(05-16-2013 07:52 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (05-16-2013 12:48 AM)JRsec Wrote: My understanding was that games of the quality of ESPN2 and ESPNU would make the 3:30 slot opposite the premier game of the week that CBS has. It was also my understanding that CBS will pay out the same money. But that is in essence a cheap price to pay for the SEC reneging on exclusivity for the 3:30 time slot.
There's no question CBS got some consideration for giving up that exclusivity clause.CBS is absolutely sitting pretty, paying dirt-cheap 2008 prices for the best SEC game each week all the way until 2024!
SEC has had to pay quite a high price in the recent SECN negotiations for that 2008 deal with CBS and ESPN and anyone who thinks either network just gave back those huge gains they reaped are naive. The SEC probably could have made twice as much money between now and 2035 as it is going to make had it not signed those 2008 deals and instead went the B1G route. Massive blunder by Slive.
I had a somewhat unpopular post about a year ago (a few folks wanted to disagree with it and most ignored it) in which I pointed out how the conferences had failed for the most part in the selection of commissioners. Failed in that they hired people who had worked in the industry or had very powerful ties to it thinking that their presence would help the conferences secure the kind of contracts they needed.
I pointed out that as long as the ties were stronger to the networks that the commissioners would not really be protecting the conferences as much as their working credentials which of course are network bound.
I was hoping at the time that all of the conferences would move in the direction of independence from networks.
The problem is that most educators don't want to deal with the minutia of setting up, staffing, equipping and running their own productions sites. My view was that when you consider for instance that just within the SEC we have graduates that cover that field completely it would have had growing pains but would have boosted the economy of all our states.
We are profitable or the networks wouldn't be pushing realignment.
My fear at the time was that there were regulatory agendas that favored the networks and discouraged ventures like the Big 10 network that were being proposed and I feared the window of opportunity to set up independently would be closed by government lobby within a few years. Chief among the potential losses would be the possibility to buy satellite communications time. The Big 10 had locked that down.
Even if that window had closed the solution was to just purchase subsidiary rights from the Big 10.
In the South for instance the start up cost could easily have been mitigated by including CUSA, Sun Belt, and ACC programming and to sell the network regionally and simply pay schools based on the number of subscriptions their identified fans and alumni purchased. That could be done individually or by conference if need be.
When Delany let FOX in I kind of lost all hope in this regard. In my opinion Delany was the only one of the P6 commissioners at that time who didn't have his lifeline attached to the networks. Slive has played the game terrifically as far as additions go, not so much when it comes to playing hardball with his former friends. Ditto for Swofford, Beebe, and Aresco. Scott is a different matter and I have my eye on what he does next.
My motivations here were political. I fear that corporate control of universities is only beginning to burgeon. Sports revenue was a revenue stream heretofore not totally under their control. Corporate lobby power in Washington "could" influence future levels of federal grant money making universities more dependent upon corporate funding which through my experience means even more intellectual property rights escape the universities and fall into the hands of corporations, who by the way, are beginning to want to run research facilities at some universities by putting their personnel in as department business managers. I think most people are missing these angles because they are under the smoke screen of sports. I hope I'm wrong but what I've been seeing tells me otherwise. When I say political angle I'm not talking Dems and Repubs, I'm talking freedom of thought as it pertains to intellectual property. I enjoy your points in that they almost always make people think (and sometimes unfortunately shut off their thinking and react). JR