The Continuing Saga of Re-Alignment...

[BrewingFrog]

In reading the piece linked below on Donati's successful efforts to retain Schloss and Saarloos, there was a tidbit towards the end about the BIGXII GOR expiration in 2025. Last year, ESPN got a lot of tongues wagging with their gauntlet-tossing article circling 2023 as the Year of Realignment, and the likely scrambling that will result.

I did some searching and found this article: https://247sports.com/college/oklah...ama-Michigan-SEC-Pac-12-Big-10-ACC--118642101

In it, the writer details a conversation with an unnamed Amazon executive, who brings up the point that the money in their line of work has long since passed from the Old Networks to the New: Netflix, Apple, Amazon, etc. Any realignment scenarios will have them as the driving force, and not the traditional vehicles.

Further points were the end of the traditional Conferences as we know them, and the idea of Regionalism as a whole. Brand Names are more valuable than the individual prowess of a program.

2023 is 5 short years away. I wonder how TCU's OODA loop is shaping up...

 

[netty2424]

This topic gives me tired head. Call me in 2023,4,5 whenever it's time to realign.

 

[The Frog to be Named Later]

OODA loop. Nice usage

 

[Double V]

Next round of rights negotiations is going to be VERY interesting. Amazon, Netflix, and Google (YouTube) know that they can damn near kill ESPN if they get the sports content they covet.

Huge reason Disney bought up the 3rd tier rights from Fox a little while ago.

https://forum.killerfrogs.com/index...being-sold-to-espn.212519/page-2#post-2521422

 

[West Coast Johnny]

So the theory is that streaming technology will seperate national brand teams from the rest and then morph into a nationwide (rather than regional) thing. College football morphs into the NFL... The regional aspect is what makes college football awesome. Take that away and it sucks.

 

[BrewingFrog]

So the theory is that streaming technology will seperate national brand teams from the rest and then morph into a nationwide (rather than regional) thing. College football morphs into the NFL... The regional aspect is what makes college football awesome. Take that away and it sucks.

Not so much separate, but homogenize. By the relayed description of the Amazon exec, they simply view each school as a Name Brand, as distinct entity that brings a natural, nationwide group of viewers. They look at only a certain number (the given number was 40) of these entities as having the cachet to be a part of a package. Regional affiliations, Conferences, and other considerations don't even enter the calculus...

 

[BABYFACE]

I read the article. It is important to note the perspective that it came from, an unnamed person at Amazon and an OU writer. While there are points in the beginning of the article that are plausible and make sense, it starts to drift off the rails the further goes along. Too many assumptions. College athletics is large as a whole, and to thin the herd too much is ill conceived thinking that college presidents as a whole and most likely are not going to be on board with and CFB TV viewers could diminish significantly.

Fans and an alumni of a CFB team will watch their school first, then might watch conference members games due to tied in interest. Then some will watch teams of regional interest. Some will only watch their team. If their team is no longer available to watch on a sports broadcast, a sizable amount of that viewership will not continue to watch CFB as they have in the past.

The reasons people watch sports is different then why people watch movies or TV shows. College sports is even more unique. College sports viewers will drop off in droves if you cull the schools too much and kill the reason they watch college sports to begin with.

I have no doubt that Amazon, Netflix and such will enter the sports broadcasting arena, but I think it is too early to think they will be the major players. Traditional broadcasters ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX are still generating high viewership with their TV programming. Their service is free. One just needs an antenna.

A big reason in the viewership growth of Amazon and Netflix is people not wanting to pay the high cost of a cable bill or satellite bill. A lot of those people are watching content that comes from broadcast TV and cable channels programming on Netflix and Amazon.

The way we watch TV is evolving and viewing options are growing, but that doesn’t mean traditional broadcasters are going away. They are having to adjust and adapt with technological advances and viewer habits.

ESPN isn’t going away yet. They have been restructuring over the past year. My guess is they are readying and positioning themselves for the future.

The article makes assumptions that come from a source with an agenda. However, there is no doubt that sports broadcasting and how it is delivered is evolving.

FYI: I have Apple TV and Roku in the house. So, y’all know my perspective.

 

[Gary's Shirtless Revenge]

The Big 12 is not looking to leave ESPN. They’ve been talking during the last year about the future of their partnership, those talks continue and are very positive.

You could see Amazon get involved in bidding on rights for one off events, like TCU vs Oh State, or bowl games, but that’s a way off yet.

BTW, Netflix wont be seriously involved in these talks, live sports doesn’t help them strategically.

Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter are they big tech companies who may throw some cash around. But NONE of them have the ability or structure to take all of the leagues rights... or even a full Tier. If anything, they may be a sub vendor to ESPN or Fox.

I fully expect the Big 12 to announce a new deal with ESPN and maybe Fox, sooner than you might think, that will include the Big 12 partnering with ESPN+ in several new ways to help grow that platform.

 

[Dogfrog]

The problem with expansion reporting is that the folks who hold broadcast rights as well as those who want broadcast rights are the ones doing the reporting or are the sources for the reports. So we the fans are reading sales pitches and wishful thinking disguised as reporting.

 

[BrewingFrog]

The article makes assumptions that come from a source with an agenda. However, there is no doubt that sports broadcasting and how it is delivered is evolving.

Absolutely. And, it is instructive to consider the motivations and methods behind that source. Besides, the fact that they have great thundering gobs of cash to throw around means that they are a force to be respected, even if they haven't a clue as to what makes the average College Football Fan tick...

This new 'wild card' in the formerly closed set of negotiators makes it all new and interesting.

 

[BABYFACE]

Absolutely. And, it is instructive to consider the motivations and methods behind that source. Besides, the fact that they have great thundering gobs of cash to throw around means that they are a force to be respected, even if they haven't a clue as to what makes the average College Football Fan tick...

This new 'wild card' in the formerly closed set of negotiators makes it all new and interesting.

Agreed.

 

[texas_sicilian]

I just can’t...

 

[Atomic Frawg]

Twitter didn't start broadcasting Thursday NFL games for kicks. They are experimenting and trying to get market share. Then there's youtube TV that broadcasts a bunch of channels and even live sporting events (but at $40/mo I think it's too high), and stuff you can stream over your gaming consoles. Almost every new TV comes preloaded with streaming apps and smartphones can be viewed on TV. While the big four broadcast companies are still secure (because millions of folk can't afford cable, ESPN is still going to be a major player because of their partnership with ABC.

I don't think it's too farfetched to think that every conference or school will have a means for its followers to watch games from various sports within the next five years. ESPN may not be the tail that wags the dog for too much longer.

 

[RollToad]

The problem with expansion reporting is that the folks who hold broadcast rights as well as those who want broadcast rights are the ones doing the reporting or are the sources for the reports. So we the fans are reading sales pitches and wishful thinking disguised as reporting.

And then Wes is in the background encouraging it all because it gets clicks.

Wes is not to be trusted.

 

[Jefffrog1993]

So does TCU grow to 15 to 20k students to make the cut? We are on the border of this 45’th place which if there is a top 40 would suck!

 

[Zubaz]

“Netflix and Amazon spent a combined $10.8 billion on content last year.”


That’s in one year, and that figure is growing faster than kudzu on a Tennessee highway. Think about that -- $10 billion, and try to compare how massive that figure is when we talk about the Big 12, SEC or Big 10 getting $ 40-50 million per team annually for TV rights.

There's some serious sleight of hand going on there. First they compare $10.8 billion in content spending for ALL content, across two different platforms, including multi-year deals with content providers like , and then they try to compare it to a segment-of-a-segment (individual teams' distributions inside of a conference television deal)? Not even close to the same thing.

Oh, and that article, notice how they list "non-sports" content? Yeah, there's a reason. See the bottom of the article, where it says ABC sends $6 billion in Sports alone, while Fox drops $5 billion, and that's before Fox announced they just spent 2 billion on a niche product in WWE to air their television show. WWE's ratings aren't near what college football does, to say nothing about how attractive the respective demos are to advertisers.

At the current juncture, it doesn't appear that Netflix or Amazon have either the assets or the infrastructure to handle something like this. And there's a reason for that. There's a reason you don't see other sports selling their top tier rights to those providers either. Something like MLB.tv as an over-the-top medium showing "can't get them elsewhere" games? Basically tier 3 rights? Yeah, I could see that happening. Pulling top shelf content away from broadcast or even cable though? We're still a ways away.

 

[peacock]

So does TCU grow to 15 to 20k students to make the cut? We are on the border of this 45’th place which if there is a top 40 would suck!

TCU only needs to keep winning, right now we are the 3rd or 4th (at worst) most attractive candidate for expansion out of the Big 12
1. Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. TCU
4. Kansas
5. Iowa State
6. West Virginia
7. Oklahoma State
8. Texas Tech
9. Kansas State
10. Baylor

 

[Jefffrog1993]

TCU only needs to keep winning, right now we are the 3rd or 4th (at worst) most attractive candidate for expansion out of the Big 12
1. Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. TCU
4. Kansas
5. Iowa State
6. West Virginia
7. Oklahoma State
8. Texas Tech
9. Kansas State
10. Baylor

Not if math is fans watching on phones PC’s we need bigger alumni and head counts.

 

[RollToad]

TCU only needs to keep winning, right now we are the 3rd or 4th (at worst) most attractive candidate for expansion out of the Big 12
1. Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. TCU
4. Kansas
5. Iowa State
6. West Virginia
7. Oklahoma State
8. Texas Tech
9. Kansas State
10. Baylor

Baylor is too high.

 

[Zubaz]

TCU only needs to keep winning, right now we are the 3rd or 4th (at worst) most attractive candidate for expansion out of the Big 12
1. Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. TCU
4. Kansas
5. Iowa State
6. West Virginia
7. Oklahoma State
8. Texas Tech
9. Kansas State
10. Baylor

In the grand scheme of things, there's no way that TCU is more valuable to a conference than Kansas or Texas Tech. Quality of the team itself only goes so far. If that were the supreme factor, NBC would have non-renewed their deal with Notre Dame 20 years ago.