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Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)

cyfan92 said:
USC just went thru their worst 6-year stretch in program history. UCLA football likely hasn't been ranked more than 3-5 times in the CFP poll era. OU has been to multiple CFP's and UT is the biggest brand in football.

Stew is either a master troll or the DUMBEST person on planet earth
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that era is since 2014, right? So 8 years. UCLA zero, Wazzu, UU, and UW more than ISU.
 
Statefan10 said:
While true, 2020 was a peak for Iowa State and we had a lot of viewers watching the two games vs. OU, the @ Texas game that clinched our birth in the CCG, and then the bowl game vs. Oregon.

If there’s much of an outlier it’s the fact that we were really good and more people tuned in to watch us.
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On the flipside, we had a 7-6 season last year that started with a flop. Here were the total viewership numbers last year. The only reason this doesn't look far worse is the elevated G5s, who will get a big boost from playing in better slots against better teams. Now, throw in a few other facts:
- PAC's value is driven largely by Oregon, who may be a Big 10 candidate
- Texas did not provide the typical boost.
- ISU had a 4.9M (Clemson), 3.9M (Iowa), 2.7M (Okie St.) and 2M (Bay) to go along with 3.1 and 900k from OU and UT.
- ISU/Clemson was on directly before Oklahoma/Oregon and outdrew it.

1. Oregon
2. Okie State
3. Iowa State
4. Cincy
5. Baylor
6. Utah
7. Wash
8. West Virginia
9. TCU
10. BYU
11. TTU
12. Stan
13. ASU
14. KSU
15. KU
16. WSU
17. UCF
18. CU
19. Arizona
20. Oregon St.
21. Houston
22. Cal
 
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Even Mandel's article doesn't really work help with the Pac 12.

He notes that the Pac 12 benefits from the 10:30 ET games boosting ratings since they are exclusive time slots. Even with that benefit, the Pac 12 was worth less networks than the Big 12 was. It only stands to reason that if the Big 12 raids the Pac 12 and gets access to those time slots, they will get the benefit of that.

Also, now the Big 10 will be able to compete with that time slot (with a USC or UCLA game no less), which diminishes the value of it to the Pac 12.
 
AuH2O said:
Along the same lines, I do not think ESPN is motivated to kill off the other conferences and make it a P2. I see very little motivation for that, certainly not at the cost it would take. Most agree they would want the content that an expanded Big 12 would provide, and at a discount. But people that think relegating the Big 12 to a level locked out of the playoff is good because it can be "bargain" content are missing a pretty major point. At that point it would be cheap content, not bargain content, because it would be damn near worthless. Viewership will tank over what it is now.

It seems for ESPN, the ultimate would be keep it at a P3, or P4 while ACC is around while getting rights to the Big 12 at something like $30M per team. Having teams that get watched pretty well that are part of the top tier for $30M a team might actually be considered a bargain. Then you have the SEC, Big 12 and ACC, and Fox has Big 10. Then they can basically run the CFP show, which is really the big fish here. When the ACC eventually implodes, the better teams get divvied up, and you are at a P3.

It was one thing when ESPN wanted OU and UT. The AAC thing was a stupid idea that I can't believe anyone at ESPN thought would work, but it looked like the quickest, most cost effective way to get OU and UT.

Where things stand now, the top priority by a mile, and nothing is close, for ESPN is to maximize the value of the CFP. They have cranked up the value of their regular season product. Fracturing college football and dumping a bunch of teams out doesn't boost CFP value. I would argue it loses fans and devalues it, but the extent of that (if at all) can be argued.

As much as I hate to say it, I think it makes the most sense for the Big 12 to get in bed with ESPN. My opinion is that playoff access (and particularly an autobid in and expanded playoff) is a necessity for the league to retain value. There's probably not an amount an Amazon or Apple are going to pay you per team that would offset the loss in value in the long-run if your league is relegated out of playoff access.

I think the "out of the box" thinking from Yormark is not going to be what people think. It's not going to be deviating from traditional networks to squeeze out a few more millions per team. It might be as simple as securing markets (Four corners additions), then leveraging the position as a nice value product for ESPN with growth potential if they have an autobid to an 8 or 12 team playoff.
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I am hoping 2 things happen:
  1. The next round of conference media negotiations expands beyond ESPN & Fox. I would love for the Big12 to add some Pac12 members. But I don't see it critical to the Big12's success over the next decade. It would be great if NBC, CBS, Amazon & Apple want a large presence in college football.
  2. That college presidents are smart enough to split up the CFB Playoff broadcast rights. The NFL doesn't rely on one or two networks, neither should colleges rely on 1 network. The playoff should be split into 2 rights packages to maximize revenue and media accountability.
I agree that it is in the best interest of the CFB Playoff that the strength of CFB expands beyond the Big10 & SEC. Geographically the Big12 & Pac12 are more critical than the ACC to having CFB a national sport at the highest levels.
 
Statefan10 said:
While true, 2020 was a peak for Iowa State and we had a lot of viewers watching the two games vs. OU, the @ Texas game that clinched our birth in the CCG, and then the bowl game vs. Oregon.

If there’s much of an outlier it’s the fact that we were really good and more people tuned in to watch us.
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It's not so much that it's an outlier in the positive for ISU specifically, which I think is (like you said) only partly true. It's that 2020 is an outlier in the negative for the Pac12 overall. They played a short season that year relative to even the B1G and probably had terrible viewership numbers relative to the other conferences. I imagine if you compared B12 vs. P12 numbers in 2020 you'd see enough of a change to move the needle on the 5 year average.

That said, I agree he's definitely cherrypicked the numbers to make it support his narrative. The biggest factor to me is that the P12 even without USC (I'm not counting UCLA) still has a national brand in Oregon while the B12 doesn't. We know Oregon is out at the first opportunity, even if it's not in writing yet. So to have a fair comparison you've got to take their numbers out too. This is also assuming that OU/UT/USC/ucla drive 100% of the viewers to those games, which we know is not true. But it would be hard to do an analysis to see if (for example) ISU vs. OU draws more viewers than KSU vs. OU or CU vs USC, etc. I think the actual TV Network folks have done an analysis like this and feel that the B12 with its midlevel brands draws more viewers vs a P12 with only its midlevel brands left.

Like others have said, he's sharing this because it supports his theory of the high value 10:30PM eastern kickoffs. But I'd be interested to see if you compared only games in similar timeslots with similar viewership competition (i.e. you're not going up against OSU - Michigan, OU - UT, Alabama-LSU, etc at 10:30PM eastern)
 
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simply1 said:
He’s engaging him, so should be fun

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It's a fair point to speculate about. Without OUT, will the B12 be allotted the same number of ABC/FOX/ESPN TV slots? Same with the P12, would they gain or lose spots on the prime networks? Say the B12 has 2 prime network slots per week which are currently generally occupied by OUT. Will we now get ISU/OSU, BU/OSU, etc in those ABC/FOX/ESPN slots? Or, will those games continue to be played on ESPN2/FS1, etc and OUT's prime network slots move with them to the SEC?

I think that even if we assume Mandel's point about tv network slots is generally correct (i.e. those primetime ABC kickoff spots move to the SEC with OUT and Oregon remains in the P12 long term), I think you still see a decline in P12 viewership because USC and UCLA will move B1G games into those late night timeslots and take viewers from the remaining P12.
 
cyfan92 said:
Pac-12 has to now compete with BYU in the Big 12 starting next year.

BYU versus any Big 12 team outdraws EVERY Pac-10 game outside of 2 games a year Oregon vs Utah and Washington.
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Where do you get that stat from? BYU was in the 40’s for most watched team and didn’t even average over a million viewers per game. Compared to other big 12 teams they are solidly in the middle for ratings draw. Not saying that the big 12 isn’t going to crush the pac in ratings just kinda wondered where the BYU point came from.
 
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CycloneDaddy said:
Why would he exclude 2020. Pac12 teams mostly only played conference games that year. Their tv #s should have been good that year.
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A way to use the 2020 numbers would be to take the number of conference games played by the team that played the fewest (say it was 5) and compare the first 5 conference games played by all of the teams. It wouldn't be perfect, but it might be useful.
 
cyfan92 said:
All that matters is FB and MBB. The Big 12 is SO FAR ahead of any conference in MBB that it's wild.

The Pac-10 has Oregon and Utah with a whole lot of average to bad after that.

Remember when 2023 Big 12 team, BYU ran train on the Pac-12 last season? Did Stewie mention that in his write-up?
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MBB doesn't matter. All that matters for $$$ is FB. We love good BBall but it has nothing to do with these conversations.
 
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agrabes said:
It's a fair point to speculate about. Without OUT, will the B12 be allotted the same number of ABC/FOX/ESPN TV slots? Same with the P12, would they gain or lose spots on the prime networks? Say the B12 has 2 prime network slots per week which are currently generally occupied by OUT. Will we now get ISU/OSU, BU/OSU, etc in those ABC/FOX/ESPN slots? Or, will those games continue to be played on ESPN2/FS1, etc and OUT's prime network slots move with them to the SEC?

I think that even if we assume Mandel's point about tv network slots is generally correct (i.e. those primetime ABC kickoff spots move to the SEC with OUT and Oregon remains in the P12 long term), I think you still see a decline in P12 viewership because USC and UCLA will move B1G games into those late night timeslots and take viewers from the remaining P12.
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Yes, of course the network split is going to be affected with different media deals and conference make up going forward. FOX has rumored to have pulled out of negotiations with the PAC, so that national FOX broadcast right there is at risk. ESPN going full in on SEC...are they going to put a secondary conference in their prime time slots? I would say look at the ACC as an example. Stew is out of his mind here.
 
Wilner coming in hot on the Stew train. Seems like they've really put the spin to their numbers over the weekend for a Monday morning attack.

 
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