The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 11:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:04 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  ESPN just fired a shot across the bow. They’re ticked-off that Phillips isn’t going along with their playoff expansion. So they’ll rile up the fan bases of FSU and Clemson. This will be a difficult time for Phillips…wouldn’t be surprised with media criticism of any slightly controversial decision.

Not exactly! They just asked for a roll call of support from ACC schools. Who is for them and who is not? What becomes of you depends on your answer. All they need do is release you from your contract and reward those who want to stay. And the legal basis will be those who accept pay for play and those who don't. It's going to impact most if not all conferences. This is why the alliance's only power was in their own minds. There is no holding onto the NCAA and there will be no binding contracts when decisions are rendered as the equity in all of those ends with pay for play.

The SEC's strength is that we know where 13 of the 14 current stand and the 2 joining knew what was coming and made their decision.

I’m confused…I just don’t see P5 schools panicking about player professionalization or pay-for-play. Similarly, not sure why eliminating benefit caps on player scholarships will cancel media contracts.

When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 11:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:04 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  ESPN just fired a shot across the bow. They’re ticked-off that Phillips isn’t going along with their playoff expansion. So they’ll rile up the fan bases of FSU and Clemson. This will be a difficult time for Phillips…wouldn’t be surprised with media criticism of any slightly controversial decision.

Not exactly! They just asked for a roll call of support from ACC schools. Who is for them and who is not? What becomes of you depends on your answer. All they need do is release you from your contract and reward those who want to stay. And the legal basis will be those who accept pay for play and those who don't. It's going to impact most if not all conferences. This is why the alliance's only power was in their own minds. There is no holding onto the NCAA and there will be no binding contracts when decisions are rendered as the equity in all of those ends with pay for play.

The SEC's strength is that we know where 13 of the 14 current stand and the 2 joining knew what was coming and made their decision.

I’m confused…I just don’t see P5 schools panicking about player professionalization or pay-for-play. Similarly, not sure why eliminating benefit caps on player scholarships will cancel media contracts.

When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

I'm interested to know how far along in that 3 decades-long plan JRsec speaks of that ESPN has been augmenting?

His last paragraph about conferences as we know them being gone is startlingly apocalyptic in nature from an amateur college standpoint, and there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that much of what is said there is true.

This is a big reason why I'm not so much bothered by what happens with realignment right now. In the grand scheme, none of the current Gang of 5 schools will ever be able to do what the SEC plans to do here. Hell, I'm not even sure all of the current Autonomy Power 5 will be able to do this. One thing is certain. The SEC is not going to be part of the NCAA or Division 1 FBS as we know it.

There is a seismic explosion about to take place in college sports. Like the formation of the Yellowstone caldera, what comes after may look nothing what we knew before.

But to answer your question, DawgNBama, when the SEC moves forward, would it not benefit ESPN to be closely tied at the hip to such unspeakable amounts of money?? Disney has more money than several countries. Losing some in the short-term is something they are quite used to. Afterall, land value in Orange & Osceola Counties in Florida was cheap but still expensive for the day when Walt Disney purchased all that farmland there using his made-up companies such as Aye Fore (as in I-4 that runs through Orlando), Retlaw Yensid (Walter Disney spelled backwards) and others to gobble up large swaths of that land. He was out a whole bunch of money in the moment feeling optimistic of his investment...but now what is that land worth? I think Disney holds onto ESPN as a full partner to the SEC's semi-professional college sports programs.

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 11:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:04 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  ESPN just fired a shot across the bow. They’re ticked-off that Phillips isn’t going along with their playoff expansion. So they’ll rile up the fan bases of FSU and Clemson. This will be a difficult time for Phillips…wouldn’t be surprised with media criticism of any slightly controversial decision.

Not exactly! They just asked for a roll call of support from ACC schools. Who is for them and who is not? What becomes of you depends on your answer. All they need do is release you from your contract and reward those who want to stay. And the legal basis will be those who accept pay for play and those who don't. It's going to impact most if not all conferences. This is why the alliance's only power was in their own minds. There is no holding onto the NCAA and there will be no binding contracts when decisions are rendered as the equity in all of those ends with pay for play.

The SEC's strength is that we know where 13 of the 14 current stand and the 2 joining knew what was coming and made their decision.

I’m confused…I just don’t see P5 schools panicking about player professionalization or pay-for-play. Similarly, not sure why eliminating benefit caps on player scholarships will cancel media contracts.

When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

I'm not sure what Disney's long-term plans will be for ESPN (e.g. keeping it, selling it, spinning it off, etc.).

However, in order to analyze it correctly, we all need to understand the same baseline facts correctly.

ESPN is *not* losing money. In fact, not only is it not losing money, but ESPN is the single most profitable entity in the ENTIRE Walt Disney Company. Up until a couple of years ago, ESPN made more profit than the ENTIRE rest of the Walt Disney Company COMBINED. Yes, more than Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Parks, Pixar, toys and merchandise licensing and everything else. Even as of last quarter, 82% of Disney's total operating income is coming from its linear TV networks, which ESPN is the largest part by far. If Amazon were to buy ESPN, then ESPN would likely become the most profitable part of that company, as well. The amount of profits that ESPN generates is higher than anything else in the entire entertainment industry.

So, to All4One's question about who ESPN would want to be aligned with, we have to switch it around. It has been ESPN that has been funding the entire rest of Disney for the past 15 years. Without ESPN, Disney wouldn't have had the money to purchase Marvel, Lucasfilm or Fox or invest billions of dollars into Disney+. Note that Disney+ is *losing* hundreds of millions of dollars per year and that's only sustainable because ESPN is still so profitable.

At the same time, as much as ESPN is spending on college football, we also have to put those rights fees into context. The new ESPN contract with the SEC is worth around $300 million per year. That's a lot of money... but note that ESPN is paying the NFL $2.7 billion per year in its new contract. Essentially, 2 weeks of Monday Night Football is worth more than the entire new SEC contract. What ESPN is paying to the NFL is more than what it's paying for ALL of its college football AND basketball rights (including the College Football Playoff).

I'm a firm believer that ESPN is out to make the most money and, to the extent that college football provides a high ROI, it's going to invest a lot in college football. ESPN also makes the most money, so it's going to impact rights fees more than any other network. However, I think fans go overboard with thinking that the TV network has these grander Machiavellian visions of controlling college football. The most important thing for ESPN is to keep NFL football - that is the *only* property that directly impacts their subscriber fee (as cable companies can drop their subscriber fee by contract if they lose the NFL specifically). Everything else fits around the NFL as the centerpiece... and frankly, that's how it is at FOX, CBS and NBC, too.

Now, what investors have been worried about for the past few years is that ESPN profits have been slowing down a lot due to cord cutting. As a result, they have been very concerned about how dependent Disney has been on ESPN money.

What Disney does with ESPN is a classic business question: what do you do when your most profitable business is in decline... and everyone knows it's in decline... but it's still going to be your most profitable business for several more years? Do you sell it now? Do you try to adjust it to a new model (e.g. over-the-top streaming)? Is there a hybrid approach (e.g. see how ESPN has been simulcasting more NFL games on ABC)? I don't think we'll know the correct answer until at least a decade from now.

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

ESPN isn't really losing money... it's just not profiting as ridiculously as it had previously.

For fiscal 2021 that ended in October, they announced nearly 7.9 BILLION in affiliate fees, nearly 80-million/month more in streaming fees, and 2.08 BILLION in advertising (down slightly from previous years mostly because of lost revenue of covid-cancelled events); while paying roughly 5.6-BILLLION in rights fees.

I think the Dan Le Batard show speculated recently that Apple might be interested in buying all of Disney. If Apple wants instant success in the streaming wars you buy the Disney content farm. John Skipper, former ESPN President, believed that Apple is one of the few companies that could make the power play.

(01-24-2022 09:31 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

ESPN isn't really losing money... it's just not profiting as ridiculously as it had previously.

For fiscal 2021 that ended in October, they announced nearly 7.9 BILLION in affiliate fees, nearly 80-million/month more in streaming fees, and 2.08 BILLION in advertising (down slightly from previous years mostly because of lost revenue of covid-cancelled events); while paying roughly 5.6-BILLLION in rights fees.

Agree. ESPN is a cash cow that should generate enormous profits for years.

In its first three decades, ESPN was a star. Growing rapidly while generating increasing profits. But stars eventually mature...there is a limited shelf-life to that business phase. ESPN had a long run in that phase.

(01-24-2022 09:59 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  I think the Dan Le Batard show speculated recently that Apple might be interested in buying all of Disney. If Apple wants instant success in the streaming wars you buy the Disney content farm. John Skipper, former ESPN President, believed that Apple is one of the few companies that could make the power play.

In terms of business culture, Apple makes a lot more sense to me as a buyer of Disney than Amazon. Note that Lauren Powell Jobs (the widow of Steve Jobs) is still one of the largest individual shareholders of Disney (via Steve Jobs selling Pixar to Disney in 2006) along with Apple, so there's a common link.

Amazon's entertainment ambitions are much more on the periphery where its streaming service is really more about getting more Amazon Prime subscribers, which in turn incentivizes people to order more items through Amazon with its free shipping. If Apple wants to scale up its content, then Disney makes a lot more sense.

I read Bob Iger's book a few months ago and found it pretty fascinating. Granted, a lot of it was sort of a victory lap on his tenure as Disney CEO, but he spent a lot of time on his interactions with Steve Jobs. One thing to remember is that Pixar and Disney actually HATED each other in the early-2000s and only had a relationship because of a long-term film distribution contract that was signed in the 1990s. It was to the point where Steve Jobs couldn't stand to be in the same room with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. As that contract was going to expire in the mid-2000s, both parties were looking at it as a finalized divorce where they'd finally be freed from each other. When Iger took over Disney, he made it a point to reach out to Jobs to understand where he was coming from. They gradually built up a great relationship to the point where Jobs was convinced that Disney acquiring Pixar could work where Disney's resources could combine with Pixar's creative genius.

FWIW, I think it worked better than they could have imagined. Pixar creates incredible films (and I truly mean films, not simply the animated films category) as consistently as anyone and their best movies are somehow able to provide one experience to kids at one level while simultaneously conveying super-deep stories to adults at another level.

(01-24-2022 09:14 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 11:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Not exactly! They just asked for a roll call of support from ACC schools. Who is for them and who is not? What becomes of you depends on your answer. All they need do is release you from your contract and reward those who want to stay. And the legal basis will be those who accept pay for play and those who don't. It's going to impact most if not all conferences. This is why the alliance's only power was in their own minds. There is no holding onto the NCAA and there will be no binding contracts when decisions are rendered as the equity in all of those ends with pay for play.

The SEC's strength is that we know where 13 of the 14 current stand and the 2 joining knew what was coming and made their decision.

I’m confused…I just don’t see P5 schools panicking about player professionalization or pay-for-play. Similarly, not sure why eliminating benefit caps on player scholarships will cancel media contracts.

When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

I'm not sure what Disney's long-term plans will be for ESPN (e.g. keeping it, selling it, spinning it off, etc.).

However, in order to analyze it correctly, we all need to understand the same baseline facts correctly.

ESPN is *not* losing money. In fact, not only is it not losing money, but ESPN is the single most profitable entity in the ENTIRE Walt Disney Company. Up until a couple of years ago, ESPN made more profit than the ENTIRE rest of the Walt Disney Company COMBINED. Yes, more than Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Parks, Pixar, toys and merchandise licensing and everything else. Even as of last quarter, 82% of Disney's total operating income is coming from its linear TV networks, which ESPN is the largest part by far. If Amazon were to buy ESPN, then ESPN would likely become the most profitable part of that company, as well. The amount of profits that ESPN generates is higher than anything else in the entire entertainment industry.

So, to All4One's question about who ESPN would want to be aligned with, we have to switch it around. It has been ESPN that has been funding the entire rest of Disney for the past 15 years. Without ESPN, Disney wouldn't have had the money to purchase Marvel, Lucasfilm or Fox or invest billions of dollars into Disney+. Note that Disney+ is *losing* hundreds of millions of dollars per year and that's only sustainable because ESPN is still so profitable.

At the same time, as much as ESPN is spending on college football, we also have to put those rights fees into context. The new ESPN contract with the SEC is worth around $300 million per year. That's a lot of money... but note that ESPN is paying the NFL $2.7 billion per year in its new contract. Essentially, 2 weeks of Monday Night Football is worth more than the entire new SEC contract. What ESPN is paying to the NFL is more than what it's paying for ALL of its college football AND basketball rights (including the College Football Playoff).

I'm a firm believer that ESPN is out to make the most money and, to the extent that college football provides a high ROI, it's going to invest a lot in college football. ESPN also makes the most money, so it's going to impact rights fees more than any other network. However, I think fans go overboard with thinking that the TV network has these grander Machiavellian visions of controlling college football. The most important thing for ESPN is to keep NFL football - that is the *only* property that directly impacts their subscriber fee (as cable companies can drop their subscriber fee by contract if they lose the NFL specifically). Everything else fits around the NFL as the centerpiece... and frankly, that's how it is at FOX, CBS and NBC, too.

Now, what investors have been worried about for the past few years is that ESPN profits have been slowing down a lot due to cord cutting. As a result, they have been very concerned about how dependent Disney has been on ESPN money.

What Disney does with ESPN is a classic business question: what do you do when your most profitable business is in decline... and everyone knows it's in decline... but it's still going to be your most profitable business for several more years? Do you sell it now? Do you try to adjust it to a new model (e.g. over-the-top streaming)? Is there a hybrid approach (e.g. see how ESPN has been simulcasting more NFL games on ABC)? I don't think we'll know the correct answer until at least a decade from now.

Like any large company, you keep it together if (and only if) the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.


Frank, a few years ago you advocated for Facebook to buy ESPN. Facebook (and Google) are the best at figuring out what ads to target to each customer, and live sports is close to the only traditional TV programming that customers are willing to watch advertisements for anymore. It's a match made in heaven.

Disney's move to Disney+ has moved them a big step in the direction of gathering data on their customers, but they're still nowhere near as good as Facebook/YouTube at a) gathering relevant customer data, and b) turning the personalized data into advertising revenue. So Facebook or Google would probably be willing to pay a lot more for ESPN than it is worth to Disney.

Disney could conceivably get to the point where it's a rival to Facebook & Google in that customized advertising space. And ESPN would be a critical part of that plan if they go that direction. But that would change Disney's focus from being a family-friendly entertainment company to a data giant. That type of culture change isn't made lightly, but the potential reward is that Facebook & Google are valued at 4-7 times Disney's valuation.

(01-24-2022 10:38 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 09:14 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 11:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  I’m confused…I just don’t see P5 schools panicking about player professionalization or pay-for-play. Similarly, not sure why eliminating benefit caps on player scholarships will cancel media contracts.

When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

I'm not sure what Disney's long-term plans will be for ESPN (e.g. keeping it, selling it, spinning it off, etc.).

However, in order to analyze it correctly, we all need to understand the same baseline facts correctly.

ESPN is *not* losing money. In fact, not only is it not losing money, but ESPN is the single most profitable entity in the ENTIRE Walt Disney Company. Up until a couple of years ago, ESPN made more profit than the ENTIRE rest of the Walt Disney Company COMBINED. Yes, more than Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Parks, Pixar, toys and merchandise licensing and everything else. Even as of last quarter, 82% of Disney's total operating income is coming from its linear TV networks, which ESPN is the largest part by far. If Amazon were to buy ESPN, then ESPN would likely become the most profitable part of that company, as well. The amount of profits that ESPN generates is higher than anything else in the entire entertainment industry.

So, to All4One's question about who ESPN would want to be aligned with, we have to switch it around. It has been ESPN that has been funding the entire rest of Disney for the past 15 years. Without ESPN, Disney wouldn't have had the money to purchase Marvel, Lucasfilm or Fox or invest billions of dollars into Disney+. Note that Disney+ is *losing* hundreds of millions of dollars per year and that's only sustainable because ESPN is still so profitable.

At the same time, as much as ESPN is spending on college football, we also have to put those rights fees into context. The new ESPN contract with the SEC is worth around $300 million per year. That's a lot of money... but note that ESPN is paying the NFL $2.7 billion per year in its new contract. Essentially, 2 weeks of Monday Night Football is worth more than the entire new SEC contract. What ESPN is paying to the NFL is more than what it's paying for ALL of its college football AND basketball rights (including the College Football Playoff).

I'm a firm believer that ESPN is out to make the most money and, to the extent that college football provides a high ROI, it's going to invest a lot in college football. ESPN also makes the most money, so it's going to impact rights fees more than any other network. However, I think fans go overboard with thinking that the TV network has these grander Machiavellian visions of controlling college football. The most important thing for ESPN is to keep NFL football - that is the *only* property that directly impacts their subscriber fee (as cable companies can drop their subscriber fee by contract if they lose the NFL specifically). Everything else fits around the NFL as the centerpiece... and frankly, that's how it is at FOX, CBS and NBC, too.

Now, what investors have been worried about for the past few years is that ESPN profits have been slowing down a lot due to cord cutting. As a result, they have been very concerned about how dependent Disney has been on ESPN money.

What Disney does with ESPN is a classic business question: what do you do when your most profitable business is in decline... and everyone knows it's in decline... but it's still going to be your most profitable business for several more years? Do you sell it now? Do you try to adjust it to a new model (e.g. over-the-top streaming)? Is there a hybrid approach (e.g. see how ESPN has been simulcasting more NFL games on ABC)? I don't think we'll know the correct answer until at least a decade from now.

Like any large company, you keep it together if (and only if) the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.


Frank, a few years ago you advocated for Facebook to buy ESPN. Facebook (and Google) are the best at figuring out what ads to target to each customer, and live sports is close to the only traditional TV programming that customers are willing to watch advertisements for anymore. It's a match made in heaven.

Disney's move to Disney+ has moved them a big step in the direction of gathering data on their customers, but they're still nowhere near as good as Facebook/YouTube at a) gathering relevant customer data, and b) turning the personalized data into advertising revenue. So Facebook or Google would probably be willing to pay a lot more for ESPN than it is worth to Disney.

Disney could conceivably get to the point where it's a rival to Facebook & Google in that customized advertising space. And ESPN would be a critical part of that plan if they go that direction. But that would change Disney's focus from being a family-friendly entertainment company to a data giant. That type of culture change isn't made lightly, but the potential reward is that Facebook & Google are valued at 4-7 times Disney's valuation.

That's an interesting point.

You're correct that the greatest value of sports programming is that people watch it live, which means that you watch ads. Therefore, it stands to reason that companies that care the most about ad revenue (as you've noted Facebook and Google) are the ones that you would think would be most interested in sports. On that basis, Facebook and Google would make sense as players for ESPN.

Now, I think it's a different calculation if we're talking about Disney overall. I could see a Google-Disney combo a little better than a Facebook-Disney combo. Google has a lot more places to leverage Disney's overall content (particularly combined with YouTube).

(01-24-2022 10:55 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 10:38 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 09:14 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

I'm not sure what Disney's long-term plans will be for ESPN (e.g. keeping it, selling it, spinning it off, etc.).

However, in order to analyze it correctly, we all need to understand the same baseline facts correctly.

ESPN is *not* losing money. In fact, not only is it not losing money, but ESPN is the single most profitable entity in the ENTIRE Walt Disney Company. Up until a couple of years ago, ESPN made more profit than the ENTIRE rest of the Walt Disney Company COMBINED. Yes, more than Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Parks, Pixar, toys and merchandise licensing and everything else. Even as of last quarter, 82% of Disney's total operating income is coming from its linear TV networks, which ESPN is the largest part by far. If Amazon were to buy ESPN, then ESPN would likely become the most profitable part of that company, as well. The amount of profits that ESPN generates is higher than anything else in the entire entertainment industry.

So, to All4One's question about who ESPN would want to be aligned with, we have to switch it around. It has been ESPN that has been funding the entire rest of Disney for the past 15 years. Without ESPN, Disney wouldn't have had the money to purchase Marvel, Lucasfilm or Fox or invest billions of dollars into Disney+. Note that Disney+ is *losing* hundreds of millions of dollars per year and that's only sustainable because ESPN is still so profitable.

At the same time, as much as ESPN is spending on college football, we also have to put those rights fees into context. The new ESPN contract with the SEC is worth around $300 million per year. That's a lot of money... but note that ESPN is paying the NFL $2.7 billion per year in its new contract. Essentially, 2 weeks of Monday Night Football is worth more than the entire new SEC contract. What ESPN is paying to the NFL is more than what it's paying for ALL of its college football AND basketball rights (including the College Football Playoff).

I'm a firm believer that ESPN is out to make the most money and, to the extent that college football provides a high ROI, it's going to invest a lot in college football. ESPN also makes the most money, so it's going to impact rights fees more than any other network. However, I think fans go overboard with thinking that the TV network has these grander Machiavellian visions of controlling college football. The most important thing for ESPN is to keep NFL football - that is the *only* property that directly impacts their subscriber fee (as cable companies can drop their subscriber fee by contract if they lose the NFL specifically). Everything else fits around the NFL as the centerpiece... and frankly, that's how it is at FOX, CBS and NBC, too.

Now, what investors have been worried about for the past few years is that ESPN profits have been slowing down a lot due to cord cutting. As a result, they have been very concerned about how dependent Disney has been on ESPN money.

What Disney does with ESPN is a classic business question: what do you do when your most profitable business is in decline... and everyone knows it's in decline... but it's still going to be your most profitable business for several more years? Do you sell it now? Do you try to adjust it to a new model (e.g. over-the-top streaming)? Is there a hybrid approach (e.g. see how ESPN has been simulcasting more NFL games on ABC)? I don't think we'll know the correct answer until at least a decade from now.

Like any large company, you keep it together if (and only if) the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.


Frank, a few years ago you advocated for Facebook to buy ESPN. Facebook (and Google) are the best at figuring out what ads to target to each customer, and live sports is close to the only traditional TV programming that customers are willing to watch advertisements for anymore. It's a match made in heaven.

Disney's move to Disney+ has moved them a big step in the direction of gathering data on their customers, but they're still nowhere near as good as Facebook/YouTube at a) gathering relevant customer data, and b) turning the personalized data into advertising revenue. So Facebook or Google would probably be willing to pay a lot more for ESPN than it is worth to Disney.

Disney could conceivably get to the point where it's a rival to Facebook & Google in that customized advertising space. And ESPN would be a critical part of that plan if they go that direction. But that would change Disney's focus from being a family-friendly entertainment company to a data giant. That type of culture change isn't made lightly, but the potential reward is that Facebook & Google are valued at 4-7 times Disney's valuation.

That's an interesting point.

You're correct that the greatest value of sports programming is that people watch it live, which means that you watch ads. Therefore, it stands to reason that companies that care the most about ad revenue (as you've noted Facebook and Google) are the ones that you would think would be most interested in sports. On that basis, Facebook and Google would make sense as players for ESPN.

Now, I think it's a different calculation if we're talking about Disney overall. I could see a Google-Disney combo a little better than a Facebook-Disney combo. Google has a lot more places to leverage Disney's overall content (particularly combined with YouTube).

I know that Disney has the vast majority of the ownership in Hulu after the Fox deal was completed, and Hulu is still trying to sell live sports and advertisements on at least certain iterations of the service. Right now they are selling Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ as individual services and as bundles. I don’t see Disney selling ESPN, but if they do I think it could be in tandem with selling Hulu, for its content library, to Amazon or a business like that. Alternatively, I could see Disney merging their 3 steaming services at some point to fight the real discontent with how Balkanized streaming has become.

A takeaway for me in all of this is that for those who view ESPN as the evil empire no white knight is going to come in and save you. They are the Borg, and resistance is futile.

Walt Disney purchased all that Florida land with funds from the CIA, if Disney is bought by Amazon or apple or ccp, it’s only a paper shuffle for the globalist, the bigger question is why would they feel the need to do this ?
Also all the schools that are not willing or not included in this In evitable split will get their own TV deal as a whole and will prosper, capitalism will see to this success imo

(01-24-2022 09:14 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The most important thing for ESPN is to keep NFL football - that is the *only* property that directly impacts their subscriber fee (as cable companies can drop their subscriber fee by contract if they lose the NFL specifically). Everything else fits around the NFL as the centerpiece... and frankly, that's how it is at FOX, CBS and NBC, too.

This is a key point that the folks obsessed with ESPN overlook.

The NFL basically has all these networks by the balls. Fox's over the air network wouldn't exist at all if they didn't have their NFL rights. The Sunday night games are, by far, the most watched prime time programs on NBC every year. CBS' Sunday afternoon games are the most watched programs on their network.

Everything else is nice for a network to have, but not necessary. When the TV rights for other pro sports leagues or college sports change hands, it's interesting but everyone can adjust. If any of these networks got shut out from NFL rights, it would be a major earthquake for them.

(01-24-2022 09:14 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-24-2022 01:02 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The reason why I ask is a very interesting quote from JR SEC in another post:

(01-23-2022 01:09 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 11:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(01-22-2022 10:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Not exactly! They just asked for a roll call of support from ACC schools. Who is for them and who is not? What becomes of you depends on your answer. All they need do is release you from your contract and reward those who want to stay. And the legal basis will be those who accept pay for play and those who don't. It's going to impact most if not all conferences. This is why the alliance's only power was in their own minds. There is no holding onto the NCAA and there will be no binding contracts when decisions are rendered as the equity in all of those ends with pay for play.

The SEC's strength is that we know where 13 of the 14 current stand and the 2 joining knew what was coming and made their decision.

I’m confused…I just don’t see P5 schools panicking about player professionalization or pay-for-play. Similarly, not sure why eliminating benefit caps on player scholarships will cancel media contracts.

When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC they represented 56.3% of the conference's commercial value. In the B1G (2nd greatest disparity) Ohio State and Michigan represent 36.7% of the commercial value. Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa are within of 1.1% of each other and represent together another 35.5% of it. In the ACC Clemson and FSU represent 24.2%, Va Tech another 11.7% and if N.D. was included just for their 5 ACC games they would he worth 11.3%. So if those 4 alone left the ACC would suffer a 47.2% diminishment in value. The PAC has the most uniform valuation where Washington in a 12 team conference is only worth 14.7% of the total value.

Right about now you are asking what does this have to do with the post? ESPN is decapitating the value programs to assemble a super value conference.

Complicated? No. GOR's by precedent can be voided when adherence to a court ruling creates an inequity in existing contracts. We aren't talking about NIL's, stipends, or scholarships. We are talking salaries for players. And while many in the P5 are ready to make such a move it creates a much larger overhead for athletic departments which creates said inequity which did not exist when contracts were signed prior to the court ruling (which is expected). So schools will be spending much more in order to fulfill contracts while the networks aren't experiencing an overhead expense as a result of legal mandate. Under those circumstances (as has been the practice regarding entertainment contracts) a new contract must be signed. Now schools opting not to participate have to be let out at no additional penalty. This aspect will essentially void not only GOR's but also exit fees.

ESPN is (under these conditions) free to build the super conference insinuated above. The SEC has 11 of the top 24 valued programs. 13 are on record saying they are prepared to pay players. Vanderbilt, last I heard, hasn't made up its mind.

Right now the focus is on football value only, but full monetization will open up basketball product if freed of the NCAA which is what the SEC is about to do.

ESPN could easily place 8 ACC programs in the super conference should they be willing. The SEC is set to earn 76.5 million per school when OU and UT are on board. This is a move to not only separation but an upper tier of 24-48 schools. The money goes up. The TV exposure explodes, and those left out scramble.

And the targets are listed above. The more top heavy a conference is the easier it is to take the highest value for the fewest shares. This is how a corporation builds a product. Pain is coming. It always does when a raid happens, the best is gleaned, and the rest is sold off.

So, ESPN isn't making an idle threat. They are preparing to complete a 3-decade long plan. Now, do you want in or not? Virginia Tech is more accretive, but UNC would likely prefer your company, and they were allegedly in talks to the SEC, with Clemson, a week after OU and UT were outed early.

If this moves forward conferences as we know them will be gone and ESPN's first iteration of the SEC will be more like the old Southern Conference plus OU and UT, Missouri, and maybe Notre Dame.

Now, compare that to this old article: edit-argh!! Can't find it!!

But, basically ESPN is doing the same thing that Jeff Bezos wanted to do if Amazon was televising college football, IMO.

That and reports that ESPN is still losing $$'s make me wonder if Disney is trying to make ESPN attractive to Jeff Bezos to buy, IMO

I'm not sure what Disney's long-term plans will be for ESPN (e.g. keeping it, selling it, spinning it off, etc.).

However, in order to analyze it correctly, we all need to understand the same baseline facts correctly.

ESPN is *not* losing money. In fact, not only is it not losing money, but ESPN is the single most profitable entity in the ENTIRE Walt Disney Company. Up until a couple of years ago, ESPN made more profit than the ENTIRE rest of the Walt Disney Company COMBINED. Yes, more than Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Parks, Pixar, toys and merchandise licensing and everything else. Even as of last quarter, 82% of Disney's total operating income is coming from its linear TV networks, which ESPN is the largest part by far. If Amazon were to buy ESPN, then ESPN would likely become the most profitable part of that company, as well. The amount of profits that ESPN generates is higher than anything else in the entire entertainment industry.

So, to All4One's question about who ESPN would want to be aligned with, we have to switch it around. It has been ESPN that has been funding the entire rest of Disney for the past 15 years. Without ESPN, Disney wouldn't have had the money to purchase Marvel, Lucasfilm or Fox or invest billions of dollars into Disney+. Note that Disney+ is *losing* hundreds of millions of dollars per year and that's only sustainable because ESPN is still so profitable.

At the same time, as much as ESPN is spending on college football, we also have to put those rights fees into context. The new ESPN contract with the SEC is worth around $300 million per year. That's a lot of money... but note that ESPN is paying the NFL $2.7 billion per year in its new contract. Essentially, 2 weeks of Monday Night Football is worth more than the entire new SEC contract. What ESPN is paying to the NFL is more than what it's paying for ALL of its college football AND basketball rights (including the College Football Playoff).

I'm a firm believer that ESPN is out to make the most money and, to the extent that college football provides a high ROI, it's going to invest a lot in college football. ESPN also makes the most money, so it's going to impact rights fees more than any other network. However, I think fans go overboard with thinking that the TV network has these grander Machiavellian visions of controlling college football. The most important thing for ESPN is to keep NFL football - that is the *only* property that directly impacts their subscriber fee (as cable companies can drop their subscriber fee by contract if they lose the NFL specifically). Everything else fits around the NFL as the centerpiece... and frankly, that's how it is at FOX, CBS and NBC, too.

Now, what investors have been worried about for the past few years is that ESPN profits have been slowing down a lot due to cord cutting. As a result, they have been very concerned about how dependent Disney has been on ESPN money.

What Disney does with ESPN is a classic business question: what do you do when your most profitable business is in decline... and everyone knows it's in decline... but it's still going to be your most profitable business for several more years? Do you sell it now? Do you try to adjust it to a new model (e.g. over-the-top streaming)? Is there a hybrid approach (e.g. see how ESPN has been simulcasting more NFL games on ABC)? I don't think we'll know the correct answer until at least a decade from now.

On that note Frank, please check out this link, and please tell me that this is fake news!!!:
http://kordellnorton.com/merger-of-disne...announced/

Nothing?? This is crazy!! Walmart and Disney merging???

(01-25-2022 03:02 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  Nothing?? This is crazy!! Walmart and Disney merging???

I think it is fair to say that the unsourced rumor about a Walmart-Disney merger from the referenced Utah-based "Charisma Consultant" is BS. Disney doesn't need to acquire Walmart to have its branded goods sold at Walmarts stores nor would any benefit it might derive from buying Walmart outweigh the cost of operating thousands of physical legacy retail locations, a business model that is incongruous with Disney's entertainment, broadcasting, sports and theme park operations. I wouldn't hold your breath if you are a Walmart+ subscriber and you think that Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ are going to soon become a perk akin to Prime Video.

Okay, whew!! Not really looking forward to that (Walmart-Disney merger)as a conservative worker @ Walmart.

No.