(07-24-2022 05:46 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: I’m not sold on the idea of 24 being profitable for either the Big 10 or the SEC unless the streaming services are willing to pay oodles for a large quantity of content and want the conference name to drive the perceived value of the game:
UNC vs NC St as an ACC game has a lack luster value. Swap out that ACC patch and field logo with an SEC logo and suddenly that game has much more value.
I can’t believe I’m about to make a soccer analogy here but I am. Those schools I mentioned are like a pair of Championship (Tier 2) schools but promote them to the Premier League and the mere fact that it’s Premier League skyrockets the value. Alabama and Ohio St are your Manchester United and Arsenal types—the mega brands that drive the overall value of the league.
If I’m a streaming service, I want the leagues to be big so the mounds of T3 content that I’ve got in inventory are inherently more valuable and the finite number of cable and OTA time slots send viewers who are fans of all the teams to my service because all 24 teams are going to be on streaming at some point.
If I’m a 3 or 4-letter network, I’m probably happy with 16 because that’s a manageable number and I can get a M3 conference’s rights to air on the side for relatively cheap.
Until the streamers become the dominant power in the collegiate sports media rights bidding process I think things are on pause.
How I think they could make 24-team leagues work is by phasing in the new schools payments gradually and awarding bonuses for OTA and cable appearances.
The last time all this was happening, 10 years ago or so, I theorized that the SEC merging with the Big 12 would be a boon for everyone.
A 24 team league...
That configuration didn't include any ACC schools, but my concept was based on this: negotiating leverage rooted in basic economics...scarcity.
Think about it this way, the NFL has 32 teams and taps fewer markets than that. It's nationwide, however, and is essentially the only game in town when it comes to premier quality football. That has massive leverage despite the fact it has a large number of competitors. Of course, you can pick apart this scenario by examining the market dynamics, but I'm not suggesting a nationwide college football conference would make the same amount of money as the NFL. it's not about that, it's about the fact that unifying content under one roof creates new rules.
So even though a fair number of NFL teams suck in a given year and some fan bases aren't nearly as passionate as others, it doesn't matter. The sheer size and reach of the overall entity creates massive value. That value, in time, creates a better quality product. Think about what the NFL is today compared to just 30 years ago...
Notice this also, every major pro sport organization in this country has roughly the same number of teams. The mostly tap the same markets although there's a little shuffling here and there. Despite the fact that the other leagues are national, it doesn't mean they make as much money as the NFL, but the market dynamics are there for creating quality content and negotiating leverage with the TV partner.
I was always a fan of the SEC and Big 12 merging because I thought they had the most in common and it would have created a massive amount of content that was quality especially when you start playing more games internally. Think about that aspect as well. In the future, these leagues aren't going to be playing G5s and FCS and may even trim away some other "Power" schools from their schedules. They'll play more games internally and that will create a lot of valuable content especially at the T3 level.
As there is greater deregulation, there will be less necessity to maintain traditional concepts of much of anything whether that's schedules or scholarship rules or anything else. The important thing there is that consolidation allows for simpler and more uniform rules...because everyone's under the same roof.
Now I don't know if all the Power conferences will unite one day into one entity...I kind of doubt it...but that doesn't really affect the basic market dynamics of consolidation. A 24 team league has massive value as long as the members are significant in their own home markets. The primary reason for that is actually pretty simple. If ESPN or FOX or anyone else doesn't want to provide good compensation and they don't want to come to the table when appropriate then you just take your ball and go home. If ESPN loses the Big Ten then that sucks, but it's not so bad if there are 4 other Power conferences that can provide value. We're now rapidly reaching a phase where there's fewer competitors in town. We're basically in a space right now where 5 Power conferences don't exist...the legal designations on the NCAA rulebook are not relevant here.
The Power conferences actually hurt each other because in a way, they're competing for the same space...the same TV dollars, the same time slots, and they're pushing and shoving to one-up the other guy. What they should have been thinking about is coalescing their market power to flip the script. The schools should be competing with the networks, not with each other.
Let's say the Big 12 and SEC had merged 10 years ago. That entity would be a behemoth dealing with any network. Try to play hard ball with that conglomeration and you risk losing access to a disproportionate amount of good content. The same principle doesn't work if you're talking about CUSA and the Sun Belt merging...because it's not the premier product in its class. The market dynamics work if scarcity is combined with value. It's not so much about the numbers...it's about corning the market.
This is why I've never had a problem going to 24 or more. As long as we're talking schools that have value in the marketplace, we're doing nothing but helping ourselves by coalescing.
My little pet theory is this...the reason we're seeing networks say certain combinations/additions aren't "valuable" is because they're still in the position of highest leverage. ESPN and FOX and all the rest know darn well that there's ton of schools that have value in the marketplace if they were a part of a conglomeration, but these networks want to delay the influence of the conglomeration as much as possible.
So when a network advises the SEC or Big Ten that they need to go after "these" schools instead of "those over there, it's because they're self-interested. Now to be fair, the networks want the best match-ups. They're not arbitrarily valuing anyone. Their deceit is that they're unwilling to pay for certain additions because if they have to pay for larger leagues then they at least want some control over what those match-ups will be in the aftermath. If they have to spend a lot more money in the future to fund these leagues then they want the best bang for their buck.
For example, I don't believe for a second that Oregon and Washington wouldn't make money for the Big Ten regardless of Notre Dame's inclusion. Think about it, what motivation do these networks have to spend more money than they have to?
The "valuations" these networks offer are purely for their benefit.
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Defensive expansion
