Conference Realignment

Status
Not open for further replies.
#76      

wma500

wma500
wma500
Saturdaze said:
Sure, ND is still a big draw, but will it continue to be? My opinion is not unless they join the B1G.
Click to expand...
Brian Kelly did a terrific job at ND. No denying that, the program is in a the best position since the Holtz years. He absolutely deserves credit for that. Also worth noting that he was 0-3 in major bowl games while at ND, and none of them were close. And his recruiting was generally ranked in the 8-18 range. Marcus Freeman has come in and in just a matter of months, he's got ND leading at #1 in two consecutive classes, all with the exact same resources Kelly claimed were outdated. Freeman is so far ahead of anything Kelly did in recruiting that frankly its at best shocking, and at worst, an indictment of Kelly as a program leader.

As to financial matters...in the last 24 hours, multiple reports have come out that CBS will be paying $350 million a year, for second pick of the Big 10 slate. If that tranche is worth $350 million, how much would ND's 7 home games be worth a year? ND has said they want $75 million annually, to stay independent. Doesn't take much of a stretch to think ND could get at least $75 million for it's TV rights and remain independent in football.

Generally, ND's home slate has 2 good opponents, 3-4 ok opponents, and 2-3 clunkers. Where ND could run into trouble is if NBC says they need to improve their slate of opponents, but conferences effective lock out ND from scheduling top opponents. This is a real issue they face.

If ND remains affiliated with the ACC for the next 15 years, it'll be only because that's what they want to do and it works for them financially. Odds that actually happens are near zero. If they want to go to the Big 10 tomorrow, they can do that too. Their brand value, for better or for worse, will allow them to go where ever their invited, with very little restrictions.
 
#78      

Calvin

C
Calvin
IlliniShelt said:
I do wonder if the conference will get less overall commentary/highlights, etc from ESPN if we never have games on ESPN's networks. On the other hand, ESPN seems very firmly in bed with the SEC so we're playing 2nd fiddle in a 2 conference orchestra anyway.
Click to expand...

ESPN will go with the money. They will denigrate the BIG if they're not part of it, and promote whatever properties they wind up signing instead. Could be some cornhole on SportCenter if that's what they wind up with.
 
#79      

Ander1345

A
Ander1345
Really shocked that ESPN bowed out this early. Also not sure how that's a win for PAC12/Big 12 at all, but I guess they gotta be optimistic about something.
 
#80      

IlliniSaluki

IlliniSaluki
IL metro east burbs of St. Louis
IlliniSaluki
ChiefGritty said:
Mornin' fellas


It smells just a tad like this is a final gambit by the league to get ESPN to pony up, but maybe they won't.

Once the notion of NBC packaging ND with Big Ten games surfaced, which created the Fox-CBS-NBC Saturday Tripleheader concept, that always sounded like it was gonna be too sexy to turn away from. And in terms of its top-level football brand, that's freakin' great for the Big Ten, no two ways about it. As I said before, that 2:30 CBS slot is the penthouse real estate of the sport, and in getting NBC to create a new evening window they are actually expanding the territory for college football onto prime time of one of the three major networks. The visibility of those three games will be gigantic, I expect to see them competing very successfully at the top of the ratings charts with the flagship SEC broadcasts when that competition gets underway next year (that will be a big focus I bet, a Letterman vs Leno or Raw vs Nitro for college football).


In the short term it seems very much the opposite. ND and the Big Ten are being explicitly packaged as a doubleheader duo here for NBC. But over the longer term, if the Big Ten-NBC partnership is successful, ND joining the Big Ten starts to make a lot of financial and programming sense for NBC and the schools and conferences are ever more openly doing the bidding of the hands that feed them now.


The Big Ten *could*, but its schools don't want to and the league doesn't have to given its position of strength elsewhere. The Pac 12's best game as a 9PM start is a nice after dinner mint for ESPN's prime time SEC game, in theory.

Anyway, I told you so that the Big12/Pac12's best option was to wait until the Big Ten finalized and left content-hungry players at the altar.


Just tracking the money, if $1 billion was the expectation before USC and UCLA, $1.14 billion would be the number just to keep the shares the same size per school. So that's a number to keep in your head.

appleinsider.com

Apple, Amazon in talks to acquire streaming rights to the Big Ten Conference | AppleInsider

Apple is reportedly in talks to acquire the streaming rights to Big Ten, one of the most prominent conferences for college sports, presumably for Apple TV+.
appleinsider.com appleinsider.com

It's important to note that there's apparently a fourth package going exclusively to a streamer. Totally spitballing I wonder if that would be a one game Thursday or Friday night exclusive package, or if it would be something bigger. Anyway, given the high profile of the rest of it, it's going to be annoying and of course Illinois will be scheduled in that game more than any other school, guaranteed.

So many other questions jump to mind

- How are the selections going to be done between Fox, CBS, and NBC?
- If Fox gets the best game (as seems to be everyone's assumption) are they making USC constantly play road games at 9AM PT? Surely they couldn't force them to play a home game then, right?
- Are CBS and NBC going to be getting any of the spare inventory to put on CBSSN (we better super duper hope not) or USA (the holding pen for former NBCSN content)? You'd imagine there will be tons on FS1, but is the BTN package getting bigger or smaller here?
- Whither Basketball? The pessimistic note you have to add here is that the move from ESPN to FS1 marks a tremendous downsizing of audience for the kinds of Big Ten basketball games Illinois now regularly plays. But there are more questions than answers there, FS1 was already showing Big Ten basketball regularly and with their other commitments they don't have the airtime to soak up everything ESPN was showing. Plus it's a 16 team league now. Regular showings on FS2 or CBSSN would be really disappointing.


For scale, ESPN paid $300 million per year to wrestle the SEC package away from CBS. Though that was before Texas and Oklahoma.

Anyway, looks like it's war with ESPN. That will be interesting for sure.
Click to expand...
As it pertains to Apple and the streaming rights. They could end up offering enough money to be the sole streaming partner for the B1G similar to their deal with MLS that starts next year. In that deal they will stream all MLS games regardless of what cable/network they are on. They are also streaming those games globally. I could see them pony up a !!!! ton of $$ to get global streaming rights and stream all games regardless of what network/cable channel the game is on. They are paying MLS $250 million a year for a 10 year deal.

Also if the potential streaming rights $$ is in addition to what is being reported right now and what you have estimated at possibly being in play. Then if that money is significant like the MLS deal could that then lead to OR, WA, Cal, Stanford joining the B1G potentially sooner rather than later?
 
#81      

redwingillini11

redwingillini11
White and Sixth
North Aurora
redwingillini11
Navy_illini said:
I guess no college game day for the big ten. There are worst things.
Click to expand...
This would have been a huge loss at one point, but Gameday is a shell of its former self. Herbstreit is ok but Lee Corso is unintelligible at this point and Desmond Howard can’t stop cackling during any conversation. Everyone else is ok but nothing special. It makes me sad because it was once appointment television for me every Saturday. These days I’ll watch the first and last five minutes and that’s about it.

Plus I’m bitter they never came to Champaign, especially last year Week 0 when we were the only good game in the country. So screw them who needs them anyway.

Give me Big Noon Kickoff now; their football analysis and breakdown of game footage puts ESPN to shame.
 
#83      

Joel Goodson

Joel Goodson
respect my decision™
Joel Goodson
IlliniSaluki said:
As it pertains to Apple and the streaming rights. They could end up offering enough money to be the sole streaming partner for the B1G similar to their deal with MLS that starts next year. In that deal they will stream all MLS games regardless of what cable/network they are on. They are also streaming those games globally. I could see them pony up a !!!! ton of $$ to get global streaming rights and stream all games regardless of what network/cable channel the game is on. They are paying MLS $250 million a year for a 10 year deal.

Also if the potential streaming rights $$ is in addition to what is being reported right now and what you have estimated at possibly being in play. Then if that money is significant like the MLS deal could that then lead to OR, WA, Cal, Stanford joining the B1G potentially sooner rather than later?
Click to expand...

MLS is responsible for all production costs. So, say ~$75M. Ergo, they'll gross ~$175M.

But, yeah, there's no doubt the BIG is going to mine the streaming vein. I also think they're gonna move on that night slot. Adding the remaining west coast plums seems inevitable.
 
#85      

IlliniFaninHoosierLand

IlliniFaninHoosierLand
IlliniFaninHoosierLand
redwingillini11 said:
This would have been a huge loss at one point, but Gameday is a shell of its former self. Herbstreit is ok but Lee Corso is unintelligible at this point and Desmond Howard can’t stop cackling during any conversation. Everyone else is ok but nothing special. It makes me sad because it was once appointment television for me every Saturday. These days I’ll watch the first and last five minutes and that’s about it.

Plus I’m bitter they never came to Champaign, especially last year Week 0 when we were the only good game in the country. So screw them who needs them anyway.

Give me Big Noon Kickoff now; their football analysis and breakdown of game footage puts ESPN to shame.
Click to expand...

I disagree. College Gameday is still entertaining to watch. They've pulled back how much they use Corso but that's to be expected since he just turned 87 a couple days ago and basically has had to script and rehearse what he says since he suffered a stroke back in 2009. My guess is that when Corso officially retires or passes away, that David Pollack takes over full time in Corso's spot (sans headgear obviously).

If you're bitter about them not coming to a game that few people outside of the Big Ten footprint knew about that's on you. I actually was fine with them making that week's show focused on HBCUs.

When I've watched Big Noon Kick-off, they all seem to be too stiff whereas Gameday has a more casual relaxed atmosphere.

There's always the possibility that Gameday still comes to Champaign, even if ESPN isn't part of the coverage anymore. At this point, we'll have to settle for the Big Ten Football Saturday crew coming to Grange Grove.
 
#86      

Saturdaze

S
Saturdaze
wma500 said:
ND has said they want $75 million annually, to stay independent. Doesn't take much of a stretch to think ND could get at least $75 million for it's TV rights and remain independent in football.

Generally, ND's home slate has 2 good opponents, 3-4 ok opponents, and 2-3 clunkers. Where ND could run into trouble is if NBC says they need to improve their slate of opponents, but conferences effective lock out ND from scheduling top opponents. This is a real issue they face.

If ND remains affiliated with the ACC for the next 15 years, it'll be only because that's what they want to do and it works for them financially. Odds that actually happens are near zero. If they want to go to the Big 10 tomorrow, they can do that too. Their brand value, for better or for worse, will allow them to go where ever their invited, with very little restrictions.
Click to expand...
I agree with your scenario, especially reagarding their scheduling, I just don’t agree that ND is willingly and voluntarily leaving $60 million plus per year on table for the next 4 years until the NBC deal ends.

They can say they want $75 million but they are going to continue getting $15 million from NBC and $11 million from the ACC. There’s nothing they can do about that because their hands are tied to bad deals.

Even when the NBC deal ends their hands may be tied because their GOR agreement obligates them to join the ACC if they join a conference.
 
#87      

Saturdaze

S
Saturdaze
ChiefGritty said:
Anyway, looks like it's war with ESPN. That will be interesting for sure.
Click to expand...
I absolutely think that’s what this is. If the BIG adds a streaming deal with Apple or Amazon I think ESPN will be beaten to the punch.

In the other thread I linked some articles stating ESPN will need to charge $30 per month to 15% of cordcutters once their cable TV subscriber base drops from 75 million currently to 50 million.

List of ESPN sports properties - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Take a look at that list and tell me how many people will be willing to pay $30 for that per month.
 
#89      

Mr. Tibbs

Mr. Tibbs
southeast DuPage
Mr. Tibbs
Saturdaze said:
Can’t dispute their recruiting just the financials, and speaking to the relative strength of the brand. Mike Brey can say that but it isn’t true. They are specifically tied to the ACC for another 15 years.

I also think you aren’t giving Kelly enough credit. For the 16 years between Lou Holtz last win in 1994 and Brian Kelly’s first season in 2010:
1 - 9 in Bowls
114 - 79 - 1 (.590) record

Since Brian Kelly:
5-6 bowls
113 - 41 (.734) record

In the mean time ND had their lowest ratings ever in 2019 before rebounding in 2020 during COVID, then losing half of 2020s viewers last year.
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com

SBJ Media: Why is Notre Dame’s TV audience down so much?

Notre Dame viewership dropped this season after a big 2020, hindered by blowouts and a weaker schedule.
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com www.sportsbusinessjournal.com

In 2018 Illinois football ranked #32 financially, and ND #6 with a difference of $56.1 million. Illinois is going to close that gap if not surpass ND with this new deal.
www.pennlive.com

Which are the richest and poorest Power Five college football programs? Here are all 65, ranked bottom to top

For the first time, Penn State football amassed $100M in gross revenue in 2017-18, but where does that rank among the monetary heavy-hitters?
www.pennlive.com www.pennlive.com

So in summary, ND can try to flex and posture all they want, but
- their viewership is declining to historically low levels while they’ve had their best seasons in 25 years
- their best coach in 25 years left for greener pastures
- they’re tied to the worst P5 conference for the next 15 years
- they’re about to be eclipsed financially by almost every SEC and BIG team due to the $50+ million per year TV money discrepancy
- they’re dependent on the B1G for scheduling their biggest rivals as non-con games esp with USC joining the B1G and even more so if Stanford does as well

Sure, ND is still a big draw, but will it continue to be? My opinion is not unless they join the B1G.
Click to expand...
ND is going to see what the B1G ends up getting with this new contract. They will then see what they can get on their own. They then will know what the "cost" is to be independent and can then decide if its worth it or not.

My guess is , in the end, they join up
 
#90      

dgcrow

dgcrow
Kelso, WA
dgcrow
Mr. Tibbs said:
ND is going to see what the B1G ends up getting with this new contract. They will then see what they can get on their own. They then will know what the "cost" is to be independent and can then decide if its worth it or not.

My guess is , in the end, they join up
Click to expand...
$$$ over hubris.
 
#91      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
IlliniSaluki said:
As it pertains to Apple and the streaming rights. They could end up offering enough money to be the sole streaming partner for the B1G similar to their deal with MLS that starts next year. In that deal they will stream all MLS games regardless of what cable/network they are on. They are also streaming those games globally. I could see them pony up a !!!! ton of $$ to get global streaming rights and stream all games regardless of what network/cable channel the game is on. They are paying MLS $250 million a year for a 10 year deal.

Also if the potential streaming rights $$ is in addition to what is being reported right now and what you have estimated at possibly being in play. Then if that money is significant like the MLS deal could that then lead to OR, WA, Cal, Stanford joining the B1G potentially sooner rather than later?
Click to expand...
This is a misunderstanding of how this works.

So, MLS today has both a national package that it sells to Fox and ESPN (for the sake of simplicity I'll leave Spanish language rights out of it even though that's fairly relevant in the MLS context) and then each team has a local media deal of some sort. Think like the NBA or NHL where most of a team's games are locally broadcast, but some of them will be part of the national deal instead. It's just different in the sense of much less money and viewers, MLS gets pretty robust attendance but is not a TV draw.

It's also worth noting that MLS takes in a bit of money selling broadcast rights internationally too (UK, Brazil, I think there's a deal in China), as other foreign markets have a taste for niche global soccer content much like we do.

The Apple deal is gobbling up all of it, the local rights for every single team, the national rights previously held by ESPN and Fox, AND the international rights and combining it all into an NFL Sunday Ticket-like comprehensive package available around the globe that is going to be its own fee (price point still unknown), it is not free to Apple Plus subscribers (like the Amazon NFL games are, for instance).

It's a one-stop shop for the whole league, and it's exclusive, there is no other network they're on, you HAVE to pay for this Apple service to watch your MLS team. It's a totally new paradigm for an American sports league, and a big risk.

Sorry to be long winded as I always am, but all of that is to say the idea of a "streaming partner" or meaningfully monetizing the same game twice is not a thing. Any deal with a streaming service will be exclusive because the value proposition for them is in forcing a team's fans to pay for Peacock in order to watch one of their games.
 
Last edited:
#92      

illinistephen

I
illinistephen
ChiefGritty said:
Sorry to be long winded as I always am, but all of that is to say the idea of a "streaming partner" or meaningfully monetizing the same game twice is not a thing. Any deal with a streaming service will be exclusive because the value proposition for them is in forcing a team's fans to pay for Peacock in order to watch one of their games.
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Thursday Night Football NFL games were recently both on broadcast TV and streamed on Amazon, so there is precedence for this. I think I had read that a sticking point with ESPN was that the big ten deal didn't include the rights to stream the games on ESPN+. I don't know if the Big Ten would split the broadcast and digital rights but I'd bet that they are negotiating this.
 
#93      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
illinistephen said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Thursday Night Football NFL games were recently both on broadcast TV and streamed on Amazon
Click to expand...
Only on broadcast TV in the local markets.

It's pretty unbelievable they're able to command the price they did from Amazon, but the national audience for that Thursday night window is huge, and it's not like the local broadcasts are going to generate any meaningful money, it's just about being scared to alienate blue haired locals.

I would be hopeful the Big Ten might be willing to do the same if they wind up putting games behind a streaming paywall, but it's going to lower the value of the package if they do so I doubt it.

In any event, the lion's share of the money in this deal is those three big national network broadcasts every week. Apparently CBS is paying $350 million annually for just one football game a week which sounds like it's a weekly tradeoff with NBC for choice of game #2 vs game #3 (Fox getting game #1, though how can that be with it being at 9AM PT in a conference where USC is a top brand? More to come here, I'm sure). The whole package for all of football and all of basketball will be somewhere between $1B and $1.5B. You do the math from there.

An interesting number I saw is to compare that $350 million a year for 13 2nd or 3rd pick football games on CBS with the current deal for 13 game-of-the-week Sunday basketball telecasts on CBS which is for...$10 million a year.

USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, to a lesser extent Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, UCLA football games, especially against each other or other big (read: SEC or ND) brands in the non-conference, broadcast on maximum household reach network television in regularly scheduled exclusive windows. That's ALL the money here, that's everything, that's why everything that's happening is happening. We're just along for the ride.
 
#97      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
redwingillini11 said:
This would have been a huge loss at one point, but Gameday is a shell of its former self. Herbstreit is ok but Lee Corso is unintelligible at this point and Desmond Howard can’t stop cackling during any conversation. Everyone else is ok but nothing special. It makes me sad because it was once appointment television for me every Saturday. These days I’ll watch the first and last five minutes and that’s about it.

Plus I’m bitter they never came to Champaign, especially last year Week 0 when we were the only good game in the country. So screw them who needs them anyway.

Give me Big Noon Kickoff now; their football analysis and breakdown of game footage puts ESPN to shame.
Click to expand...
Exactly. ESPN's relevance, as it currently stands, just got an expiration date. People should not think of this as the current form of ESPN (much less what ESPN was 5-10 years ago) being taken away from the Big Ten and our conference suffering the loss in exposure that comes with ESPN ... rather, ESPN just lost TV rights to the biggest fan base in the nation to compliment the rest of their decline.
 
#98      

wma500

wma500
wma500
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Exactly. ESPN's relevance, as it currently stands, just got an expiration date. People should not think of this as the current form of ESPN (much less what ESPN was 5-10 years ago) being taken away from the Big Ten and our conference suffering the loss in exposure that comes with ESPN ... rather, ESPN just lost TV rights to the biggest fan base in the nation to compliment the rest of their decline.
Click to expand...
I'm absolutely no defender of ESPN, but worth pointing out they have the media rights to the SEC for 11 years, starting in '24. They also have the playoff rights thru '25, and presumably have money to spend on that property. Throw in what's left of the P12, B12 and ACC, on the cheap, and they'll still be a force in CFB.

The entire CFB landscape is changing rapidly. This includes the networks, their role and level of influence. What's very clear is their will be a FOX side, and an ESPN side. Each is going to promote the heck out of their properties, and largely ignore everything else.

If you like college football, and can embrace what the model is today vs. yesterday, you're going to be gorging yourself at the buffet. Saturday nights in October and November, and probably early December, will be a feast.
 
#99      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
Saw two studies recently that claimed to gauge fan base size for Big Ten (and other) schools. It's interesting how similar yet different they are, and I think both are likely directionally correct in some ways and flawed in others:

Altimore Collins Study
1. Ohio State: 11.26M
2. Penn State: 6.36M
3. Michigan: 6.26M
4. Wisconsin: 4.57M
5. Michigan State: 3.07M
6. Nebraska: 2.55M
7. Iowa: 2.36M
8. Maryland: 1.91M
9. Illinois: 1.36M
10. Minnesota: 1.26M
11. Rutgers: 1.18M
12. Purdue: 990K
13. Northwestern: 880K
14: Indiana: 610K
Big Ten Average: 3.18M

Thoughts:
- The study admits to somewhat relying on social media ... which I think overestimates the numbers for currently good teams whose fans are passionate and engaged. For better and for worse, fan bases like Illinois and Rutgers might only appear as big as they actually are when they have something to cheer for.
- Naturally, I think Illinois is underestimated here. For example, just using alumni numbers and population estimates - even if you are SUPER hard on us and our support level among alumni and instate residents - the math just isn't there for us to be below Maryland.
- Unless there are THAT many reversible jacket fans in Indiana, I do not buy IU having fewer fans than Northwestern.

SBRnet Research Survey
1. Ohio State: 6.28M
2. Penn State: 3.97M
3. Michigan State: 2.94M
4. Michigan: 2.88M
5. Illinois: 1.70M
6. Wisconsin: 1.61M
7. Minnesota: 1.37M
8. Iowa: 1.30M
9. Nebraska: 1.18M
10. Maryland: 878K
11. Indiana: 840K
12. Purdue: 563K
13. Rutgers: 553K
14. Northwestern: 402K

Thoughts:
- I don't buy that MSU has more fans than Michigan for one second.
- This one likely is the opposite of the last one in that it OVERESTIMATES large population state schools like Illinois and Minnesota who likely aren't capturing as much of the state's fandom as this report suggests.

Regardless of what the "actual" numbers are, it appears clear that the Big Ten has a massive fan base, and the events of realignment lately totally corroborate that.
 
#100      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
wma500 said:
I'm absolutely no defender of ESPN, but worth pointing out they have the media rights to the SEC for 11 years, starting in '24. They also have the playoff rights thru '25, and presumably have money to spend on that property. Throw in what's left of the P12, B12 and ACC, on the cheap, and they'll still be a force in CFB.

The entire CFB landscape is changing rapidly. This includes the networks, their role and level of influence. What's very clear is their will be a FOX side, and an ESPN side. Each is going to promote the heck out of their properties, and largely ignore everything else.

If you like college football, and can embrace what the model is today vs. yesterday, you're going to be gorging yourself at the buffet. Saturday nights in October and November, and probably early December, will be a feast.
Click to expand...
For sure, and I am not saying they will be dying or anything ... but Big Ten teams playing in the Playoff will obviously still be on ESPN. The point I was trying to make is that ESPN is no longer, in any way, special. It's just as detrimental to the SEC teams that they are not on our networks (i.e., it would be nice, but it's not that big of a deal).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.