TVLander

Year's Super Bowl apparently had 113M viewers. So I would guess that Netflix pulling 1/4 of the viewership for the Super Bowl on Christmas Day, with people that have to pay to see it, seems like a pretty big win for them.

have a limited time to get their streaming services fully out there. Netflix has a 17 year head start on them in streaming infrastructure and lessons learned, and if they get their coverage and talent right, it'll be a LOT easier for many people to justify that higher netflix monthly fee instead of paying for that plus an ESPN fee and a FoxSports fee. If they're not careful, ESPN and FS will find themselves up against Netflix, Apple, and Amazon before they're ready. Is it harder to create a streaming service and get it into the minds of people and convince them to pay for it, or is it harder to already *be* an existing streaming service and create a sports coverage department? I wonder if this is like a BlackBerry vs iPhone/Android turnaround coming down the road.

for the Big12. The state of Connecticut has proven willing to bankroll UConn's football team. They see the long game of the visibility and benefits it brings to the state. Is that still true? It appears so based on that article. In some respects, this could be similar to an SMU situation, but for the B12. If UConn follows up on their promises, they could be a positive addition. And UConn has already "arrived" in basketball, so maybe they're actually further along than SMU (albeit with less deep pockets)? ** Edited by TVLander at 8/25/2024, 9:45:27 AM

their home countries in the Olympics and World Championships

While they were AAU members technically when they entered the Big10, they were very shortly kicked out of the AAU. The AAU members all had to have known about that being in process during the invite process for Nebraska. Are the AAU statements really just hand waving?

certainly going to be pressed into.

it happened. With what we went through with the Metro conference dissolving just to kick us and ODU out and form Conference USA, the idea that we would do that would be deeply disturbing to me. Now that I think about it, were we on board when the Big East kicked Temple out of the football conference back around the 2002 timeframe? The circumstances were disturbingly similar with today -- not investing enough in football. Survival is one thing. But if you have to sell your soul to exist, is the resulting existence worth it?

away games. That would neatly sidestep the grant of rights, unless I'm wrong, because the other conference gets media rights to the other team's home games. There are plenty of ugly legal wrinkles to this, like the conference then suing FSU for destroying value and maybe breach of fiduciary responsibility, also the not-insignificant hit to FSU for having zero ticket sales, to their local fans being pissed that they can't see their team in person. But then it's not "cutting off your nose to spite your face" if you're not agreeing to a horrible consequence just to make the other party hurt even more....

ratings over time. And the 2nd worst ratings title game is the year that Loyola-Chicago made it to the final four but lost to Michigan. So I guess you could read this two ways? In Basketball, big names don't necessarily correlate to increased ratings? And neither do Cinderellas... I realize that transferring that logic onto football is probably invalid, but would shutting out a "noname" or newbie be so awful as to justify such a terrible, greedy decision?

...makes it into the Final Four? I have no idea what the ratings look like, but if your team bows out early, but some school is still in there punching way above their weight and making it deep into the tournament, doesn't that draw the more casual eyeballs? So say Tulane had not just made it into the 12-team playoff, but won their way to the semifinals. I would be excited to see that, and would be rooting for the underdog.

Conference that Welcomed us with open arms in 2004....even the schools that voted against us. Even if TV is trying to upend much that we hold dear, I still want to enjoy what college sports has to offer, and meeting new friendly rivals from different corners of the conference. The fact that all of this is happening is reminding me to appreciate what we have, and to make better efforts to see more games, and will the Hokies into success. I love college -- everything seems to matter so much more to the players than in the pros. I want it to last forever, but if it doesn't, I want to love what we have and not complain about what me may lose in the future while there is a season to be played.

... the Big East made us sell our souls to enter in all sports. They treated us horribly, and looked down on us. The ACC, once the decision had been made, welcomed us with open arms, and I will never forget that. Even the schools that voted against expansion back then, accepted us into the family. I know many are against this, and maybe it shouldn't be on us to help save other programs, but now that the decision is done, I say we give Cal, Stanford, and SMU the same acceptance and consideration that we were given when we came into the ACC almost 20 years ago. Even if the conference looks wildly different now, and even if everything seems to revolve around TV revenue, if we all treat with each other the way we *think* this conference should be, then maybe it can stay that way, and maybe it'll be the last one that actually gives a crap about things more than money.... Ok....pink-tinted-naive glasses back to their case...and then remembers FSU and Clemson....

Rutgers joined the B1G. Did the Big 10 get a huge number of increased eyeballs on their network? Did their media partners get a ton more money from their carriage partners like Comcast, Cox, and Verizon in the DMV? Would they have gotten the same eyeballs and interest anyway without having a local school?

Fox

articles, and I'm no lawyer, but is the behavior of the TV Networks veering into Cartel territory? The oh-so-definitive Wikipedia entry says "A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals." While the ACC's on-field football product leaves much to be desired right now, ESPN sure is helping keep that TV contract low. And CBS and Fox Sports -- if the rumors that they're driving all of this are true -- certainly seem to be intentionally endangering the livelihood of many universities, public and private, and the jobs of the people associated with them. Is this an angle being discussed? Do we have potential antitrust/anticompetitive activity going on here that's going to be squashed? Could the squashing make things even worse? Who even are the anticompetitive parties? Certainly the TV Networks, but could conferences themselves be held accountable for this? My brain is swirling with questions and interdependencies and I think I need a nap.