Hurtlocker

I mean I seriously thought this dude died a while back.

Athletic's Mandel's Mailbag - It seems we're following a little bit of last year's math though after USC left the Pac 12. If the B12 makes the same as the ACC now, and FSU/Clemson are 40% of the ACC, how is the ACC as strong?

I mean, it's not out of the realm of possibilities

Thanks for the update, I missed that one. The pandemic is where the B1G made their changes to BTN too

Yeah they are used all over the media rights world, at their essence they say I'll give you money for your piece of creative work and I get to do something with it for you for that money. The artist doesn't lose the ownership whatever work it is, they'll get it back at the end of the contract (be it publishing, recording, broadcasting, gallery, etc.) and they're paid for that aspect, so they're pretty standard for that use.

They matter, a lot, and everyone uses them and always have. They've existed in this industry since radio broadcasts. Usually they were rolling one year deals so that broadcasters knew they had exclusivity or that a team couldn't pull out at the last minute and go with someone else. You have to give the rights to the game if you sell it, you can't sell it twice, that's basically what a GoR states. So no matter what anyone on boards tell you, every conference had a GoR if they broadcast their games, even the old CFA had one. What they didn't have was locked in multi-year ones. Much like how banks give better rates to lower risk clients, having a locked in GoR gave you less risk, which meant you could get a better deal. Stability sells. As poaching started GoRs were required to keep things the same so broadcasters knew what they were buying. Now, to clarify something else, the B1G and SEC DO have these multi-year GoRs now because of conference networks. Matter a fact, BTN owns the rights to all the B1G's games and it is 60% owned by Fox. Even though the Big Ten's contract is up for bid in 2030, their GoR with BTN extends out further. What the SEC doesn't have is a penalty to leave the conference, that's a different thing. Long term media rights agreements for the SEC Network with the Mouse includes an extended grant of rights. You just can't make this massive investment without some protection.

Until the next media deal

Pardon, i meant like the previous...at a greatly reduced in. If that starts to crumble there will be a fire sale. If you offer what they're making to just have a stable residence, people will jump.

Yeah, with you. Kinda been saying this for a while. FSU/Clemson are big enough to make the B12 more money, but not to make SEC/B1G money. The only chance the B12 has to get close, and it wouldn't be at, but close, like within 20%, would be if FSU/Clemson also could pull ND to the B12 with them. Then the question becomes, who is the fourth, and, honestly, I don't honestly believe that matters. Louisville, Pitt, VTech, Miami, sure. PE could finance this and make their money back in a 2030+ media deal (like 5% return for 20 years, which are how a lot of sports investments have been set up). I don't think they could pull ND, but Comcast investors could be institutional players in whatever offering is opened up. They could tier this by broadcast window too to ensure ND made the most to lure them in, which NBC would want to guarantee their involvement, which is also how FSU would get their money, everyone else would just have their boats rise with the tide of being successful and getting on a higher T1 package. Speculative, yes, but possible. Still, even with this, you're not getting the entire conference to the B1G level. Not enough brands, not enough markets, but maybe 2x today, on average, which everyone would gladly take. Still, the only way I see this GoR being broken is if the rumors are true that the ACC did not sign the extension with ESPN from 2027 on. No one wants to see a GoR challenged and defeated because all of the conferences are using them to inflate their earnings by reducing risk. If the B1G or SEC cannot promise that Texas and Ohio State won't pull their rights back at any time for any reason, then their media contracts have ZERO value. On your unless - I can see this, like grabbing Oregon/Washington. I could see the B1G getting to 20 by adding UVA/UNC and "playing school" as @Al_4_ISU said, at a lower rate. Adding Virginia and North Carolina and the combined 20m people to their footprint. Would the SEC do the same with VTech/NCState? VTech makes the most sense to me, with the Bristol connection and hopping football when winning, but they clearly don't need to. The 9 game schedule for the SEC is the wild card here. The B1G makes more than the SEC on three aspects; market, brands, 9 games. Even with that, the SEC is within range. The problem is they have all their ducks aligned with the mouse now and the Mouse believes it already bought everything and has already said so. The SEC rightly believes that 8 games against each other are better than 16 games against FCS teams. They're not wrong, but because of how they're all on the Mouse, they don't have leverage. All of those FCS games go on the SEC Network, and people pay carriage for them. There are already other games on the same days the Mouse has slotted into the big payment games, so, in their eyes, they don't have more big payment slots to offer. This also highlights why the Mouse is not trying to push expansion after Texas/Oklahoma (though why they thought the world would hold pat is beyond me). The next rights deals are going to be very interesting and it would not surprise me in the slightest if we do not see and alignment if media contracts under the CFP somewhere around 2035, for all 3 conferences and 60 some schools, where payment has two aspects; 50% participation + 50% performance (e.g. where did you play and how did you rate in that play). The big brands who win out and get 10-15m per game will make bank and the 0-12 lessers will get some take home pay for their beatings and to have been on all streaming.

Couple catch ups: One, the Big 12 Network vote was a long time ago and it wasn't Dodds, though he was the only supporter, it was the assistant Commish of the Big 12 at the time who pitched the idea for the conference network and whose name slips my mind after all these years. The biggest issue at the time though is they couldn't make the money work, which is why it failed. Not only did it require a sizable investment per school to wire and set up, at a time when most schools where only making like $9m a year from the conference, but it was projected to be a yearly money loser as well because cable rights hadn't exploded yet. The exec left after the vote to go help the Big Ten form their network in 2004, which used Delaney's muscle to solve a bunch of the issues up front, including bringing on a media partner from the start (Fox) who gave each school a signing bonus to pay for the infrastructure. And even then, BTN didn't make money for a decade until 2015, a year after they added Rutgers and Maryland and renegotiated their carriage deals on the east coast. Two, this drop by Scheer is a bit nuts. Per someone's point above, he was accurate on the Pac 12 news for a while. He has some big feeders in the AZ world and is not prone to random speculation. He has further tweets/comments/replys that mention: Late Kick Josh has been teasing the same thing for a few weeks.

FSU nor Clemson are worth $80m. If they were wars would already have been bled over their corpses. They're worth $50-65, tops, on a good day, when the humidity doesn't make their hair frizzy and they didn't drink themselves puffy the night prior. And, actually, that isn't really fair. FSU is that. Well, FSU is likely $55-60. Clemson is already B12 with nail polish. It has natties and couldn't outdraw ISU/Memphis in a bowl game with Kentucky. No one is paying top dollar for that fan base.

UVA is continuously good in everything that doesn't matter. Stanford must feel weird to find its long lost twin in a new conference.

Ha, I don't think I disagree with WVU having a 20-30 reach due to being in the Pittsburgh DMA and having a strong presence in the DMV, but that list is kind of fucked. Texas isn't below Penn State, they are top three with Michigan/Ohio State. Michigan State and Iowa are not above USC and Auburn is way too high (there is a reason they gave Iowa three mid trophy games and it isn't to protect Iowa/Minnesota). I agree with your comment on Oregon, but Miami and UCLA I think are in that same 20-30 tier. Good Miami is top 10. Mid Miami is bottom 50. That is not a loyal fanbase, where that averages out is beyond me. Like 70-90s Huskers, that was people watching what was taking advantage of a situation at the time, which isn't a unique thing to take advantage of any longer. I'm not even sure if there is a future Miami or future Huskers that looks anything like the past. Washington is hard, in that they're so isolated. If Arizona State ever decided to win, they could supplant Washington easily and no one would give a fuck about the Huskies outside Seattle. No way Kentucky is that low, same with Kansas at 60. Basketball would move them higher, even with 7-8 win football they'll be top 25. Brand is about name recognition. Those two should all be around UCLA with mid football, higher with great football.

Have you looked at Michigan or Ohio State's roster? There are as many kids from Virginia, Georgia, Florida and Texas as there are from Michigan and Ohio. They don't really need a foothold.

I can't imagine the B1G is interested in anyone outside UVA, UNC and ND.

They definitely have the upper hand with Whittingham there, but I think what makes the conference interesting, though it will doom them, is I don't think anyone will run it. It seems very Pac12 ish where there is a lot of parity instead of a few big hitters having their way with the rest. That Holy War alone could sidetrack a season. I'm not sold on Boulder yet. Four wins does not a world beater make. I'd put more faith in the old Big 8 schools or Arizona....hell, even UCF.

This. The SEC does not need to grow. Matter a fact they should not grow. They're already trying to monetize the 9th conference game and getting push back from ESPN. Adding more teams, at this point, is adding them to a second tier, much like the Oregon/Washington adds. FSU/Clemson would not be added full, no matter what the SEC always does, because there is zero way to pay for them at full with the current structure. You'd have to go to 9 and you'd have to have someone pay a premium for 9 who already owns all your games as it is. It just so happens that that same partner owns the rights to FSU/Clemson as well as UNC and that partner DOES NOT want to lose the rights to UNC/DUKE basketball, which if you haven't noticed, drives the bus during basketball season. Granted, not as big as football, but every big game on ESPN for the ACC is either UNC v Duke or someone against UNC or Duke. They are the engine that grew ESPN in the 90s and it still powers the off NBA slots to this day. So, at the moment, this is an all-ESPN transaction. They don't want to lose UNC/Duke nor FSU/Clemson everyone else is kind of fodder. The only place they own completely is the SEC, but they'd need to pay these four schools $320m a year to join the SEC, which they're not worth. The Big Ten is structured completely differently with 3 media partners, but is already tapping out on inventory space. Adding more inventory takes slots away from old school hanger ons, who have votes too. And if Oregon/Washington came in on the cheap, FSU/Clemson aren't coming in full. At that point I wonder if the Big12's PE connection could offer more. However, along those lines, with three media partners in place and coast to coast inventory, the Big Ten is no longer a regional conference like the SEC, it could easily become a consortium. Partner up with PE, buy 4-6 ACC properties now and tier them with some of your under performers. Then in 2030 inhale the Big12 and own all the inventory but 16 teams. PE wins. None of this comes to pass though, unless this thing is true that the ACC didn't sign the extension to 2036 and needs to reup in 2027. If that is true, that's FSU's out. Even if I still can't see who gives them the money they want.

Happens in all the leagues though, its literally why BTN was created and rest of the conference nets to follow. Monetizing unsold inventory. Notable games on the SECN last year: Clemson/SC, Vandy/Tenn, Kentucky/SC, Arkansas/Auburn, LSU/Florida, or basically any vandy or SC or Missouri game. There will be more as inventory expands. For the B1G you have your Minnesota/Illinois, Purdue/Indiana, Rutgers/Iowa, Nebraska/NW, etc. Its all the conference games where the match up is either great and you force someone to subscribe or meh and you pay for the game with carriage instead of advertising. The Vandy and Kentucky games next year are ripe for SEC Network. They've already dumped the ULMonroe to streaming to gain subscriptions. The ACC and B12 aren't behind on media revenue because of T2 and T3, all of those games suck, doesn't matter if your turd is polished or not, it sucks. They are behind from T1 audience. A decade ago each conference had around 3 big brands and the Big 12 had 4, but was managed by a bunch of dumbasses. You needed at three to keep enough T1 inventory going each week to generate higher values. Now those Tier One brands are consolidated as viewership (when winning) is Michigan>Ohio State>Texas>Alabama>Georgia>USC>Penn State>Oklahoma>LSU>Nebraska>Florida is better than any property left at the ACC/B12. Iowa State/TCU generated 4m, but Michigan/Ohio State generates nearly 20m. That's what broadcasters are consolidating, and you will see more games highlighted between those brands. That's what drives the needle, not the 4m games...the 10m. Only way they'll top that in the next media cycle is: generate more audience or show audience growth over time of the contract win in the post season at a healthy clip

By definition, Tier one isn't streaming. Those are only games on over the air channels; however, ESPN has been added into that mix as of late. T2 was all cable channels, e.g. TNT, TBS, ESPN2, ESPNU, FS1, etc. T3 are all conference branded networks be it linear or streaming. The only time you'd consider streaming numbers to be Tier one is if they were mirroring games on ABC, as an example. League games vs non-league games don't define whether something is T1 or not, just the location of where it is broadcast. Most conference games are dumped on Tier 3, that's kind of why it exists.

This, "Big" whatever is the dumbest fucking thing in the world. The Allstate conference was the least obnoxious thing I've read on here in a while, though Truckstop Conference still has my vote. For enough money let it be the Gecko Me In The Dick Conference, who the fuck cares. Stanford is in the Atlantic conference. There are 16 teams in the Big 12 and 18 teams in the Big 10 and if you put SEC in a search engine the first thing you get is the Securities and Exchange Commision. This PE thing though is not a bad play if the PE knows what they are doing. Remember, each of the other three have ownership stakes in their conference in some way. The SEC and ACC's nameplate channels are fully and completely owned by ESPN. Fox owns 60% of BTN and sat at the table negotiating the rates with other broadcasters when the Big Ten did their new deal. Not only do those conferences have someone they are already in bed with, they are already taking a cut as well. The question is what does 15-20% of the Big 12 buy you. You don't just give money to schools and siphon off an increase in revenues yearly, which you could do because broadcast contracts increase at a set rate. You want to invest and INCREASE revenues for the conference so that you make it back like they do. Now you could do that by bringing in other investments if you have these structures already set up for other sports or you can help them reduce spend in some way to make the value higher or you can make the value of the entire operation higher so that the next time the conference went to market for a tv deal it was sizably higher. To do that you'd probably need to use your investment to lure other properties that may move the needle. However they do that will matter. If its just take money spend in NIL, both sides are stupid. They have to break something with it, then it can pay off.

Yeah you don't even need to go that far you just need to take them all. Even if the top 12/16 are play in, you can still match up 17/18, 19/20, 20/21, what the fuck ever. The worst thing really left in CFB is conference affiliations, especially with bowl games. Now that the Rose is gleefully dead, let's nuke the rest from orbit.

Yeah first thing that came to my mind was, why not both....morning hike, tailgate, game, post game mountain view drinks and grill.