AAC ESPN close to a tier 1 deal?

Read on Twitter https://twitter.com/c_austin_cox/status/1098023316072337408?s=21

Dunno what to make of the fact that there was apparently no bidding war and apparently ESPN was the only option. Not expecting much by way of a much sweetened deal.

Anything less than 9 or a NY6 tie is garbage and he should be on the hot seat like Scott

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Well he can get on the hot seat most likely. But let’s be real he’s bringing a knife to a gun fight in these negotiations. He has no leverage and everyone knows it.

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ESPN has all the leverage. Not expect much at all. Best outcome is we don’t sign our rights away to this conference

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If ESPN is getting ready to close on a deal on tier 1 content, then the AAC has the leverage. AAC is in an exclusive negotiating period with ESPN. The AAC has to just wait until March 2nd and shop their content around to NBC or CBS. If ESPN didn’t think highly of the AAC, it would just wait for the AAC to come back after it searched the open market .

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he isn’t a magician 9mil per would be a miracle …6mil+ is what im hoping for

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espn wasnt the “only option”…they just have an exclusive window from February to march…if we didnt agree on a deal by then we can start looking in the open market

the aac admin have talked that there has to be a huge jump in the pay, and they wont consider anything else…the fact we are close in the 1st 2 weeks of negation and it isnt going to the open market is a good sign …meaning espn was willing to offer something we wanted

it going to the open market for a bidding war would mean espn didnt put anything on the table in their exclusive window…

also note it says tier 1 game…meaning our top games… the majority of aac games are tier 2… good chance we still go to the open market for the rest

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Then it’ll be garbage because the AAC is not getting a NY6 tie-in other than the access bowl like every other G5 conference. I’m hoping for 6-8 million per school. If we got that and could add Tournament units, keep selling out basketball, and start selling out football we still probably wouldn’t be in the black but we’d at least start putting a dent in the subsidy.

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This is a scenario that sucks. We wait until March and we may find out that the true value of our product is a lot less than what ESPN is offering now and then you want to try to come back to the table begging for scraps?

That’s exactly what will happen. And ESPN will drop the financial hammer on us for inconvencing then if we go to open market and have to come crawling back.

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I don’t think ESPN could offer us a NY6 tie in, I don’t think they own either the Peach or Fiesta. They might be able to offer us a tie in with the Alamo Bowl or something.

Sounds like some folks don’t think much of the AAC…

They may not own the bowls but they have TV rights to all NY6 bowl games. 3 out of the 5 years since the CFP has been implemented the AAC has sent its champion to the NY6 bowl game. Could have been 4 out of 5 if Navy had won the conference in 2016. ESPN knows the type of ratings the AAC champion generates in the NY6 bowl game slot. Aresco has said in the past that he is looking for a NY6 autp bid for the conference champion.

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Depends on what you mean by don’t think much of the AAC. I feel like I’m just being realistic personally, we have better legs than the MWC, MAC, and CUSA but we’re just the skinniest kids at fat camp. I just don’t see any real leverage for the AAC.

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How this shakes out is going to be interesting. Anything less than 10-15 million will see almost everyone polishing their big 12 presentations.

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Polish, smolish, the not-so-big 12 ain’t adding any teams.

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Negotiations started last summer.

Well not any G5 teams. They may be open to adding P5 teams should any become available.

PAC12 or bust.

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No they didn’t, not sure where you got that from but there are at least 5 or 6 interviews with aresco and Memphis president saying it wouldn’t start till February

The only thing I think you might be mixing it up with is that we tried to start it early a few times but aresco said ESPN chose to wait for the window