Basically that's what TV revenue comes down to isn't it?

How good are the teams...

When do they play, to maximize audience...

How good are the ratings...

I was trying to do a little research into average ratings and that sort of information is hard to find unless you're willing aggregate numbers from a variety of sources. I'm far too lazy to do that so you're out of luck.

There is Sports Media Watch which keeps up with ratings from week to week

And a few tidbits from the National Football Foundation on the popularity of the game last year. Some interesting stuff in there about total number of fans watching, attending, and unique devices being used to watch(very relevant for a streaming discussion).

Anyway, it occurs to me while flipping channels this afternoon that there's an awful lot of time slots from an awful lot of different networks that need to be filled. This is the primary reason I think the number of Power schools will tend towards the larger side because the networks will want the content even if it's not necessarily prime content.

Streaming, I don't think, will change this dynamic too much because each game will bring a unique audience. That and the cost of doing business in a streaming context will be less anyway so you might as well have content in your quiver.

Going back to the three measurements I highlighted earlier, I'd like to pose a theory.

I think Mike Slive was right when he said conferences would grow to be "very, very large" in the next movement. I think there may be two basic reasons for this.

1) It will be easier for conferences to absorb the core of another league rather than pick it apart piece by piece.

2) An excessive number of games under one roof will bring a windfall even if the quality content of each of those games doesn't necessarily meet a certain threshold.

So in short, I agree with the premise that the SEC is looking for schools that meet certain attendance and revenue metrics. I think, however, the league would be willing to fudge on what exactly the threshold is because larger numbers will lead to larger inventories even if we don't necessarily expand our schedule to 9 or 10 games.

Now, it's true that this didn't really play out when the league moved from 12 to 14. For one, there's not a big difference in content when you're just adding 2 schools. Secondly, the market model was never all that it was cracked up to be because the only real increase in revenue came from the addition of the SEC Network rather than additional markets to an existing entity. Adding markets full of new viewers to the 1st and 2nd tier didn't produce any real bump in part because the rights were not on the open market and in part because the inventory didn't see any significant increase.

Alter a couple of these dynamics and you should have a nice formula for getting a good sized increase in the next round of negotiations.

Increasing our inventory by roughly 16% only produced a windfall because the SECN was a previously untapped revenue stream. Now, if you add not just quality additions but exponentially increased inventory then you should be able to shake loose another windfall. At least that is my thought.

I think ESPN would go along with this plan even though it would cost them extra money because

1) They'll control greater amounts of inventory without having to compete with FOX or others as much.
2) If ESPN uses this sort of approach as a content acquisition plan then they can also guarantee the best ad rates for the college product as advertisers will have to go through them to get in front of consumers.
3) ESPN needs content not only for the SEC and ACC Networks, but they need what they can get for the other channels...ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and maybe one more
4) As noted in the NFF article above, college football's ratings are still very good, attendance is growing, and viewership via streaming is growing as well. The game is healthy and is probably the most cost effective investment for the networks. Streaming will also reduce costs which frees up cash for the product.

I don't know how big the SEC and ACC will get, but it will have to be teams from the Big 12 that are added(content acquisition) and I think both leagues might grow quite large as in beyond 18.