I'm agreeing, but there are some technicalities. The 'delivery' people (e.g. cable, dish, ota) will be trying to skew the numbers in their favor. The 'content' people will be trying to skew them in their favor. And the 'packaging' people (e.g. ESPN, FOX, CBS, Amazon, etc.) will be trying to skew them in their favor. The decreasing cable numbers have already been well stated. The rest will meet their maker when the 'advertising' people determine best forms of advertising.
Report: OU & Texas reach out to join SEC
- Thread starter BigJCy
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Thanks, was going to respond with something similar. I would add that while ISU would probably be worth more as a raw $ in the Big 10 than they would in the PAC, I'd argue that relative to the conference ISU is worth far more TO the PAC than it is to the Big 10.
As I had shared earlier, ISU's regular season ABC/Fox/ESPN viewership, even if you exclude OU and UT was 84% and 89% that of USC and Oregon. As a comparison, the rest of the PAC on the same basis was about 50% and 56% of USC and Oregon, and out of ten such games, only one individual game (Washington-Utah) exceeded ISUs Average excluding OU and UT. The only "other" school in a conference that stacks up to the big national brands in their respective conferences is Wisconsin. In fact, I would say looking at ratings that the Big 10 should really be classified as Ohio State, then a big gap, then Michigan, PSU, and Wisconsin more closely clustered, with another big gap. Sure, Michigan and PSU in big years have a bigger ceiling, but Wisc. was not great last year either.
I would say that ISU to the PAC would actually be favorable to ISUs non-OU/UT Big 12 performance IF Oklahoma State were brought over too and ISU could maintain that game annually, while also adding at least 1 of either USC or Oregon annually.
If ISU maintains similar viewership to last year (and certainly what they'll do this year) into the PAC, they would be adding inventory and would provide a major boost in average viewership in games.
Simply put, if a team is in that 75+% range in viewership to the top 1-2 brands in the conference, they absolutely will at the very least maintain, if not boost the per team media value to a league. Otherwise we are essentially saying there are 10-12 teams nationally that generate the value, and the rest don't just fail to move the needle, but are absolutely massive drags on profitability.
Sorry, but if you argue that ISU would not add media value on a per team basis in the PAC, you are at the same time arguing that everyone outside OSU, Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin don't just fail to "move the needle," based on viewership they are absolute anchors dragging down the payout of each team, and they aren't really close.
Iowa is a good comparison. I view them as a team that holds its own in value in the Big 10, but when you do a Fox/ABC/ESPN viewership comparison, they are <30% of OSU's viewership, and <40% of Michigan, PSU and Wisconsin. That is with the benefit of a network black Friday game, which those, or the likes of Army-Navy (games with less other competition) have always had big ratings.
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Iowa state will survive this thing one way or another. We might have to end up cutting a couple sports and no way are we getting more fancy buildings...might even lose campbell.... If we add ucf and Houston we can hopefully stay power 5 but our revenue is def taking a huge hit.
Back to the conference network value vs broadcast contracts, Mike Ozanian of Forbes Sports posted the broadcast payouts of all conferences on all channels from 2017 through 2025. Here's the tweet:
And here's the graph if twitter doesn't embed
If you're curious, like I was, here is how that plays out on a per team average:
As you can tell, conference networks and any T3 deals are not included in this, so from the conference totals you've seen elsewhere you can see where those investments come into play.
LATE EDIT: From the "Prime" conversation earlier. At the value of the contracts in 2025, it would cost Amazon $1.1B to buy all the content the Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac 12 takes to market (e.g. not conference network) and give them all a slight raise. (not trying to factor out Texas/OU, so this is just for perspective)
2025
Big Ten = $509m
Big 12 = $272m
Pac 12 = $282m
Total = $1.07b
And here's the graph if twitter doesn't embed
If you're curious, like I was, here is how that plays out on a per team average:
As you can tell, conference networks and any T3 deals are not included in this, so from the conference totals you've seen elsewhere you can see where those investments come into play.
LATE EDIT: From the "Prime" conversation earlier. At the value of the contracts in 2025, it would cost Amazon $1.1B to buy all the content the Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac 12 takes to market (e.g. not conference network) and give them all a slight raise. (not trying to factor out Texas/OU, so this is just for perspective)
2025
Big Ten = $509m
Big 12 = $272m
Pac 12 = $282m
Total = $1.07b
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I sign up for YouTube TV from the start of CFB season through March Madness every year.
I'm pretty sure you both are not talking about the same thing. More, but maybe not enough?
Ummm...you get free shipping without Prime. You just have to wait a bit longer.
The three schools you mentioned reside in arguably the most talent rich states. They can convince kids to stay home and have an advantage over there AAC brethre.
Very true. But having them join conference at least maintains a connection with those talent rich states.
Also, I didn't check Houston, but UCF and Cincy have as many or more players in the NFL as Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota and Rutgers. So they would be upper half in the Big 10 in NFL players.
Yes, the top of the AAC is pretty good in recruiting for obvious reasons. The bottom of the league is horrible. Worse than Kansas. So yes, take out the top 20% of the league and it's not going to be all that talented, and double-digit win G5 teams in talent rich states are going to be up there.
The thing people have to realize about Cincy is that Ohio is LOADED with talent, and there is one power conference team there. And that one power conference team recruits nationally and can get about whoever they want. Cincy gets lots of local talent that OSU passes up but that want to stay in-state. And it is damn good talent.
It’s easy to forget but there’s only so many players the Ohio State's can take. There will always be room for the Cincy’s out there to pluck quality 3/4 star players.
Honestly, from a recruiting standpoint I actually think we’d be just fine if we merged with the just the Cincy’s and Memphis schools of the AAC. It would just mainly be about being able to afford our current staff.
Well, the money thing is one thing. The other is that it would at least to some extent elevate Cincy (and Memphis, etc.), making it hard to beat out those schools in those recruiting grounds.
It's one thing to get an Ohio guy over Cincy when it's the Big 12 w/ OU and UT vs. the AAC. When you're in the same conference that gets a little more difficult. Not to say Campbell can't outrecruit a lot of people. He can. But it's does to some extent offset the advantage of getting into a recruiting ground.
This, that's why it exists the way it does. There are two aspects of the Big Ten's revenue at play; BTN and their T1/2 deals.
BTN: This is an ownership stake payout. So if the channel makes $500m, figure about half of that is being paid to the schools. This value increases over time due to interest and inflation. For Nebraska/Rutgers/Maryland it was a 6 year tiered buy in to the channel. If it pays out $20m a year, figure you start at about $4m and get $3m a year more until the end of the buy in, give or take. The reason its six years is 1) you're buying in and 2) it takes time for the numbers to even out so no one loses money.
T1/2: This is where most of the "you have to be worth X" arguments falter a bit. When most teams are brought in they are in the middle of a contract. The contract can usually be negotiated, but more often than not you're just spreading it all a little thinner. This is why the Big 12 didn't expand. Its not that Cinci couldn't bring some money to the table, its that Cinci isn't bringing money to the table in the middle of a contract. The closer you get to moving to the beginning of a contract the less of an issue it is because all the inventory is pooled, you're not "splitting it more ways" so to speak.
Now this isn't to say you can just add Prairie View A&M and all is right with the world, but it does mean someone doesn't have to be worth $60m in a TV contract. There are only like 5-7 teams in the country that can do that.
When Delaney added Maryland and Rutgers it was in the premise that they'd invest a decade into them to improve their performance and numbers. That's kind of how you all need to think about realignment of teams not named Texas. The numbers you hear quoted are usually the average of a ten year contract, like 5 years in the future. So if you're the Big Ten or the Pac 12, what you're thinking is "who is good, who I can make great with what I already own." Rutgers and Maryland were targeted because having Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State play in Jersey and DC had the potential to increase viewership for those teams, over time, not immediately.
On the flip side, if you're Iowa State and the Big Ten calls, you're not getting $60m. You'll likely make about $30-40m in 2025, ramping up to about $60-70m by 2032.
They have an excellent football history too. They have been ranked #01 before (1969 IIRC), they won the SWC 3 of their first 4 years in the league in the 1970s and a Heisman Winner (Andre Ware). I think Houston would be an excellent add to the Big Xii.
I’m for: them, Memphis, Cincy, UCF.
On the fence: South Florida, SMU.
Would not have interest: Eastern Carolina, Tulsa, Navy, Tulane, Temple.
I hope part of this also includes a boycott of scheduling SEC games. But I know that won't happen.
Obviously, they cannot announce any intentions to add Big 12 teams specifically, but hopefully they note that they intend to work together with the other conferences to insure an orderly balancing/restructuring of the conference landscape.
Not exactly the most comforting to hear your conference is left out of all of these talks. But this still might be a good thing in the long run. It’s at least better than the SEC poaching everybody.
It’s unsettling but you make a good point that if they were gonna take us, they wouldn’t say so. Of course if they were NOT gonna take us, they also wouldn’t say so. So we get to wait in uncomfortable silence. I know Pollard being quiet is the best thing but my dumb ass just wants him to come out and say Don’t worry, we have a master plan.
