It kills me when they focus on the coaches for no particular reason and I miss game action.
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Pac-12 hires MGM's George Kliavkoff to replace Larry Scott as commissioner
- Thread starter buff4bcs1985
- Start date
Even better is when they decide a player's parent is an important story. Totally awesome to get a dozen camera shots of Garza's dad reacting every time Iowa plays. Because, you know, everyone gives so many ****s about him.
Hotline investigation: Future of Pac-12 Networks in doubt as sports media world threatens to leave conference behind
The Pac-12 Networks are suffering significant subscriber losses, based on data provided by S&P. Add a changing media landscape, and the conference is running out of options.
www.mercurynews.com
The current Pac 12 deal sucks right now. We know that.
But what leverage do we have right now given that, well, the Pac 12 sucks at this point?
I say roll the dice in the hope there is an upswing in Oregon and USC (assuming they fire their coach this year).
But what leverage do we have right now given that, well, the Pac 12 sucks at this point?
I say roll the dice in the hope there is an upswing in Oregon and USC (assuming they fire their coach this year).
What needs to happen next:
1. Hire Mike Aresco to get us a new media rights deal and clean up Larry Scott's mess. He'll groom his successor and smack some sense into those P12 presidents.
2. Shut the P12N down and put third tier games on ESPN+. Some games can end up on ESPN3 too.
3. Extend that ESPN deal with a focus on second tier rights. That could morph into just ESPN+.
4. Extend that Fox deal with a focus on first tier rights. If Fox refuses, call someone who is interested. Amazon, Peacock, Paramount+, DAZN, Flo Sports, etc can bid and drive up the cost of the deal.
5. ???
6. Profit!
Exposure needs to be the top priority in this case. The number of P12N subscribers is hard proof that increased exposure is needed. We increase that subscriber base, there will be more money in future deals. The ESPN+ subscriber base is going to go up thanks to that new NHL deal and today's new NFL media rights deal which means over time NFL games will be put on ESPN+.
It's easy to point to Amazon's 112 million Prime subscribers but how many of those will actually watch sports?
variety.com
1. Hire Mike Aresco to get us a new media rights deal and clean up Larry Scott's mess. He'll groom his successor and smack some sense into those P12 presidents.
2. Shut the P12N down and put third tier games on ESPN+. Some games can end up on ESPN3 too.
3. Extend that ESPN deal with a focus on second tier rights. That could morph into just ESPN+.
4. Extend that Fox deal with a focus on first tier rights. If Fox refuses, call someone who is interested. Amazon, Peacock, Paramount+, DAZN, Flo Sports, etc can bid and drive up the cost of the deal.
5. ???
6. Profit!
Exposure needs to be the top priority in this case. The number of P12N subscribers is hard proof that increased exposure is needed. We increase that subscriber base, there will be more money in future deals. The ESPN+ subscriber base is going to go up thanks to that new NHL deal and today's new NFL media rights deal which means over time NFL games will be put on ESPN+.
It's easy to point to Amazon's 112 million Prime subscribers but how many of those will actually watch sports?
TV Ratings: First Streaming-Only NFL Game Scores Solid Numbers for Amazon
The first ever NFL game to be shown exclusively on streaming scored solid numbers, showing encouraging signs for Amazon and the league.
variety.com
You can't say that exposure is the number one priority, and I agree there, and advocate for the games to be on streaming services only at the same time.
I'd sound out CBS to see what their budget looks like post NFL deal and see if they have any interest or budget to fill the hole the SEC leaves on Saturday afternoon. If you want exposure, that's the play.
I'd sound out CBS to see what their budget looks like post NFL deal and see if they have any interest or budget to fill the hole the SEC leaves on Saturday afternoon. If you want exposure, that's the play.
It doesn't matter how you watch it...just like with advertising a business, it just takes one catch of the eyeball to establish the relationship with a potential fan, donor, and/or recruit. The streaming quality of ESPN+ might not be as good as YouTube TV but it's a much better alternative than not watching a contest at all. That's important for a conference that prides itself on being called "The Conference of Champions". Many D1 schools contracted with ESPN+ can recruit against the P12 when it comes to exposure.
CBS would be a good partner and they have CBS Sports Network to boot. That would likely increase the number of P12 football & basketball games on those channels while the rest goes to Paramount+. Pretty simple but will ESPN & Fox let CBS near the P12 before 2023-24? Probably not but I'd be hoping that happens.
Watching FCS football has given me a good fresh perspective on being a non-fan of any of those teams and conferences after being a fan of CU and whatever conference it was part of for so long. I have watched more game of the week type of games this spring than watching two crap teams beat up on each other. If the P12 has enticing game of the week type of games, people from anywhere in the US will take the time to watch the game to see what the hype is about regardless of what time it is in the afternoon. After several good weekend runs with said conference, it's easier to become a fan of that conference. Then a team. Once that happens, you can get a hat and t-shirt of that college football team and your money goes to the school via royalty fees. There are so many t-shirt fans in Texas and that is why the University of Texas rakes in those royalty fees from those t-shirt fans. Same for Texas A&M. You get a few million of those people to spend even $20 on team gear, that could be an extra $10M in the bank for that school's AD.
The day CU joined the Pac-12, I went on a shopping spree on Pearl Street Mall getting CU gear anywhere I could see it. There was a bunch of people wearing brand new CU P12 branded gear that day in Boulder and that was money going to CU's AD that day.
The reason why the P12 is in the shape it is today is due to that media contract that the P12 presidents authorized Larry Scott to sign. It sounded so good at first until later on when people couldn't get the P12N. That lack of exposure costs money as in lost t-shirt sales to begin with. If you were a booster in the parking lot of a shopping center and see people wearing the shirts of your favorite team, you could just get that tingle to open up the checkbook for a donation worth a million dollars.
That is why exposure is something the P12 needs to focus on more than dollars. I have lost track of how many brand new stadiums or freshly renovated stadiums FCS football teams play in thanks to exposure even if they are not making money off ESPN+ since they are footing the bill to have those games shown to more people.
Again with shuttering the most valuable asset the conference has. This makes zero sense. Zero. The conference has millions invested in the P12 Network. You don’t just shut it down. You figure out a way to make it work better. You leverage the asset. I’m not smart enough to know how best to do that, but I am smart enough to know that’s what needs to be done.
fallacy of sunk costs
The NFL and other popular professional sports could have gone the route that the Pac-12 has gone but they have not done so yet. With the new NFL media rights deal just announced yesterday, there is no sign of doing that. The NFL could easily tell Amazon, Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN to take a hike and they would do the whole thing themselves and they certainly had experts come in and testify to the NFL owners about all those avenues but the NFL owners decided it was not worth it.
The P12N payouts are around the same as the media rights deals for G5 conferences like the C-USA and Sun Belt. Which pay at least $800,000 to $1.5M each school. Those schools have told their fans that the schools do not really make any money on those deals because they are using that to hire local television crews if not have their own internal media people by means of their own journalism schools. The P12 schools still have to hire people to man those cameras during game days so the P12 schools are either not making money or losing money from the P12N.
The asset value also comes from those Grant of Rights deals within the conference and if the schools decide to take back their third tier rights, the value of that asset you are referring to ends up being worthless until the schools decide to pool their third tier rights again in a new GoR. That's why the asset value of what the P12 is trying to do is speculative at best. All it takes to scuttle all of that value is both LA schools taking back their third tier rights and shopping it around. The number of P12N subscribers compared to the other conferences does not help with leveraging those assets at all.
With all what has been said, the best option is to shut the P12N down and ESPN can just give the P12 schools an extra $4-5 million per year to have the third tier games on ESPN+ until the current media rights deal expires and call it a day with an adjustment of the current media rights agreement with ESPN. That would be no more than $200M which is about the same amount ESPN gave the Big 12 schools in an update of the Big 12 media rights deals. The MWC already went through this with their own conference network and it didn't work out. The P12N's failure will pretty much end any future talk of wholly owned conference networks for the forseeable future if not for good. I'd expect that ESPN+ deal for those third tier rights to be announced in late July/early August after the P12N shuts down at the end of June which is the last day for college athletic fiscal years plus that is when we should have a new commissioner in place for at least a couple of weeks.
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BerkeleyBuff
Well-Known Member
Sometimes continuing to stick with a bad investment does nothing but continue to lose you money. I don't fully disagree with your opinion here, but there is currently little sign the PAC12N is/ was a good investment right now. All options need to be considered.
I read a couple of articles which lists potential replacements for Larry Scott. I like Mike Aresco due to his exprience with ESPN but you got to also look at Gloria Nevarez who runs the WCC. She was associate P12 commissioner until 2018. After she left, didn't the P12 start to go downhill? She was a finalist for the ACC commissioner job.
Taken from a SI article below:
NBC Sports article:
Working at OU and being a finalist for the ACC commissioner job sticks out to me in this case.
Taken from a SI article below:
NBC Sports article:
Working at OU and being a finalist for the ACC commissioner job sticks out to me in this case.
BerkeleyBuff
Well-Known Member
The conference has 12 assets - the institutions. It's the height of financial idiocy to continue sinking wasted time into a bad investment, when instead developing other arrangements may be more profitable. Maybe keeping the network is best, maybe not, but all options need to be considered. The network has underperformed even the worst-case projections that originally sold the institutions on the idea.
The conference does not own the schools. The schools are not an asset in that sense. On top of that, the one asset the conference actually does own is actually producing revenue. It’s not producing what we would like it to, but it is producing revenue. I stick my financial idiocy comment.
BerkeleyBuff
Well-Known Member
The conference owns the schools' media rights. The PAC12N is producing revenue, but it may be that what the PAC12N is trying to sell could make more money and get more exposure elsewhere. We'll see. Regardless, I'm sure we agree something has to be fixed or the PAC will continue to fall only more and more behind.
Pac 12 is a basketball conference!
I agree completely. The current situation is unacceptable and needs to be changed. Where I get my dander up is when I see somebody seriously suggest shutting down the network without getting anything in return. That’s just flat out stupidity.
The P12N payouts are the same as the schools of the Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC, etc get for their media rights deals on streaming platforms and those schools have already gone on record saying they don't make money because they are responsible to get the camera crews for the game not ESPN+. The P12N is probably set up that way and therefore, the P12 schools ARE NOT MAKING MONEY FROM THE P12N. What part of that do you not understand?
Your suggestion to keep the P12N is possibly even stupider because you are continuing to throw $90 million away and that is $7.5M per school. That is to run the P12N and pay a corrupt commissioner. Just shut the P12N down and have ESPN pay what the schools were earning from the P12N to have the third tier rights on ESPN+ for instance if not more games on the ESPN family of channels. Add that $2M-3M schools were already earning from the P12N and you have about $10M going to the schools which is in line with what the other P5 schools are getting. Some of that $10M money would still be going to production costs of those games on ESPN+ for instance but the schools would still keep at least 70-75% of that money. The money spent on one football game could lead to a $2-3M donation from a family for a department at the Champions Center. That is why it's important to show games to as wide of an audience as possible.
The idea of the P12N was that by having full ownership of the network, the schools would get more money as a result through its own streaming channel. The problem is that the P12 is strictly forbidden in its current media rights deal from having its own streaming app which was a question I asked Jon Wilner directly via Twitter and he responded to my question in a recent article. Another problem is that the subscriber base of the P12N does not even make up half of what the B1G and SEC Networks have. Those people will not be paying for that streaming channel every month in an entire year so monthly income will go up and down. Having Fox or ESPN run the conference network means schools do not have to worry about how much they are getting a month which could lead to staff furloughs which can negatively impact staff morale and even creep into the coaching staff & athletes. Bottom line is that if the likes of the NFL, SEC, B1G have not gone after full ownership and having their own platform, what's the point of having the P12N in its current business model? In a situation like that less is more as not having full ownership of the network.
The P12N is a failure in what it was promised to do and that is why it needs to be shut down. I'm almost 100% sure CU even got more money from their own TV contracts in the first year of the Pac-12 than what CU is earning from the P12N even 10 years later. There has been really good athletic contests that CU were part of that weren't even on TV and that comes at a cost of missed sponsorship opportunities. What can happen is ESPN or Fox Sports would start a new P12N that is much more fiscally efficient than the current P12N is and the P12 schools including CU would get significantly more money on those third tier rights.
Shut.
It.
Down.
The P12N payouts are after all expenses. The network covers all production costs. So the payouts are the profits from the network. The problem is that they have low distribution and high fixed costs due to poor management. They need to dump the regional channel model and go to a national + alternate model. They also need an equity partner that can facilitate distribution.
He's not the best colorman in the league for nothing, folks.
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Color Man: Umm... no.
Harry Doyle: He's not the best colorman in the league for nothing, folks!
5-0
Rob DeVere
Well-Known Member
College Game Day this AM M: All the PAC-12 talk was UCLA, USC and Oregon State!
Not a word about the Buffs curb-stomping the Big East champ Hoyas or beating the "mighty U$C Condoms" THREE TIMES!
Guess when you totally embarrass each and every AssClown host and comentator, who predicted the #12 vs #5 upset, you fall into the background!
Not a word about the Buffs curb-stomping the Big East champ Hoyas or beating the "mighty U$C Condoms" THREE TIMES!
Guess when you totally embarrass each and every AssClown host and comentator, who predicted the #12 vs #5 upset, you fall into the background!
I’d say that has more to do with the fact that those schools were less likely to advance than UO and CU.
CULifer
Well-Known Member
We need to redshirt the Pac 12.
He would fit as well in the west coast as Buffluke
To be fair, he was the AD at Arizona for a while, which is why he was on this hypothetical list in the first place