hawkfan

This also creates a solution for the B12 leftovers and a league that can at least somewhat rival the SEC in national interest - say the B10 grabs USC/Oregon/Washington/UCLA to create a Pacific division in a 20 school conference, then reaches out to ND to ask if they want to join that division, maybe the say no, but it's probably the best odds the B10 has of getting ND. USC/UCLA/Oregon/Washington know they have a revenue problem, there really isn't a good solution for them except leaving, adding the B12 leftovers makes it worse instead of better. The leftovers of the P12/B12 can join. While their revenue would certainly take a hit, it would be a solid/competitive league well above the AAC/CUSA/MAC.

They already are the worst paid P5 conference, and that's before adding a couple of small fan base schools and dividing the pot 2 more ways.

The B1G needs exposure in growing parts of the country with football recruits, that really only leaves 3 options - Texas, Florida, or California. Given the current situation (assuming UT/OU to the SEC), the only real play for the B1G expansion wise would be to go after the best programs in the P12. All of USC/Oregon/Washington pull TV numbers that are mid to upper level B1G TV ratings. If the SEC pulls off Texas/OU, the B1G's only real way to expand would be by grabbing the top schools in the PAC12 - the ACC has a GOR through 2035, the PAC12's expires in two years, USC/UCLA just rejected extending the PAC12 GOR last fall, so that tells you they are unhappy with the current financial situation. Without Texas/OU, bringing anyone from the B12 to the P12 would be a revenue loss for the current P12 members, so that won't happen. The B1G could counter the SEC's move to add UT/OU by going to 20 with the top P12 members. Could form a Pacific division made up of USC/Oregon/Washington/UCLA. Figure the B1G likes the Rose Bowl so much, bring it into the conference since the bowl game is likely going to die soon, or at least lose is significance. Maybe offer Notre Dame the 5th spot in that pacific division so they can keep the game w/ USC and not feel landlocked in a B10 midwestern division. 4 divisions of 5 schools works extremely well from a scheduling standpoint - 9 conference games, you play 4 in division and 5 against a sister division that rotates every year. This solves the leftover B12 problem too - the leftovers of the PAC12/Big12 join together to form a still relevant conference that's significantly better than the AAC/MAC/CUSA but would clearly be below the other three and would have a lower revenue budget for sure vs. what they currently have, but would be much stronger than AAC/MAC/CUSA.

Only way I'd change my perspective on the above would be if they just remapped college conferences geographically and collectively bargained a single TV agreement, which ironically is where we started 50 years ago. In that scenario which conference a school is in doesn't matter.

Still going to be based on population demographics and eyeballs, what's changing is TV Ratings are far more important than number of cable subscribers. There's only so many people in Iowa to watch college football. If the B1G can't expand into Texas/Florida/California, don't expand would be my thought. The top of the PAC12 is hurting for revenue and their GOR expires soon. The B1G has a long standing relationship with the the PAC12. That makes sense in a lot of ways other than geography, and it's becoming clear geography doesn't matter much anymore.

There is no scenario where the B1G adds ISU, they are fucked if Texas/OU leave, ISU doesn't add $50M per year in revenue, and that's all that matters now. The B1G's only real play to counter something like this from the SEC would be to go thermonuclear on the PAC12 in my view. Pac12 has 3/4 valuable brands that are AAU schools and have big population bases/solid TV ratings - USC/UCLA/Oregon/Washington. Those schools significantly underperform in TV revenue because no other schools in the conference really give a fuck about college athletics. If Texas/OU join the SEC, I'd like to see the B10 make a play at those four PAC12 schools and make a push to 20, offering ND to be the 5th school in that division which lets them keep their rivalry w/ USC. The PAC12 GOR expires in 2023 and not having been extended yet, I assume that the powers that be in that conference want to look around. The B1G grabbing the top 4 in the PAC12 would also create a realistic landing spot for the B12 left behinds and the PAC12 left behinds - they could join each other in that scenario and be a conference much stronger than the AAC/MAC/CUSA but not as strong as the Power 3.

I don't get this, Texas doesn't need the money. Literally any other conference or Indy makes more sense for Texas than the SEC. Texas is struggling to consistently compete with ISU/KSU right now, so the fix is to go play Bama/LSU in addition to OU every season? Uh, ok. Winning cures all ills. Texas doesn't need the money and I think they're better off staying in the B12 than going to the SEC. Brand is more important than money, it protects the money and recruiting. Winning is what builds the brand. Going to the SEC where other schools have lower academic standards means Texas better be ready to get real dirty on the recruiting side to compete or it will be the SWC all over again.

Not really what I find interesting about conference realignment.

But you just agreed with me... My argument is that streaming TV allows you to pay less and still get the content you want to see, and the content providers still get paid what they're currently making. No matter which streaming service you choose - PS Vue, YouTube TV, Hulu Live, Etc., they all include the sports channels you want for the most part, and you're paying the same rate to the content provider as you were with DirecTV/Dish/Comcast/Etc. The difference is, you just cut out the overhead for the middleman. You can get things like Philo or Sling's package with no sports, but if you want to watch UT, you're going to get one of the services with the sports channels, and once you bump to the $40-$50 sport tier, they include almost all of them (including SECN & BTN).

People are cutting the cord because TV has gotten too expensive, not because "we're paying for shit we don't want" - people were paying for shit they didn't want in the 90's, but it was OK because the cost was reasonable. This is a cost problem, not a content problem. The channels you don't want are probably charging you less than $0.75 per month, in many cases probably less than $0.30 per month. Fewer bundles mean sports fans will start bearing more of the burden of the cable bill, because non sports fans will probably get rid of it, and the networks won't take less money, so they'll just charge more. But we won't stop watching sports, we'll just have to pay more to watch them. This is probably the way it should be anyway, I'd agree with that, non-sports fans have been subsidizing sports fan's viewing for a long time. If you go purely ala carte (channel by channel), everyone ends up paying more and getting less content, it's why some form of bundling makes sense. The current base bundles have gotten too large and overhead costs (i.e. Rob Lowe commercials) have gotten too high, it's why streaming services will continue to become more popular. With streaming TV you're using existing infrastructure/hardware to watch television rather than paying for an entirely different set of hardware for just TV, cutting out the TV provider overhead reduces the cost of the service. All the channel providers are going to work together to preserve some degree of bundling because they benefit from it (and as consumers, we do too, or at least sports fans have). It's the reason ESPN's plus bundle ($5 per month) still holds back everything valuable - "Sure, we'll let you subscribe to ESPN+, but you don't get to see any good college football and no NFL games". I imagine what eventually happens is that there will be a sports "basic" tier that will include both ESPN/FOX, it will cost the same as it does now, but after cutting out the TV provider (i.e. Dish/DirecTV) it becomes much more affordable and everyone is a lot happier

For Iowa, I'd prefer 14 or 20, I think 16 is worst case scenario. I'd be perfectly fine staying at 14 forever, not sure that's realistic though. We're in holding pattern fro the next few years.

I pay $60 for cable internet, then piggy back Youtube TV for $40/month, that gets me everything I need. My only real concern is college football and NFL Redzone (which Youtube TV doesn't have yet, hoping they add it by 9/1), so I don't feel I need to spend beyond that. I rotate between Netflix/Showtime/HBO depending on when I want to watch their content.

As much as you'd like this to be a fact, it's an opinion at this point. I'll disagree with it and we'll see where it goes. Streaming TV will make it so everyone will get the same basic content they had 10 years ago, but it will just be cheaper because you're cutting out overhead of the TV company, that's my view. GORs are what stopped realignment, we'll have a much better idea where this is headed in 2021-2022, it's just on pause for now.

I assume they probably would, none of us can answer that question. I think they're operating under the assumption that it's a lot easier to cultivate a fan base than it is to grow a city out of nowhere. Those schools fit the academic profile, have large alumni bases, and are located in huge metro areas - they check every box except "football prestige". I think their inclusions probably require that any further additions have some kind of national prestige (football most likely, or at least basketball). Just two years ago the B1G renegotiated their TV deal and opted to go with only a six year deal rather than lock in their fat contract for a longer term (prior deal was a 10 year deal) - what does that tell you about what Fox/BTN think about "cord cutting"? They obviously aren't worried about it or they would have opted for a longer term agreement. I'm not going to operate under the assumption that I know more about the future of TV rights than Fox.

Right, you're always going to have "boring" games, no matter what conference you're in. And you need some of them to pile up wins. For UT/OU, the question comes down to what would tangible benefits would they get from moving? Unless it was the right circumstances, I'm not sure they'd gain much as of now. It would require 4+ schools coming with them to maintain some degree of regional identity, which means the PAC would need to go to 16, and the other three would probably have to be willing to go to 20 to accommodate that type of move. As long as ESPN is willing to renew the LHN deal, UT might as well stay put. If ESPN is losing money on the LHN and decides to dramatically reduce the terms or scrap it altogether, then things could get interesting. The B1G is expected to pull down close to $52M for each school next year (less Rutgers/Maryland until they're fully vested): http://footballscoop.com/news/big-tens-revenue-distributions-will-top-52-million-per-school-next-year/ If there is a significant revenue gap between UT/OU and the B1G revenue keeps going up, that could become a reason OU tries to make a jump when the GOR gets close to expiring, or at least uses that threat to leverage the best terms they can out of the Big 12.

The PAC 12 made a really stupid decision by deciding to start their own network - they have no partners and no leverage. That's the main reason their network is failing miserably. The B1G only has 49% ownership of the BTN, but Fox has 51% ownership and has just as much incentive as the B1G to see the network succeed. The deal with Comcast will get done because Fox has the ability to blackout B1G games on FS1 if a carrier doesn't carry the BTN. I believe the B1G has already been lining up some key games on FS1 to setup problems for Comcast if they do hold out past 8/31 (I think Michigan/Nebraska might have been announced as a FS1 game with this dispute in mind). The fact that Fox can blackout high demand games on FS1 gives them a lot of leverage. This was another major reason Fox paid a premium for the B1G Tier 1/2 rights, because they knew it gave them more leverage w/ the BTN (by controlling games on FS1). "Cord cutters" won't have much of an impact on the model once streaming TV sorts itself out. The fact is, every channel, and consumers, benefit from bundling to some degree. The internet is going to make it so you can have a lot more choice in what bundles you want to pay for (like pairing Youtube TV w/ Philo, for instance). The problem is that the cost for TV got to a point where people weren't wiling to pay for it anymore, and the internet has provided a great solution. A lot of people have a problem paying $120 a month for TV, no one probably complains at $40-$50 a month, which is what I'm spending on Youtube TV now, and I'm still paying the BTN, just like I was w/ DirecTV. I'm just not paying DirecTV for their equipment and overhead.