(03-01-2018 04:50 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  

(03-01-2018 02:48 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  I would agree with that but it also voids the Sun Belt's ability to grow the brand as well. Of course, all of us are already getting pushed aside anyway by the powers, and this is the acceptance of that by the league.

The reason why C-USA 1.0 was able to emerge and be a player leading some teams to be able to join power leagues or be on the cusp or at least have privileged 5 TV deal is because they fought back against that. The Fox and CBS deals of over a decade ago weren't perfect, but it was better than being relegated to third class citizen by ESPN. If there is anything that we have left in current C-USA it's at least that hope to continue to carry on the fight. The Sun Belt clearly just gave up today and acquiesced to the powers that be.

If you want to grow your brand, I'd argue it's better to have more games on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU and not places like ESPN3, beIN, Facebook Live, and stations that most cable packages don't have like CBS Sports.

The main downside I see to this TV deal is having to pay for the content you used to be able to get on ESPN3 for free, but it's not like ESPN3 is only dumping Sun Belt content, and it's only $20 to get every football game for a season and all of the other content ESPN will put on Plus.

At its height ESPN subscriber base was just over 100 million. Obviously only a fraction of those truly had their cable subscriptions because of sports but the fact remains. Since hitting their peak a few years ago ESPN has been hemorrhaging subscribers. Will they all return to streaming? We don't know. Sports fandom isn't what it used to be.

Facebook, on the other hand, has over a billion daily users. So, by every measurement Facebook could put ESPN out of business if they really wanted to. The point is the potential to grow is higher with Facebook than it is ESPN long term. The problem is all this stuff is in its infancy. There's a long way to go before we know if this is viable or not but I like the potential. And I like not being beholden to have pay ESPN twice for content I want to see.