Big Picture- it is clear that SEC and BIG are the top cherry pickers and are building mega conferences with any brands that add value. With that said who is left that will add to the massive payouts of these conferences? Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Stanford, Miami, Florida State, Clemson, UNC, Virginia, Norte Dame? I don’t believe any new Big 12 schools would qualify so in that sense the new Big 12 may in fact have relative stability with a chance to cherry pick from ACC or PAC in the future. Thoughts?
The Big 12 is going to cherry pick itself?
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Lol nahh fixed it
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If the BIG12 can add those teams, frankly that TV contract would be just as high as the Big10/SEC without having to slob there knobs. Big12 needs to be working those phones hard. Big12 has competition in ff and bb, something the ACC lacks.
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https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/big-12-warns-losing-50-tv-utou-exit-79228072
Adding middle-tier teams to an entire conference of middle-tier programs. How many we add won’t boost the per school payout. If we aren’t ruthlessly strategic, it could hurt. Nobody left raises the ante because Oregon and UW will be gone soon.
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That article is almost a year old… and a ton has changed since then.
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Ok. Let’s wait and see. Just somebody tell me where the brand names are? On their way to the SEC and Big Ten, respectively. We and the others were backfills because we were the best left of available programs. Everyone left in the PAC should Oregon and Washington jettison, will not add value. However, I think adding four schools for a nice competitive balance would be cool.
I want us to get as much money as possible, but UH vs OSU isn’t LSU vs Florida or Georgia or Bama or Arkansas or aTm. More like Vandy vs South Carolina, as far as TV draw goes. Why would anyone overpay for our games when we are literally beggars?
The very good news is we will be getting multiples of AAC money. It really changes things for UH for the better. It just won’t be a Power 2 payday, or even close.
I agree that value should be our main concern but I think what your analysis misses is that inventory status alone can make a conference more valuable, or less, independent of the value of the teams being added.
If the average value of our conference is $20m per team, and we add six schools with an average value of $20m per team, our value could actually go up significantly, or down, depending on what the needs are of the networks doing the bidding.
If their need is inventory, adding more teams (even ones of roughly equivalent value) increases the per-team value. I think there is a good chance this is the case with the streaming services and with Turner.
If what they need are key matchups for network TV in the afternoon, then adding teams (even ones of roughly equal value) brings down the per-team value.
Right now, I think the former may be more applicable than the latter due to streaming. CBS, Fox, and ESPN are going to be getting their big name matchups from other conferences. That’s unfortunate and hurts our value, but it’s true with 12 teams or 20. But I look at what they do need, and it seems to be there’s a good chance that added inventory helps us.
ESPN - Needs content for ESPN+ and off-time games (weeknights, Big 12 after dark, etc). The more teams we have, the less valuable games that aren’t us are. If we take four teams from the Pac-12, they can still grab Oregon State vs Cal. If we grab the entirety of the Pac-12, then it’s basically us or the G5. They need to pay up because they have a lot invested in ESPN+ and the other conferences have their own networks.
CBS - They don’t need games for their network, unfortunately, but probably need games for CBSSN a little and Paramount+ a lot. Conference USA and MWC do very very little for them. The only real competition we have there is whatever is left of the Pac-12. Once again, might be advantageous to have that content with ours instead of as an alternative to us.
NBC - The same as CBS, more or less. They don’t have a sports network but are interested in putting sports on CBSSN. But from everything I read they’re desperate for Peacock content.
Turner Sports - If they want to get into college sports, they need games and a lot of them. If we sign with someone that has has limited cable networks (like CBS or NBC) we have a lot of TNT-level content to offer. Too big for streaming, not big enough for network TV. If we can come to them and say "We can throw you enough games that TNT and TBS can be full of college football on Saturdays, that has value. We’re more likely able to do that with more inventory. This could cut the other way, however, if they are more interested in a single “TBS game of the week” cherry-picked games. Adding teams would not help us there.
Fox Sports - They are more likely to have a limited number of slots and so are interested mostly in quality and not quantity. They don’t have a streaming service.
Amazon/Apple/Netflix - I don’t know here, but I’m a big pessimistic that these will play a significant role in our contract. Maybe Amazon who did put up a lot of money for F1 racing. We might pick up some money if we have excess inventory, but if we have excess inventory then we added too many teams.
Hopefully we have some really good media advisors telling us whether adding teams in itself helps or hurts. In addition to the value of the Pac-12 teams. (Will also add that regardless of which one of these we want to end up with, we do want as many as possible bidding on us.)
Regarding value, I think the Pac-12-4 have a lot of meh teams but are in general nowhere as risky as adding G5 teams. Adding G5 programs risks a real watering-down of the conference. Except Oregon and Washington, the Pac-12 suffers from a similar problem as us: A lot of medium-value teams and no high-value ones. There’s a fair bit of disagreement over which ones we should add precisely because their value variation is actually relatively flat and different schools have different things to offer so it’s a judgment call. This is in contrast to AAC, where 3-4 candidates instantly stood out from the pack.
Oregon and Washington will not get invited to the B1G if the B1G plans to stop at 20 schools…the B1G will hold for now to apply pressure to ND, and also add UNC, UVA and Duke when the ACC GOR is about to expire in 2035. I think that Oregon and Washington have a choice between trying to solidify the bleeding PAC (that would be stupid because they have to know that the AZ’s, Utah, and Colorado will leave to the Big 12) they could drop down to the MWC or join the Big 12. Thats all they got.
I really don’t get the Duke for BIG comments. Stanford has a better athletic program and they are getting passed by. I would think Virginia before Duke.
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I’ll agree with some of your analysis, but not others.
Peacock tested putting some ND games on their platform. I’m thinking that was a trial balloon. I expect them to join in the bidding this time. They bid on the AAC last time, but it was matched by ESPN.
Fox does have a sports streaming service, but do they want to invest in it and really boost its bandwidth. They could also use FX. Combine that with FS1 and FS2 and that can play a major role if they choose to.
Amazon just invested in the NFL and has exclusive NFL Thursday night football. If they’re truly interested in the market, you have to start somewhere. The Big XII is not a bad place. Apple is dipping its toe in the market with Friday night MLB.
I can see TNT/TBS getting involved too. They have MLB and the NCAA tournament.
I feel that with the Big XII contract coming up for renegotiation and the potential to poach some PAC-10 schools, the timing couldn’t be better.
FX went over to Disney with the sale.