USC and UCLA Planning to join BIG TEN.

[Panthadad2]

UCLA and USC Have Moved On. What Happens to Everyone Else?

Notre Dame, the ACC and the remaining members of the Pac-12 must figure out how to play their hands amid the college football consolidation.

www.wsj.com

The shock from last week’s stunning defection of Southern California and UCLA from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten Conference hasn’t settled yet, but another urgent question is already on the table for college football: What happens to everyone else?

It’s an especially pressing matter for the reeling remnants of the Pac-12, the Atlantic Coast Conference and famously independent Notre Dame. For the moment, all three are on the outside looking in at the dominant conference juggernauts being built by the Southeastern Conference and the Big Ten.

All three of those big constituencies must figure out how to play their hand in this newly destabilized world of big-time college sports. Since Thursday, 10 schools have informally reached out to Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren, said a person familiar with the matter.

“This is like a Rubik’s cube,” said a long-tenured athletic director. “There will be more movement before all sides are aligned.”...

 

[Unregistered User]

Their relatively low value within the college football marketplace is one reason for that bleak outlook.

Yes, the Bay Area is a huge media market, and that mattered a decade ago when it was all about how many cable homes were in your footprint.

Now, the main driver is brand value: Fox and ESPN will pay for the football programs that generate ratings and are most likely to land in prime TV windows. Neither Bay Area team clears those bars.

The former president of FOX sports disagrees:

The ex-Fox Sports Network president, Bob Thompson, placed Oregon’s media-rights value at $30 million and Stanford’s at $45 million

Stunning detail about Pac-12 dollar values emerges in realignment discussions

A former Fox Sports executive assessed the media-rights values of Oregon and Stanford. You probably will not guess the differential between the two schools.

trojanswire.usatoday.com

 

[fmlizard]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the big ten expanded to 30
Made players employees and played their own playoff.

Yep. I've been saying it around here for about a year now, but I think the chances of this new entity trying to end-around the NFL is more real than people realize.

If it were to come to pass, all the Big Ten/NCAA/Fox League or whatever it's called would simply have to end the 4 year eligibility limit and voila you have a new pro league that could actually challenge the NFL by starving it from players.

 

[Some guy]

Yep. I've been saying it around here for about a year now, but I think the chances of this new entity trying to end-around the NFL is more real than people realize.

If it were to come to pass, all the Big Ten/NCAA/Fox League or whatever it's called would simply have to end the 4 year eligibility limit and voila you have a new pro league that could actually challenge the NFL by starving it from players.

Back in the way back day, this was true.

The thing college football would have to worry about would be the nfl moving to Saturday games all year

 

[U2Gopher]

So, this article on the value of Oregon and Stanford is interesting. Today on ESPNU Radio, Childers and Neuheisel were talking to a reporter who covers the PAC-12. They asked him if he felt anything else regarding teams, mainly Oregon and Washington, jumping to the Big10 was imminent. His response was no and that with the exception of Notre Dame, he feels the Big10 is done for “a couple of years at least.” What was his reasoning? Well, he said that with USC and UCLA coming on board, each Big10 team was projecting to make about $100M annually from the networks. The addition of any team reduces the amount of money the member schools will get unless the new teams coming in generate $100M or more. Well, this article seems to back up the fact that Oregon and Stanford can’t bring that kind of money to the table. Neither can Washington.

We just might have reached a point where adding more teams doesn’t make financial sense.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

The former president of FOX sports disagrees:

The ex-Fox Sports Network president, Bob Thompson, placed Oregon’s media-rights value at $30 million and Stanford’s at $45 million

Stunning detail about Pac-12 dollar values emerges in realignment discussions

A former Fox Sports executive assessed the media-rights values of Oregon and Stanford. You probably will not guess the differential between the two schools.

trojanswire.usatoday.com

That’s really interesting. I don’t claim to understand the first thing about how advertising, # of viewer TV sets, # BTN and other cable subscription stew together to arrive at these tv rights distributions. I know I’ve always had access to BTN out here via cable, then satellite, and then Vue and now YouTube TV. BTN, Fox, espn, already seems to be part of most package deals at least in Socal which to me would imply viewership matters but again, I’m absolutely a babe in the woods with this stuff. Does UCLA have more viewers than Oregon?

More very interesting detail from a Canzano Link:

Big Ten math led to USC and UCLA defection​

The Big Ten will expand to 16 teams when the addition of USC and UCLA becomes official in 2024. The conference’s $1 billion-a year television deal will presumably be shared equally among the members.

Thompson said the Big Ten’s decision to add two Los Angeles-based universities was rooted in a simple math equation. The 14 existing conference members know they’ll receive approximately $71.4 million per university under the new Fox deal. Adding two more partners only made sense if they could generate a minimum of $143 million in additional distributable revenue.

“To get there you could assume that the bulk of the 5.2 million pay TV homes in LA, San Diego, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara become inner-market Big Ten Network subscribers,” he said. “That will add significant affiliate revenue for the network.”

Adding Southern California to the portfolio increases the Big Ten’s core TV households by 25 percent. The result is additional advertising revenue for the Big Ten Network, Fox Broadcast Network and FS1 as well.

Said Thompson: “That should all be enough to convince Fox that the additional rights fees are worthwhile.”

The Big Ten appears focused on trying to lure Notre Dame into the fold right now. After that, Oregon and Washington may be of interest to the Big Ten. However, Thompson estimated that those two Pac-12 universities, along with the Oregon and Washington television markets, would only generate an additional $60 million in combined additional revenues.

It’s good money, but well shy of the $143 million breakeven for the Big Ten.

It doesn’t kill the possibility of Oregon and Washington following USC and UCLA into the conference. It just means that the Big Ten members have two options if they’re going to do it: A) Be OK with about $6 million less annually to have UO and UW in the house; or B) Welcome Oregon and Washington, but inform the newcomers that they won’t get full distributions for a while.

Perhaps this is where Nike founder and long-time Oregon mega-booster Phil Knight might factor. He has ties to ESPN. I wonder if Knight might convince that network to make an investment in the Pac-12 and position the conference to raid the Big 12. Under that scenario the Pac-12 would survive and become the country’s No. 3 conference. Or maybe Knight would simply subsidize the Oregon-Washington entry into the Big Ten.

Canzano: Pac-12 gut punch comes with a cost

Ex-Fox Sports Network executive weighs in; could Oregon-Washington be next for Big Ten?

www.johncanzano.com

 

[PMWinSTP]

That’s really interesting. I don’t claim to understand the first thing about how advertising, # of viewer TV sets, # BTN and other cable subscription stew together to arrive at these tv rights distributions. I know I’ve always had access to BTN out here via cable, then satellite, and then Vue and now YouTube TV. BTN, Fox, espn, already seems to be part of most package deals at least in Socal which to me would imply viewership matters but again, I’m absolutely a babe in the woods with this stuff. Does UCLA have more viewers than Oregon?

More very interesting detail from a Canzano Link:

Big Ten math led to USC and UCLA defection​

The Big Ten will expand to 16 teams when the addition of USC and UCLA becomes official in 2024. The conference’s $1 billion-a year television deal will presumably be shared equally among the members.

Thompson said the Big Ten’s decision to add two Los Angeles-based universities was rooted in a simple math equation. The 14 existing conference members know they’ll receive approximately $71.4 million per university under the new Fox deal. Adding two more partners only made sense if they could generate a minimum of $143 million in additional distributable revenue.

“To get there you could assume that the bulk of the 5.2 million pay TV homes in LA, San Diego, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara become inner-market Big Ten Network subscribers,” he said. “That will add significant affiliate revenue for the network.”

Adding Southern California to the portfolio increases the Big Ten’s core TV households by 25 percent. The result is additional advertising revenue for the Big Ten Network, Fox Broadcast Network and FS1 as well.

Said Thompson: “That should all be enough to convince Fox that the additional rights fees are worthwhile.”

The Big Ten appears focused on trying to lure Notre Dame into the fold right now. After that, Oregon and Washington may be of interest to the Big Ten. However, Thompson estimated that those two Pac-12 universities, along with the Oregon and Washington television markets, would only generate an additional $60 million in combined additional revenues.

It’s good money, but well shy of the $143 million breakeven for the Big Ten.

It doesn’t kill the possibility of Oregon and Washington following USC and UCLA into the conference. It just means that the Big Ten members have two options if they’re going to do it: A) Be OK with about $6 million less annually to have UO and UW in the house; or B) Welcome Oregon and Washington, but inform the newcomers that they won’t get full distributions for a while.

Perhaps this is where Nike founder and long-time Oregon mega-booster Phil Knight might factor. He has ties to ESPN. I wonder if Knight might convince that network to make an investment in the Pac-12 and position the conference to raid the Big 12. Under that scenario the Pac-12 would survive and become the country’s No. 3 conference. Or maybe Knight would simply subsidize the Oregon-Washington entry into the Big Ten.

Canzano: Pac-12 gut punch comes with a cost

Ex-Fox Sports Network executive weighs in; could Oregon-Washington be next for Big Ten?

www.johncanzano.com

I do think that ND and Stanford will be the next two wanting to move to B1G...sooner than later.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

IIRC the $1B tv rights deal is strictly rumor at this time, and likely included USC and UCLA as I doubt they threw that deal together in the last two weeks. Correct me if I’m wrong. If that’s the case all the above from Canzano needs to be recalculated.

 

[Gophers_4life]

$1B (flat) per year for the main conference TV deal is $62.5M per year per school for 16 schools.

Elsewhere I thought it had been estimated that everything else which contributes to the total dollars per year that each school receives from the conference is something like a $20M/year/school adder. That's things like: money from CFP, money from Bowl Game payouts, payouts from the NCAA for March Madness credits, any other deal that is strictly conference-wide (not sure if or how many such deals the Big Ten may have ... also could be more like an in-kind benefit such as airline charter discounts, hotel discounts, etc.). Have no idea how BTN revenue factors in, but probably that too. That still seems like a black box to me.

So then obviously that's $82.5M/year/school, total. Short of the rumors about the "magic" nine figure threshold, but still an incredible amount of money. Of course we'll take what they give us (Minnesota).

 

[Pompous Elitist]

$1B (flat) per year for the main conference TV deal is $62.5M per year per school for 16 schools.

Elsewhere I thought it had been estimated that everything else which contributes to the total dollars per year that each school receives from the conference is something like a $20M/year/school adder. That's things like: money from CFP, money from Bowl Game payouts, payouts from the NCAA for March Madness credits, any other deal that is strictly conference-wide (not sure if or how many such deals the Big Ten may have ... also could be more like an in-kind benefit such as airline charter discounts, hotel discounts, etc.). Have no idea how BTN revenue factors in, but probably that too. That still seems like a black box to me.

So then obviously that's $82.5M/year/school, total. Short of the rumors about the "magic" nine figure threshold, but still an incredible amount of money. Of course we'll take what they give us (Minnesota).

Regarding Oregon specifically they have a certain amount of name brand gravitas among college football fans and I would imagine viewership numbers of Oregon/Michigan, Oregon/Wisconsin, Oregon/Penn State, Oregon/Minnesota games would probably create significant interest as events, drive a lot of viewership in both fan bases and casually amongst general fans. I’m not sure how that factor of growing viewership pie is calculated versus tv market/subscriptions. Notre Dame, same. With Washington and Stanford there is some value in preserving rivals and regional divisions. The AAU thing…eh. Notre Dame‘s academic reputation is stellar. An arbitrary NIH-biased research consortium as criteria for entry seems overblown, IMO.

Maybe someday conferences will play hardball and start distributing revenue to programs in accordance to their contributions rather than the current communist-like system…

 

[Gophers_4life]

I think they (the Ohio State, Alabama's of the CFB world) want to slowly make their way towards that, one day.

If they did a step change to it right now, I think they're afraid it would turn so many people off that viewership would plunge outside their own fanbases. Like it or not, and believe them or not, the viewership numbers depend on casual, non-fanbase tune-ins for games.

 

[nitramnaed]

Regarding Oregon specifically they have a certain amount of name brand gravitas among college football fans and I would imagine viewership numbers of Oregon/Michigan, Oregon/Wisconsin, Oregon/Penn State, Oregon/Minnesota games would probably create significant interest as events, drive a lot of viewership in both fan bases and casually amongst general fans. I’m not sure how that factor of growing viewership pie is calculated versus tv market/subscriptions. Notre Dame, same. With Washington and Stanford there is some value in preserving rivals and regional divisions. The AAU thing…eh. Notre Dame‘s academic reputation is stellar. An arbitrary NIH-biased research consortium as criteria for entry seems overblown, IMO.

Maybe someday conferences will play hardball and start distributing revenue to programs in accordance to their contributions rather than the current communist-like system…

I think you mean Socialism.

 

[Taji34]

Regarding Oregon specifically they have a certain amount of name brand gravitas among college football fans and I would imagine viewership numbers of Oregon/Michigan, Oregon/Wisconsin, Oregon/Penn State, Oregon/Minnesota games would probably create significant interest as events, drive a lot of viewership in both fan bases and casually amongst general fans. I’m not sure how that factor of growing viewership pie is calculated versus tv market/subscriptions. Notre Dame, same. With Washington and Stanford there is some value in preserving rivals and regional divisions. The AAU thing…eh. Notre Dame‘s academic reputation is stellar. An arbitrary NIH-biased research consortium as criteria for entry seems overblown, IMO.

Maybe someday conferences will play hardball and start distributing revenue to programs in accordance to their contributions rather than the current communist-like system…

Considering conferences require their members to vote on changes like this, and doing a contribution based system would require a metric to measure said contributions for every sport (or every revenue sport at least), that would likely never get enough votes. Far easier logistically to just distribute evenly to everyone.

 

[Some guy]

So, this article on the value of Oregon and Stanford is interesting. Today on ESPNU Radio, Childers and Neuheisel were talking to a reporter who covers the PAC-12. They asked him if he felt anything else regarding teams, mainly Oregon and Washington, jumping to the Big10 was imminent. His response was no and that with the exception of Notre Dame, he feels the Big10 is done for “a couple of years at least.” What was his reasoning? Well, he said that with USC and UCLA coming on board, each Big10 team was projecting to make about $100M annually from the networks. The addition of any team reduces the amount of money the member schools will get unless the new teams coming in generate $100M or more. Well, this article seems to back up the fact that Oregon and Stanford can’t bring that kind of money to the table. Neither can Washington.

We just might have reached a point where adding more teams doesn’t make financial sense.

I had been pretty certain the big ten was stuck at 14 because I think they were at 100 million already and I think outside of about 7-8 non SEC schools they didn’t add enough value.
Texas
Oklahoma
Notre dame
USC

Are the only 4 I’m almost certain added enough value.
North Carolina
Clemson
Florida state and some others maybe close but not really


But I don’t think expansion is done. I don’t think This is a big ten “expansion” I think the big ten is trying to buy up the competition

 

[short ornery norwegian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought "new" members of a conf did not get the full share of TV $ right away - they got lesser amounts to start and worked their way up to a full share.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought "new" members of a conf did not get the full share of TV $ right away - they got lesser amounts to start and worked their way up to a full share.

You’re right. Nebraska agreed to a six year plan paying roughly 2/3 of a full distribution with small annual increases. They gained a full share in 2017.

I wonder if USC negotiated a more attractive deal.

 

[PMWinSTP]

I had been pretty certain the big ten was stuck at 14 because I think they were at 100 million already and I think outside of about 7-8 non SEC schools they didn’t add enough value.
Texas
Oklahoma
Notre dame
USC

Are the only 4 I’m almost certain added enough value.
North Carolina
Clemson
Florida state and some others maybe close but not really


But I don’t think expansion is done. I don’t think This is a big ten “expansion” I think the big ten is trying to buy up the competition

I just don't think the B1G will go looking for teams in the ACC, but who knows, right?

 

[Pompous Elitist]

I think you mean Socialism.

You’re probably right on the semantics. In communism there is no money to redistribute

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Considering conferences require their members to vote on changes like this, and doing a contribution based system would require a metric to measure said contributions for every sport (or every revenue sport at least), that would likely never get enough votes. Far easier logistically to just distribute evenly to everyone.

You’re right. I was just throwing poo. Unbalanced leagues without salary caps or other mechanisms to even out competition historically run into problems, eventually. The cycle begins anew in college athletics.

 

[highwayman]

Well, this article seems to back up the fact that Oregon and Stanford can’t bring that kind of money to the table. Neither can Washington.

We just might have reached a point where adding more teams doesn’t make financial sense.

I said it earlier. Oregon is a cottage industry without a national following. They have one big donor and lots of uniforms. They don’t have a valuable media presence and only the 22nd largest market. Seattle is 14th. Stanford downsized their stadium by 40000 seats and last year averaged 35000. They call the stadium “The Library” for a reason.

 

[Some guy]

I just don't think the B1G will go looking for teams in the ACC, but who knows, right?

To me, none of this makes sense unless it is huge. Because USC and UCLA alone aren’t worth 200 million dollars (to break even) or more to make a profit once you divide the pie by more pieces. Because if they were USC would’ve been independent long ago

 

[2nd Degree Gopher]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought "new" members of a conf did not get the full share of TV $ right away - they got lesser amounts to start and worked their way up to a full share.

You’re right. Nebraska agreed to a six year plan paying roughly 2/3 of a full distribution with small annual increases. They gained a full share in 2017.

I wonder if USC negotiated a more attractive deal.

It's all subject to negotiation. I haven't seen anything reported yet, but I will be surprised if USC agreed to be anything less than a full member from day one. I will also be surprised, albeit a bit less so, if UCLA agreed to be treated differently than USC.

 

[Gophers_4life]

To me, none of this makes sense unless it is huge. Because USC and UCLA alone aren’t worth 200 million dollars (to break even) or more to make a profit once you divide the pie by more pieces. Because if they were USC would’ve been independent long ago

Yeah, will be interesting to see what the TV ratings end up being for the "big ticket" conference games involving USC and UCLA. They need to be huge, to justify what is going to be paid.

No one expects UCLA vs Purdue or USC vs Maryland to draw well. But USC vs Ohio St, etc.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Regarding Oregon specifically they have a certain amount of name brand gravitas among college football fans and I would imagine viewership numbers of Oregon/Michigan, Oregon/Wisconsin, Oregon/Penn State, Oregon/Minnesota games would probably create significant interest as events, drive a lot of viewership in both fan bases and casually amongst general fans. I’m not sure how that factor of growing viewership pie is calculated versus tv market/subscriptions. Notre Dame, same. With Washington and Stanford there is some value in preserving rivals and regional divisions. The AAU thing…eh. Notre Dame‘s academic reputation is stellar. An arbitrary NIH-biased research consortium as criteria for entry seems overblown, IMO.

Maybe someday conferences will play hardball and start distributing revenue to programs in accordance to their contributions rather than the current communist-like system…

What major American sport isn't operating on some kind of socialist model?

 

[Ope3]

What major American sport isn't operating on some kind of socialist model?

LIV Golf?

 

[TruthSeeker]

LIV Golf?

The Saudis are American?

 

[Ope3]

The Saudis are American?

The LIV is mostly played in America with a lot (majority?) of the field made up of US Citizens.

I'm not sure what business model they are using as I would deem their chances of turning a profit as nil.

 

[nitramnaed]

What major American sport isn't operating on some kind of socialist model?

They all are. Salary caps. Minimum salaries. Players organizations.

 

[nitramnaed]

You’re right. Nebraska agreed to a six year plan paying roughly 2/3 of a full distribution with small annual increases. They gained a full share in 2017.

I wonder if USC negotiated a more attractive deal.

Did PSU agree to that?

 

[Pompous Elitist]

I said it earlier. Oregon is a cottage industry without a national following. They have one big donor and lots of uniforms. They don’t have a valuable media presence and only the 22nd largest market. Seattle is 14th. Stanford downsized their stadium by 40000 seats and last year averaged 35000. They call the stadium “The Library” for a reason.

Last year Oregon had 10th best viewership numbers. The 2014 Ohio State Oregon CFP championship had the highest viewership (something like 30% higher) by far of any CFP title game. People are hungry for anything but Alabama/SEC/Clemson/Ohio State. These types of games with Jonny come lately teams are events casual fans get excited about. Was anyone excited about UGA/Al. Nope. Nobody. Spread the wealth, build the excitement, build a bigger pie?