CU has rejoined the Big 12 and broken college football - talking out asses continues

[Buffnik]

It would not shock me if CU went to the Big 12 with UA.

It gets especially enticing if there was a 4-team move that included SDSU.

I say this because it's a short term mindset. If the Big 12 (14/16) pays more money while also getting us recruiting ties to TX, FL and OH while maintaining UT and AZ... all we'd be missing is SoCal. And if SDSU prefers to follow us to a Big 12/14/16, there's really not much of an argument left for staying in the Pac-12.

 

[PAC MAN]

I don't think I can fully articulate how pissed off I will be if CU goes to the BigXII alone from the P12 and the P12 signs a good deal immediately afterwards.

And look at how the Big 12 did after CU left. CU would have been on ESPN+ for its third tier rights had they stayed in the Big 12.

If CU leaves the P12 and the P12 goes on to sign a media rights deal with Apple or Amazon where all of the games are going to be streamed which certainly will not be the case in the Big 12, I will be livid too. That is why I'm hoping CU stays in the P12 since it seems like the P12 will get such a deal.

 

[Big Jim]

I don't think I can fully articulate how pissed off I will be if CU goes to the BigXII

The back half of your statement isn't necessary for me, just the front half.

 

[KingPants]

To emphasize once more why realignment is about football and also about football.

Note that LSU is a very unusual case in baseball with its insane fan support. Anywhere else, it loses a couple million each year.

[Offtopic]
Not the argument being made here, but LSU is not a great school to use right now for money in sports arguments. They were just in the news since their library roof is failing and water is getting in the basement. They are apparently 100's of millions behind in deferred maintenance on that campus.
I love the role sports play in the college experience, but I am also real happy that CU does not neglect its other areas (at least didn't 20+ years ago when I was there).
[/offtopic]

 

[Creebuzz]

[Offtopic]
Not the argument being made here, but LSU is not a great school to use right now for money in sports arguments. They were just in the news since their library roof is failing and water is getting in the basement. They are apparently 100's of millions behind in deferred maintenance on that campus.
I love the role sports play in the college experience, but I am also real happy that CU does not neglect its other areas (at least didn't 20+ years ago when I was there).
[/offtopic]

I believe several of their programs have bordered on losing their accreditation over the years. LSU has a lot of issues.

 

[KingPants]

I believe several of their programs have bordered on losing their accreditation over the years. LSU has a lot of issues.

I'm not one of those "choose between curing cancer and playing football" folks, but I could understand their argument at a place like LSU when Brian Kelly is probably getting something like $10 million a year.

 

[SanDiegoBuff]

To emphasize once more why realignment is about football and also about football.

Note that LSU is a very unusual case in baseball with its insane fan support. Anywhere else, it loses a couple million each year.

This is such a tired and false argument though, and always has been. This argument just gives schools (and networks) a convenient way to try to justify the current upheaval. Realignment is about the whole system wanting to maximize money, period. CU has been saying the quiet part out loud for years by forcing the AD to self fund and through things like forcing the AD to use out of state scholarships to pay more money to the university system as a whole. Football itself doesn't actually "fund" anything, let alone the other sports. The school funds all of the sports. Football allows the school to fund the other sports more easily without having to use other means. All of those sports were around and funded well before the current football boom allowed schools to fund most of their AD solely with football money. If football went away, those other sports would still likely be cut, not because the school can't pay for them, but because they don't want to. Most Power 5 schools, and most large universities in general, make more than enough money to continue to fund all sports regardless of football income if they wanted to. Those schools choose not to for many reasons... primarily because they want to continue to fund their endowment. It also allows them to crow about education being primary, and in a lot of cases, crow about not using student funds for athletics.

 

[Victory]

It would not shock me if CU went to the Big 12 with UA.

It gets especially enticing if there was a 4-team move that included SDSU.

I say this because it's a short term mindset. If the Big 12 (14/16) pays more money while also getting us recruiting ties to TX, FL and OH while maintaining UT and AZ... all we'd be missing is SoCal. And if SDSU prefers to follow us to a Big 12/14/16, there's really not much of an argument left for staying in the Pac-12.

Let’s talk tv schedule then circle back on B12…

Current working hypothesis:

Friday 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET - Amazon
Saturday 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET - TBD
Saturday 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET - TBD
Saturday 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET - CBS
Saturday 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET - TBD
Saturday 7:30pm PT/10:30pm ET - ESPN

If they go with Apple for the 3 TBD games, maybe Apple syndicates one to Fox or ESPN/ABC.

But… P12 can’t have both 12:30pm PT games on Apple. One of them needs to be available to a national audience (CW?).

If I had to guess, this is the reason for the hold up. What do they do with the 12:30pm slot bc they are getting good national exposure in other slots.

###

Having said that, the B12 is in a worse spot than the P12. They will never get 12:30pm PT exposure on Fox, ABC, ESPN, let alone CBS or NBC (obviously). We already beat them in other time slots.

So they’re left with ESPN2/U, FS1, ESPN+ for the 12:30pm PT spot. That’s not an advantage in my mind.

I think it comes down to the 12:30pm PT spot and the B12 doesn’t have the cards to bluff their way to the pot.

On cost, every president and chancellor has said the P12 will make more. Look at the schedule and you can see why.

So is Colorado to the B12 just a rumor started by the B12 and Arizona? When I look at it from this angle it seems that way to me.

 

[Creebuzz]

Let’s talk tv schedule then circle back on B12…

Current working hypothesis:

Friday 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET - Amazon
Saturday 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET - TBD
Saturday 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET - TBD
Saturday 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET - CBS
Saturday 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET - TBD
Saturday 7:30pm PT/10:30pm ET - ESPN

If they go with Apple for the 3 TBD games, maybe Apple syndicates one to Fox or ESPN/ABC.

But… P12 can’t have both 12:30pm PT games on Apple. One of them needs to be available to a national audience (CW?).

If I had to guess, this is the reason for the hold up. What do they do with the 12:30pm slot bc they are getting good national exposure in other slots.

###

Having said that, the B12 is in a worse spot than the P12. They will never get 12:30pm PT exposure on Fox, ABC, ESPN, let alone CBS or NBC (obviously). We already beat them in other time slots.

So they’re left with ESPN2/U, FS1, ESPN+ for the 12:30pm PT spot. That’s not an advantage in my mind.

I think it comes down to the 12:30pm PT spot and the B12 doesn’t have the cards to bluff their way to the pot.

On cost, every president and chancellor has said the P12 will make more. Look at the schedule and you can see why.

So is Colorado to the B12 just a rumor started by the B12 and Arizona? When I look at it from this angle it seems that way to me.

Apple has been rumored to want the entire lineup or nothing, and certainly not selling off the tier 1 rights. To be sure, that’s just the rumor, but it’s been the one consistent rumor throughout and makes sense.

Apple will pay the most, but will probably want 100% of games, and certainly the top games, and it will all be streaming.

 

[PAC MAN]

So is Colorado to the B12 just a rumor started by the B12 and Arizona? When I look at it from this angle it seems that way to me.

It seems like UA/ASU to the Big 12 rumors started just after CU joined the P12. I don't think UA's desire to leave the P12 is related to CU joining the conference just some longstanding issues between UA and the PAC.

It would not shock me if CU went to the Big 12 with UA.

It gets especially enticing if there was a 4-team move that included SDSU.

I say this because it's a short term mindset. If the Big 12 (14/16) pays more money while also getting us recruiting ties to TX, FL and OH while maintaining UT and AZ... all we'd be missing is SoCal. And if SDSU prefers to follow us to a Big 12/14/16, there's really not much of an argument left for staying in the Pac-12.

It seems like ASU isn't interested in such a move or maybe that is Utah making noise about staying in the P12 so they don't have to be conference mates with BYU again.

UA, CU, ASU, and SDSU to the Big 12...CU would be idiotic to say no to such a move at that point. Basketball would be crazy in that case.

 

[BerkeleyBuff]

This is such a tired and false argument though, and always has been.

Football allows the school to fund the other sports more easily without having to use other means. All of those sports were around and funded well before the current football boom allowed schools to fund most of their AD solely with football money. If football went away, those other sports would still likely be cut, not because the school can't pay for them, but because they don't want to.

So football doesn't allow the school to have other sports, but kinda allows the school to have other sports. Got it.

 

[The Alabaster Yak]

This is such a tired and false argument though, and always has been. This argument just gives schools (and networks) a convenient way to try to justify the current upheaval. Realignment is about the whole system wanting to maximize money, period. CU has been saying the quiet part out loud for years by forcing the AD to self fund and through things like forcing the AD to use out of state scholarships to pay more money to the university system as a whole. Football itself doesn't actually "fund" anything, let alone the other sports. The school funds all of the sports. Football allows the school to fund the other sports more easily without having to use other means. All of those sports were around and funded well before the current football boom allowed schools to fund most of their AD solely with football money. If football went away, those other sports would still likely be cut, not because the school can't pay for them, but because they don't want to. Most Power 5 schools, and most large universities in general, make more than enough money to continue to fund all sports regardless of football income if they wanted to. Those schools choose not to for many reasons... primarily because they want to continue to fund their endowment. It also allows them to crow about education being primary, and in a lot of cases, crow about not using student funds for athletics.

Of course the multi billion dollar institutions make enough to pay for the multi million dollar ADs if they want to. The point is that public universities with ADs that operate in the green, solely because of football, don’t have to use their own public funds, academic donations, endowments, taxes, etc on an entity that isn’t viewed as necessary for advancing the academic mission.

So yes, big football programs allow the Universities to have a fully funded and profitable AD, without spending broader university funds.

What’s your point?

 

[BerkeleyBuff]

Of course the multi billion dollar institutions make enough to pay for the multi million dollar ADs if they want to. The point is that public universities with ADs that operate in the green, solely because of football, don’t have to use their own public funds, academic donations, endowments, taxes, etc on an entity that isn’t viewed as necessary for advancing the academic mission.

So yes, big football programs allow the Universities to have a fully funded and profitable AD, without spending broader university funds.

What’s your point?

It was a baffling post

 

[Victory]

Apple has been rumored to want the entire lineup or nothing, and certainly not selling off the tier 1 rights. To be sure, that’s just the rumor, but it’s been the one consistent rumor throughout and makes sense.

Apple will pay the most, but will probably want 100% of games, and certainly the top games, and it will all be streaming.

I can’t see it happening. All of the academics have said it’ll be linear and streaming so that pretty much rules out 100% Apple. They’d have to settle for a few games like they do with MLB.

Personally, turning the P12 into the NFL Sunday Ticket would be too risky. I’d never go for that. If they took over the P12N and ran it as a 24/7 freely available network on Apple TV and used an advertising model vs paid subscription... then I’d find that interesting. I don’t see that happening but I’d be intrigued.

 

[Not Sure]

It would not shock me if CU went to the Big 12 with UA.

It gets especially enticing if there was a 4-team move that included SDSU.

I say this because it's a short term mindset. If the Big 12 (14/16) pays more money while also getting us recruiting ties to TX, FL and OH while maintaining UT and AZ... all we'd be missing is SoCal. And if SDSU prefers to follow us to a Big 12/14/16, there's really not much of an argument left for staying in the Pac-12.

 

[White_Rabbit]

is it just me or is this Jim Williams dude now just kinda throwing everything out there? Lots of vague **** with well maybe it'll happen caveats. We should get a P12 deal this week, someone is leaving, while last week we were going to be mid June before a deal?

 

[PAC MAN]

I can’t see it happening. All of the academics have said it’ll be linear and streaming so that pretty much rules out 100% Apple. They’d have to settle for a few games like they do with MLB.

Personally, turning the P12 into the NFL Sunday Ticket would be too risky. I’d never go for that. If they took over the P12N and ran it as a 24/7 freely available network on Apple TV and used an advertising model vs paid subscription... then I’d find that interesting. I don’t see that happening but I’d be intrigued.

Will Amazon Or Apple TV + Offer The Pac-12 Deal They Can't Say No To?

In a perfect world Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff would have CBS, ESPN, Fox, NBC and maybe even a streamer like Amazon or Apple taking part of the package.

www.forbes.com

ESPN is the only linear partner remaining but it doesn’t mean a lot of P12 games will be on abc or ESPN…more like ESPN+ and maybe 90% of the time with national game of the week type games on abc or ESPN. CBS probably will do the same thing.

Apple is willing to pay in this case and Tim Cook has been open about that. Amazon is investing into UW as well. The presidents and chancellors will decide what conference their school will be in and Tim Cook can make promises that Apple can invest into individual schools and the deal will be done.

What is interesting is that SDSU’s stadium is sponsored by a tech company.

Sure the deal could be linear and streaming but I don’t think it will be about 50-50 like the ADs want. Might as well go with Apple in that case.

 

[PAC MAN]

is it just me or is this Jim Williams dude now just kinda throwing everything out there? Lots of vague **** with well maybe it'll happen caveats. We should get a P12 deal this week, someone is leaving, while last week we were going to be mid June before a deal?

Can’t wait to see what next week brings us!

 

[PAC MAN]

CFB Analyst Describes Differences At Pac-12, Big 12 Meetings

Both the Pac-12, Big 12 were in Arizona for spring meetings. One college football analyst saw big differences between the two leagues.

kslsports.com

Writer is a BYU beat writer so take this with a grain of salt. But the way Brock Huard has reacted to the Big 12 & PAC 12 meetings shows excitement within the Big 12 while it isn’t there for the PAC-12.

“Close” isn’t cutting it when it comes to the deal being announced.

 

[BerkeleyBuff]

That's a rough report. Hopefully this ends soon.

 

[Heywood]

That's a rough report. Hopefully this ends soon.

You mean this thread right?

 

[InTheBuff]

That's a rough report. Hopefully this ends soon.

 

[InTheBuff]

https://www.si.com/media/2023/05/09/espn-pat-mcafee-deal-fan-duel

Hmmm? I thought the optics were bad for ESPN to announce a tv deal with the PAC due to layoffs ?

What a joke.

 

[Victory]

F*** Brock Huard. In the back half of the radio interview they talked about Colorado.

In short, they hate Prime, can’t wait for Utah to put him and CU in their place and have Shedeur injured. It was borderline racist. As a white guy I don’t usually bring that up but f*** that show and Huard.

As for the P12, he “senses” things but he doesn’t know s***. If the academics keep saying we’ll be 3rd in revenue, there’s a reason for it.

Do I want to hear P12 and GK lack vision? No. Kliavkov is not a shark and that could be a liability when it’s all said and done.

But, P12 is temporary so I honestly don’t care. And this could be b.s. anyway.

 

[BerkeleyBuff]

You mean this thread right?

That too

 

[Liver]

Gird your loins. we still don’t know ****. The truck stop 12 is going to continue their propaganda blitz until it all either proves true or blows up spectacularly in their toothless crinkled faces.

we are going to be fine. we have managed to get back into the narrative after being at the historical low point of the program only months ago. We will have a seat at the table when it matters, regardless of where we end up in the short run.

all those g5 convert schools that the truckstop 12 took have a lot more to worry about than we do over a proper time horizon. Academics do matter.

 

[Victory]

One thing I’ll add, if the Pac-12 stays together and CU is in it, I’ll pony the f up for a paid subscription.

Idk if that will make a lot of folks root for the B12. Possibly. Can’t rule it out.

 

[MiamiBuffs]

Of course they did. They're in the business of making money. But streaming is just as much of a rip off nowadays; to get the full compliment of things you want you have to stack services up to just about the cost of cable. New look same taste.

My SlingTV with News, Sports, and DVR ($70 month) is still half of what I was paying DirecTV ($135 month) for the same services. Sling hasnt raised prices on me in months but I know DTV would have multiple times in the last five years since I canceled. I cut both my phone bill/internet (DSL to Fiber) and TV bill at the same time.

The cable package ripped everyone off.

The next time you go to the hardware store to buy a hammer. Imagine if they told you that you could buy it, but you also needed to buy a wrench, a box of nails, a can of paint, and a shovel. Oh, and a portion of the proceeds will go to a political organization that you oppose. Don’t like it, oh well, we are the only hardware store in town.

Cable TV subscribers, those of you that remain, are enablers.

Yup. This is why I think ESPN is in trouble. Before they relied on CNN, NBC, Discovery, FoodNetwork, whoever to somewhat be partners with them in the same bundle of service. Now they only have Disney+, Hulu to try and get people to sign up for ESPN+ which doesnt have the channels.

It’s all the same now with streaming and getting worse.

How do you figure? You have more provider choices now then you ever had. Everything is month to month and you can cancel at anytime.

Yes, we need to fight the monopoly capitalism in streaming as well.

Where it was once only a monopoly (cable) then cable had two competitors (satellite) to now having a dozen options? And competition has brought prices down.

 

[Highlander]

My SlingTV with News, Sports, and DVR ($70 month) is still half of what I was paying DirecTV ($135 month) for the same services. Sling hasnt raised prices on me in months but I know DTV would have multiple times in the last five years since I canceled. I cut both my phone bill/internet (DSL to Fiber) and TV bill at the same time.



Yup. This is why I think ESPN is in trouble. Before they relied on CNN, NBC, Discovery, FoodNetwork, whoever to somewhat be partners with them in the same bundle of service. Now they only have Disney+, Hulu to try and get people to sign up for ESPN+ which doesnt have the channels.



How do you figure? You have more provider choices now then you ever had. Everything is month to month and you can cancel at anytime.



Where it was once only a monopoly (cable) then cable had two competitors (satellite) to now having a dozen options? And competition has brought prices down.

It is true if you tried to reassemble your entire previous cable subscription via streaming services it would be more expensive and a worse user experience at this time managing many separate services.

However, the amount of people that care to do that has to be somewhere around zero.

My wife and I have highly diverse tv interests and we are still paying way less than the previous cable package stuffed with crap we didn’t care about.

 

[MiamiBuffs]

I think ESPN+'s monthly sub is getting close to the same amount that people pay monthly for the ESPN family of channels and once ESPN+ passes that price point, the move of the ESPN channels to ESPN+ will begin and I think that is coming soon. Just look no further than the fights that channels have had with cable carriers (Altitude Sports and Comcast ring a bell?). I just think that people who have no interest in sports are just tired of paying for sports programming on cable TV. I only want sports TV and I don't want to have to pay for the other channels. I am hardly alone in that case and that is why I have been a cord cutter for over ten years.

I dont think ESPN+ is anywhere close (I dont have it) in revenue or viewers as ESPN PayTV (cable, satellite) is. Disney is using its bundle and Star Wars franchise to inflate both numbers in the bundle. But the actual number of ESPN+ subscriber that are actually viewers is what? How much of that bundle money goes to ESPNs PnL? Contrast that with peak Pay Tv was in 2011 where 100 million people paying ESPN monthly. Like you, some of those people paid for ESPN while never watching it. People now have choice and thats bad for ESPN.

ESPN+ becomes more attractive if ESPN, ESPN2, etc. are on the streaming service. But that probably kills their PayTV business and there is no guarantee the PayTV people come over to ESPN+ (threading a needle from six feet away).

Disney lost 2.4 million streaming subscribers in their Feb ‘23 earning report.

If you didn't think that those media companies were in for some lean years doing this transition, I have a bridge in the SF bay to sell to you.

Lean is one thing. Never recovering the revenue is another. How do you pay for the SEC contract if you dont have the money? Well, you start by not offering new contracts for other content like the Pac-12.

March 2023:

• • ESPN and ESPN2 saw a 1.2 per cent fall in customers since December, with the latter dropping by 926,000
  • Fox’s FS1 channel was dumped by 668,000 households, representing a 0.9 per cent decrease, with sister channel FS2 dropped by 423,000
  • The Tennis Channel customer base fell by 1.28 million, equating to a 3.1 per cent drop
  • NBC’s Golf Channel was dropped by 998,000, a 1.6 per cent decline
  • BeIN Sports customers were down 7.5 per cent to 829,000
  • MLB Network lost 1.2 per cent of its customer base, which equates to losing 488,000 subscribers
  • NFL Network, NBA TV and Big Ten Network were relatively steady, seeing drops of 0.8 per cent, 0.3 per cent and 0.3 per cent, respectively
  • The Spanish-language TUDN saw the biggest drop, losing 8.93 million households – a 27.2 per cent decrease

Context:​

The numbers reflect the increasing trend of cord cutting, with Americans more willing to part ways with linear pay-TV channels to cut costs or rely on direct-to-consumer (DTC) products. A report from Samba TV found that 52 per cent of US households did not have a cable TV subscription, while research from Parks Associates found that 87 per cent had at least one subscription to a streaming service.

Coming next:​

Considering the high cost of a pay-TV subscriptions, and the various sports streaming services now on the market, this trend shows little sign of stopping, presenting sports broadcasters with economic questions over the best way to replace that revenue and leaving rights holders with strategic issues in generating reach.

ESPN losses 914k US customers households in Q1 2023, says study - SportsPro

The Disney-owned ESPN and ESPN2 channels have seen a 1.2 per cent drop in customers in the US since last December.

www.sportspromedia.com

And when you talk about broadening exposure, there are billions of Apple & Android devices out there that can have games streamed on them. That is more than actual televisions out there.

Both Android and Apple will put sports behind a paywall so itll be streaming. Sure you can watch it on your phone but youll have to pay something. Im talking about broadening exposure but where the games are easy to watch and reach the most people. If the CBS rumor is true that would be it.

The Pac-12 fanbase isn't necessarily like the others and probably is the one that will be the first major conference to go the streaming only route. The P12 needs more exposure in a big way after the disaster of the P12N.

The Pac-12 had an unexciting product at most of the schools and the fanbase responded in kind. The Pac-12N took the wrong risk at the wrong time in 2012 as PayTv was just starting its decline.