CustersDoctor

It is clear WSU is fucked. Kirk Schulz is the president of WSU and one of 3 PACX member President's on the PACX board. He sure sounds terribly unconvincing about the new deal. BUT the biggest take away is he makes it clear they've been spending money based on PROJECTIONS. Before USC/UCLA defected, the PAC12 reasonably figured their new media deal would be around $50mill a year per school. Even after the defections there are a lot of reports that around August of 2022 that the PAC12 had a $40mill a year deal all but finished. But four things happened in this order. 1. The PACX schools knowing they have this $40mill a year all but locked up wanted to do their due diligence and make sure there wasn't more money out there. They still had 20 months on their contract, so why not. 2. During this delay the networks involved in the new contract wanted to verify the TV ratings data that they were largely basing their bids on. And it was at this time they discovered that their competitor Comcast had been overcharged and that the PAC12 was giving bogus ratings data to the new contract media partners. So that $40mill deal started to unravel. 3. Oregon and UW didn't want to sign the $40mill deal until they were certain the B1G wasn't gonna call. 4. While the PAC12 was stalling for more money on one hand and while their potential contract was starting to unravel on the other, the BIG12 deal was finished and we got it signed. The side effect of the NEW12 getting their deal done was that it filled most all the inventory needs of the networks. Go ahead and ignore the above paragraph if you want because it's mostly conjecture. But in listening to Kirk Schulz, I'm certain he's saying that for the last 2 years they've been spending money based on their projections that by the fall of 2024 they'd be making at least $40mill a year. They've been funding upgrades, enlarging facilities and handing out pay raises and contract extensions based on the projections of $40mill a year and not the terribly dissapointing deal that is about to come in. They have written checks on an income bump that is not happening.

3 games on linear & 2 on streaming will be 60% linear vs 40% streaming.

The PAC12 has lived with a lousy linear to streaming ratio for six years. Literally a third of their content is buried on the PAC12 network. During the non conference part of the season the ratio is really bad. Last season 15 of the first 32 PAC12 games were streamed. Soooo, by staying at 10 teams, the PACX will get just enough linear coverage to have THREE games a week on linear During conference play. That gives them ratio of 3 linear to 2 streaming, when it has been 4 to 2. Surely they can get Thursday night game, a Saturday matinee, and the Saturday late night slot on linear. If they can pull this off they'll have 60% linear ratio and prolly a 6 year 1.8 billion dollar deal that pays 30mill a year per school and no expansion.

Well if what I said is indeed dumb and we're talking about the PAC12, doesn't that make more likely than not.

Seriously, I do not know. Because nobody actually needs the content. Fox and ESPN could indeed take advantage of the PACX content if they had it. My 6year 1.8billion prediction I still think is the most likely. But the second most likely is a PACX collapse. Fueled by too little money and too much streaming. There are so many reasons that no linear partner is bidding on the content. FOX & ESPN will get the best part of the PACX if it collapses so why bid on the entire conference. By not bidding on the PACX FOX & ESPN pretty much insure its collapse and then the top 6 teams, the teams that actually make the networks money, move to the BIG12 and FOX & ESPN already have the BIG12 content sown up. So They'd get the gravy and not have to carry the bottom four. (OrSt, WST, CAL, Stan) Not only that, but by letting the conference die they assure the death of the PAC12 network. Its in Fox's & ESPN's best interest for the tiny little speck of a conference streaming network to wither away. If this happens, just think of the 10's millions of dollars that the PAC12 poured in to their network, then to have ZERO to show for it. So really the PACX's best hope for money is for some struggling streaming company to think that risking 1.8bill on the PACX is worth it. Apple and Peacock are doing poorly. Everybody says, 'Apple has money to burn.". Though that is true, Apple does not actually ever burn any money. They wisely invest it, and any contract they sign is extremely detailed. The PACX had a studio and some infrastucture that Apple doesn't. (But weren't they moving the PAC studio? Is the move completed?) Now as for PEACOCK, they don't need the studio or the infrastructure. So they wouldn't want to pay for that. Now here's a thought. Peacock is part of NBC, NBC is part of Comcast and the PAC12 owes COMCAST over $40million. Is that good or bad for a PACX-NBC wedding. Something else is NBC is absolutely not interested in the PACX Saturday late night content. They have made it clear they don't want to compete against their SNL content. So it really leaves Apple as the most likely bidder and there is no way the PACX would accept a contract that is too heavy on streaming. So I just don't know.

You're not wrong, but my postulation is just as correct as yours. I don't care who is right, I just want to all end. Just like I want the Fast & Furious franchise to end.

No more Cloak Room crap from me on this thread. Back on topic. I think the PACX has a 1.8bill 6 year deal ready to sign. That comes out to 30mil a year per school. 60% of the games will be linear. If you think 40% streaming is to much streaming, well that is about what their current ration is. They will wait until early July to sign the deal. The reason they will wait is so that they CANNOT expand. They can't afford to expand. By waiting until after the end of June, SDSU's buyout increases significantly. The PACX wants to have an excuse as to why they are'nt going to add SDSU or anybody else. But it really comes down to wanting to keep as much money for themselves as possible. If they add two schools to get back to 12, then the payout per school drops from 30mil a year to 25mil a year.

That was one of my grandfathers favorite sayings. Its applicable in so many situations. Especially in todays "We're practically there" tweets.

Is this a new tweet because its nearly identical in content to about 10 other tweets over the last 10 months. "There is a deal on the table that we're all ready to sign as soon as the deal that we are willing to sign is on the table."

Of all the unforced errors, the biggest one is NOT having a media partner on the PAC12 network. Remember that Fox is a stakeholder in the B1G network. Some B1G schools don't like that fact because Fox has a lot of control on which games are relegated to the BIG network. But since Fox has a stake in the B1G network they certainly had to be vocal in landing USC & UCLA since that had the two fold effect of adding value to Fox's investment in the B1G network while simultaneously destroying the value of the PAC12 network. If ESPN or CBS or Fox had a stake in the PAC12 network that stakeholder would have been active in keeping the PAC12 together. That stakeholder would have been working on a good OTA & cable contract with the Pac-12. But Scott wanted to go at it alone and it cost him dearly.

The redacted version

IIRC the twelfth choice for the BIG12 back in the 90's came down to Baylor or Houston. UH did better on TV than BU. BU had slightly better attendance. But I always heard that BU had more influence in the legislature than UH. And that A&M and UT correctly believed they owned the Houston TV market. A&M and UT also believed that they'd have better luck recruiting in the greater Houston area if UH were relegated to second tier status. And that turned out to be true.

Lets say ESPN's portion on the contract with the Big12 is 20mill a year. The deal ESPN signed is, IF the BIG12 adds any P5 schools, then ESPN will throw another 20mill a year into the pot for each P5 addition. This gives ESPN access to the extra content. As we all know the networks and cable companies already have ample content so they all have pretty much dropped out of the PACX sweepstakes. The PACX owns the late night time slot. The PACX has SIX schools that get good ratings. It is better for ESPN to let the PACX fall apart and the BIG12 scoop up the six good schools. That way ESPN gets the good content and ESPN can own the late night slot without having to sign a conference deal that obliges them to carry two or three games a season with the schools with bad ratings. Last fall the networks media rating scale was published. Here's how they rated the PACX football teams: OU 5.54MILL, UW 2.46MIL, ASU 1.95MIL, CAL 1.14MIL, UU 1.09MIL, UA 1.04MIL, CU 95K, STANFORD 85K, WSU 85K, OSU 79K. The networks will always want to give their best time slots to the games that have the highest ratings potential. If ESPN can coax the top 6 schools into the BIG12 they won't have to ever air the west coast ratings killers like Stanford, WSU & OSU. And though CAL's ratings are ahead of CU's, the conventional wisdom is this: CAL's trajectory is downward because the elitist snobs there don't really care for pugilistic blood sports. CU's is at least making an effort to dig their way out of the cellar. It is not absurd that as many as six schools would defect from the PACX when Klownkov gives them the final details of the new media rights deal.

I saw this and it is great news. Imagine being in a conference that is going to short You 4Million dollars on your pay out this year because you defrauded comcast. And imagine that same conference isn't getting its Holiday Bowl 3mill payout this year because UCLA dropped out of the Bowl 2 years ago. And imagine the truck stop conference just over the mountains is handing out an extra 13mill this year. And that Truck stop conference has invited you to come over and play. How do you Not ditch your old conference and get you a Peterbilt, some beef jerkey, a CB radio and the Bucee's app on your phone.

I think the only criteria was, "What four mid majors have good metrics and a have the best national perception" I said good metrics, not the best metrics because SDSU, Tulane & ECU had metrics as good or better than some schools that made the cut. And the national perception for the 4 chosen ones were the best of any 2nd tier schools. Nationally the perception of UC is good because they recently beat ND and made the CFP. UCF had an undefeated season recently and play home games at Disneyworld and people like Disneyworld. BYU has special underpants wearing fans all over the place. And Houston is in a huge population base, surely that city should have a college team and my Grandpa said something about Phi-Slamma- Jamma. Now we all know UHs national perception is to high, but none the less it was good enough for an invitation to the show. We all know they'll need lots of visiting fans to fill their stadium. <insert here's why they get to host UT this year rational> We also know UH is number 4 in merchandise sales in Houston. (Behind UT, AGGIE & LSU) Nonetheless they were a better choice than anyone else.

Adding UConn is this simple: I believe in the East Coast Media Bias. Adding UConn to the Big12 increases the media bias for the entire conference.

Anything to get clicks. However, Memphis was number 5 in the Big12 sweepstakes 2 years ago. The hold back then was they just didn't have a plan for facility improvements. But, At the end of 2022 they announced a 200 million dollar Liberty Bowl improvement package. I went to the Tech-Mississippi State Bowl Game there at the end on the 21 season. $200 million is about 1/3 of what's needed to upgrade the place. You all prolly know what a dump Jones Stadium here in Lubbock was 20 years ago. The Liberty Bowl is far worse than the Jones ever was and Tech to their credit has spent about $700 million (counting the current project) to make the stadium really nice. Spending 200mill on that dump will make their place about the fifth best in the American Athletic Conference. It would indeed be strategically good for the BIG12 to have a school right in the middle of SEC country. However, there is NO way they are ready to be in the number three conference. I mean they legitimately lost out to Coug High!!!

There are several advantages for CU by making the move. 1. Geographic: A. Big complaint by Boulder business owners is that visiting teams from the PAC12 don't bring fans like the BIG12 did. Well duh, geographic isolation has consequences. B. Central time zone games get more viewers. This indisputable fact is why Larry Scott worked so hard on landing CTZ teams back in 2010. C. Playing games in recruiting hot beds matters. 2. Stability: It's ironic that the conference that has lost six members in 12 years is the stable one, but that is where we are. 3. More linear less streaming. Broadcast TV and Cable are still where the eyeballs are. It may be different in 6 years, but as of now the PACX current contract has more streaming than any other conference and if the new TV deal is headed by AppleZon then it will be even more streaming oriented. 4. The PACX deal may come in at below the dollar threshold that CU can live with.

CU's tone hasn't changed at all. Nobody at CU was saying They'd be leaving soon, it was all echo chamber podcasters who have absolutely nothing to lose by creating click bate. All PACX schools would prefer that they get a deal that is good for them. I do think the Kliavkoff is running out of time. If the PACX wants to ad SDSU they have to do it by the end of June because their exit fee increases.

There were people that absolutely did NOT want to add 2 religious schools. And then risk the BIG12 becoming the religious school conference.

From a networks point of view one of the worst part of a conference deal is that they're forced to carry the bottom dwellers in some prime slots at least twice a year. By NOT bidding for PACX content they seal its fate. The top 6 schools will go to the Big12 leaving the four worst TV schools behind. ESPN & Fox end up with the gravy at 31million a year and don't have to broadcast OST, WST, Cal and whoever the 4th worst school is. (depending on where one looks the 4th worst TV draw in the PACX is either STANFORD or AST)

Tech was your best draw in Austin in odd years and there's no denying it. BUT you know from history that the Aggie game did the same thing in Austin. And you know from recent history how 'Bama traveled. And I'm certain LSU will bring ten of thousands as well. Tennessee travels well and so do Ole Miss and Auburn. So Austin is likely to have two Hotel busting, campground filling crowds each and every year, rather that ONE every other year.

You can act like the Tech game isn't a big deal but the years that they play in Austin it's the biggest home game of the season. Not only is it always a sellout, but there are 10 of thousands of people here in town who don't even have tickets.

OUCH! So PACX schools are now making budget cuts to cover the Comcast refund. AND more importantly this makes me think WST knows the PACX is dead and WST needs to conserve funds and stretch dollars because they're not included in the realignment talks.

Every conference TV deal requires that each member school gets a set minimum of good time slot games. That's why ESPN & Fox dropped out of bidding for PAC10 content. BECAUSE, If the PAC10 collapses and the 4 corners come to the Big12 and possibly OUW, ESPN & FOX get the content of those teams because they already own the Big12 content. If this happens ESPN & Fox get the gravy of the PAC10 without having to carry the 4 ratings disaster schools (Cal, Stanford, OSt &WSt).