For starters, I would like to know:
With the recent NCAA crackdown on violations, how would potential NCAA-mandated TV blackouts affect the primary TV rights and conference-owned networks especially the regional networks?
Good questions. It appears to me that even in the case of USC, who have been the most severely punished school recently, there were no TV bans in the way that they used to exist. Major violations seem to result in vacated wins, scholarship losses, and postseason bans.
Also I could be wrong about this, but I believe tv bans applied only to the violating sport. All the football and men's basketball on the Pac-12 Network will be on the national one, not the regionals. They will have women's basketball, baseball, and Olympic sports. I believe this was in both the press release and Wilner's breakdown.
Is there a "ratings benchmark" from the carriers that needs to be met in order to ensure continue carriage in all the markets?
It appears to me that advertising revenue (which is the type that fluctuates in value obviously based on ratings) is essentially incidental to the profitability of this thing. This suggests to me that they're budgeting the entire enterprise based on subscriber revenue, and by partnering with the cable companies and guaranteeing 40 million subscribers (who will be force fed the channel on their basic tiers, instead of having to make an active choice subscribe to it) they are guaranteeing profitability regardless of ratings or anything else.
Will there be strict control exercised by the conference over the advertising content on the networks?
That's a good question I'd like to see Scott answer too. If i had to guess I'd say probably not strict, since I'm sure they told the cable operators they could have a good portion of the inventory to sell, especially since the PAC doesn't need it to make the channels profitable for the member schools (as described above).
You have been very direct about accomplishing specific goals for the Pac-12 during this whole process, one of these was growing beyond the traditional footprint of the Pac-10. Specifically you barnstormed the east coast media centers like New York City and mentioned the Pacific-Asian markets as a target for growth. What are the steps the Pac-12 will be taking to accomplish that?
Well I'm obviously not Larry Scott (I just play him on allbuffs) but I would guess with 95% certainty you'd get something like:
"Those are important goals. Obviously as I've said, the national Pac-12 Network will be available nationwide if you are a subscriber to one of our 4 cable partners. As most of New York City and the surrounding areas are served by TimeWarner Cable, it will be available from Day 1 there, and in almost all the major media markets nationwide. That said, we're obviously continuing to work very hard to make deals with other carriers, both satellite, cable, and telecom to get the maximum coverage possible, both here in America and overseas."
With the expansion of Colorado and Utah, the "Conference of Champions" has added two premier winter sports programs; in addition to a long-standing relationship between the Pac-10 members and the MPSF, what opportunities exist for those sports to be featured on Pac-12 owned networks?
"We're still working out the logistics of individual sports but we greatly value the programs or our new members, as well as those of all conference members and would like nothing more than to bring as many of them as we can to the alumni and fans".
