(07-31-2020 02:19 PM)Gamecock Wrote: I was radically opposed to it for a long time but I could live with Clemson as an SEC member at this point. It would knock them down a peg and perhaps with them in the fold the powers that be would actually start caring about that game and South Carolina
Gamecock, ESPN put that clause in the SEC's media contract because they feared the luring away of Clemson and F.S.U. from the ACC, a league that ESPN created for a low cost high profit control of schools that they could use as leverage with the Big 10 and SEC. And I'm not talking about realignment leverage, I'm talking about other ways into the SEC's and Big 10's footprints for advertising. As long as F.S.U. was not in the SEC then the SEC couldn't make full rates for advertising in the Sunshine state, although ESPN could owning rights to FSU and Miami from the ACC and then South Florida and Central Florida from the AAC.
This is why I cautioned some against pandering to the networks wishes for the Footprint Subscription Fee model which was destined to be replaced by the only factor that ever mattered in broadcasting, actual viewers.
The footprint model was designed to break up large population states between various conferences so that the networks didn't have to pay premium advertising profits to the conferences. It is why Notre Dame is so very important to ESPN. Notre Dame is the back door into a majority of Northern Midwestern Cities otherwise controlled by the Big 10. It is why Florida State was crucial for ESPN to land in the ACC (a property they were eyeballing at the time) and to keep them out of the SEC. It is why Texas was so pissed off at A&M leaving for the SEC. It screwed up the Big 12's leverage in Texas with regard to monopolizing ad rates.
And it is why Chapel Hill was so adamantly opposed to N.C. State and Virginia Tech to the SEC. Had ESPN pulled off that ploy then all of the large Southeastern and Southwestern states where football is a religion would have been split between various conferences, ad rates would not have been expected to bolster contract values, but ESPN would still have owned the rights to everyone giving them the lock on the ad rates.
The renegotiation clause was in the SEC contract to keep the SEC from gaining total leverage over Florida and South Carolina. It wasn't needed in Georgia where the Dawgs hold about an 85-15 advantage over Tech in state viewership.
There was never an institutional blackball of anyone. There was only network manipulations to try to keep conferences from gaining leverage, and trying to break up the leverage that some had already.
Taking the Big East schools of note into the ACC was withholding presence in New England from the Big 10 who was already there with Penn State. The SEC was encouraged to grow Westward because ESPN wanted some of those properties and didn't want the SEC's eyes on the East and the ACC.
Way too many people think this is all about conferences and their desires. It's not. The conferences merely seek to acquire the schools the networks tell them they will pay them more to get.
We have long needed commissioners who worked for the conferences more than the networks. But most of the early conference commissioners of the post '92 era have been contract lawyers who worked in sports contracts for the networks before they were hired by the conferences. While that may seem wise to some it does question whether they see themselves as arbitrators for the conference and networks combined, or see themselves as advocates for the conference. It's been a very mixed bag.
With the advent of streaming and the conference network structure requiring production facilities at each school, the germane question is why do network deals at all when we can produce and market our own product and keep all of the ad revenue? Conservative estimates put the per school payout with that kind of system in 300 million range per year for the top schools. Right now we are letting them rent our product, make us pay for onsite production and let them give us 50% of the so called profits after their accountants discount everything under the sun to get the profit ledger down and the bring it down a lot. One example would be the cost of your play by play guys at S.C. is baked into our budget. If we produced and sold our own games each school would use their own play by play people. ESPN wouldn't get to deduct the high dollar salaries of their play by play people (who seldom know the teams and chronically talk over the plays about crap that has nothing to do with the game we are watching) and deduct that cost from our shared profit totals.
This practice allows them to keep way more than just 50% of the NET profits. Now I ask you how stupid is that of the ACC and SEC?
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Grudges, Laws, and "Rules" of Realignment
