AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco discusses league's future, TV negotiations and more/Podcast w Underdog Dynasty/5 part Facebook starts June 11

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college/college-gridiron-365/os-sp-college-insider-aac-aresco-20180603-story.html

OS: The league’s current television and media rights deal is up in 2020. Is there an update on any negotiations?

Aresco: “Nothing formal going on. The TV discussion was important and we’re filling in our membership on what’s going on. We’re trying to identify where the competition would be and what’s our value with the assets we bring and what we could do to enhance our value. All of those things were discussed in the meeting. The league is in a great place and it’s come a long way, but now we just need to get fair value for what we offer. I think everybody is thinking about it.

“One of our presidents said that it’s agenda item 1 through 25, which is a good way to put it. It’s something I think about night and day.

“We’ve had a great year and it’s probably the best time we ever could have picked in terms of the value of our conference being at its highest since we reconstituted ourselves five years ago. I think we’ve got a great product and when you’ve got a great product you’re confident ultimately you can figure out the right kind of TV and media.”

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"Here are some topics we touched on in this episode:

What UCF’s national championship claim has done for the program and the entire conference.
The Commish explains the new media contract between Navy and CBS Sports, and what’s ahead once the current deal with ESPN expires.
Temple and USF are currently looking to build on-campus stadiums. Does the conference have any influence on these potential projects?
Is there any talk of a neutral site for the conference championship game?
Commissioner’s thoughts on Supreme Court’s decision regarding sports gambling.
How AAC basketball has grown with the addition of Wichita State and some high-profile coaches."

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He actually expanded a little bit on what he expected from ESPN in this one. Says that he expects ESPN to offer to put a lot of games on ESPN+. Also mentions Amazon, YouTube, and other streaming services.

Says they won’t get Big 12 money, but they expect a lot more this time around.

Says that the P5 commissioners are telling him that they see the American closer to them than they did 5 years ago.

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https://twitter.com/American_Conf/status/1004815260048658432

ESPN+ is a deathtrap. It removes us from the casual fan that watches ABC, CBS, and ESPN college football.

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I’d imagine that we’d still have games on the main ESPN channels, but the games that would be on ESPN3 would move over to ESPN+.

That’s the direction ESPN is going these days; plan is to phase out ESPN3/WatchESPN for ESPN+.

If they tell the American they want all games on ESPN+, we better not take that deal unless we’re getting Big12 money.

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I wish CBS, NBC, or FOX would seriously get into the app/streaming sports game, not just their current halfway efforts. It would make bidding on these conferences on an even playing field. This is what the P12 needed when they signed with FOX and instead had to settle for their horrible network. This would negatively impact the ridiculous ESPN+ as well. They know they own streaming, why not make everyone pay for it?

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https://twitter.com/danwolken/status/1004822023552499713

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Forget Big 12 level money, anywhere near Pac12 level money would be a huge deal!

Realistically I expect a deal in the $9-12 million per team annually. It’ll be shocking if it exceeds $15 million. But even $12 million will be a huge improvement over the pitiful current deal.

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It will be enough to get BYU and one more to join (I am thinking Army).

Problem with Army is they just re-signed with CBS on the Navy game for a while, several years after the AAC deal is up. And that is the cash cow and one of the main features of Army. It would make things complicated.

Why would Army’s deal be any different than Navy’s.

BYU and Army makes too much sense. You would have to make the Army Navy game a special non-conference game. The only issue would be if Army won the East and Navy won the west and then you would have Army and Navy playing in back to back weeks. But how likely is that?

What a ratings/PR bonanza if that went down !

Army v Navy 2 weeks in a row would have me worried for National Security from the distraction to the troops.

https://twitter.com/American_Conf/status/1005964475265110017

Part 1-One-On-One with Commissioner Mike Aresco

https://twitter.com/American_Conf/status/1006242160654602240

Interesting info from Tulane as they prepare for the next TV contract:

https://twitter.com/ryanscjones/status/1006246596080754688

'In 2016-17, South Florida received $8.877 million from the AAC, followed by UConn ($8.088 million), Cincinnati ($7.659 million), Houston ($5.410 million), Tulsa ($4.937 million) and Temple ($4.920 million). USF, UConn and Cincinnati are still receiving payments as part of the $70 million in exit fees for being former members of the Big East Conference, according to the Hartford Courant.
‘Memphis ($4.684 million), UCF ($4.042 million) East Carolina ($3.737 million), SMU ($3.701 million), Tulane ($3.587 million) and Navy ($2.623 million) account for the rest of the league’s revenue breakdown.’

Doesn’t look promising for higher pay from espn so our hope is streaming might save us.

Btw Roku is listed as the 3rd largest cable provider in the usa. I have zero problem with being on espn+ at 12 million a year.

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Part 2
https://twitter.com/American_Conf/status/1006604551770791939

https://twitter.com/American_Conf/status/1006966935303671820

Part 3