It seems crazy to think that CBS will be almost completely out of the college football business.

What are they chances that they pursue a Tier 1 deal with either the PAC 12 or Big 12?

They’d cost considerably less than the SEC’s and both of those conferences could benefit from having an exclusive time slot with an OTA network.

I'm really unsure. I think an improbable but possible scenario is CBS/Turner (TNT/TBS/BR Live) coming together to attempt to get T1 rights. NBC (Peacock) and Fox will also be in the running. I could also see NBC using USA and CNBC as platforms to air games. The stream that I hope doesn't get involved is BeIn Sports. Horrific live events.

The Big Ten makes more sense (and CENTS) but the problem is they would cost more cents. CBS currently has a media deal for men's basketball rights with the Big Ten and has aired their conference tournament semifinals and championship game every season since the tournament started in 1998 so they have a relationship with the conference.

A while back, I threw out the wild idea that the CBS should go all in on the PAC 12. In so doing, they should give the PAC 2 games every Saturday night...one in a standard prime time slot and another in a late night slot.

A. Forget competing against the other conferences for that middle afternoon time slot. It's too much competition.

B. The prime time slot tends to be a little more varied just because a lot of good games are going on around the country. People seem to be more willing to flip the channel and see where a good game might be on.

The strength of using the OTA channel for a late night broadcast window is they would have little competition and football fans will certainly migrate from ESPN or FOX if they really want to stay up late. These windows tend to get pretty good audiences actually.

The only other thing on a Saturday night that is relatively popular is SNL from NBC. In other words, CBS would really have a unique product. It works with a PAC 12 contract because theoretically, ESPN and FOX wouldn't be competing in that time slot as they would have lost the rights.

In any given week, you've got 2 games on CBS. You could put a couple of games on CBS All Access(soon to be Paramount+) and then you could put a couple of games on CBS Sports Network. As far as the PAC 12 Networks go, I think you could just roll all that into your streaming platform and forget trying to get cable subs.

AllTide,

That's effing brilliant. How many people are at bars till 2am especially millennials and zoomers? That's an untapped market for football, but boxing and MMA routinely have fights as late as 11pm/midnight. Im just disappointed I never pondered this idea. Wow man. You could be onto something.

To go further this, it could potentially tie into my Turner suggestion earlier in this thread. CBS get Pac 12 top 2 games of the week whilst Turner (TBS/TNT) gets the other 4-5 games a week and 1-2 of those get put on BR Live. Would be an interesting push.

CBS airs ONE prime time game a season from the most popular conference in the country right now. If they're not going to disrupt their prime time lineup on a regular basis for the SEC, what makes you think they're going to for the Pathetic 12?

The most watched regular season Pac-12 prime time game last season was USC-UCLA with 3.24M viewers. Last Saturday night CBS got 3.109 million viewers for the 10-11pm ET hour of 48 hours. The USC-UCLA game aired on ABC. What happens when ABC starts airing SEC games? The Pac-12 won't get 3.24M viewers. Stanford-Oregon aired against Clemson-Notre Dame. It got 1.66M viewers. I'd say the Pac-12 average will likely be higher than 1.66M but lower than 3.24M. You can blame the pandemic but in 2019 the highest was 4.09M (Oregon/Arizona State).

yeah the second game late on Saturday night will get bad ratings. CFB is different from Boxing/MMA.. normally in the second week of September, a huge fight happens in boxing which is the reason why bars and some nightclubs are showing it. It's much different than watching a 10:30pm EST? kickoff between Utah and Oregon

Looking at what we know:

ABC/ESPN owns all the SEC content and the best game of the week will air at 3:30 on ABC

Fox is going to air their best game at noon and it’s likely to be a Big Ten game—especially if Fox buys the full T1/T2 package.

Between Fox and Fox Sports 1, Fox is maybe in the market to air at most 7 games a week between the two channels. ESPN has to stock ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU with content so they are going to need a lot more inventory.

Prime time is going to be an interesting slot because we’re likely to see the #2 games of the SEC and Big 10 (Sept-Oct only) aired here.

If CBS were to grant an exclusive GOTW slot to the Big 12 or PAC 12 no matter what time they picked they be facing some stiff competition.

(02-05-2021 06:46 AM)schmolik Wrote:  CBS airs ONE prime time game a season from the most popular conference in the country right now. If they're not going to disrupt their prime time lineup on a regular basis for the SEC, what makes you think they're going to for the Pathetic 12?

The most watched regular season Pac-12 prime time game last season was USC-UCLA with 3.24M viewers. Last Saturday night CBS got 3.109 million viewers for the 10-11pm ET hour of 48 hours. The USC-UCLA game aired on ABC. What happens when ABC starts airing SEC games? The Pac-12 won't get 3.24M viewers. Stanford-Oregon aired against Clemson-Notre Dame. It got 1.66M viewers. I'd say the Pac-12 average will likely be higher than 1.66M but lower than 3.24M. You can blame the pandemic but in 2019 the highest was 4.09M (Oregon/Arizona State).

CBS aired what their contract allowed them to air. CBS did not own the whole contract for the SEC, for one. The SEC also wanted the 3:30 ET window. CBS didn't have a choice in the matter. On those occasions when they did get to air a double-header, they usually placed it in prime time. However, one of the reasons they might have avoided the prime time slot on occasion is because guess what...another strong SEC game was being broadcast in the prime time slot on ESPN. It doesn't really make sense to compete against your own product.

Most importantly, it doesn't really matter what CBS did with the SEC either way. The PAC 12 is a different product and would come at a different price.

It's about profit margin. Sports have a certain ratings potential on given nights. You can put 48 Hours on just about any time and it will perform the same. You can replay it later OTA or online and you still reach new viewers. Different deal with sports. You're catering to different audiences.

(02-05-2021 10:46 AM)Thiefery Wrote:  yeah the second game late on Saturday night will get bad ratings. CFB is different from Boxing/MMA.. normally in the second week of September, a huge fight happens in boxing which is the reason why bars and some nightclubs are showing it. It's much different than watching a 10:30pm EST? kickoff between Utah and Oregon

The ratings will be no worse than the current late night game on ESPN or FOX Sports. It's just a matter of which network they're on.

Remember, we're talking about what might work for CBS. Would they rather have 2 games on Saturday night or nothing at all? The SEC is gone. They likely aren't willing to fork over what it will take to get the Big Ten...CBS has always been cheap.

The PAC 12 on the other hand could come at a bargain price and provide a way to be more profitable simply because of the time zone differences.