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CU has rejoined the Big 12 and broken college football - talking out asses continues
- Thread starter InTheBuff
- Start date
Hawaii is a total non starter. In all honesty, CSU, for all its weaknesses and warts, is 100x more suited for P5 than Hawaii is. Hawaii doesn’t even have a home stadium right now.
Hawaii has the 3 hr difference in time zone from PT and that's a massive deal in TV negotiations. It's all about live sports. That's another window for live sports. There is a lot of value in that.
Hawaii is a media play. Even a potential recruitment play. There are advantages Hawaii has that no one else provides.
This next media deal is critical. Get schools that add a lot of benefit. Vegas and SD are major cities. NO and Dallas are major cities. Fresno has 5.7 million people in the central valley. Hawaii has the time zone/media advantage which is critical for a deal with a cable conglomerate.
But Hawaii TV inventory would be starting around 10pm PT. It's not a valuable time slot.
I'm not sure the 11pm PT / 2am ET broadcast slot is all that coveted.
And only 1.5 million living there.
You can start Hawaii games at 7PM their time which before daylight savings is 10PM PT. That's 1PM EST. That's a slot that no one with live sports is in. That might not play well for ABC or NBC with SNL but for CBS or ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU, that's a coup to get live sports and those clubs, people who work nights and what not all watching your Channel.
At the end of the day, Hawaii as a Pac-12 team selling that slot is a lot more attractive than Hawaii in the G5 doing so
It's live sports. You don't have no competition. Nothing is live at that time. Clubs have ESPN Sportcenter on instead will have Hawaii and don't forget about the gambling element and the fact that relevant football will be on
Knowing little about the actual feasibility, I’ve always liked the idea of Hawaii in the PAC just because of their uniqueness and being the main attraction on the islands. That said, they’ve been playing in a temporary 9,000 seat stadium for a few years with no solidified plans for a permanent home yet. I think they’re far closer to dropping the sport all together (a huge loss for cfb imo) than moving up anytime soon.
Agreed. Vegas is basically So Cal anyway.
I agree, but the juice isn't worth the squeeze for the networks as they will have to compensate the current conference members for diluting the pool, and adding that time slot isn't going to increase their revenues enough to make it worthwhile.
There's a reason Hawaii hasn't even been considered for a P5 conference to this point.
I think you overestimate the value the Hawaiian time zone brings. It really doesn’t provide any value. The Honolulu TV market ranks #72, just ahead of Toledo and just behind Des Moines. If we are looking for TV markets, Albuquerque is 28 spots higher, without the downside. The cost of travel to and from the islands for non-football events is prohibitive, and wouldn’t be made up in any TV deal. Nobody outside of Hawaii cares about UH athletics. The advantage you think is there isn’t. The one and only positive to having UH in the conference would be the roadies, and they don’t even have a stadium to host games. They’re playing on their track field with some temp bleachers.
It’s not lost on me that Diamond Head is to that “stadium” as the Flatirons are to Folsom.
I really really think that time zone is a massive difference and one that's more valuable than any of these other teams not named UNLV or SDSU. The average Pac-12 game that's on the Pac After Dark is getting good ratings around 1.5 million viewers. You get 500k-750k viewers at a time where no live TV much less live sports is on is a massive TV value.
I could care less about the TV market, the population size, and their stadium situation. I am looking at what I can sale to ESPN, CBS, and others cable companies. You gotta be creative. TV is the driver for why you lost USC/UCLA and why you looking at expansion. That's just the basis of this and yes, there is a recruiting advantage to adding Hawaii. What kid doesn't want to go to Hawaii. Teams used to sell that as a recruiting pitch. We play at Hawaii. That was a selling point when I was playing college sports
The pool is already diluted. You lost USC and UCLA. To most football fans, the assumption is Oregon and Washington are going to bounce and the PAC will be on its deathbed.
You can either die or do like the CUSA did and said we gonna build an attractive product and add quality adds that help sell our conference with each new school bringing a different flavor.
You gotta remember, any teams you add will get a massive boost by the relevancy of playing big time college sports. I don't care if SMU doesn't have a massive base in Dallas, they will when they join big time football. Everyone benefits when your squads have realistic shots at national championships and relevancy.
I think adding a time zone is more attractive for ESPN and other competitors than you think. You are not adding Hawaii to that time slot, you are adding a proven brand that is the Pac-12 football. One that's proven to deliver ratings. Yes, I think it's significant than two nights of football of Friday and Sat. This gets you a 3rd live game on ESPN. That's a major selling point. Major. You aren't seeing it like I am seeing it. I am looking at this media value. You gotta consider all options. The Pac-12 brand is a proven commodity.
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FIFY
You can’t sell UH football to anybody. And in the alternate universe where you can, you can’t sell it for enough to make up for the additional costs associated with having UH in your conference. The MWC essentially kicked them out of the conference. I don’t think you fully appreciate how cost prohibitive it is to have UH in your conference. It’s a non-starter. UH won’t be in the PAC. It won’t be in any major conference. Nobody wants to buy what they have to sell.
Hawaii didn't do anything to increase the media value for the MWC. Plus, no one wants them for all sports because you lose too much money on travel.
Trust me. We've been trying to make it fit for years. R1 on research intensity as a state flagship makes them a peer university and cultural fit. You don't get more "Pacific" than Hawaii. Solid football with great fans and also has great VB. And we would love to have that road trip as fans....
But it's a small media market in a non-prime time zone with exorbitant travel costs and no natural travel partner. Then there are the issues with HI state support for facilities and whatnot. It just doesn't work. Unfortunately.
Why would Hawaii increase the media value for a G5 conference? Another time slot doesn't matter to the G5s anyway. They usually gotta take what they can get and for the most part, the MW played on CBSSN which few even watch anyway while playing lower end football.
The PAC with two ESPN Saturday slots is a big deal to me. That's as many as the SEC and ACC. That's still a very big deal and no one can even compete with live TV much less live sports. The school is fairly competitive but the recruiting value and the extra time slot is where they add the most value.
You don't have to. You are selling Pac football. There is a lot more money in the Pac than in the MWC. Some of the best moves on the table are cost prohibitive. Have you seen how far Dallas is from most of these schools? New Orelans? Let's keep it a buck, this expansion is about live television regardless if it's digital or not.
P12 has 2 time slots to itself: Friday & Saturday "After Dark".
On Saturday. I already mentioned the two current slots in a previous post.
The thing is, Hawaii gives you 6 or 7 games a year broadcast at their place. It's not worth enough to move the needle to make them a net positive for the conference.
so only some kidding aside, expansion is not a necessity if the p10 hold and sign the new GoR. maybe you add sdsu for giggles and the socal market but who else really jumps out as a must-have? unlv would be ok, i guess. and it would be nice to have some texas presence but culture fit kinda matters too--- smu and houston in the pac? i dunno.
our best play at this point might be hoping the p10 deal gets done and then working to be in the mix for the next big realignment. with Prime and our regained national presence, if we win some football games, we should find ourselves on the shortlist for the next round.
i just want to see a strong deal with the existing members get done, hopefully with a forward thinking partner like amazon. Prime on prime in prime time will be epic.
our best play at this point might be hoping the p10 deal gets done and then working to be in the mix for the next big realignment. with Prime and our regained national presence, if we win some football games, we should find ourselves on the shortlist for the next round.
i just want to see a strong deal with the existing members get done, hopefully with a forward thinking partner like amazon. Prime on prime in prime time will be epic.
On expansion into TX, I've seen several times that it's a major problem for Pac members that the state has that abortion ban with no exceptions. I hadn't posted this because I was afraid of the backlash arguments in this thread. But, yeah, it's an uncomfortable cultural fit to expand into Texas.
For market + cultural fit, SDSU & UNLV is really the only thing that makes sense.
Ideally, I'd stick at 10 but see if we could poach the hell out of the MWC for non-football members (making them a football-only conference).
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it isn't just abortion. there are several significant cultural issues. i don't say this to start a political debate here but it is a fact. add in the academic "prowess" of the apparently available candidates and it gets even harder.