $1m a year, a 9 to 1 gap. If in 1980 Alabama paid the Bear $200,000, which I believe they did, and Arkansas State paid its coach $20,000 a year, that's a 10 to 1 gap. I'm not sure but that is possible.

Well in the case of Florida larger schools with more alumni, larger filled venues, and usually more wealthier donors, make more.

Now the interesting debate would be over quality of play going up with extra resources. I think the quality of college football play in the late 70's and 80's was better than today. Today's lines are bigger, but for the most part not better. Coachability of players has some to do with it, but the linemen of the 70's and 80's had to not only block at the line of scrimmage but down field. They played more downs by far. Today's 6'5'' 350lb linemen are rotated every few plays and seldom get 10 yards past the scrimmage line. I don't think the skill positions have changed much and it's hard to tell about DB's since they have so many restrictions against them.

But as to the gaps in revenue, it's only going to get worse as networks jockey for weekly high content games in quantity.

There was definitely more consistent effort. They are emphasizing strength and speed and ignoring stamina. I was watching a Texas 2005 game on LHN a couple months ago and all the downfield blocking stood out to me. Now Texas has had some poorly coached teams, especially under Strong, but I had forgotten teams actually did that! A lot of players on most teams take plays "off." And linemen are out of breath on a 10 play drive.

Well the game has evolved, like all sports, in a more specialized direction - the positions that emphasize size have gotten bigger and thus slower, those that emphasize speed, faster and usually smaller. Teams like the Redskins and Raiders of the early 1980s pioneered this - I remember something John Madden said about the Redskins of that time, something along the lines of "they have more big guys, and more little guys, than other teams".

In the 1960s the size gap between players wasn't nearly so pronounced. Now you look at a Left Tackle and Left Cornerback and it's hard to believe they play the same sport.