(10-17-2023 08:00 AM)solohawks Wrote:  Good read. Fair points about Ohio State not taking advantage of its ability and position to make demands. The cost for bars and restaurants is the biggest burden IMO. The terms they were offered for one game were rough

If the threat of legislators getting involves allows the Big Ten to squeeze a more reasonable "pay per view" public viewing subscription option for Peacock, that would be something good that might come from it, even if the hypothetical legislation itself would be a terrible thing for Ohio state universities other than THE Ohio State University.

Yes, one of the politicians big talking points was allowing local TV to broadcast streaming only events.

That exclusivity, especially for football, is what ESPN pays for and desires. You can work out linear options with them, at least for basketball, but they dont pay as much if you do.

I remember hating the Big Ten Network. Every game before that was available over the air locally if it wasn't on ESPN and then we all lost access to it. It still is an issue for an older friend I have. He can't justify cable, but that leaves him missing Ohio State games on the Big Ten Network. Streaming is a mess to even explain to him.

In the long run, it is better for the school to have all these deals to maximize revenue. It would be better for fans if they took less and aired at least locally on broadcast TV, but that is not happening.

(10-17-2023 09:29 AM)solohawks Wrote:  Yes, one of the politicians big talking points was allowing local TV to broadcast streaming only events.

That exclusivity, especially for football, is what ESPN pays for and desires. You can work out linear options with them, at least for basketball, but they dont pay as much if you do.

This is why the government shouldn’t be intervening in these transactions in the first place. Every action has a reaction. NBC paid additional money to have streaming-exclusive Peacock games. If they aren’t exclusive in the markets where the games are in most demand (e.g. an Ohio State game in the State of Ohio), then the value drops considerably and the media partner will pay less money. Is the Ohio legislature willing to cover that shortfall?

Plus, we’re focused on the biggest brands like Ohio State, who OTA channels actually want to show. Think about all of those MAC games where the OTA channels say, “Nah - we’ll pass on those games.” It’s not as if though the local ABC station in Youngstown is preempting the marquee Saturday Night Football game so that they can simulcast an ESPN+ MAC game. What is the legislator’s answer to the fact that the MAC may not have any choice outside of streaming exclusives to have games being available at all? You can’t just force network affiliates to televise games that they don’t want (e.g. the games *not* featuring Ohio State).

I simply have no patience for the government meddling in areas that they don’t understand and/or where they freely ignore basic high school economics in order to throw red meat to their constituents. Are there downsides to streaming exclusives like bar owners getting screwed with license fees? Of course. However, the market should be figuring that out - Peacock and every other streaming service can charge ad rates based on group viewership now in a way they couldn’t 5 years ago, so they have an economic incentive to work with bars to make games accessible at a price that works for all parties. That’s not the government’s job.

Politicians on NIL

(10-17-2023 10:09 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

Politicians are so admirable with the way they value scrupulous behavior above all else

Go College Sports Wrote:I don't think the BTN comparison is quite right. Within a year of launch, most people with basic cable in footprint had expanded access to games that had previously been available on a patchwork, regional syndicated basis and/or on PPV out of market, at marginal additional cost, if any.

It's not clear what benefits that same consumer is going to get from streaming and when. You've taken a game previously available to almost everyone, moved to a service with an additional charge, where the service might often be perceived as being of lower value to the consumer, both in overall quality and in convenience (e.g. inability to channel surf). And that's before you get into second order costs to the league (fans general feeling of being taken advantage of, moving games to a platform with much lower exposure and no hopes of capturing the casual fan, etc.)

I think you're both right on your takes. I do think the BTN comparison is fair; it's a progression, and, really, the next step of the journey of placing content. It started with moving local team games off the basic dials to cable options, then to more niche cable options (and I think this is a big range from BTN when it started to what now is all of the ESPN channels, including ESPN+, to the BTN+ channels), to streaming. As a Penn State alum, I've had to shift from not doing a darned thing in getting to enjoy Penn State on channels where cable wasn't necessary to this level of "needing" expanded cable and streaming services to access all of the content. This is especially true, even outside of Penn State football interest, for my college basketball fix for all of the local (to me) teams.

But, yeah, streaming is at this point where it's current form does not work well with cable/channel-surfing. The apps can be good or not. For Peacock, totally not. And, I agree that this sense of fan exploitation is a bit different in that, at least for Comcast/Peacock, I could be an Xfinity customer, decked out to the gills with my sports tiers. To then have to then add more to access Peacock, which I can't then just surf with the other games (this is total failure for the NBC/Comcast app); for my local team, no less? I'm not a fan of this. But, I expressed where my anger in this one rests: back on the schools. Feel free to hate on Comcast and how bad Peacock is (I know I'm there)...your schools are doing this to fans. Heck, I feel like this is covered territory in a way because of how the PAC-12 did this to its fans with their media deal.

Frank the Tank Wrote:This is why the government shouldn’t be intervening in these transactions in the first place. Every action has a reaction. NBC paid additional money to have streaming-exclusive Peacock games. If they aren’t exclusive in the markets where the games are in most demand (e.g. an Ohio State game in the State of Ohio), then the value drops considerably and the media partner will pay less money. Is the Ohio legislature willing to cover that shortfall?

I mean, this is a collective of mostly public state institutions, so why are we treating it like private businesses in a free market? I get the desire for exploring the space of the market, but, I'd also say OSU shouldn't really hand everything over and/or demand something more given what they are. There is this nagging ethical matter about transparency for these institutions once they work in cohort with the athletic conference that is very suspect; where the state houses are in the decision-making. So, I very much disagree about the government not intervening...oh, they very much should. At least, with public institutions.

(10-17-2023 10:30 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

Go College Sports Wrote:I don't think the BTN comparison is quite right. Within a year of launch, most people with basic cable in footprint had expanded access to games that had previously been available on a patchwork, regional syndicated basis and/or on PPV out of market, at marginal additional cost, if any.

It's not clear what benefits that same consumer is going to get from streaming and when. You've taken a game previously available to almost everyone, moved to a service with an additional charge, where the service might often be perceived as being of lower value to the consumer, both in overall quality and in convenience (e.g. inability to channel surf). And that's before you get into second order costs to the league (fans general feeling of being taken advantage of, moving games to a platform with much lower exposure and no hopes of capturing the casual fan, etc.)

I think you're both right on your takes. I do think the BTN comparison is fair; it's a progression, and, really, the next step of the journey of placing content. It started with moving local team games off the basic dials to cable options, then to more niche cable options (and I think this is a big range from BTN when it started to what now is all of the ESPN channels, including ESPN+, to the BTN+ channels), to streaming. As a Penn State alum, I've had to shift from not doing a darned thing in getting to enjoy Penn State on channels where cable wasn't necessary to this level of "needing" expanded cable and streaming services to access all of the content. This is especially true, even outside of Penn State football interest, for my college basketball fix for all of the local (to me) teams.

But, yeah, streaming is at this point where it's current form does not work well with cable/channel-surfing. The apps can be good or not. For Peacock, totally not. And, I agree that this sense of fan exploitation is a bit different in that, at least for Comcast/Peacock, I could be an Xfinity customer, decked out to the gills with my sports tiers. To then have to then add more to access Peacock, which I can't then just surf with the other games (this is total failure for the NBC/Comcast app); for my local team, no less? I'm not a fan of this. But, I expressed where my anger in this one rests: back on the schools. Feel free to hate on Comcast and how bad Peacock is (I know I'm there)...your schools are doing this to fans. Heck, I feel like this is covered territory in a way because of how the PAC-12 did this to its fans with their media deal.

Frank the Tank Wrote:This is why the government shouldn’t be intervening in these transactions in the first place. Every action has a reaction. NBC paid additional money to have streaming-exclusive Peacock games. If they aren’t exclusive in the markets where the games are in most demand (e.g. an Ohio State game in the State of Ohio), then the value drops considerably and the media partner will pay less money. Is the Ohio legislature willing to cover that shortfall?

I mean, this is a collective of mostly public state institutions, so why are we treating it like private businesses in a free market? I get the desire for exploring the space of the market, but, I'd also say OSU shouldn't really hand everything over and/or demand something more given what they are. There is this nagging ethical matter about transparency for these institutions once they work in cohort with the athletic conference that is very suspect; where the state houses are in the decision-making. So, I very much disagree about the government not intervening...oh, they very much should. At least, with public institutions.

The state governments are two-faced about it. They have virtually all drastically cut public funding for these universities (in many cases barely funding them at all) and tell them to go out and find alternative funding sources to cover the difference… yet then turn around and complain about those alternative funding sources (whether it’s a streaming deal like this one or letting in more out-of-state students that pay more tuition).

Not to mention, once again, how do you distinguish between a restriction on streaming for Ohio State versus the MAC schools that have virtually no market power to dictate terms and wouldn’t get a TV deal at all without a streaming-exclusive component? These politicians are trying to legislate a global change - a movement from linear TV to streaming - that is completely out of their control. The only thing I’m confident of is that whatever the government thinks is a good solution on this matter will end up backfiring and/or become outdated quickly (e.g. in 5 years when there are more streaming households than cable households, cutting off streaming exclusives would *reduce* access to residents). The comments from the legislator seem to indicate that he either has zero understanding of the broader entertainment industry trends that are waaaaay beyond simply impacting Ohio State or chooses to ignore it because it will score a few cheap political points.

Murphy’s Law now says that the Bengals and Browns will end up playing in the NFL Wild Card Game that is a Peacock exclusive this year, which will make these Ohio politicians’ heads completely explode. Granted, the NFL does mandate streaming and cable games to be simulcast on an OTA channel in home markets, but note that the OTA channels would *want* those games via a free market process, anyway. At the same time, if the NFL is putting its most valuable product of them all - a *playoff* game - exclusively on streaming, then no other sports entity really has any standing to challenge to inevitable march towards streaming. (And to be clear, I think streaming is a *much* worse business for both the media companies and sports leagues compared to cable, but there’s no turning back.)

(10-16-2023 09:12 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-16-2023 05:35 PM)Go College Sports Wrote:  

(10-15-2023 10:35 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  BTW, Ohio State fans were also among the biggest complainers of the Big Ten Network initially, but that network ultimately is the biggest reason for why the Big Ten built a financial advantage over the SEC despite the SEC being a better football conference on-the-field. You can pretty much draw a direct line between the BTN and the way that the Big Ten has turned into one of the clear P2 over the past 15 years. Everyone whines about a new platform, especially the fans of the most popular teams that are used to always getting the very best time slots. Now, I get it - when the issue is how to watch next week’s game, you personally don’t care about any long-term financial strategy for a conference. However, the point is that conferences should largely ignore those people if they legitimately believe in their long-term strategy (as was the case with the BTN).

I don't think the BTN comparison is quite right. Within a year of launch, most people with basic cable in footprint had expanded access to games that had previously been available on a patchwork, regional syndicated basis and/or on PPV out of market, at marginal additional cost, if any.

It's not clear what benefits that same consumer is going to get from streaming and when. You've taken a game previously available to almost everyone, moved to a service with an additional charge, where the service might often be perceived as being of lower value to the consumer, both in overall quality and in convenience (e.g. inability to channel surf). And that's before you get into second order costs to the league (fans general feeling of being taken advantage of, moving games to a platform with much lower exposure and no hopes of capturing the casual fan, etc.)

I think the comparison is quite apt: people forget, but there were a LOT of complaints that first year of the BTN. In fact, a lot of people were essentially asking for what we have with streaming now: “Why can’t we just buy BTN directly?” If your carrier didn’t have BTN, then you didn’t even have a choice.

Now, I’m not saying that Peacock games are a better business model than BTN. Quite the contrary, I’ve been pretty clear that the entire entertainment industry went bonkers in actively killing a great business model (basic cable) to a money pit (streaming). In terms of the Big Ten package on Peacock, I think the football games are a red herring and minor impact compared to major impact to basketball how so many of the *best* conference games are moving to Peacock. I’m way more worried about the basketball exposure because it’s essentially moving what used to be ESPN Super Tuesday games to Peacock, whereas it’s a reasonable trade-off for Peacock football when there is a full day slate of the widest exposure of them all on Fox, CBS and NBC each week.

Regardless of whether Peacock is a good platform or not, ultimately, if you want the Ohio State game on Saturday, then all you have to do is pay $5 for a basic Peacock plan. Annoying for a fair number of people? Sure. However, it also isn’t like your cable carrier not carrying a channel (as was the case with Comcast for the first year of the BTN) or going through a carriage dispute (like Charter with ESPN last month) and you have no option to watch your game at home at *all*.

For students, or for people with young students at home, you can get Peacock for $1.99 a month for a year. It's REALLY cheap and has a lot of good content.

This might be an overstatement, but I think that the BTN has been the difference for the B1G between turning into part of the "P2" and instead turning into the "Pac2". They screw up a lot of things, as all University Admins do, but they got that one exactly right.

(10-16-2023 10:32 PM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  Karen U Buckeyes!!

It was 20 years ago man...let it go. Just think about that shanked 52 yarder last year, or how Michigan absolutely pummeled them.

(10-17-2023 12:16 AM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(10-16-2023 07:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  For instance, when television broadcasts first started, some universities were terrified it would kill their gate.

It definitely wasn't just Universities; it was pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey, boxing, racing (horse and auto).

We still see the ramifications of that viewpoint to this day, as the TV rules have evolved and adapted from "protect the gate" policies. Most from the Nixon era (where he flew to Florida to watch NFL playoff games that were blacked out in DC).

The NFL local blackouts if tickets aren't sold was in place until 2014. The Indy 500 still has a similar rule. England still has a window where any soccer match played at that time can't be on TV.


When you think about, the effect pretty much everyone thought about what television will do to sports teams as businesses, might be the most wrong interpretation in the history of the modern world. "No one will want to go if the game is on TV" was 100% the exact opposite of what transpired. TV made more people care more about sports.

It was an understandable concern, especially for the bigger programs that generated so much more money from game day sales than they did from early TV contracts. And one of the biggest reason for the incredible rise in TV sports-rights sales would have been pretty hard to predict 30 or 40 years ago: the rise of Tivo, then streaming, eventually winnowing the "must watch now" window on TV down to, well, Live Sports and just about nothing else.

Hmmm, as I think about this, I also think that changing attitudes towards gambling have had a big impact. I was next to a 21 yo Tennessee student during the game the other day. After we kind of puffed out our chests for the first quarter, we ended up being best buds. Towards the end of the game, we got to talking about gambling, and how different it is now than it was 30 years ago. I knew absolutely nobody who gambled EVER when I was in school. I mean, literally nobody. I know a couple guys in my 30s who used illegal bookies to gamble, but we all had good salaries and it was only a couple grand a month, so even that didn't seem like much. But now? Everybody, every college kid in the country (it's not just in Iowa guys), every adult male and many females post-college can easily sign up with gambling platform now. Fantasy football? Baseball? Soccer? Whatever you want, it's there. The NFL and NHL are in Vegas, with Baseball soon to follow. I'm sure the NBA won't be far behind. All of those casual gamblers, and a whole bunch of others with an actual gambling problem, REALLY want to watch live sports so they can know in real time how that parley will turn out.

Nobody was going to forecast 30-40 years ago that gambling would take over Sports. I mean, what could go wrong with $Billion$ at stake every year on the outcome of a few field goals or officiating errors? It would have been like forecasting that NASA would go to the moon then spend the next 50 years tooling around in orbit, going nowhere and doing very little.

(10-17-2023 11:16 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(10-17-2023 12:16 AM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(10-16-2023 07:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  For instance, when television broadcasts first started, some universities were terrified it would kill their gate.

It definitely wasn't just Universities; it was pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey, boxing, racing (horse and auto).

We still see the ramifications of that viewpoint to this day, as the TV rules have evolved and adapted from "protect the gate" policies. Most from the Nixon era (where he flew to Florida to watch NFL playoff games that were blacked out in DC).

The NFL local blackouts if tickets aren't sold was in place until 2014. The Indy 500 still has a similar rule. England still has a window where any soccer match played at that time can't be on TV.


When you think about, the effect pretty much everyone thought about what television will do to sports teams as businesses, might be the most wrong interpretation in the history of the modern world. "No one will want to go if the game is on TV" was 100% the exact opposite of what transpired. TV made more people care more about sports.

It was an understandable concern, especially for the bigger programs that generated so much more money from game day sales than they did from early TV contracts. And one of the biggest reason for the incredible rise in TV sports-rights sales would have been pretty hard to predict 30 or 40 years ago: the rise of Tivo, then streaming, eventually winnowing the "must watch now" window on TV down to, well, Live Sports and just about nothing else.

Hmmm, as I think about this, I also think that changing attitudes towards gambling have had a big impact. I was next to a 21 yo Tennessee student during the game the other day. After we kind of puffed out our chests for the first quarter, we ended up being best buds. Towards the end of the game, we got to talking about gambling, and how different it is now than it was 30 years ago. I knew absolutely nobody who gambled EVER when I was in school. I mean, literally nobody. I know a couple guys in my 30s who used illegal bookies to gamble, but we all had good salaries and it was only a couple grand a month, so even that didn't seem like much. But now? Everybody, every college kid in the country (it's not just in Iowa guys), every adult male and many females post-college can easily sign up with gambling platform now. Fantasy football? Baseball? Soccer? Whatever you want, it's there. The NFL and NHL are in Vegas, with Baseball soon to follow. I'm sure the NBA won't be far behind. All of those casual gamblers, and a whole bunch of others with an actual gambling problem, REALLY want to watch live sports so they can know in real time how that parley will turn out.

Nobody was going to forecast 30-40 years ago that gambling would take over Sports. I mean, what could go wrong with $Billion$ at stake every year on the outcome of a few field goals or officiating errors? It would have been like forecasting that NASA would go to the moon then spend the next 50 years tooling around in orbit, going nowhere and doing very little.

I'd argue gambling has always driven sports. Think Black Sox scandal and early NCAA basketball scandals

Technology just made it more common and profitable as did cultural perception

(10-17-2023 07:42 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Anyway, here's my conversation with the guy:

(and this one is free, because paywalling a story about a guy whining about paywalls is...I get it lol)

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/p/heres-on...ll-in-ohio

Lawmakers would also occasionally try to pressure the NCAA over television assignments in the pre-Board Of Regents era. Ronald Smith’s ‘Play-By-Play’ details how politicians regularly threated action against the NCAA, or at least publicly lobbied, for more regionally televised games, more big games, or more televised HBCU matchups. A lawmaker listening to fans in his district complain about not being able to watch ol’ State U is not new.

Nice article, but that part really stood out to me. This is about a lawmaker actually doing what he's supposed to do: he's hearing from his constituents, probably a whole bunch of them in this case, and he's trying to figure out a way to help them with their problem. The biggest problem to me is all of the complaints about streaming quality. That's an internet issue, not a peacock issue. I can stream 3 hours of Dan Patrick every day for a month and it's as smooth as watching OTA, and I'm on Spectrum. However, I'm also in a city with 2.5m people. High end bandwidth in the hinterlands, while expensive, is just like building the interstate system was for Eisenhower in the '60s. It's an investment in the future, and the more people who have it, the stronger it makes our country overall. For some of us, it's just higher quality streaming so you can see the Ohio State game in all it's glory. For others it means something quite different, but it still matters to everybody.

If this State Senator gets quality broadband access to his entire state over this issue? He might end up being a US Senator instead of just a State Senator.

(10-17-2023 09:41 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Plus, we’re focused on the biggest brands like Ohio State, who OTA channels actually want to show. Think about all of those MAC games where the OTA channels say, “Nah - we’ll pass on those games.” It’s not as if though the local ABC station in Youngstown is preempting the marquee Saturday Night Football game so that they can simulcast an ESPN+ MAC game. What is the legislator’s answer to the fact that the MAC may not have any choice outside of streaming exclusives to have games being available at all? You can’t just force network affiliates to televise games that they don’t want (e.g. the games *not* featuring Ohio State).

I did specifically ask about this. It's important to point out that right now, the OTA channels don't get a choice or not...the ESPN+ agreement prohibits local simulcasting. We don't actually know what ABC Youngstown would do in this situation! It's not like YSU is playing many Saturday night home games anyway. Would ABC Youngstown or Toledo or whatever rather show a noon local game than whatever is on ESPN2 or CBS in the noon shift? Maybe not every time, but *some* times? Probably!

I don't think it's a secret here that the guy is primarily motivated by Ohio State football (he even told me that Ohio State basketball, which has had a few paywalled games a season for a while, isn't as big of a local economic issue....which is true). MAC football games are streaming-centered because, fundamentally, they are niche products that cannot attract scale. Niche products, whether they be B2B newsletters, college baseball broadcasts, or Southland anything, usually cannot be profitable via ads alone...they need to be supported by subscriptions.

The lawmaker thinks that students should not have to pay for those subscriptions, and that there should be a local option available, but isn't against the concept of paywalls for those programming. But Ohio State football isn't a niche product. It might be the least niche product in the entire sport. You don't *have* to paywall it. You do that because of greed. And since the State has some oversight over virtually all of Ohio State's commercial activity or vendor contracts, I understand why they might want to have a say here.

I don't think it's a good idea to codify this in a law, since it will create all sorts of unintended consequences that have nothing to do with college sports...but I do think the argument has merit. The Peacock situation is fundamentally pretty different from the BTN situation in 2007ish.

(10-17-2023 07:42 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Anyway, here's my conversation with the guy:

(and this one is free, because paywalling a story about a guy whining about paywalls is...I get it lol)

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/p/heres-on...ll-in-ohio

Good read, thanks Matt.

(10-17-2023 11:16 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(10-17-2023 12:16 AM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(10-16-2023 07:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  For instance, when television broadcasts first started, some universities were terrified it would kill their gate.

It definitely wasn't just Universities; it was pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey, boxing, racing (horse and auto).

We still see the ramifications of that viewpoint to this day, as the TV rules have evolved and adapted from "protect the gate" policies. Most from the Nixon era (where he flew to Florida to watch NFL playoff games that were blacked out in DC).

The NFL local blackouts if tickets aren't sold was in place until 2014. The Indy 500 still has a similar rule. England still has a window where any soccer match played at that time can't be on TV.


When you think about, the effect pretty much everyone thought about what television will do to sports teams as businesses, might be the most wrong interpretation in the history of the modern world. "No one will want to go if the game is on TV" was 100% the exact opposite of what transpired. TV made more people care more about sports.

It was an understandable concern, especially for the bigger programs that generated so much more money from game day sales than they did from early TV contracts. And one of the biggest reason for the incredible rise in TV sports-rights sales would have been pretty hard to predict 30 or 40 years ago: the rise of Tivo, then streaming, eventually winnowing the "must watch now" window on TV down to, well, Live Sports and just about nothing else.

Hmmm, as I think about this, I also think that changing attitudes towards gambling have had a big impact. I was next to a 21 yo Tennessee student during the game the other day. After we kind of puffed out our chests for the first quarter, we ended up being best buds. Towards the end of the game, we got to talking about gambling, and how different it is now than it was 30 years ago. I knew absolutely nobody who gambled EVER when I was in school. I mean, literally nobody. I know a couple guys in my 30s who used illegal bookies to gamble, but we all had good salaries and it was only a couple grand a month, so even that didn't seem like much. But now? Everybody, every college kid in the country (it's not just in Iowa guys), every adult male and many females post-college can easily sign up with gambling platform now. Fantasy football? Baseball? Soccer? Whatever you want, it's there. The NFL and NHL are in Vegas, with Baseball soon to follow. I'm sure the NBA won't be far behind. All of those casual gamblers, and a whole bunch of others with an actual gambling problem, REALLY want to watch live sports so they can know in real time how that parley will turn out.

Nobody was going to forecast 30-40 years ago that gambling would take over Sports. I mean, what could go wrong with $Billion$ at stake every year on the outcome of a few field goals or officiating errors? It would have been like forecasting that NASA would go to the moon then spend the next 50 years tooling around in orbit, going nowhere and doing very little.

To your point on the prevalence of gambling today, this is a counter to some of the negative demographic trends of younger people not watching as much sports. On the one hand, they generally aren’t the loyal “watch your team every night through thick and thin” that most of us are. On the other hand, sports gambling is what Gen Z males do at a level far beyond older groups. I remember being at a holiday party last year where our younger extended family members brought their respective boyfriends (all in their 20s) and they ALL had money on the NFL games that day. (It was that Saturday when the Vikings came back and beat the Colts after being down 33-0, so talk about a gambling moment.) It’s not that they bet a ton of money on any single game, but rather $10 here and $10 there just to make games interesting. I was sort of skeptical about the extent to which sports gambling would drive overall TV viewership a couple of years ago, but I’ve done a 180 on that front. This is basically how football is going to keep viewership levels high with the Gen Z crowd (along with other gambling-friendly sports like basketball).

Peacock is terrible. I can barely get that app to load.

(10-17-2023 11:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-17-2023 11:16 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(10-17-2023 12:16 AM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(10-16-2023 07:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  For instance, when television broadcasts first started, some universities were terrified it would kill their gate.

It definitely wasn't just Universities; it was pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey, boxing, racing (horse and auto).

We still see the ramifications of that viewpoint to this day, as the TV rules have evolved and adapted from "protect the gate" policies. Most from the Nixon era (where he flew to Florida to watch NFL playoff games that were blacked out in DC).

The NFL local blackouts if tickets aren't sold was in place until 2014. The Indy 500 still has a similar rule. England still has a window where any soccer match played at that time can't be on TV.


When you think about, the effect pretty much everyone thought about what television will do to sports teams as businesses, might be the most wrong interpretation in the history of the modern world. "No one will want to go if the game is on TV" was 100% the exact opposite of what transpired. TV made more people care more about sports.

It was an understandable concern, especially for the bigger programs that generated so much more money from game day sales than they did from early TV contracts. And one of the biggest reason for the incredible rise in TV sports-rights sales would have been pretty hard to predict 30 or 40 years ago: the rise of Tivo, then streaming, eventually winnowing the "must watch now" window on TV down to, well, Live Sports and just about nothing else.

Hmmm, as I think about this, I also think that changing attitudes towards gambling have had a big impact. I was next to a 21 yo Tennessee student during the game the other day. After we kind of puffed out our chests for the first quarter, we ended up being best buds. Towards the end of the game, we got to talking about gambling, and how different it is now than it was 30 years ago. I knew absolutely nobody who gambled EVER when I was in school. I mean, literally nobody. I know a couple guys in my 30s who used illegal bookies to gamble, but we all had good salaries and it was only a couple grand a month, so even that didn't seem like much. But now? Everybody, every college kid in the country (it's not just in Iowa guys), every adult male and many females post-college can easily sign up with gambling platform now. Fantasy football? Baseball? Soccer? Whatever you want, it's there. The NFL and NHL are in Vegas, with Baseball soon to follow. I'm sure the NBA won't be far behind. All of those casual gamblers, and a whole bunch of others with an actual gambling problem, REALLY want to watch live sports so they can know in real time how that parley will turn out.

Nobody was going to forecast 30-40 years ago that gambling would take over Sports. I mean, what could go wrong with $Billion$ at stake every year on the outcome of a few field goals or officiating errors? It would have been like forecasting that NASA would go to the moon then spend the next 50 years tooling around in orbit, going nowhere and doing very little.

To your point on the prevalence of gambling today, this is a counter to some of the negative demographic trends of younger people not watching as much sports. On the one hand, they generally aren’t the loyal “watch your team every night through thick and thin” that most of us are. On the other hand, sports gambling is what Gen Z males do at a level far beyond older groups. I remember being at a holiday party last year where our younger extended family members brought their respective boyfriends (all in their 20s) and they ALL had money on the NFL games that day. (It was that Saturday when the Vikings came back and beat the Colts after being down 33-0, so talk about a gambling moment.) It’s not that they bet a ton of money on any single game, but rather $10 here and $10 there just to make games interesting. I was sort of skeptical about the extent to which sports gambling would drive overall TV viewership a couple of years ago, but I’ve done a 180 on that front. This is basically how football is going to keep viewership levels high with the Gen Z crowd (along with other gambling-friendly sports like basketball).

They really need to get some more laws about gambling advertisements. It's fun and I love placing $3 across the slate of games on a Saturday, but it is a little concerning how easily they're roping us into something addictive and destructive.

(10-17-2023 10:14 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(10-17-2023 10:09 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

Politicians are so admirable with the way they value scrupulous behavior above all else

Josh Hawley asking about transgender athlete participation and the Israeli conflict was pretty good. Also, Corey Booker called Ted Cruz "the Republican Caucuses' version of Deion Sanders". Congress at its finest.

(10-17-2023 11:32 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  The lawmaker thinks that students should not have to pay for those subscriptions, and that there should be a local option available, but isn't against the concept of paywalls for those programming. But Ohio State football isn't a niche product. It might be the least niche product in the entire sport. You don't *have* to paywall it. You do that because of greed. And since the State has some oversight over virtually all of Ohio State's commercial activity or vendor contracts, I understand why they might want to have a say here.

This.

I would quibble, however, over the argument of "niche," and how MAC was decidedly pushed to that extremity, coincidentally a conference remaining pretty quiet on expansion (and, technically, for football: contraction), whereas getting over onto a major provider's dial has involved expansion, like the Big Ten. Or how conferences/major schools have operated with intra and inter-conference scheduling arrangements. There's just a lot at play here.