(05-16-2022 03:40 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-16-2022 02:55 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(05-16-2022 10:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-16-2022 10:38 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(05-16-2022 10:31 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ...there's no formula as to why something becomes a hit show. For all of the billions of dollars that Netflix has spent on content, its biggest hit ever was Squid Game - an inexpensive Korean-produced show with subtitles/dubbing and incredibly graphic violence. Squid Game had a per episode cost of about 25% of the average episode of Stranger Things and The Crown and 10% of the per episode costs of the big Marvel shows like WandaVision. Granted, one show like Squid Game game can power profits for an entire company - entertainment companies besides Disney (which has so many brands to mine) are all effectively on a boom/bust model.

This is one reason I can be sure that civilization as we know it is coming to an end. No sense worrying about what will happen 10 years from now at the rate things are going.

Let me be clear: that wasn't a critique of Netflix. Squid Game is a *great* show. If anything, it restored my faith in audiences since it showed that a brand new unique story with excellent writing and compelling characters could still draw a huge number of viewers without being a CGI-fest (and I say that as someone that watches every Star Wars and Marvel movie and TV show as soon as it's released). We need more Squid Game-type shows that don't require a budget in the $100 million-plus per season range to get viewers and/or rely upon pre-existing intellectual property.

Perhaps I also need to be clearer: I wasn't criticizing the fact that Squid Game was "inexpensive" or "Korean-produced"; I was commented on the " incredibly graphic violence" part.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that violence sells. I mean, the biggest linear TV show of the past decade was Game of Thrones. In any event, there's violence for the sake of being violent versus violence as a legitimate part of the story and I'd say that Squid Game was the latter.

Now that I've been thinking about it, the themes of Squid Game are sort of a parallel of conference realignment and how there's an increasing money gap between the Big Ten/SEC, the rest of the P5, and everyone else.

SPOILERS (AT LEAST THEMATICALLY)

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The initial episodes of Squid Game made it seem like it was the common theme of asking, "How far would you go to make a lot of money?" As the show goes on, though, we realize that it's really asking, "How far would you go if you actually had so much money that the only way to entertain yourself is destroy others?"

That's essentially what we're dealing with in college sports, right? At the bottom end, schools and their respective athletic departments are scrambling for survival to the point where they're effectively doing anything for revenue. At the top end, the Big Ten and SEC are coming to a point where they may have more money than they know what to do with. What might be a greater danger to the G5 than the Big Ten/SEC separating from them is the Big Ten/SEC deciding to stay and use the G5 as pawns in match between the Big Ten and SEC where they cause a lot of destruction to the pawns but the upshot is that those two leagues will still be standing with a lot money at the end.

I'd say the greatest danger is if the G5 is forced to abandon the mid major model (this already doesn't apply to some like SMU) and goes down the path of deep losses like UConn. Granted UConn is still UConn and is so important to Connecticut that the expectation is to spend. Most of the G5 doesn't want that.