These production costs are why C_USA just opted to get a couple $100K per school only, with no production costs.

There have been reports the MAC returns to ESPN nearly all the "revenue" to pay production costs ESPN charges.They basically get a net of $0 for those weeknight football games nobody attends.

(12-15-2019 02:34 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  These production costs are why C_USA just opted to get a couple $100K per school only, with no production costs.

There have been reports the MAC returns to ESPN nearly all the "revenue" to pay production costs ESPN charges.They basically get a net of $0 for those weeknight football games nobody attends.

F ESPiN

CUSA produced about a third of their football games and almost all their basketball games in their first deal (that only paid 200K a school) for the CUSA Digital network. Furthermore---unlike the AAC's deal with ESPN Plus----CUSA had to pay not only production costs---but also the entire cost of developing and maintaining the CUSA Digital Network platform. They did that with smaller budgets than AAC schools and with only $200K in media revenue. Clearly, productions costs are not 2 million a year. If they were---CUSA AD's would have been screaming to the high heavens about being saddled with the the costs involved in producing content for the CUSA Digital Network. I'd also add that the MW Digital Network is producing right around a 1000 live events every year. That's about twice what the AAC will do in 2020 and is approximately what the AAC will be responsible for producing when the contract is fully implemented. If production costs for those events are really 2 million a year---then the poor MW schools are losing a million per team every year on their media deal (and have been losing big money every year for almost an entire bowl cycle).

Here is the dirty little secret for MW fans. I dont think ESPN has inked a single new deal over the last few years that did not have some sort of ESPN+ component. I will be shocked if the MW can get any significant play on ESPN without ESPN+ being part of their next deal.

(12-14-2019 11:12 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  The only beef I have with the self-production business is announcers.

My observation is announcing ranges from low ESPN quality to outright rank homers.

In general the viewership will be more visiting team fans than home team because many of the potential home team viewers are in the stands.

I wish the home team would do production but visiting team provide the announcers.

Dirty little secret for you, Arkstfan: mute the tv, and turn on your radio to the game you are watching if possible. Radio announcers are far superior to a lot of tv announcers, IMO. I have to admit doing it like that is kinda weird at first, but you'll get used to it and like it!!!

The conference, in this case, The American Athletic Conference, should hire announcers and assign them like officials. There needs to be harmony in the broadcasts to ensure the product, the games, have a standard that meets the desired production level of the conference.

(12-14-2019 11:13 AM)scoscox Wrote:  i'm curious what the quality of the broadcasts will be like. accn broadcasts are generally awful

You must not have seen an ACCN broadcast since they completed renovations?

Missouri State outsources the production to a local company. They do an excellent job. Our announcers are pretty good, they are veterans who have done sports in the area for years. It makes me appreciate them when I have to watch other ESPN+. Our games watch like a low level ESPN game or a FOX Sports Midwest type. Can't complain.

(12-15-2019 06:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(12-14-2019 11:12 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  The only beef I have with the self-production business is announcers.

My observation is announcing ranges from low ESPN quality to outright rank homers.

In general the viewership will be more visiting team fans than home team because many of the potential home team viewers are in the stands.

I wish the home team would do production but visiting team provide the announcers.

Dirty little secret for you, Arkstfan: mute the tv, and turn on your radio to the game you are watching if possible. Radio announcers are far superior to a lot of tv announcers, IMO. I have to admit doing it like that is kinda weird at first, but you'll get used to it and like it!!!

You can't do it with radio because radio is always well ahead of streaming. It can be done with streaming radio. Just pause a few times and eventually you can get it to sync up but that's a kludge solution.