(06-23-2022 12:42 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-23-2022 11:27 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-23-2022 09:13 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-23-2022 08:24 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(06-23-2022 06:54 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The Pac-12 is going to be substantially ahead of the ACC as the #3 conference financially when this is all said and done.

If that happens — and tbh, I’ll believe it when I see it — what a devastating indictment that would be of the ACC’s financial strategy/leadership.

I think the ACC made a poorly-time long-term TV deal. Whether that's an indictment of ACC leadership is an open question.

That being said, I'll continue to state that the Pac-12 remains perpetually underrated on this forum due to recency bias in the CFP era. The Pac-12 has multiple large affluent markets where it has a complete P5 monopoly, key marquee brands like USC and UCLA, top academics, and a lineup of institutional, cultural and geographic fits.

The Pac-12 has *always* been the #3 league in terms of long-term conference realignment value in my mind. This is just a matter of the TV rights market finally catching up to that reality.

2 decades, a quarter or more of a lifetime, isn't recency bias. It includes BCS and CFP. And it's been in more sports than football. Furthermore Bullet is correct about the PAC's numbers being solidly 5th in attendance and viewership, and Frank, that's in their own footprint, people aren't watching in California!

Recency bias may apply to the last 10 years worth of any championships for any schools, but at least in the SEC and Big 10 the decline in butts in the seats isn't so massive when a school hasn't done anything recently. Two decades isn't recent. In non COVID years the PAC averaged between 47-49 thousand in attendance at a football game. While on par with the ACC, it lagged 20-30 thousand behind the B10 and SEC respectively.

I submit that in most cases in media contracts that viewership, and to a lesser extent attendance, tend to reflect revenue. The ACC contract was so poor for so long that they were fourth in attendance, third in actual viewers and tied with the PAC for 5th in revenue and well behind the Big 12.

You are correct, I believe, that a new PAC contract may elevate the PAC's revenue ahead of the ACC's, and likely will pass the Big 12's as well, but that is due to contract timing, Big 12 losses, and not resurgence as a conference. That's just reality and there's no bias in it. Business is business!

Now, I have confidence in Kliavkoff's competence. I never had that in Scott who was overhyped and had little sense of reality. George could be a factor in ascendency of the conference and interest in it, but even then viewership and attendance will directly impact their revenue, both gate and media. Californians have to care about college sports, and I mean the Big 3, for improvement to show.

When the issue is your own fans' interest there's no bias involved and the problem is wholly on your own doorstep.

See - the bolded is really where I don't think we can make that assumption. I feel that attendance is an overrated metric in at least in terms of determining TV value.

Yes, the Big Ten and SEC have both the TV viewers and attendance numbers while also covering multiple major markets, so it makes sense that they're the clear top 2 financially among the leagues.

However, it's more muddled beyond them. Any advantage that the Big 12 has had for TV numbers in the CFP era were almost entirely due to Oklahoma and Texas, which are leaving. I agree that the Big 12 has had more consistent attendance top to bottom, but that was more reflected in their relatively better bowl deals compared to the Pac-12 and ACC much more than their TV deals (which once again were propped up by OU and UT).

Miami is a perfect example a school that doesn't have great attendance (at least relative to its brand and performance), yet it's a critically important TV draw. They're a much more valuable TV school than even most schools in the Big Ten and SEC: it would be shortsighted to call, say, Iowa and South Carolina as being more valuable than Miami simply based on those Big Ten and SEC schools consistently selling more tickets.

Likewise, we have to look at the Pac-12 like a TV executive. It's easy to see why the Big Ten and SEC dominate because they have both the combo of passion, viewers and markets, so let's put them aside. If I'm a TV executive, I'm not comparing the Pac-12 markets to rabid college towns/states, but rather the pro sports-focused markets of the East like Boston, NYC and Philly. On that front, the Pac-12 markets actually compare quite favorably. It's ridiculous to compare the intensity of the fandom in the Pac-12 to places like Birmingham and Columbus or even Lubbock - of course the Pac-12 loses that battle every time. What the Pac-12 has, though, are legitimate REAL TV markets with a ton of affluent highly-educated people like LA, SF, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and Denver with similar demographics to the major East Coast cities but a much better college sports following *compared* to those East Coast cities.

LA is a better college sports market than NYC, SF is a better college sports market than Boston, and Seattle is a better college sports market than Philly. THAT is where the Pac-12 has a comparative advantage in relation to the ACC (whose expansion strategy for the last 20 years has been to break into those East Coast markets) and the Big 12 (who have solid attendance but weak potential TV audiences). When my business gets an extra boost from selling premium ads to premium audiences, there's a ton to like with the Pac-12 there.

What does season home attendance have to do with bowl games? That's a real stretch.

While you are right about Miami, they are the exception to the rule, not a normal example. And in addition to attendance, revenues are a strong indicator of their fan support. TCU, KU and Baylor all exceed 8 of the Pac 12 in revenue-all but UW, USC, UCLA and Stanford. And the Pac 12's average revenue of roughly $104 million is behind the $107 of the ACC. Its not even way ahead of the R8 ($94 million) and, of course, behind the current Big 12 average of $110 million.
2020 figures https://www.csnbbs.com/thread-943149.html