(02-16-2022 10:01 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  I’d like to see NBC expand their college sports content but I’ll believe they pay up to get it when I see it.

Yeah, I agree.

Think NBC and CBS are bit players in the B1G negotiations since they've yet to commit to the sports pay channel model on a significant scale.

FOX is the wildcard here, although getting out of the regional sports network business did raise a red flag. Not convinced FOX would pull an ESPN "we'll take the whole thing" maneuver with the B1G like we saw with the SEC.

(02-17-2022 09:09 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(02-16-2022 10:01 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  I’d like to see NBC expand their college sports content but I’ll believe they pay up to get it when I see it.

Yeah, I agree.

Think NBC and CBS are bit players in the B1G negotiations since they've yet to commit to the sports pay channel model on a significant scale.

FOX is the wildcard here, although getting out of the regional sports network business did raise a red flag. Not convinced FOX would pull an ESPN "we'll take the whole thing" maneuver with the B1G like we saw with the SEC.

It's not going to be about a sports pay channel, but rather about building their respective streaming services. That is where the lion's share of all media investments are going right now and they're all willing to spend outsized amounts of money for content (even if it means financial losses in the interim) at this particular period of time. As we've seen with the NFL, streaming and mobile rights for OTA games are still quite valuable. Don't look at the bidding as CBS and NBC, but rather CBS/Paramount+ and NBC/Peacock (and, for that matter, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+).

One of the underrated facts of the media business is that the OTA networks have actually been as dependent on cable subscriber retransmission fees as pure cable networks have been on cable subscriber fees for the past decade. As a result, cord cutting has been hurting the OTA networks, too. They all want/need people to be subscribing to their respective streaming services and streaming/mobile access to games (even the ones on OTA) is a key way to attract customers.