Hurtlocker

I think this is what is going to drive it more than any media rights. 6-8 teams will get an extra home game. Even if they have to allow 20k seats to opposing fans, that's a bottomline and reginal boom that they don't get today. If they did 12 last year with first round homes that would mean Cinci, A&M, Florida, and Oklahoma would all have hosted. If they did the second round at home, then Bama, Clemson, Ohio State and ND would have hosted as well. Then the final four would be just like it was today. After mapping out 16 and 12, and even though I hate byes, it seems pretty obvious that 12 is where they will go. Adding that extra round from 8 inserted UGA, Iowa State, Indiana and Coastal Carolina into the mix. Going to 16 only added UNC, Northwestern, Iowa, and BYU, which I'm not sure raises the interest a ton more from the 8 added to get to 12.

Nothing, ever. He's the same as Yoda, the Dude, and the others. Rile everyone up with I know people. Not a shock that the partners wouldn't want to start negotiating now. Everyone wants to see how the next couple years play out and ESPN has invested heavily in the SEC. They'll want to make a run at the B1G who goes to bid 2 years prior. That is the deal every media entity is waiting on and the chips will fall after.

Not directly related, but this just happened: Amazon buys MGM in a mega media deal Granted, while James Bond is probably the biggest property to come out of this, Amazon is starting to buy up content and has the cash to not stop. They paid $1B for just the Thursday night NFL games. On a side note, the new Pac12 Commish came from MGM.

Its not a scheduling thing, its a guarantee'ing thing. The conference games are bound by a grant of rights. OOC games are not. Unless the media partners are picking the games, they're not going to be valued high. Also, its far les than 20%. Most are unwanted. I counted about 5 games for this upcoming year that have any value, out of 30. So its probably closer to 3-5% I agree that 8 conference games provides higher chances for wins, see the ACCs bowl season fiasco, clearly it works. But, you're not pulling it off AND having a higher valuation. Two completely different avenues.

It is. 1) you need to own the home game, zero value for the away 2) unless the home is guaranteed in the contract it is high risk, therefore low value. That's why it has to be a contractual scheduling agreement or it doesn't matter jack shit for the valuation. Totally get your point though that if everyone played 10 Power 5 games the waters rise together. But you don't get the high valuation on a 10 year media deal for 20 games you don't have scheduled. That's not really a thing. Conference games have teams bound to a contract, as you saw with Nebraska this year, OOC are not.

I do, but you're not comparing like subjects in this case. You can't drop valuable games and and add crap and gain both money and success. The SEC did it better and maintained the edge as they exploded their exposure with multiple schools having natties in the 2000-2020s. THEN they cashed in on the media deal. So, yes, the Big 12 could drop to 8, play less, and have more wins at the end of the year, elevating natty chances, and, thus, netting a higher image. No argument there. The math on more success at 8 conference games vs 9 is a no brainer. However, you cannot do that AND inflate your media rights deal at the same time. There is a trade off. EDIT: a good example would be look at the ACC. There is 8 conference games in valuation. They get a shit ton of teams into the bowls, but the contract is lackluster.

I agree, but that's not how it is valued today. Unknowns are high risk, therefor low value. The lower the risk for the networks the higher the value. (this is why made for TV games make more and are one offs...guaranteed for broadcasters, ignore them for overall contracts) Iowa State may have the most consistent high rated OOC game in the Big 12 contract playing Iowa every year, but...its every other year as the Big Ten gets the games in Iowa City and, unlike conference games, could not be scheduled at a moment's notice by Iowa who isn't beholden to any agreement with the Big 12 or its media partners. So, at a maximum, even the most valuable/consistent OOC game in the Big 12, its only half as valuable as any conference game, due to being played in the Big 12 every other year. Home and homes are more valuable when you own both homes. Home games against cupcakes aren't even worth a reach around in comparison. Now, can you fix this? Sure. But to add value you need guaranteed consistency. I mentioned earlier doing a joint media deal with the Pac 12. That deal could have 100 conference games a year (22 x 4.5 = 99 then round up) Which blows the Big and SEC out of the water. But that's only for 9 of the games. If you also added a scheduling agreement where you played two of your 3 OOC games against each other you're now basically saying that 11 of the games on all of the 22 team schedules are played within the Big 12 and Pac 12. That is goddamn huge. That's like saying you're selling 120 conference games a year, twice as many as the current Big Ten deal. It doesn't matter at that point if it is Texas vs USC or Texas vs Washington State, what matters is it is a Big 12 or Pac 12 or Big12vPac12 and you own both homes. The money would be ridiculous.

It may for ticket sales, but does not for broadcast rights. OOC games, unless they are made for TV events (which add extra money anyway), don't contribute much at all to the bottom line. When they value deals they look at the course of the entire contract. While it may not feel like Texas vs Kansas is worth more than a Texas vs UCLA game, it is because they know they'll play every year and can count on it being whatever crap it is. The OOCs can be worse or better, but you don't always know even what they'll be in advance. When they made the current contract they likely didn't know who Oklahoma State is playing in September of 2023. Due to that, shit value. This is why the Big 12 was able to survive with 10 when the exodus happened. Moving to 9 conference games gave them 9 more games of defined value: Prior: 12 x 4 = 48 conference games 10 x 4 = 40 conference games = lose lots of cash 10 x 4.5 = 45 conference games = able to stay the same with. This is part of the difference you see with the Big Ten and SEC too, who should be relatively even: Big Ten - 14 x 4.5 = 63 conference games SEC - 14 x 4 = 56

Yes. The fact that you even saw the game and it wasn't wedged in on championship weekend of the CFB with the NFL playing Thursdays and Sundays is how it works. And those FCS teams make $500k-$2m for beat down games. You could pay the FCS $12m per conference for a Spring league with all the games shown and they'd make up the money without the need of the FBS.

I agree with this, but I don't think they have to merge. The smarter play would be to just combine the media deal, operate separately. And, if I'm the B12 with the central/eastern time zone, I make the agreement a 50/50 split so you make more per team. Either way, you explode your media deal, give both conferences a shit ton more leverage, and you keep your own management. Want to blow it up more...put it all on a dual conference network.

I don't think you'll see the jump to the Big Ten, but the Big 12 has been working with some old deals. They got more competitive when they realigned their T2 packages a few years back and went to 9 conference games and, to get that, they had to add years to the contract. The smart move was now everything is aligned to 2024-25 range unlike the past where they could only negotiate for 1/3rd at a time. This jump in 2024-25 should be the big one. Currently the T2 is basically market, but they have a severely undervalued T1 deal, like more than the SEC deal with CBS level of undervalued. The bad news is they have 10 teams so they don't have as many T1 games as the BigTen or SEC, but they don't have to share as much either. They should be able to see a per school level of jump as the SEC saw on their T1 deal, which was about a 3x increase. E.g. if they're paid $3-4m per game now, they'll get $11-12m. That $8m jump per team is enough to keep them just under the other two. That being said, there is a big opportunity to here to give away cash for exposure. The SEC did it with CBS for two decades. Singular marketing, singular time slot. It built consistent viewership over time. CBS is still going to want to fill that spot, which opens up in 4 years, they just don't want to pay mouse money for it. You could get a $4-5m jump and become a sole owner of a network/timeslot too. Personally, I think that would be far more valuable to the Big12 than the extra cash to feed more mouths. The other 2025 question is what they end up doing with T3 rights. OU and Texas kept theirs for now, but the rest started selling them off to ESPN+ in a pseudo digital conference network. That could lay the groundwork for something more in the future or they could keep the flexibility. My guess is they keep the flexibility because non of the Big 12 schools are clamoring about not being paid. At some point, you can't add any more TVs to lockers. There is money out there and everyone wants content to sell streaming services. Amazon just offered the NFL a billion dollars for one Thursday game a week. The Big will set the market in 2023, followed by the Pac 12. That should put the Big 12 in a good place to be the last deal before the 2035s when the SEC/ACC come up again

Yeah, its going to end up being how much they can make if they switched, period. The prospect of money has driven far stranger decisions

Several didn't play who got drafted in both FCS and FBS this year, didn't really have a material impact on interest. Interest drives exposure and exposure drives value. No FCS school is going to turn down more money because a handful of guys go pro or opt out. Also, we had pandemic timing, which can be perfected, and the NFL could move to draft guys like the MLB. All easily solvable things.

Side note: with the massive increase in exposure that the FCS got for its Spring run, due to not competing against any other football eyeballs, I'm going to be a little shocked if they don't move their seasons to the Spring indefinitely. They saw increases is not only attendance, but in broadcast interest. If they can make enough to avoid getting destroyed for money, its probably best for everyone. Which also starts eliminating the FCS games off the rest of the schedules and provides incentive for lower tear FBS to move down. That should increase FBS scheduling as well. All in all, I hope that happens for both FBS and FCS

Fanbase definition checks out.

My thoughts exactly. I see 8-9 losses on next year's schedule and only two definite wins, which is an increase due to Leipold heading to Kansas.

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports, was on the First Team this morning (Kannel/McElroy) talking about the CFP expansion. Couple recaps from things he's heard: Confirmation that the earliest anything will happen is 3 years from now. After two more runs, each of the Big Semi bowls have each gone through the entire rotation three times. The entire contract would have to be blown up, but expects the networks to play ball to be able to secure a longer term contract without it going to bid. (e.g. extend for another 12 years, which gets them 9 extra years). Eight seems like a sweet spot and 32 sounds comical, so he expects to hear 16 talked about most so that if there is a lot of hatred for it they can shrink to 8 and everyone is happy. 16 is building support for one reason, first round games on campus. The big brands, specifically the SEC, don't have a lot of incentive to change. They're always in. However, being able to host another home game, and sell tickets for it, not only gives the regular season greater meaning (seeding matters), but also fills the coffers. Those top 8 teams would have an opportunity to give their fans a playoff game without traveling any more than today. Doing this would also consolidate the final 8 within the current NY6 bowls with the second tier (Fiesta, Cotton, etc) hosting the quarters. They could also do nothing to the current system and do the first round of 8 on campus for the top 4 - this is likeliest option as it would require the less One big struggle with 16 is finding the time to play. The NFL added another round to their playoffs, so they start the second week of January now. CFB still doesn't want to have games going on during the NFL playoffs and wants to continue to own the New Year timeline. Considering they likely won't get rid of conference tournaments, nor rebuild all the conferences, one solution is start everyone on the current "week 0"

Inside the inevitable College Football Playoff expansion and why it will be anything but easy TLDR: Earliest anything will likely happen is 2023 and would require reworking the contract, no look-in built into current deal, which expires in 2025 Support of "all in one semester" eroding Looking at all scenarios from 6 to 16, from committee to champs Leadership pissed that word leaked Quote of the article: "A lot of these things will work if you don't worry about blowing up the bowl season. If you do care about that, it creates other imperatives for you."

I agree with about everything and would love to see eight too. Rarely is there a 9th team you're like "they've got the moxie baby!" but every year there is a 5th or 6th with a case to be made. Also, I detest byes. Fuck that all right in the ear. Especially when seasons are inconsistent with how many conference games vs FCS games vs who you played divisionally, etc. Seed them, but everyone plays is my take. However, it likely won't make a lot more money then they do now, outside normal inflationary increases. Ignoring decreasing viewership across sports, the #5 to #8 teams are already factored into the valuation (technically the top 12 are). Its not the Outback Bowl that matters for this, its the Rose, Sugar, Orange that do and, at $80m payouts per game, its a sizable figure already. All of those will get one tier lower teams in it, which doesn't value as well. You may add a little more buzz, but its not all new money. Additionally, even if you disagree with the four, the set up guarantees they'll have three games with teams ranked in the top four. This adds to the money because there isn't the risk someone lower slips in there. When you can't guarantee that year in and year out, you have to value it lower. Basically: 8 = more opportunity, 4 = higher value per game. Of course if they could nuke the entire bowl structure from orbit and rebuilt it, I wouldn't mind.

I looked for this article and either my google skills suck or it is buried. But, I'm not sure what you gain with that. 6+ou+a texas school, is basically one game different than a 9 game conference schedule, where you play multiple Texas schools. Probably way better off just scheduling FSU/Clemson/ND in OOC games, unless you're saying playing Wake Forest is better than Kansas State, then I'm not sure how to respond. It works for ND as a place to put all their other sports, they give up five football games a year so basketball and lacrosse have a relatively close home. With the closest ACC school being about 900 miles away and the furthest 1900, you're shipping a lot of sports a lot of miles unnecessarily. It likely doesn't bring in more Benjamin's either, the ACC doesn't value well. If its an extra OOC game that's interesting, expand to 12 and play 8 conference games. Problem solved.

The FPI always has been and will continue to be a flaming Ford Pinto full of clowns eating chili with beans in it.

Its possible they enter their game against SE Louisiana in mid-November without a mark in the win column.

Those are some terrible numbers. 14m subscribers is equivalent to what ESPN claims LHN has. Also, if you swapped out the Buffs for BYU, I could get behind that reporters thought of adding LA, AZ, and Utah. Just a southern band from Kansas to Texas, west to Cali. Its going to be all about whatever USC wants though. If I were the Pac I'd be hiking up my skirt as much as possible to keep them from looking at independence.

Please, for all that is good and precious in the world, let that name be real. I need it to be real.

Yeah, the thought though was that Colorado, who just won a natty like 4 years prior, would be nationally relevant for a while. Which would give you 2 in each. They dropped faster than the Huskers though.