JRsec
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RE: Dodd: Amazon interest may affect Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 composition...
(09-21-2022 11:00 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (09-21-2022 10:21 AM)JRsec Wrote: (09-21-2022 05:54 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (09-21-2022 12:05 AM)JRsec Wrote: (09-20-2022 04:45 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: This is actually pretty interesting.
Essentially, Dodd is saying that Amazon is still speaking to the Big Ten, which wouldn't be happening unless there were at least the potential of expansion occurring. At the same time, he reiterated what I've seen elsewhere from John Ourand and other sports media reporters: Amazon actually offered *more* money than both CBS and NBC to the Big Ten but the league turned it down.
If the Big Ten can expand to create enough desirable inventory where Amazon is offering more money than either NBC or CBS for another game of the week package (think Friday nights), then that *might* address any concerns from current Big Ten members that expansion would reduce per school revenue.
I'm still skeptical that the Big Ten would pull the trigger on a 20-team league this year, but the prospect of Amazon still talking to the league (more so than the linear TV providers) at least addresses where a legitimately larger pot of money could potentially be coming from (as opposed to relying upon an argument that size for the sake of size creates value).
What part of my saying further expansion would be inventory driven more than individual value added did you guys not grasp? Add shares of expanded CFP money and 20, and really 24 (for the added inventory) are within easy reach of reality Frank.
All that is needed to make the sizzle is the pop of a third conference with access and a modest bump to clear the way. There're still some pots simmering to the East as well. I still like the chances it will be worked out by 2024. We'll see. Until then all commissioners will be sticking to the "Things are fine like they are." talking points. S.O.P. until it's not.
There has to be an actor that *legitimately* would benefit from consolidation - and I’m not talking in a “We want to be a controlling world builder” way, but truly a pure dollars and sense economic way.
Amazon has a hypothetical business case for it as I’ve explained above because of their singularly unique economic model, but that’s still also only if a consolidated league is actually willing to grant higher quality games to Amazon for higher levels of money from them. The Big Ten and everyone else would love to put their worst games on Amazon yet get paid like the prime time game of the week, but that’s also not what Amazon is opening up its checkbook for here. Inventory in and of itself isn’t what’s valuable to Amazon - it still needs to be a certain level of high quality inventory.
In any event, Amazon’s interests are much different from the linear networks like ESPN and FOX. The linear networks have legit budget constraints (*especially* ESPN with the scrutiny from Wall Street on Disney right now).
So, my analysis isn’t different. The Big Ten absolutely has to make more media money from expansion on a per school basis for it to happen. They are NOT basing expansion on increased money from an expanded and/or hypothetical close-ended playoff (as you’ve suggested). The Big Ten financial standards for expansion are exactly the same as every other expansion since 2010.
At the same time, the networks have to actually have an interest in paying more. Amazon has a hypothetical interest in paying more because they’re trying to get new blockbuster content that they don’t currently have at all for a fast-growing service that generates more than $1500 in total revenue per new subscriber (combining Prime subscription costs with increased spending on Amazon). This is a unique case with a specific company with the ability to pay huge sums of money with a legit business case for spending it (Amazon) that is dealing with a league (the Big Ten) that has freedom to both make additional TV deals at this point in time and add schools of potential value that aren’t subject to a GOR.
That doesn’t apply to ESPN - they’re a declining revenue business with a parent company that has Wall Street scrutinizing every new sports rights deal and they *already* have all of the SEC and ACC content until the mid-2030s at under market value prices. Add the ACC GOR on top of it and there are no rational economic incentives for ESPN to want anything to do with ACC schools leaving the league for the SEC, which is what would be required for full scale consolidation into a P3 (which has been your vision).
No Frank, the difference is between the honed in vision on the tedious details which you are accustomed to dealing with which makes it appear that it has to be about individual value, and those who have a more unified vision of what the sport can be. Those with the vision work with what they must (number of conferences, networks, and all of their egos) in order to attain it and like anyone who works with clay before it is fired, they shape and reshape while searching for the right form, mindful of their critics, the fans, who are their customers. The fans want more inclusion, but also more games between ranked teams. Fans like local games, but also like novel match ups. Sound somewhat familiar? It should. It's what built the NFL.
If the NFL is to be sustained, then college football needs to remain viable. Finding familiarity and a segway between the two is what ultimately will save both. Should college football slowly transition into 2 leagues behind the 2 most successful brands which will be comprised of the most successful schools, a transitional conference is likely to exist for a while.
What these people see are the major shifts in the public's way of life, and what they are seeking to do is to protect iconic institutions and the historically and culturally important icons in order to help with stability overall throughout all of societies coming trials. These are things discussed at Davos and Jackson's Hole and other summits. Yes, it's business, but not business particulars as much as controlled management of forces which impact business.
So, there is a much broader general mutual self interest in protecting major icons like athletics which help hold society together, and key institutions within it, than there is concern about whether a single regionally important school like an Oregon adds to the bottom line. And large business and government make many more decisions than you would believe which are not always centered on the bottom line.
And that's the Big Picture Frank, not the contract details. And that sir is the difference in our two viewpoints.
I'm not the one with the honed-in vision.
You have been looking at every single one of these threads through the prism of (a) the power conferences consolidating from 5 to 3, (b) the expanded playoff going from the current system with 10 FBS conferences down to a closed system with only those 3 power conferences, (c ) such closed playoff system will provide so much more money to the ACC that they'll just be willing let the SEC and/or Big Ten strip them of their most valuable brands, and (d) it's imperative that this happen NOW regardless of what damages might be out there. Anything that deviates from that prism is supposedly not having vision, not understanding the super-coordinated top-down forces in industry (e.g. the Davos and Jackson Hole references that you've made), not understanding that ESPN will somehow act completely against its rational self-interests because it wants some grand control over college football despite Wall Street screaming at Disney otherwise every freaking day, etc. Certainly, some people eat it up because they so badly want a specific outcome for their favorite school (e.g. Miami fans that want to leave the ACC before 2036) that they're willing to believe anything that fits that worldview.
With all that in mind, it's disingenuous to state that I'm just looking at contract details and supposedly not seeing the Big Picture because I don't agree with the above (and IMHO, very narrow) vision for the future.
I just described above how Amazon makes money off of Prime and their strategy and why their economic model can hypothetically support sports rights fees in a way that other legacy media companies can't justify. I've actually pointed to net present value calculations in terms of what the GOR is actually worth financially to the ACC as opposed to just waiving it away as something that is some legalistic mumbo jumbo. I've gone through the strategic (not legal) reasons why the entertainment industry in Hollywood makes the decisions that they do in programming and how that's directly related to sports. I've pointed to how Disney's slumbering stock price and activist investors are part and partial to every single decision that ESPN is making right now along with how Wall Street has taken a sharp negative turn on how it views spending on loss-leader content over the past several months.
These aren't contract details - they are exactly the global strategic and economic forces behind the "Big Picture" that explains what those people in Davos and Jackson Hole are talking about. Not only that, these forces aren't hypothetical. They're REAL (as opposed to the hypothetical value of a closed 3-conference playoff that would be required to pay for your vision). Before you critique me as being a lawyer supposedly too focused on the details, tell me what actual global and strategic forces that you have pointed to other than how you view general societal trends or the common college sports fan conjecture that ESPN and FOX are in it to control everything? All of the items that I've talked about in the prior paragraph have nothing to do with legal technicalities.
The Big Picture isn't just throwing a grand vision against a wall and just saying, "You don't get it" to any naysayers. Grand visions are cheap. What separates a grand vision that becomes a reality from a pipe dream is actually implementing it and, guess what, you actually do need to deal with the real life specific issues - whether economic, legal or otherwise - in order to make it happen. They don't get wished away because someone is blinded by some great overarching story.
Specifics are what is worked out when those at the top decide which plan to implement. Tell you what sport, when you are right about what's coming, just once, which you haven't been, I'll listen. Until then Mr. The Rose Bowl is so important and the B1G will not raid the PAC 12, and Texas will never join the SEC, and it's all about the values, I'll just keep on talking about the same things which are now public in remarks made by AD's like Swarbrick, and Commissioners, and pretty much everyone else, except maybe Wilner (who waffles on this). Consolidation is here. We likely are moving to 2 leagues, a transitional conference may occur, and yes, some form of a breakaway is likely. Whether that is just for football, just for revenue sports, or for all of it remains to be seen.
There's a downsizing coming in higher ed. The grouping will be part of it. Athletes will likely be compensated.
Football is to the U.S.A. what the Coliseum was to Rome, and the Olympics were to the U.S.S.R.. It's a cultural icon and an organizing principle for the structure of life in the civilization. It will not be abandoned lightly. As I have said many times, Form follows Function. As a unifying catalyst football needs to reach all regions. It needs to create a pressure valve for social frustration. Organizing a playoff so that it draws in all regions in a hopeful way creates that. It needs to reflect society, so scope is essential. Everything in life is currently in contraction and consolidation. Football will be as well. It needs to affirm values, teamwork, striving for excellence, sacrifice, and in the future a social lesson on the survival of the productive, which will all be a part of it. We will need more workers and soldiers and fewer would-be stars. Consolidation and streamlining the economy of effort segways nicely into it.
Already you see kids choosing trades over B.A.'s in non-STEM fields. That's a good thing! We need electricians and plumbers more than sociology majors.
So, there are much greater reasons for the direction of college football than just Amazon's profits or ESPN's quarterly statements, or Oregon's value to the Big 10.
This isn't your 1990-2 or even your 2010-2 realignment. This is a coup d'état of the top programs and consolidation. An argument could be made that 2010-2 was a table setting series of moves. Maybe? Maybe not? USC/UCLA & Texas/Oklahoma were the de-capitating of the PAC 12 and B12. That hasn't really happened before. These are coldblooded bold moves to re-arrange and restructure the game. Money is merely the lure. And to hear you tell it it's still about simply adding value. Well yes, and no, at the same time. Value will always be part of the mechanism. But, there so much more to it than that. There's a concept which is being attained. Wanton destruction of 2 associations of state schools doesn't just happen without a transition plan. There would be way too much liability. Hence a compilation conference is likely.
Once you accept a bigger picture and that it isn't just about conferences, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, Disney, or Amazon and that they are merely plugging in for profits and are symbionts within a greater movement, and for looming reasons beyond just profit, then I think you will begin to grasp the scope of change.
You have used words like wonk, realignment junkie, and other such veiled ad hominem in dealing with my comments. They only reply to that I have is that I haven't backed down from any of my assertions, have heretofore been unusually accurate, and simply qualify my remarks with systems will work as they do, maybe 2 schools at a time is comfortable for commissioners and academics, but critical mass has been reached, and I do believe the next series of moves will be quicker and likely will involve more than 2 at a time. And we are in a transition to 2 leagues. Does that take 2 years or 14? We'll see. My gut says sooner.
What do you care to predict now Frank the Tank? Right or Wrong I've told you where I stand. You keep coming back with "well you were right" followed by "but you don't understand things like I do", and "this can never happen because". Well thank God I don't. I lived long enough to know rules don't stop consensus, and they don't stop necessity, and they frequently don't stop those with the most money, and government can change them or ignore them. The world is gray. Nothing but death and taxes are gestalt. And in this case a convergence of paradigm shifts is the impetus creating the necessity and my money is on that!
(This post was last modified: 09-21-2022 02:53 PM by JRsec.)
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Dodd: Amazon interest may affect Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 composition...
