(02-26-2023 06:21 PM)RobUCF Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 04:13 PM)IM Snug Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 12:37 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  Amazon is “playing hardball” in media rights negotiations with the hapless college conference, sources told Front Office Sports.

The tech giant is holding out for the best game matchups and best financial terms, sources said.

Founder Jeff Bezos’ Amazon didn’t grow to $513 billion in annual revenue by playing nice. If the Pac-12 thinks it’s going to get rich from Amazon, they’re mistaken, sources said.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-net...mod=sports

Jeff Bezos told investors in Amazon that they would lose money for the first 20 years until they put everyone else out of business. Then they'd possess a virtual monopoly and rake in billions. Bezos has no problem losing money early in order to make more later. He could easily take a loss now to crush ESPN later. Bezos might think the time is right to strike and transition the American people over to streaming.

Yes, but does Bezos actually believe acquiring the rights for the PAC12 will somehow lead to Amazon crushing ESPN later? Doubt it. And Amazon is by no means starting the market for streaming, it’s already here and they have many competitors.

And Bezos would be stopped by the Government for having a monopoly. That is where social media is heading right now as Elon Musk and Facebook founder are eating up the other social media platforms.

People talking about conferences dying are forgetting the expanded playoff structure. We aren’t going to see another WAC situation. Before that you had the Big West, which was supplanted by the Sun Belt.

Looking at history the last 30 years, it’s easy to predict west coast consolidation and southern expansion.

(02-26-2023 06:28 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 03:23 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 03:20 PM)Sactowndog Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 01:31 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 01:18 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  I still think the best thing the Pac-12 can do is take the Amazon offer and offer ESPN 4th window games at what they offer, put the rest on ESPN+ as Pac-12 Network (probably only $2m per school) and accept a package that is only $240-250m a year. You are kicking the can down the road 5 years and hoping that by being first in line in 2029 you can get a better deal then and keep the conference together. Schools in the Pac-12 will give you that window. But if it's no better going to market in 2027-28 than now, we'll it's over. Taking an extra $5-6m a year to go "underground" with Apple+ is suicide.

No matter what Kliavkoff is likely not long for the job. He was hired to get a deal and he failed to understand the dynamics of the LA schools, and he failed to get a deal, all the while making a number of public blunders. But he did clean up some messes and bring to light issues in P12N, like the $50m over payment by a Comcast (going to cost every one of the twelve schools $1m in distribution for the next four years to pay it off).

It sucks, but what choice do they have?

The other choice for most of the member presidents is to throw in with Brett Yormark.

It only takes one John Welty to unravel a conference.

Haha. I wonder how many know of whom you speak.

Just googled it, and it's easier than that. The Project was a CSNBBS-quality rube goldberg machine.

All it really takes to collapse the PAC is a low final number on the media deal, and one of 6-8 presidents to hit the panic button and call up the Big 12 before someone else does.

The full story is here:

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2010/08/2...big-plans/

What struck me is that in the WAC presidents meeting, it was Welty who made the motion to adopt the solidarity agreement they approved, but only days later not only accepted the MWC's invitation to Fresno State but convinced Glick to bring Nevada along. The impact on the WAC from a realignment standpoint was devastating.

The parallel is that the Pac presidents issued a public solidarity statement a few days ago. So if one of them makes a decision to accept a Big 12 invitation in the near future, that president will be following in Welty's footsteps, and the impact on the Pac from a realignment standpoint could be comparably devastating.

If BYU is even tangentially involved, Deseret always does a great job of covering it.
https://www.deseret.com/sports/2020/8/29...arl-benson

(02-26-2023 08:26 PM)IM Snug Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 06:21 PM)RobUCF Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 04:13 PM)IM Snug Wrote:  

(02-26-2023 12:37 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  Amazon is “playing hardball” in media rights negotiations with the hapless college conference, sources told Front Office Sports.

The tech giant is holding out for the best game matchups and best financial terms, sources said.

Founder Jeff Bezos’ Amazon didn’t grow to $513 billion in annual revenue by playing nice. If the Pac-12 thinks it’s going to get rich from Amazon, they’re mistaken, sources said.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-net...mod=sports

Jeff Bezos told investors in Amazon that they would lose money for the first 20 years until they put everyone else out of business. Then they'd possess a virtual monopoly and rake in billions. Bezos has no problem losing money early in order to make more later. He could easily take a loss now to crush ESPN later. Bezos might think the time is right to strike and transition the American people over to streaming.

Yes, but does Bezos actually believe acquiring the rights for the PAC12 will somehow lead to Amazon crushing ESPN later? Doubt it. And Amazon is by no means starting the market for streaming, it’s already here and they have many competitors.

All the more reason to get their foot in the door to become the dominant sports streamer: beating the others to the punch. Become THE place to watch sports, creating habits. ESPN = Barnes & Noble; soon to be irrelevant.

I think a better analogy might be AOL

For a lot of people AOL was the internet.

At one point, it was so big, it merged with Time-Warner.

And then, the bottom fell out.

At the end of the day, many of these companies are (mostly) virtual, and their value can evaporate over night.

This is why I've been watching Disney to see what Bob Iger does about Hulu and ESPN. Because it's looking like the time is right to offload them while they are still valuable, and before they become the next AOL (or Yahoo, or or or).

My guess is that Hulu gets sold to NBCU (possibly with a few extras, like the FX channels), and espn gets spun off so that those who want to invest in it, can.

But who knows. This all really comes down to Mr. Iger's whims and how he's interpreting the information he's getting.

(02-26-2023 07:46 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Oregon and Washington will not sign anything longer than 5 years. Apple+ deal would mean that ESPN or Amazon is free to cut a deal with the B1G which could move Oregon and Washington for the same money they'd have spent on the Pac-12.

So going back to Amazon and ESPN takes that threat out of the picture. That leaves schools to run to the Big 12 over maybe $30m if the five years, which isn't enough to change things dramatically while giving up a shot at a better arrangement and more money down the road staying together with schools they prefer to be associated with.

They may not like $25m per school versus $31.6m for Big 12 schools, but the Pac-12 Presidents are not motivated by the same factors as the Big 12, and they know a short contract gets them two years ahead of the Big 12 and sets them up to return the favor. If it fails, or if the B1G raid s the Pac-12 again in the meantime, they just move over to the Big 12 at that time. No rush.

I am just amazed at how Big 12 fans think everyone is as motivated as they are over what amounts to chump change. It's really a losers mentality, but they don't see that, I guess because they don't look at themselves objectively from the outside. The Pac-12 is in a bad position, probably is dead by 2030. But it's a group the likes each other and wants to stay together. $30m over five years is a relatively cheap price for that. So they will give it a go.

The academic ties may trump the athletic revenues but what your not seeing in this equation is the visibility from an athletic standpoint. That type of visibility may devalue OR & UW where they miss a B1G invite or 1 or 2 of the 4 corner schools from a B12 invite.

The 4 corner schools agreeing to staying in the PAC 12 when the 4 northwest schools are all lobbying for a B1G invite is just putting their future in the the 4 northwest schools hands. I wouldn't like that as a 4 corner school.