SD Buff
Club Member
The bottom line is and no one here wants to admit it.
That's fairly easy to admit. No one really cares about any of the conference networks at all really, let alone the PAC. But its no secret at the very start DirecTV told the PAC our passionate fans would choose Sunday Ticket over the PAC and there wouldn't be the demand. We saw it play out exactly like that on all the PAC message boards with post after post how they got free Sunday Ticket and other incentives.
Then the PAC gave a favored nation contract to Dish, gave them exclusive sponsorship on PAC campuses and launched a campaign for PAC fans to drop DirecTV. Was it the right move? Easy to say in hindsight it wasn't.
But the ATT merger is more than likely to go be approved over the next couple months. Although they are planning on running them separately, TV insiders seem to think it will help facilitate a deal getting done by the 2015 season. No question a deal needs to get done for people to view the PAC 12 Networks as a success. Adding DirecTV would translate to roughly a few million a month in revenue and add to the visibility. Outside of DirecTV however, the networks have been a fairly decent success going at it alone without a partner.