(07-31-2020 02:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-31-2020 02:19 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  I was radically opposed to it for a long time but I could live with Clemson as an SEC member at this point. It would knock them down a peg and perhaps with them in the fold the powers that be would actually start caring about that game and South Carolina

Gamecock, ESPN put that clause in the SEC's media contract because they feared the luring away of Clemson and F.S.U. from the ACC, a league that ESPN created for a low cost high profit control of schools that they could use as leverage with the Big 10 and SEC. And I'm not talking about realignment leverage, I'm talking about other ways into the SEC's and Big 10's footprints for advertising. As long as F.S.U. was not in the SEC then the SEC couldn't make full rates for advertising in the Sunshine state, although ESPN could owning rights to FSU and Miami from the ACC and then South Florida and Central Florida from the AAC.

This is why I cautioned some against pandering to the networks wishes for the Footprint Subscription Fee model which was destined to be replaced by the only factor that ever mattered in broadcasting, actual viewers.

The footprint model was designed to break up large population states between various conferences so that the networks didn't have to pay premium advertising profits to the conferences. It is why Notre Dame is so very important to ESPN. Notre Dame is the back door into a majority of Northern Midwestern Cities otherwise controlled by the Big 10. It is why Florida State was crucial for ESPN to land in the ACC (a property they were eyeballing at the time) and to keep them out of the SEC. It is why Texas was so pissed off at A&M leaving for the SEC. It screwed up the Big 12's leverage in Texas with regard to monopolizing ad rates.
And it is why Chapel Hill was so adamantly opposed to N.C. State and Virginia Tech to the SEC. Had ESPN pulled off that ploy then all of the large Southeastern and Southwestern states where football is a religion would have been split between various conferences, ad rates would not have been expected to bolster contract values, but ESPN would still have owned the rights to everyone giving them the lock on the ad rates.

The renegotiation clause was in the SEC contract to keep the SEC from gaining total leverage over Florida and South Carolina. It wasn't needed in Georgia where the Dawgs hold about an 85-15 advantage over Tech in state viewership.

There was never an institutional blackball of anyone. There was only network manipulations to try to keep conferences from gaining leverage, and trying to break up the leverage that some had already.

Taking the Big East schools of note into the ACC was withholding presence in New England from the Big 10 who was already there with Penn State. The SEC was encouraged to grow Westward because ESPN wanted some of those properties and didn't want the SEC's eyes on the East and the ACC.

Way too many people think this is all about conferences and their desires. It's not. The conferences merely seek to acquire the schools the networks tell them they will pay them more to get.

We have long needed commissioners who worked for the conferences more than the networks. But most of the early conference commissioners of the post '92 era have been contract lawyers who worked in sports contracts for the networks before they were hired by the conferences. While that may seem wise to some it does question whether they see themselves as arbitrators for the conference and networks combined, or see themselves as advocates for the conference. It's been a very mixed bag.

With the advent of streaming and the conference network structure requiring production facilities at each school, the germane question is why do network deals at all when we can produce and market our own product and keep all of the ad revenue? Conservative estimates put the per school payout with that kind of system in 300 million range per year for the top schools. Right now we are letting them rent our product, make us pay for onsite production and let them give us 50% of the so called profits after their accountants discount everything under the sun to get the profit ledger down and the bring it down a lot. One example would be the cost of your play by play guys at S.C. is baked into our budget. If we produced and sold our own games each school would use their own play by play people. ESPN wouldn't get to deduct the high dollar salaries of their play by play people (who seldom know the teams and chronically talk over the plays about crap that has nothing to do with the game we are watching) and deduct that cost from our shared profit totals.

This practice allows them to keep way more than just 50% of the NET profits. Now I ask you how stupid is that of the ACC and SEC?

They ultimately gave birth to the sword that will be used to fall them. Now that the member institutions themselves own, operate, and staff the A/V productions on campus ESPN is just a bundling middle man no longer offering meaningful expertise or know how or technological advantage. Their primary asset is leverage of Disney assets to demand carriage in a dieing business model. It isn't hard to go direct to consumer, but you do need the GoR to expire and have the right leadership in place.

(07-31-2020 04:10 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  They ultimately gave birth to the sword that will be used to fall them. Now that the member institutions themselves own, operate, and staff the A/V productions on campus ESPN is just a bundling middle man no longer offering meaningful expertise or know how or technological advantage. Their primary asset is leverage of Disney assets to demand carriage in a dieing business model. It isn't hard to go direct to consumer, but you do need the GoR to expire and have the right leadership in place.

Cable is indeed a dying business model and satellite is dying even more quickly.

To completely replace ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, etc., college teams would need a brand that casual fans will easily find and reflexively tune into. The diehards will find a conference-branded product and pay for it separately if the price is reasonable. And maybe a conference could make enough money off of the diehards that they won't need all the casual fans. But to get anywhere near the audience sizes that the most-watched games now get, that's a different matter.

(07-31-2020 07:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-31-2020 04:10 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  They ultimately gave birth to the sword that will be used to fall them. Now that the member institutions themselves own, operate, and staff the A/V productions on campus ESPN is just a bundling middle man no longer offering meaningful expertise or know how or technological advantage. Their primary asset is leverage of Disney assets to demand carriage in a dieing business model. It isn't hard to go direct to consumer, but you do need the GoR to expire and have the right leadership in place.

Cable is indeed a dying business model and satellite is dying even more quickly.

To completely replace ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, etc., college teams would need a brand that casual fans will easily find and reflexively tune into. The diehards will find a conference-branded product and pay for it separately if the price is reasonable. And maybe a conference could make enough money off of the diehards that they won't need all the casual fans. But to get anywhere near the audience sizes that the most-watched games now get, that's a different matter.

Not if the P5 and G5 bundled their respective product, and offered a super bundle for both and charged by the athletic season (football, basketball, baseball/softball together). Replace the NCAA and simply call it College Sports Network. Every game is streamed and any game can be watched and the schools involved use their play by play personnel . The advertising and subscription, or stream fees going straight to the schools would be quite rewarding vs what any of the P5 and G5 have now. They can either rent satellite space or purchase and launch their own. Once that overhead is covered we are all in business, and fairly.

(07-31-2020 01:44 PM)JRsec Wrote:  There was no damned Gentlemen's agreement, at least not as was purported by internet fan boys. The agreement was asked for by Mike Slive in 2011 when discussing additions. And was clearly stated by Slive to only be operative for that set of additions and no other. The SEC had to fulfill a renegotiation clause within its contract to ESPN in order to get a revaluation on the whole deal. The stipulation required the addition of two new markets. So if the SEC was to receive a big boost in pay they had to add from outside their current footprint.

What Slive actually asked was that South Carolina and Florida hold off on nominating Florida State and Clemson as expansion candidates until the stipulation was satisfied and then he promised that no such restrictions would exist in future considerations and that the only remaining criteria would be cultural fit and most importantly profit.

There was never a blackball by South Carolina against Clemson nor was there one by Florida against FSU for precisely the fear of the circumstances we currently find ourselves under. Florida sponsored FSU as a member in -'91 and wanted to do so again in 2011. South Carolina which was added in '92 wanted to sponsor Clemson in 2011. Georgia didn't want to sponsor tech but was willing to do so to accommodate pressure politically within the state. Only Kentucky didn't want another state school in the conference.

The stipulation complicated things when Boren approached the SEC about adding Oklahoma but Oklahoma State had to accompany them. The SEC couldn't consider the offer because ESPN was only willing to pay for 2 additions and adding both Oklahoma schools would not have satisfied the renegotiation clause.

We knew ahead of time that long term candidate A&M wanted in so that one new market slot was filled already. When Oklahoma refused without OSU, Missouri was offered upon recommendation of the network and because Missouri was willing since the Big 10 didn't seem interested.

Clay Travis is the one who got a piece of the information of what transpired and cooked up the "Gentlemen's Agreement canard that claimed the schools were blackballing in state members. Pure fiction!

Florida's and South Carolina's state interest in sponsoring was their concern that with more realignment scheduling their in state rivals would only become more difficult. Both also stated that their athletic fund donations were predicated upon giving at a level to secure tickets for those games and that they preferred to have them protected by having them as members of the SEC because of it.

And to further add to the B.S. meter about the blackballing business, how well would a blackball keeping Clemson or F.S.U. from making more money in the SEC come across to state legislators who write the appropriations for Florida and South Carolina? Not well at all. We are talking state schools which are funded by their states. Hamper another state school's ability to make revenue and you piss off a lot of people that you have to answer to.

This is one myth that simply needs to die because it has no basis in reality other than Clay Travis's need to get attention, which was his business at that time.

The same thing is true of Texas and A&M should that ever arise. A&M fans won't like it a bit if it ever happens but its still two state schools, albeit ones with very large egos as donors.

Mitch Barnhart is the source in Lexington. He threatened to veto Louisville as a member of The SEC as recently as 2011.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sbnatio...ealignment

https://mobile.twitter.com/KySportsRadio...8066409473

You obviously don’t know anything about politics in Kentucky.

(07-31-2020 07:55 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(07-31-2020 01:44 PM)JRsec Wrote:  There was no damned Gentlemen's agreement, at least not as was purported by internet fan boys. The agreement was asked for by Mike Slive in 2011 when discussing additions. And was clearly stated by Slive to only be operative for that set of additions and no other. The SEC had to fulfill a renegotiation clause within its contract to ESPN in order to get a revaluation on the whole deal. The stipulation required the addition of two new markets. So if the SEC was to receive a big boost in pay they had to add from outside their current footprint.

What Slive actually asked was that South Carolina and Florida hold off on nominating Florida State and Clemson as expansion candidates until the stipulation was satisfied and then he promised that no such restrictions would exist in future considerations and that the only remaining criteria would be cultural fit and most importantly profit.

There was never a blackball by South Carolina against Clemson nor was there one by Florida against FSU for precisely the fear of the circumstances we currently find ourselves under. Florida sponsored FSU as a member in -'91 and wanted to do so again in 2011. South Carolina which was added in '92 wanted to sponsor Clemson in 2011. Georgia didn't want to sponsor tech but was willing to do so to accommodate pressure politically within the state. Only Kentucky didn't want another state school in the conference.

The stipulation complicated things when Boren approached the SEC about adding Oklahoma but Oklahoma State had to accompany them. The SEC couldn't consider the offer because ESPN was only willing to pay for 2 additions and adding both Oklahoma schools would not have satisfied the renegotiation clause.

We knew ahead of time that long term candidate A&M wanted in so that one new market slot was filled already. When Oklahoma refused without OSU, Missouri was offered upon recommendation of the network and because Missouri was willing since the Big 10 didn't seem interested.

Clay Travis is the one who got a piece of the information of what transpired and cooked up the "Gentlemen's Agreement canard that claimed the schools were blackballing in state members. Pure fiction!

Florida's and South Carolina's state interest in sponsoring was their concern that with more realignment scheduling their in state rivals would only become more difficult. Both also stated that their athletic fund donations were predicated upon giving at a level to secure tickets for those games and that they preferred to have them protected by having them as members of the SEC because of it.

And to further add to the B.S. meter about the blackballing business, how well would a blackball keeping Clemson or F.S.U. from making more money in the SEC come across to state legislators who write the appropriations for Florida and South Carolina? Not well at all. We are talking state schools which are funded by their states. Hamper another state school's ability to make revenue and you piss off a lot of people that you have to answer to.

This is one myth that simply needs to die because it has no basis in reality other than Clay Travis's need to get attention, which was his business at that time.

The same thing is true of Texas and A&M should that ever arise. A&M fans won't like it a bit if it ever happens but its still two state schools, albeit ones with very large egos as donors.

Mitch Barnhart is the source in Lexington. He threatened to veto Louisville as a member of The SEC as recently as 2011.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sbnatio...ealignment

https://mobile.twitter.com/KySportsRadio...8066409473

You obviously don’t know anything about politics in Kentucky.

Oh, I think I got that. See bolded.

(07-31-2020 03:56 PM)usffan Wrote:  

(07-31-2020 10:01 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Liars will not be rewarded for their actions.

Edited to remove potentially over the top way of calling out the hypocrisy of Catholic school complaining about an institution being less than forthcoming in the face of the church's longstanding unwillingness to own up to some of their own shortcomings...

USFFan

The Church has nothing to do with the BC president's uncanny ability to tell Big East presidents one thing while telling ACC presidents something else entirely. The chancellor of Syracuse went as far to call BC's president "a double-agent."

FWIW, neither Boston College or Georgetown are property of the Catholic Church, anymore than Duke is property of the United Methodist Church. They are independently chartered institutions.