(03-04-2023 07:59 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote: (03-04-2023 04:52 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote: (03-04-2023 03:54 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote: I for one am not convinced that the apocalypse is upon us. When the B1G goes exclusively to Fox that is going to free up a lot of air time. That air time will be filled at least partly with ACC games. This will increase the value of the ACC to ESPN and likely result in a commensurate boost in payout when the next look in occurs. The other thing people seem to be overlooking is, that a 2 loss team from the ACC will get into the playoffs ahead of a 3-4 loss team from the SEC / B1G.
Additionally, they can get as much money as God, but they can still only put 11 players on the field at a time. Kids want to play. I see an imbalance in kids going to the 2 super conferences out of high school and ending up at ACC schools from the portal. At the end of the day, the path to the championship may well be more attractive through the ACC.
Finally, everyone is taking for granted that the broadcast dollars are unlimited. They are not. Fox and ESPN are businesses. If they pay out $1.6 billion per year to the B1G / SEC, they need to generate at least $1.6 billion plus a profit margin of at least 20% which means that they need to generate approximately $3.8 billion annually from the broadcasts of those two conferences.
"look ins" are nowhere near a guarantee of new money
https://www.al.com/sports/2011/10/is_sec...a_for.html
from the former president of CBS sports
Pilson said "look-ins" typically allow a third party, such as an arbitrator, to help determine the conference's value if there's disagreement. Depending on the contract language, the third-party's decision could be binding or simply a recommendation
so while there could be a binding agreement the language above the quote from ESPN officials seems to indicate they take a pretty hard line on things even with the SEC SEC SEC
and since the ACCn is just starting to pay full potential, the PAC 12 is looking at getting a lower offer after a 12 year deal, and the Big 12 basically took an extension of their current deal (that is 13 years old and was not signed under optimum conditions for them 13 years ago) I think it will be a stretch to think that ESPN (which is hurting financially) will just be tossing big new money especially when they have big new money obligated to the SEC SEC SEC
I am not saying the ACC will not get more, but I think the odds are very low and if they do get more it will not be much at all
You addressed the idea of an increase during the look in without addressing the basis for the increase. Are you disputing that ESPN will backfill the time slots currently airing the B1G with some ACC content?
Once the B1G goes exclusively to FOX who will ESPN fill those slots with? The Big 12 is already contracted for a certain number of games and that will not change significantly under the new contract. The obvious answer is their exclusive properties the SEC and ACC will be the choices.
I expect that there will be a 20-30% decrease in games on the SEC & ACC Networks and games shifted to ABC /ESPN / 2/U to fill. Likely the better time slots. If I am right, ESPN will increase their payout to the ACC. I never said it was guaranteed, I said, if my scenario is correct it will likely result in additional payouts.
ESPN has more games than they know what to do with already
the AAC is 14 teams in conference play even if two teams are off for a week that is still 6 games
the ACC is 15 teams even if 3 are off during conference play that is 6 games
the Big 12 is 12 teams with 2 off during conference play that is 5 games if you give Fox 2 then ESPN gets 3
the SEC SEC SEC 16 teams with 4 off that is 6 games
that is 21 games a week that ESPN has access to during conference play
ESPN, ESPN II, ABC, ACCn SEC SEC SECn
4 games going 3.5 hours each per network is 20 games lasting 14 hours on each network and there is still one game that is not shown
on course ABC does not show 4 games per day it is usually two or less.....even ESPN and ESPN II generally do not show 14 hours of games per Saturday
you are going to get one Thursday and Friday game at the most in a week
so even if ESPN, ESPN II, ACCn, SEC SEC SECn showed games from 11am until 1am that is 16 games, two week night games is 18, and two on ABC on Saturday that is 20 games
what space is ESPN "needing" to fill and what is the value of a couple of more games that are being shown going against games on 4 other ESPN/ABC owned networks AND going against Fox, CBS, and NBC at some points
it is actually WORSE in out of conference play because pretty much every team in the Big 12, SEC SEC SEC, and ACC has a buy in game that will be owned by the media partners of that conference
so instead of being like in conference play when two teams from the conference play a single game owned by ESPN you now have the potential in those early weeks for two members of those conferences to both be playing a buy in game that results in two games owned by ESPN (or sometimes Fox in the case of the Big 12)......so now you can have 22 or 23 games a week to show
where in the hell does ESPN put all of that
or we can do the math another way and make it simple and pretend that everyone in the Big 12, SEC SEC SEC, and ACC plays home and home OOC games no buy in games (plus ignoring that some home and home OOC games will still be owned by ESPN both years like GT/UGA, Clemson/SC, Florida/Miami-FSU
AAC 14 teams X 12 games = 84 games
ACC 14 teams X 12 games (leaving out ND games) 84 games
Big 12 12 teams X 12 games 72 games
SEC SEC SEC 16 X 12 96 games
for a total of 336 games owned by ESPN per season.....we are ignoring Fox has part of the Big 12 because we are also ignoring the ND-ACC games and ignoring the massive number of buy in games with 3 of the 4 conferences listed above
so ESPN has about 336 games per season to air
there are 12 weeks in a season plus "week zero"
so we will say 13 weeks
336/13 = 25.84 games per week that ESPN needs to show on average to have all their owned games on air
so that math means ESPN, ESPN II, ABC, ACCn, SEC SEC SECn need to get about 5 games per week on the air......even if you have 3 week night games each week all season, play a full slate week zero, and put 5 games on some of your networks there are still games left over
these numbers are somewhat off the top of my head, but quick math shows the last thing ESPN really needs at all is "more content" and the only thing they need less than more content is to try and pay more money for the content they have or pay a lot of money for more content
because it is a simply fact that ABC for sure and ESPN as well pretty much never show 4 college football games per Saturday on each network and I think it is rare that ESPN II either
so ESPN already has way too many games as it is......which is part why they are pretty ambivalent about adding the PAC 12
