I promised to not stir up any controversy on TSL after setting off a bomb..
on the subscriber board on Wednesday, but a big sports media event went down this morning.
Netflix just bought the rights to the FIFA Women's World Cup for 2027 and 2031. This is a HUGE deal along with Netflix showing NFL games on Christmas Day and the Tyson/Paul fight from last month.
Netflix wants in on live sports programming. They have a huge untapped audience and money to spend.
In my mind, if I were a visionary sitting in my plush new office at ACC HQ in Charlotte, I would be thinking, what can I do to raise the profile of my league, close the funding chasm between my league and the $EC/B1G, and be innovative while doing it? How can I tell Disney to go pound sand (or in my brain F*** OFF) for cutting the deal with the $EC, that essentially crushed ACC access to ABC Saturday football? How can I enrich the revenue picture of my league so that it stops being an $EC farm system for players and stop being such a patsy for to the $EC in basketball?
Mr. Phillips are you listening? Are you out there?????
If it were me, I would be pushing hard to get a visionary type deal with Netflix. Pronto! I would give them my best game inventory and tell Disney to shove it. Disney dissolved the marriage when they cut their deal with the $EC and it is time to fight back with coast-to-coast college sports, that with competitive funding, can take on the big guys.
That is what I would do, I just wish I had that gig in Charlotte and could do something about it.
15 Replies
T
TDVick
1y
in the process of sanding off the corners of a square-shaped object. It might be getting rounder but it still a far cry from looking like a wheel, so don't hold your breath.
We didn't try to go to the SEC in 2012, and now what's even worse is that you have nerdy brainiac schools that used to be college football whipping boys, but that have lots of investment banker alums or VC alums and now even those schools are whipping our our ass or soon will be: Vandy, Duke, Stanford, probably UVA, etc.
I hate private equity, but at this point, some kind a outside force with a shred of competence is our to take over the whole operation is our best hope. I don't see a lot of improvement on the horizon. I hope I'm wrong.
Go Norfolk State. Maybe that will be fun to watch.1999-2003 VT football might have been two centuries ago.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
ACC has zero leverage over ESPN. Right now ESPN has tons of cheap filler content with the ACC locked up for another decade. It’s stupidly profitable for them and they won’t give it up easily.
And the ACC schools could vote to end the conference, but that would be a massive risk when we are about to start paying annual salaries plus back pay for former players plus lots of new scholarships across all sports. The money commitments are getting bigger. So we are stuck.
The ACC contacts are going to keep slowly choking the schools until we are full of zombie programs that only serve as a way station before the best players go get paid in the P2.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
Netflix wants that inventory now, not in 10 yrs when we get our rights back from ESPN.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
Streaming entities seem to want sports leagues/ events with national or
even international scope. That’s why the ACC added a Texas school and two California schools but I’m not sure that is enough yet. I imagine the ACC is considering additional westward expansion. Or a merger/scheduling agreement with the Big12.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
While everyone is scared to death of a "streaming only" deal, Netflix has a subscriber base of 85 million in the US alone. To compare, ESPN+ only has around 26 million, and Apple TV only around 25. For even better context, last year, linear ESPN had around ~100 million paying subscribers, and they've been steadily losing around a million subscribers a year for the last 5 years, every year losing about a 100k more than the previous.
Just as a benchmark, Netflix spends around $7 billion PER YEAR just on original content, and $16-17 billion every year on content overall. The money is there. I think the rub would be convincing Netflix that people want to watch SMU, Boston College, and Wake Forest play football, because there will be no fooling Netflix. They will know exactly how many people turn what on and exactly how long they watch.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
The harsh reality is that America does not care about half to two thirds of ACC football programs and it is about 20 years too late to change that fact. And of the few programs America does care about, most draw no more interest than, say, Michigan State or Texas A&M.
A merger of top schools in the ACC, Big 12 and PAC 12 could have created a formidable rival for the Big Ten and SEC a decade ago, or maybe less. But it didn’t and maybe couldn’t happen.
Sooner or later, there will be another chance for the best of the ACC and Big 12 to merge. And some schools will resist for reasons people talk about at cocktail parties instead of at football barbecues, just like before.
(In response to this post by Baltimore_Hokie)
1y
reality shows with the "stars" of the league, behind the scene shows, Real Housewives of ACC Coaches, Pimp My Ride, etc. Those type of shows would grab more eyes than just the games. My wife gets sucked into absolute crap reality shows on Netflix that send me to a far away corner of the house. Throw in some football and the sport fan may tolerate it a little more.
It's a horrible idea for the student, player, school, coaches; other than $$$.
(In response to this post by Baltimore_Hokie)
1y
do we not think that the $EC and B1G will not do so as well? They are always thinking ahead with expansion and media rights. At some point, you need to think about changing the rules and trying to get in front via a different method.
(In response to this post by Baltimore_Hokie)
1y
leverage that they could get even more money elsewhere. There is no doubt about that.
I think it will be a major deal when the first sports league, professional or college (we shouldn't even call it college anymore; it's professional too) does a media rights deal with Netflix. And, I mean no special extra subscription requirement like Apple wanted to do with the PAC-12; that's asinine. That will never work on a large scale. It has to be that if you subscribe to Netflix, you get every game, live.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
And when/if that bond unravels, Netflix will have to bid for the content against other media outfits. And the discussion might not be with Phillips, but rather with some PE sharks.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
They fired the shot by denying ACC access to football on ABC on Saturdays. ABC showed 3 ACC games all season, two at noon and the ACC Championship game. That was it. We did get South Carolina versus Kentucky on ABC.
Since their distribution to their top-level media property has changed significantly, without any negotiation or consideration with the previous league (ACC), to me that opens up the case to move the top content to a new provider.
(In response to this post by 33laszlo99)
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daveinop
1y
telecasts by placing them in less desirable time slots. So when there is a look-in, they say "well, no one is watching your games" so there is no case for a needle-moving increase.
Worst case, ACC gets some decent content to re-sell.
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)
1y
(In response to this post by CobbCountyHokie)