I've told you all about the changing demographics. Well the technology has also changed things. Networks rushed to streaming only to realize too late that they couldn't monetize it as effectively as an OTA Network. Now they all have a dilemma, continue to move to a medium which keeps them from fully monetizing their rights, hang onto an industry where the middleman is (cable companies) harming the cost of the product to a public with less disposable income, or try something else.

Perhaps King Solomon is going to divide the baby. What is healthier for OTA networks to purchase? Only the top tier games, or conference rights packages? If you are going to market the top tier games where they are the most profitable do you put them OTA, or stream them? If you are marketing T2 games and games of lesser value what is the best method? OTA or Streaming? T3 games will likely remain in conference networks OTA and available from a streaming service.

Disney is planning as we learned today to launch a service Direct to Customers. Iger is interested in cutting overhead and increasing profits as any good CEO would be. He finds value in ESPN as it is but has concerns over cord cutting and the declining profits from streaming.

What to do? Divide the Baby. I look for Disney to continue to pursue the rights of the most valuable football properties in the nation. They continue through realignment to consolidate these brands by value. It has been a slow and sometimes frustrating and painful process for all concerned. This will continue and likely accelerate.

When the Magnificent 7 succumbed to Time, Monetary Disparity, and the Pressure it brought to them, it signaled to me the end of the beginning. What's odd to me is that there is no presupposition and spin going on by the Big 10 and SEC to sell potential acquisitions to their own families of fans.

Yes, bloggers and beat writers are speculating, and ex Bama QB's to boot. It's great for hits and copy, but it's mostly all BS. Nada out of the commissioners and conference offices other than the denials at the PAC and ACC headquarters and the pandering from the Big 12 to attract more product.

We are going to see more consolidation and the fact that there is so little information from those who have in the past (prior to USCLA and OUT) sold such moves beforehand, only leaves us to wait, speculate, and ruminate. Why?

Perhaps because who goes where is of little consequence when the ultimate aim is something other than a Super Two.

But before we get there, we must have a Kabuki Dance for plausible deniability reasons. If we are to abandon conferences, at least as they currently exist, it is necessary to coalesce the product in a way that makes a Super Two impractical, and which doesn't smell of monopoly.

For that reason, it would not surprise me if all 7 of the Magnificent 7 wound up in the SEC. That move would not be to make the SEC the dominant conference, but to bury, at least initially, the concept of the Super Two. And ESPN protecting what it already owns rights would not seem out of order.

In realignment thus far everyone pecked at the Big 12 until 56.3% of its overall value was found in just 2 schools, Texas and Oklahoma. Then ESPN took them into the SEC. Work done to take the best football brands from the Big 12 was done and the ultimate goal achieved. Note: I didn't say the best football product.

The PAC 12 and ACC battled for years to stay out of the P5 cellar. The ACC slowly caught up and pulled ahead, thanks to the ACCN. So, the top market was heisted from the PAC 12 in USC/UCLA, and the remaining two schools of value are Washington and Oregon, and really not much else. We'll see about a market grab like Colorado when the moves are winding up.

Rapidly by realignment standards the focus has now shifted to the ACC. Seven schools have been tagged as likely to have other offers or chances for offers. A dividing of North Carolina and Virginia has been suggested, and likely each conference takes one Florida school each. Clemson heads SEC. At least that's what we think and are being led to believe.

What I'm not hearing out of the usual SEC tributaries of information is a concern over the Big 10 entering the Deep South like I have heard for 30 years until now. Hmm?

Here is what I suspect. Those seven schools move to the SEC, perhaps even with Notre Dame as partial. Why? Because the conference which has the greatest value in the fewest at the top is now the Big 10. Michigan and Ohio State together represent 36.7% of the total value of the Big Ten. Add Penn State and it is 3 schools representing 46.3% of the total value. Add Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa and it jumps to 71.4% of the total value, for just 6 schools. Think about that. If the networks push equal division of the PAC 12 and ACC into the SEC and Big 10 with the remnants going to the Big 12, what do you get? A lot of schools they don't want for T1 production which are in the bottom of the Big 10. Think of the Super Two consolidating into the American College Football League. Think of FOX the OTA channel, CBS, ABC, and NBC as the carriers of the American College Football League or ACFL. Where's ESPN? They are the rights holder and broker. They still may have ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU and FOX may still have FS1 and FS2, or they may be boiled down or eliminated, but the prime games every week would be bid upon by the other 4 networks. ESPN makes a % of the sale, and the school makes a nice % of the sale. This goes on every week of the season. Then each CFP game is bid out from 16 teams down to 2.

ESPN does not have to do anything but bid them out to make the money. The 4 OTAs love it because they spend their money each week on something marketable with no dogs for ratings. ESPN goes linear and you have games you can watch with subscriptions to the BTN and SECN which are just the two iconic brands for the league division, and ESPN's streaming service is used to sell Game Day Tickets (games by the pay per view to the public with a set of games offered for free each week). The rest of the games will be a modest price say from $5 to $10 for a household, the cost depending upon the estimated appeal of the games. ESPN makes a % on these and the schools get the rest.

In this world building up the SEC first with the ACC product leaves the Big 10 without solid options. The six the networks seek eventually move for the massive payday and the rest fall into the mix of T2 and T3 games with everyone else. Then all schools divide into the two leagues with little regard for who goes where but preserving those heated annual rivalries (about 3 per school).

Now you have about 48 to maybe 56 of the top football schools all playing each other. This is why Kansas and Duke haven't been mentioned.

When basketball breaks away the same thing happens with the schools selected independent of football and based solely upon basketball merits.

All other sports remain in local conferences like we've always had, meaning baseball, softball, hockey, lacrosse, Olympic sports, etc.

Conferences live on for those purposes, the ACFL and ACBL become a thing of their own, perhaps with relegation perhaps not. I suspect the ACBL would be a lot more than just 48 schools.

Initially I do believe that the ACFL will have 72 and that merit and profitability will sort them out. So perhaps we start with a P3 which within one contract period is pared down to a 48 - 56 school League.

Therefore, what I'm telling you is to hang onto to your angst, venom, and frustrations. This is likely not going to end as any conference's fans think. It's going to make the top 48 to 54 very well financed, and everyone else will rake in what they can sell on a pay by the game streaming service which provides some paid for, but free games to subscribers each week.

That way the ESPN can empower rather than compete with the OTAs that are their current competitors, buy all of the rights worth having and be a broker to the others who get the best games for advertising week after week, and everything else gets streamed in the most profitable way. The OTAs reclaim stability in product commercially, and the linear networks pick up all niche markets. This justifies the added expense of OTA and utilizes the linear more profitably.

Anyway, I see this, or something very similar being the likely outcome of 30 years of suffering what amounts to product segregation by value.

The SEC goes last because it has the smallest bottom value wise.

Pay for Play and Player's Unions will take out some schools from participation, not many but some, and likely smaller privates. But if there is a wholly separate basketball upper tier it's not the end of the world for them. This winnowing will shrink even the bottom of the SEC.

Anyway, that's something I think we all should consider as a possible, if not likely, outcome, at least within the next two contract periods.

Excellent post JR. One question though: if baseball & hockey could be monetized, would they wind up like football & basketball??