• The KillerFrogs

Big 12 in position to poach Pac 12 schools?

Limey Frog

Limey Frog

Full Member
jack the weed said:
Throw in article here offering some general perspective on ESPN and the linear/streaming shift.

finance.yahoo.com

Disney's ESPN streaming transition to be 'massive, extra disruptive event'

Analysts say Disney's plans to take ESPN fully over-the-top will be difficult amid shifting consumer viewing habits and a fragmented media landscape.
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com
Click to expand...
Clearly ESPN will go to a subscription direct-to-consumer model sooner or later, whenever that becomes more valuable than carriage fees from the declining cable bundle model. For that to work, they have to have 'must see' content: i.e., the SEC. They need more than that, but in college sports the SEC will be the anchor of their model if this switch is going to work.

People keep saying "streaming is the future," and they're right, it is. But in 1900 motorcars were the future. That doesn't mean that everyone who started making motorcars in 1901 was automatically successful. Not all streamers who try the sports marketplace will make it. If you're the SEC, you're basically a king-maker in this regard because you can guarantee your streaming partner millions of subscribers. So if you're one of the conferences that fans might watch but could also live without and might not pay for, do you want to be with the parties that have the conferences that everyone wants, or do you want to try your own thing with someone else?

That's the problem, I think, for the Pac. I keep seeing Pac 12 people saying "everyone will be streaming soon, what's the big deal?" or "N% of Big 12 games are on ESPN+, that's streaming!" like it's a some kind of "gotcha". The point is, 5-10 years from now almost all college sports will be behind a paywall on ESPN, Fox, and maybe a couple of other places. There's a hard cap on how many subscriptions people will buy. Big 12 fanbases are big enough for ESPN to do business with us, but they aren't big enough on their own to generate the kind of revenue it takes to sustain major football and basketball. We need neutrals to see us and we need a cut of the cash from their paying to do so. For that, we need to be in the same subscription streaming ecosystem as the SEC. Right now, the Big 12 is contractually in position to have that; the Pac isn't.
 
Limey Frog

Limey Frog

Full Member
Putting this is a separate post rather than bury it after three paragraphs of theorizing about the future of college sports broadcasting:

Per Scheer on Wildcat Authority (who I think has consistently proved reliable on anything U of A), there is a Pac 12 meeting set for Tuesday. This seems to be a "show us the numbers today, or else..." meeting. Essentially the same ultimatum Colorado gave Kliavkoff the day before Pac 12 media day but he (somehow) didn't realize how serious the situation was. Presumably by this point he understands that it is serious, but nonetheless still has nothing to show.
 
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Hemingway

Hemingway

Active Member
Limey Frog said:
Putting this is a separate post rather than bury it after three paragraphs of theorizing about the future of college sports broadcasting:

Per Scheer on Wildcat Authority (who I think has consistently proved reliable on anything U of A), there is a Pac 12 meeting set for Tuesday. This seems to be a "show us the numbers today, or else..." meeting. Essentially the same ultimatum Colorado gave Kliavkoff the day before Pac 12 media day but he (somehow) didn't realize how serious the situation was. Presumably by this point he understands that it is serious, but nonetheless still has nothing to show.
Click to expand...
GK would probably have someone call in pretending to be Tim Cook at this point.
Excited Wall Street GIF by Imagine Dragons
 
CryptoMiner

CryptoMiner

Active Member
Rumors are all over the place and I know FlaSt has worked on its exit plan for a while but B1G taking them?

Big Ten Rumored To Be Adding Four Prominent Schools This Week​

MSN

www.msn.com
 
fanatical frog

fanatical frog

Full Member
Limey Frog said:
Clearly ESPN will go to a subscription direct-to-consumer model sooner or later, whenever that becomes more valuable than carriage fees from the declining cable bundle model. For that to work, they have to have 'must see' content: i.e., the SEC.

There's a hard cap on how many subscriptions people will buy. Big 12 fanbases are big enough for ESPN to do business with us, but they aren't big enough on their own to generate the kind of revenue it takes to sustain major football and basketball. We need neutrals to see us and we need a cut of the cash from their paying to do so. For that, we need to be in the same subscription streaming ecosystem as the SEC. Right now, the Big 12 is contractually in position to have that; the Pac isn't.
Click to expand...
There certainly is. For me it's one. Whatever it takes to see TCU sports. I'm not going to start going off down into that rabbit hole of multiple subscriptions and I'm not going to subscribe to ESPN or Fox sports to watch whoever they decide to show me on a given Saturday.
 
BrewingFrog

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
Limey Frog said:
Clearly ESPN will go to a subscription direct-to-consumer model sooner or later, whenever that becomes more valuable than carriage fees from the declining cable bundle model. For that to work, they have to have 'must see' content: i.e., the SEC. They need more than that, but in college sports the SEC will be the anchor of their model if this switch is going to work.

People keep saying "streaming is the future," and they're right, it is. But in 1900 motorcars were the future. That doesn't mean that everyone who started making motorcars in 1901 was automatically successful. Not all streamers who try the sports marketplace will make it. If you're the SEC, you're basically a king-maker in this regard because you can guarantee your streaming partner millions of subscribers. So if you're one of the conferences that fans might watch but could also live without and might not pay for, do you want to be with the parties that have the conferences that everyone wants, or do you want to try your own thing with someone else?

That's the problem, I think, for the Pac. I keep seeing Pac 12 people saying "everyone will be streaming soon, what's the big deal?" or "N% of Big 12 games are on ESPN+, that's streaming!" like it's a some kind of "gotcha". The point is, 5-10 years from now almost all college sports will be behind a paywall on ESPN, Fox, and maybe a couple of other places. There's a hard cap on how many subscriptions people will buy. Big 12 fanbases are big enough for ESPN to do business with us, but they aren't big enough on their own to generate the kind of revenue it takes to sustain major football and basketball. We need neutrals to see us and we need a cut of the cash from their paying to do so. For that, we need to be in the same subscription streaming ecosystem as the SEC. Right now, the Big 12 is contractually in position to have that; the Pac isn't.
Click to expand...
Concur. Yet, the previous experiments with "alternative" broadcast sources have all been dismal failures. The NHL damn near died of it's bad Media deal, and the PAC went their own curious route some years ago which wound up costing them a lot of money.

Now, if they make the Paid Streaming Content commercial free...
 

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