https://splinternews.com/layoffs-hit-abc...1819436769

How this effects sports is a simple one. If Disney doesn't own ABC then ESPN can't air college FB games on ABC. So the ACC might be the only P5 without an OTA TV partner. Also if Disney is looking to sell ABC would they be looking to sell ESPN as well?

If ESPN was no longer affiliated with ABC, I'm sure that would directly affect its media contracts with just about every conference, other than perhaps the MAC.

You would think that there would be included in the sale contractual requirements for the games that would be on ABC.

This wouldn't just be college football. NBA a prime thing as well.

(10-13-2017 01:39 PM)stever20 Wrote:  You would think that there would be included in the sale contractual requirements for the games that would be on ABC.

This wouldn't just be college football. NBA a prime thing as well.

Why? If Disney is looking to sell all they care about is getting the most money they can for it. Maybe they sell the new owners a part of the TV rights for the NBA maybe they don't?

(10-13-2017 01:07 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  So the ACC might be the only P5 without an OTA TV partner.

What are you talking about? The ACC-RSN is still a joint production with Raycom ... which *solely* exists to do OTA syndicated sports and news productions. If something has changed I'm all ears, but AFAIK that hasn't changed.

(10-13-2017 01:36 PM)YNot Wrote:  If ESPN was no longer affiliated with ABC, I'm sure that would directly affect its media contracts with just about every conference, other than perhaps the MAC.

Every contract already signed is baked in. This will have minimal impact if it happens for every conference with a ESPN channel or that partners with somebody other than ESPN. Sooooo that'd be the entire P5 then.



Also, who said ABC wouldn't still buy rights to big games out of the ESPN inventory? It's still in both their financial interests. If they stopped doing out out of some petty spite the shareholders of both companies would riot.

(10-13-2017 01:46 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:07 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  So the ACC might be the only P5 without an OTA TV partner.

What are you talking about? The ACC-RSN is still a joint production with Raycom ... which *solely* exists to do OTA syndicated sports and news productions. If something has changed I'm all ears, but AFAIK that hasn't changed.

(10-13-2017 01:36 PM)YNot Wrote:  If ESPN was no longer affiliated with ABC, I'm sure that would directly affect its media contracts with just about every conference, other than perhaps the MAC.

Every contract already signed is baked in. This will have minimal impact if it happens for every conference with a ESPN channel or that partners with somebody other than ESPN. Sooooo that'd be the entire P5 then.



Also, who said ABC wouldn't still buy rights to big games out of the ESPN inventory? It's still in both their financial interests. If they stopped doing out out of some petty spite the shareholders of both companies would riot.

Raycom isn't OTA. OTA is CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. If Disney doesn't own ABC it can't put it's "ESPN on ABC" games on ABC. ESPN owns those rights not ABC. The new owners COULD buy those rights if ESPN/Disney decide to sell them. If the new buyers don't want to spend as much as disney spent they are under no obligation to buy them. ESPN has been spending a ton on sports rights, that doesn't mean everyone is down to pay those high fees as we enter a new way of distributing and consuming television.

(10-13-2017 01:46 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:39 PM)stever20 Wrote:  You would think that there would be included in the sale contractual requirements for the games that would be on ABC.

This wouldn't just be college football. NBA a prime thing as well.

Why? If Disney is looking to sell all they care about is getting the most money they can for it. Maybe they sell the new owners a part of the TV rights for the NBA maybe they don't?

"Why?" Well, two major reasons.

One, if they're looking to sell, they need somebody on the other end to buy. And it's going to be hard to sell broadcast ABC without ABC's sports programming. So I'd expect the sale agreement to include some sort of partnership arrangement between New ABC and Disney/ESPN for ESPN on ABC to continue, at least for the life of the current rights deals. In other words, only a dang fool would buy ABC without any sports rights, and most of the folks with "let's buy a TV network money" aren't dang fools, or at least hire people who aren't.

Two, most of the TV contracts for sports events have clauses and provisions about what games can and can't and may and must be shown where. So if ESPN suddenly doesn't have an OTA broadcast outlet, they're in breach of a lot of their deals with the Big Ten, PAC, NBA, etc.

I'd be fairly certain there are clauses in the individual contracts that require x number of OTA exposures. I mean something like NBA has a requirement in there for the finals to be on ABC.

Sports would be something that would be definitely included in the sale of ABC. It would have to.

(10-13-2017 01:07 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  https://splinternews.com/layoffs-hit-abc...1819436769

How this effects sports is a simple one. If Disney doesn't own ABC then ESPN can't air college FB games on ABC. So the ACC might be the only P5 without an OTA TV partner. Also if Disney is looking to sell ABC would they be looking to sell ESPN as well?

Disney acquired ESPN through its original purchase of ABC, so I assume it is still a subsidiary of ABC. Obviously, that doesn't mean they can't carve it out.

It's hard for me to imagine who could create more value from ABC than Disney. It's a great platform to cross promote ESPN and Disney. For instance, in recent carriage negotiations with Altice, Disney had the leverage of withholding ABC as one advantage in convincing Altice to reach agreement.

(10-13-2017 01:46 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:07 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  So the ACC might be the only P5 without an OTA TV partner.

What are you talking about? The ACC-RSN is still a joint production with Raycom ... which *solely* exists to do OTA syndicated sports and news productions. If something has changed I'm all ears, but AFAIK that hasn't changed.

(10-13-2017 01:36 PM)YNot Wrote:  If ESPN was no longer affiliated with ABC, I'm sure that would directly affect its media contracts with just about every conference, other than perhaps the MAC.

Every contract already signed is baked in. This will have minimal impact if it happens for every conference with a ESPN channel or that partners with somebody other than ESPN. Sooooo that'd be the entire P5 then.



Also, who said ABC wouldn't still buy rights to big games out of the ESPN inventory? It's still in both their financial interests. If they stopped doing out out of some petty spite the shareholders of both companies would riot.

I may be wrong, but didn't the SEC OTA Raycom disappear with the SEC Network? I believe that is the plan when the linear ACC Network occurs. One reason why it is 2019.

Just a technical correction. Raycom is OTA. Its just not national OTA. It is regional OTA

(10-13-2017 01:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Raycom isn't OTA. OTA is CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC.

OTA is "over the air", channels you can pick up just by hooking an antenna to your TV. RAycom may have some RSN affiliates, but most of it is local TV. It's technically OTA, but it's not comparable to national CBS/NBC/FOX/ABC.

Quote:If Disney doesn't own ABC it can't put it's "ESPN on ABC" games on ABC.

Sure they can, as long as there's a mutual agreement between Disney (ESPN) and New ABC, and as long as that agreement doesn't breach something in the ESPN contracts with the leagues.

Quote:ESPN owns those rights not ABC. The new owners COULD buy those rights if ESPN/Disney decide to sell them.

In a lot of those cases, ESPN is obligated to find an national OTA network outlet for those games. And New ABC is the logical choice, since New ABC and Disney already going to be working out a deal to buy/sell broadcast ABC.

Quote:If the new buyers don't want to spend as much as disney spent they are under no obligation to buy them. ESPN has been spending a ton on sports rights, that doesn't mean everyone is down to pay those high fees as we enter a new way of distributing and consuming television.

The rights to those sports events are going to be part of the package that Disney sells to New ABC.

All hypothetical, of course, based on speculation by people at ABC. But it's really hard to come up with a workable situation where Disney sells broadcast ABC and stops showing the bulk of the games now known as "ESPN on ABC" on ABC. ABC's going to want the games, ESPN *has* to show them on OTA network TV per contracts, and Disney and New ABC are going to be completing a fairly complicated transaction anyway--it's hard to see the logic in breaking the "ESPN on ABC" part out of it.

There are a number of eggs to unscramble in splitting up Disney-ABC-Marvel-ESPN-Lucasfilm, and "ESPN on ABC" is one of the easier ones to handle. Settle on a nominal rights fee for New ABC to pay Disney, and then shuffle money between the purchase price and the annual rights fee payments.

(10-13-2017 01:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:46 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:39 PM)stever20 Wrote:  You would think that there would be included in the sale contractual requirements for the games that would be on ABC.

This wouldn't just be college football. NBA a prime thing as well.

Why? If Disney is looking to sell all they care about is getting the most money they can for it. Maybe they sell the new owners a part of the TV rights for the NBA maybe they don't?

"Why?" Well, two major reasons.

One, if they're looking to sell, they need somebody on the other end to buy. And it's going to be hard to sell broadcast ABC without ABC's sports programming. So I'd expect the sale agreement to include some sort of partnership arrangement between New ABC and Disney/ESPN for ESPN on ABC to continue, at least for the life of the current rights deals. In other words, only a dang fool would buy ABC without any sports rights, and most of the folks with "let's buy a TV network money" aren't dang fools, or at least hire people who aren't.

Two, most of the TV contracts for sports events have clauses and provisions about what games can and can't and may and must be shown where. So if ESPN suddenly doesn't have an OTA broadcast outlet, they're in breach of a lot of their deals with the Big Ten, PAC, NBA, etc.

Really? They need someone to buy if they are selling?


I wouldn't say breach, but an opening to rework those deals for sure. I'm not saying it will definitely take games off of OTA but to act like this wont have any effect is silly. It would allow conferences to now negotiate with the new owners of ABC directly and sell part of their rights to them ala the SEC/CBS. It takes away some of the power of ESPN if they can't themselves offer true OTA games. Right now ESPN can move late season important games to ABC to reach a larger audience, in the future it wont be able to. They could lose all availability to premier games like OU/UT, OSU/UM and ND/USC since those could/would be part of the conferences other TV partners ABC/Fox.

(10-13-2017 02:01 PM)orangefan Wrote:  It's hard for me to imagine who could create more value from ABC than Disney. It's a great platform to cross promote ESPN and Disney. For instance, in recent carriage negotiations with Altice, Disney had the leverage of withholding ABC as one advantage in convincing Altice to reach agreement.

I agree. And if Disney is really considering this, you might be seeing one of the emerging leaders on what replaces cable and broadcast television. Continuing to force people out of money through carriage isn't a longterm solution, and advertising revenue can be generated across new or alternative media outlets. In short, if cable/broadcast can't make good money the honest way, it's not a good investment.

I hope they are ready to walk. ESPN just loses money, and unless there's something completely new to rejuvenate television programming (like, maybe broadcast goes into the short or miniseries market, truncating the old models that make production costs so high), ABC won't likely be a good platform to deliver Disney's newer toys in its portfolios, Marvel and Star Wars. Disney can do its own thing there.

If/when that happens...I don't see how college athletics aren't forced to scale down all of athletic operations. Media revenue is the ONLY thing propping it all up.

(10-13-2017 02:21 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:46 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:39 PM)stever20 Wrote:  You would think that there would be included in the sale contractual requirements for the games that would be on ABC.

This wouldn't just be college football. NBA a prime thing as well.

Why? If Disney is looking to sell all they care about is getting the most money they can for it. Maybe they sell the new owners a part of the TV rights for the NBA maybe they don't?

"Why?" Well, two major reasons.

One, if they're looking to sell, they need somebody on the other end to buy. And it's going to be hard to sell broadcast ABC without ABC's sports programming. So I'd expect the sale agreement to include some sort of partnership arrangement between New ABC and Disney/ESPN for ESPN on ABC to continue, at least for the life of the current rights deals. In other words, only a dang fool would buy ABC without any sports rights, and most of the folks with "let's buy a TV network money" aren't dang fools, or at least hire people who aren't.

Two, most of the TV contracts for sports events have clauses and provisions about what games can and can't and may and must be shown where. So if ESPN suddenly doesn't have an OTA broadcast outlet, they're in breach of a lot of their deals with the Big Ten, PAC, NBA, etc.

Really? They need someone to buy if they are selling?


I wouldn't say breach, but an opening to rework those deals for sure. I'm not saying it will definitely take games off of OTA but to act like this wont have any effect is silly. It would allow conferences to now negotiate with the new owners of ABC directly and sell part of their rights to them ala the SEC/CBS. It takes away some of the power of ESPN if they can't themselves offer true OTA games. Right now ESPN can move late season important games to ABC to reach a larger audience, in the future it wont be able to. They could lose all availability to premier games like OU/UT, OSU/UM and ND/USC since those could/would be part of the conferences other TV partners ABC/Fox.

Before I go complete internet jihad on this, let me clarify something. I'm talking about the duration of the existing deals. You might be talking about the long term after those deals are up. Is that what you're talking about?

Because I'm saying the terms of a lot of the CURRENT league-ESPN deals have clauses about how many games a year are on ABC. Those deals would be a big headache to rework, and it's a LOT easier just to keep those games on ABC and say "New ABC purchased those games for $X as part of the ABC broacast division package."

If you're saying that, when the current deals expire, ESPN is going to be at a disadvantage because they can't offer OTA games, that's something to consider.

fair to say in the article now:
Update, 2:27 p.m.: A spokesperson said the rumors of a potential sale of ABC are “untrue.”

I think RG was talking a lot of hope here quite frankly. He wants desprately for ESPN to lose power.

(10-13-2017 01:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Raycom isn't OTA. OTA is CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. If Disney doesn't own ABC it can't put it's "ESPN on ABC" games on ABC. ESPN owns those rights not ABC. The new owners COULD buy those rights if ESPN/Disney decide to sell them. If the new buyers don't want to spend as much as disney spent they are under no obligation to buy them. ESPN has been spending a ton on sports rights, that doesn't mean everyone is down to pay those high fees as we enter a new way of distributing and consuming television.

First ... your OTA definition is invented. There is more OTA than the big four. CW is also in nearly every media market in the country OTA for example. And the CW actually pays for high quality prime time content too (Penn & Teller Fool Us, Whose Line Is It Anyway, etc).

Second ... who do you think Raycom uses for OTA?! When I see ACC-RSN games in my media market (Anderson-Asheville-Greenville-Spartanburg) it comes on typically the following channels:
- WLOS (ABC) ... most often and typically 2/3 of the time
- WYCW (CW) ... next most often and nearly all the rest
- WSPA (CBS) ... from time to time
- FSN Carolinas (if the local OTAs didn't pick it up it ALWAYS ends up here)

IIRC it is a joint Tier 2 on the ACC with Fox Sports and Raycom, so that makes total sense. And by the time this goes away ... there'll be an ACC TV channel ... so what does it matter at that point? (And there will still be Raycom picking up leftover scraps I betcha).

(10-13-2017 02:43 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Raycom isn't OTA. OTA is CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. If Disney doesn't own ABC it can't put it's "ESPN on ABC" games on ABC. ESPN owns those rights not ABC. The new owners COULD buy those rights if ESPN/Disney decide to sell them. If the new buyers don't want to spend as much as disney spent they are under no obligation to buy them. ESPN has been spending a ton on sports rights, that doesn't mean everyone is down to pay those high fees as we enter a new way of distributing and consuming television.

First ... your OTA definition is invented. There is more OTA than the big four. CW is also in nearly every media market in the country OTA for example. And the CW actually pays for high quality prime time content too (Penn & Teller Fool Us, Whose Line Is It Anyway, etc).

Second ... who do you think Raycom uses for OTA?! When I see ACC-RSN games in my media market (Anderson-Asheville-Greenville-Spartanburg) it comes on typically the following channels:
- WLOS (ABC) ... most often and typically 2/3 of the time
- WYCW (CW) ... next most often and nearly all the rest
- WSPA (CBS) ... from time to time
- FSN Carolinas (if the local OTAs didn't pick it up it ALWAYS ends up here)

IIRC it is a joint Tier 2 on the ACC with Fox Sports and Raycom, so that makes total sense. And by the time this goes away ... there'll be an ACC TV channel ... so what does it matter at that point? (And there will still be Raycom picking up leftover scraps I betcha).

I don't think there will be any leftover scraps. There isn't with the SEC, and it'd be the exact same thing.

(10-13-2017 02:47 PM)stever20 Wrote:  I don't think there will be any leftover scraps. There isn't with the SEC, and it'd be the exact same thing.

There will be scraps in basketball. Raycom already gobbles up nearly every ACC game not picked up in standard tiers.

(10-13-2017 02:26 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 02:21 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:59 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:46 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 01:39 PM)stever20 Wrote:  You would think that there would be included in the sale contractual requirements for the games that would be on ABC.

This wouldn't just be college football. NBA a prime thing as well.

Why? If Disney is looking to sell all they care about is getting the most money they can for it. Maybe they sell the new owners a part of the TV rights for the NBA maybe they don't?

"Why?" Well, two major reasons.

One, if they're looking to sell, they need somebody on the other end to buy. And it's going to be hard to sell broadcast ABC without ABC's sports programming. So I'd expect the sale agreement to include some sort of partnership arrangement between New ABC and Disney/ESPN for ESPN on ABC to continue, at least for the life of the current rights deals. In other words, only a dang fool would buy ABC without any sports rights, and most of the folks with "let's buy a TV network money" aren't dang fools, or at least hire people who aren't.

Two, most of the TV contracts for sports events have clauses and provisions about what games can and can't and may and must be shown where. So if ESPN suddenly doesn't have an OTA broadcast outlet, they're in breach of a lot of their deals with the Big Ten, PAC, NBA, etc.

Really? They need someone to buy if they are selling?


I wouldn't say breach, but an opening to rework those deals for sure. I'm not saying it will definitely take games off of OTA but to act like this wont have any effect is silly. It would allow conferences to now negotiate with the new owners of ABC directly and sell part of their rights to them ala the SEC/CBS. It takes away some of the power of ESPN if they can't themselves offer true OTA games. Right now ESPN can move late season important games to ABC to reach a larger audience, in the future it wont be able to. They could lose all availability to premier games like OU/UT, OSU/UM and ND/USC since those could/would be part of the conferences other TV partners ABC/Fox.

Before I go complete internet jihad on this, let me clarify something. I'm talking about the duration of the existing deals. You might be talking about the long term after those deals are up. Is that what you're talking about?

Because I'm saying the terms of a lot of the CURRENT league-ESPN deals have clauses about how many games a year are on ABC. Those deals would be a big headache to rework, and it's a LOT easier just to keep those games on ABC and say "New ABC purchased those games for $X as part of the ABC broacast division package."

If you're saying that, when the current deals expire, ESPN is going to be at a disadvantage because they can't offer OTA games, that's something to consider.

Everything would be up in the air. Yes, they could buy them from ESPN but they could agree to take on a handful or they could want the best games for those slots. If Disney sells ABC things will not be the same, that's my entire point. ESPN wont produce the games, ESPN talent wont call the games, a new player in TV rights will enter the game, ESPN wont look as appealing in future negotiations and some of it's power will disapate. EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE!!!

Hypothetical example, when the first TV rights come up for sale (B1Gs TV rights are up in 5 years) they could sell a chunk of games to ABC directly. Now could ABC hypothetically want to have those new games in prime time and push the ACC/Big XII games to the day at like noon? I mean if they have ACC games for the next 20 years they wont have to be worried about pissing off the ACC since they can't go anywhere right?

Big moves like this possible sale have consequences no one usually thinks about ahead of time, but the one certainty is things will change.