Tag: NBC

Crazy Like a Fox: Can Anyone Compete with ESPN?

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports285 Comments

As some of you may know, I’m the father a two-year old twins (a boy and a girl).  At this age, the Walt Disney Company is constantly vacuuming funds out of my wallet.  In the past year alone, I’ve bought Lion King and Toy Story Blu-rays, movies tickets to see The Muppets, a dancing Mickey Mouse (complete with the ability to moonwalk, which is actually pretty sweet), Lion King dolls, Disney Princess books, Disney Princess clothes, Disney Princess purses, Disney Princess stage show tickets, Disney Princess toys and of course the granddaddy of all Disney wallet sucking experiences, a trip to Disney World staying in a Disney hotel complete with a Disney Princess breakfast at Cinderella’s Castle.

For all of the money that people like me spend on Disney toys, movies and theme parks and others that watch TV properties such as ABC and the Disney Channel, the Mickey Mouse-controlled  subsidiary that provides more profit to the company than any other by a massive margin is ESPN.  In fact, it’s not even close.  Currently, ESPN is in close to 100 million households clearing over $5.00 per month from every single one of them in subscriber fees.  This means that ESPN is making around $500 million in revenue per month and $6 billion in revenue per year before even selling a single advertisement.  ESPN isn’t just the most powerful sports network in America.  That would be vastly understating the network’s power.  Here’s the real bottom line: ESPN is the most powerful media and entertainment company in America.  Period.

It’s against this backdrop that we have to analyze the prospects of Fox, NBC/Comcast and, to a lesser extent, CBS becoming viable competitors to ESPN in cable sports world.  Fox has just announced that it is forming a new national cable sports network, NBC/Comcast has rebranded Versus to be the NBC Sports Network, and CBS is trying to turn what was once a college sports-focused channel into a broader sports network.  Certainly, it makes sense for all of them to try to get a piece of ESPN’s cable sports pie.  As I noted here last year, there are three key factors in television viewership today:

  1. More old people watch TV than young people*
  2. More women watch TV than men
  3. More people are using DVRs

(* For TV purposes, “old people” are defined as people older than 49 and “young people” are between 18 and 34 years old.  The only rating that matters for advertisers for a network prime time TV show is what it draws in the age 18-49 demo, while age 18-34 viewers command the greatest premiums.  It doesn’t matter that people older than 49 actually have higher incomes – this is about simple supply and demand, where younger viewers are in shorter supply.)

As a result, the most valuable property on TV on per viewer basis is the program that draws the age 18-34 male that watches it live. This is what sports does more consistently and dependably than anything else on TV, which means that advertisers and cable providers pay a significant premium for sports programs even though their overall viewership numbers (outside of the NFL) generally aren’t that large compared to the average network prime time show or even the movie of the night on TNT or USA.  As a result, ESPN is able to charge the highest monthly subscriber fee of any channel on cable by a significant margin.

The problem is that competing with ESPN is much easier said than done.  Fox and NBC might be spinning their networks as “new competitors” where they just woke up yesterday and realized that ESPN needs some competition, but the reality is that they’ve been trying to compete with ESPN for decades to no avail.  Cablevision created SportsChannel America back in the 1980s, which was a consortium of regional sports networks that bought national TV rights to NHL (in the glorious days when the Norris Division was alive) in attempt to create a competitor to ESPN.  Many of those regional sports networks got bought by Fox in the 1990s, where they tried create a similar type of ESPN competitor by buying national cable rights to properties such as the Big 12 and Pac-12 along with creating studio programs such as “The Best Damn Sports Show”.  That has been done a bit better than the old SportsChannel America, although it’s still been fairly lukewarm and the new national Fox sports network (dubbed “Fox Sports 1”) appears to be simply a vehicle to put air the national rights that it already has on a coast-to-coast network as opposed to through regional networks.  In the meantime, NBC Sports Network has been in existence for quite awhile, with it initially being called the Outdoor Life Network.  Comcast already attempted to rebrand the channel as Versus several years ago in order to try to position itself as a direct ESPN competitor, and it’s now doing a rebranding again with its recent purchase of NBC.

So, when I see sports fans that are exasperated with ESPN (for good reason)* cheering the prospects that someone is finally competing with the Worldwide Leader, the problem is that they’re falling for the spin that these companies are just starting from scratch with something brand new.  It’s simply not the case.  The core problem for any network that wants to compete with ESPN is the lack of access to what I call “Tier 1” content, which I would consider to be the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, SEC and Big Ten.  These are the properties that a network can use as tent poles to drive casual sports fans to flip over.  “Tier 2” content would be the other major college conferences, the NHL and the elite levels of golf, tennis and soccer, while “Tier 3” is everything else.  A network can fill airtime with Tier 2 and Tier 3 content, but can’t rely on that programming alone to break through to legitimately compete with ESPN.

(* Note that I’ll always consider this blog to be a Deadspin baby, as I was in one of the early sets of commenters on that site due to the graciousness of former editor and fellow Illinois alum Will Leitch.  That original commenter group ended up spawning a whole bunch of blogs with much wider reach than this one, such as Kissing Suzy Kolber and With Leather.  The point is that I’m well-schooled in the lampooning of ESPN, culminating in what is quite possibly the funniest story that I’ve encountered in all of the years of writing this blog: the comically insensitive ESPN college basketball commercial casting call that was real.  I still laugh my ass off at that one.  So, this post is not a defense of ESPN in terms of its editorial and promotional practices, which can be nauseating at times.  However, ESPN is absolutely the best run media organization in the country when it comes to the business side.  That side of the equation should be unquestioned.)

NBC Sports Network has been able to get Tier 2 and Tier 3 content, but nothing at the Tier 1 level (which has been the case for many years).  As a result, the ratings lately have been nothing less than horrible.  Viewership during the first quarter of 2012 for NBC Sports Network is down 22% compared to the same period last year and is actually at its worst levels since 2004, when it was still the Outdoor Life Network (meaning that the ratings this quarter right after the NBC re-branding are worse than at any point when the network was called Versus).  Even worse is the rating in the target demo.  Remember when I noted above that the whole reason why sports networks get a premium is that they are supposed to draw age 18-34 males?  NBC Sports Network’s rating in that demo was 0.4 this past quarter.  By comparison, Lifetime (yes, Lifetime) had a 0.5 in that demo.  There’s no good way to spin those figures.

Fox has a better stable of sports rights to draw from with the Pac-12, Big 12 and international soccer rights such as the English Premier League and Champions League.  However, that’s still a limited amount of content to power an all-sports network that’s aiming to draw a broad audience (not just niche fans) on par with ESPN.  Fox still doesn’t have any Tier 1 tent poles.

In theory, NBC/Comcast and Fox could overcome these disadvantages by simply bidding more for Tier 1 content than ESPN.  That sounds logical, but it’s not quite as easy in practice.  First, there’s not much Tier 1 content available.  The NFL decided to grant its own NFL Network a full season Thursday Night Football package, which means that the biggest potential tent pole of all is now off the table.  The Major League Baseball package will come up for bid likely later this year (the current deals run through 2013), while the NBA and Big Ten will have their packages opened up in about 3 years (with their respective current deals ending in 2016).  The SEC is locked up through the mid-2020s.  That’s not very much out there and even if a network can get one of those packages, that can only take it so far.  A viable ESPN competitor really needs 2 or more of those packages.

That gets to the second point, which is that the Tier 1 content leagues like being around other Tier 1 content leagues.  As much as we believe that sports leagues will simply take the most money no matter who it comes from, the Tier 1 entities aren’t very interested in being pioneers on an upstart network (unless they actually own that upstart network a la the NFL Network or the Big Ten Network).  It’s no different than really wealthy people generally preferring to buy houses in neighborhoods with other really wealthy people instead of going to a place where they’d clearly be the wealthiest people on the block.  During a panel of top sports media executives at the recent MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference*, this was called “optimization instead of maximization”, meaning that sports leagues aim to optimize their media audiences and not necessarily maximize revenue.  That might sound like MBA speak gobbley gook, but it’s really just a newfangled way of saying, “Don’t kill the golden goose”.   For instance, the NFL could theoretically make the most money by keeping all of its games for the NFL Network and effectively charge whatever it wants for the channel, which cable providers would almost certainly have to pay.  The Big Ten could do the same by sending all of its games to the Big Ten Network.  However, neither entity wants to do that because that’s taking short-term revenue at the expense of long-term viability.  The Tier 1 sports leagues got to that position because they are able to combine a passionate core fan base with interest from casual sports fans.  League-owned networks and lower distribution channels can still draw the passionate core fan base, but the casual fan segment won’t move over and will deteriorate over time.

(* I highly recommend watching this panel discussion that features the presidents of ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, NFL Media and MLB Media.  They go through a whole slew of issues, including rising TV sports rights fees, the impact of Internet streaming and on-demand viewing, league-owned networks and cable chord cutting.)

That’s really the toughest part of competing with ESPN: it provides the best platform by far for drawing casual fans, which is what the Tier 1 content providers need.  The interesting thing is that the only successful cable bidder for Tier 1 content outside of ESPN and the league-owned networks has been Turner with the NBA (TNT), MLB (TBS) and NCAA Tournament (TNT, TBS and truTV).  That’s notable because TNT and TBS are not sports networks and are instead positioned as broad-based general interest channels that are the cable equivalents of the Big Four (ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox) over-the-air networks.  This means that TNT and TBS are able to draw in casual TV viewers in a way that, say, NBC Sports Network can’t, meaning that they are much more palatable to Tier 1 leagues.

As a result, the most realistic competitors to ESPN aren’t other all-sports networks, but rather the broad interest cable channels that draw high ratings such as USA (owned by NBC/Comcast) and FX (owned by Fox) alongside Turner’s TBS and TNT.  At least that’s how I’d approach it if I were running NBC Sports or Fox Sports.  It would take many years for an all-sports network to get the critical mass of content on par with ESPN2, much less the ESPN mothership, and that’s assuming that such network wins every competitive bid for Tier 1 and Tier 2 content until the end of this decade.  That’s simply a losing battle.  However, TBS and TNT have shown that they can make a dent on ESPN’s chokehold over cable sports rights and have been rewarded with higher rights fees as a result.  They are able to incorporate Tier 1 sports into their other entertainment programming that draw high ratings, which means that they are getting casual fans (not just the hard core fans) to tune in.  My belief is that it would be easier to sell rate increases for USA and FX adding on premier sporting events than to try to get brand new rights fees for separate new sports networks.  I don’t blame NBC/Comcast and Fox for trying their current all-sports plans because those ESPN-type rights fees are so enticing, but I think that in a few years, they’ll end up retreating and focus on beefing up the sports content on their general interest networks instead.  That’s where they can draw out value that ESPN isn’t able to provide.

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

(Image from American Progress)

What American Idol Viewers Show Us About Rising TV Sports Contracts

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports529 Comments

The Big 12 lost one of the best national TV draws in college football (Nebraska), the most popular college team in its largest and fastest-growing market outside of the state of Texas (Colorado) and its conference championship… and then signs a contract for a 350% increase for its second tier cable football rights with Fox.  Did Rupert Murdoch suddenly feel the need to go on a shopping free now that he doesn’t have to pay Glenn Beck anymore?  Is Dan Beebe getting a G5 and a pile of money so that Fox can cash in an insurance policy on Iowa State?  What gives?  Well, let’s take a look at some demographic shifts of the overall TV audience, how it has affected Fox’s most important property, American Idol, and how all of this explains why sports TV rights fees are generally going through the roof right now.

There are three massive changes to television over the past 5 years (and such changes are accelerating):

(1) More Old People Watch TV Than Young People – If you know anything about TV advertising, the overall Nielsen rating that a lot of networks like to trump in press releases is completely irrelevant.  The fact that CBS is the #1 watched TV network overall with top overall-rated shows in several categories has little bearing on what they are able to charge in terms of advertising rates.  Instead, the Nielsen number that really matters is what a show draws in the Age 18-49 demographic and, increasingly, the Age 18-34 demographic.  Historically, this emphasis on younger viewers has been justified with notions that older people are less likely to switch brands or purchase high-end products.  However, that really isn’t true anymore, as people over 50 generally have higher incomes and have shown to have more discretionary spending than their younger counterparts.

Now, the reasoning is a bit different: younger viewers are simply scarcer, therefore advertisers pay a premium to reach them.  Even though older viewers actually have more spending power than younger viewers, those older viewers watch more TV overall and can be reached throughout the day by placing ads on less expensive shows.

The difference between what advertisers will pay for a younger audience versus an older audience is massive – more massive than you probably could have ever guessed.  TVbythenumbers recently compared the ad rates for NCIS (which draws the largest overall audience of any scripted show on TV) and Glee.  It found that even though NCIS had 82% more overall viewers, the fact that Glee had 15% more viewers in the Age 18-49 demo and 92% more viewers in the Age 18-34 demo meant that Glee was able to charge 80% more than NCIS for every 30-second commercial spot.  It basically shows that viewers over 50 are effectively worthless from an advertising standpoint (and even viewers over 35 aren’t worth that much).  You can find a lot of shows that draw in the typical viewer of NCIS (even if that particular show brings in the most of them outright), while there are very few shows that bring in the demo that Glee delivers.  (For what it’s worth, I’m the type of person that enjoys dramas with deep and complex themes with subtle acting that doesn’t beat you over the head with blatant messages.  I can’t think of any show that provides less of what I’m looking for than Glee.)

With that type of advertising rate disparity, TV networks (both broadcast and cable) are continuously on the search for programming that attracts those younger viewers.

(2) More Women Watch TV Than Men – Here’s a fairly shocking statistic: out of the 63 prime time shows that were on the 5 major broadcast networks (for the purposes of this discussion, The CW gets counted as a “major network”) during the 2009-10 season, only 6 drew more male viewers than female viewers.  6 out of 63.  Three of those shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy and The Cleveland Show) are part of the Sunday night Fox comedy bloc that gets a lead-in from NFL games for half of the season.  Another one of those shows (24) is no longer on the air, a different one (Fringe) has been moved to a low-rated Friday night time slot and the last one (Chuck) has been on the cancellation watch list for a couple of years.  If you’ve ever wondered why ABC keeps churning out shrill high-budget prime time soap operas from Shonda Rhimes, there’s your answer.

Simply put, the TV networks are badly in need of a sausage fest and can’t seem to create any.

(3) More People Are Using DVRs – Nielsen recently reported that DVRs are in 38% of all U.S. households as of September 2010, exhibiting extremely rapid growth as that number stood at less than 5% in 2006.  Those users of DVRs are also younger and more affluent than the average television viewer.  While Nielsen argues that DVR users still watch commercials in decent numbers, the reality of it is that the attraction of the DVR is to be able to skip those ads (cutting down an hour-long show with commercials into around a 40-minute show without them).  As DVR penetration continues to grow (and frankly, I thought that current 38% number seemed fairly low), more and more people are going to be avoiding commercials like the plague.

These changes in who watches TV and how they watch it has had some fairly interesting implications in pop culture.  For instance, a couple of weeks ago, the American Idol audience shockingly voted off (or more accurately, did not vote enough for) widely-perceived front-runner Pia Toscano, meaning that she placed ninth and had a shorter run on Fox than The Heights.  It was enough to make J-Lo start crying uncontrollably while Steven Tyler rose from his crypt and started bashing America’s passion.  Now, seeing that Pia was clearly the top pure singer while also being the best-looking of the competitors, that typically indicates a Charlie Sheen bi-winning combination.  However, when looking at the demographics for American Idol, it reflects general TV viewing trends: its audience is getting older and skewing much more to the female side.  My impression is that these older women prefer the John Mayer soulful acoustic guitar-types as opposed to the hot young divas, which is the main reason why (1) soulful acoustic guitar-types have won American Idol for the past two seasons, (2)  5 out of the last 6 American Idol winners were male and (3) only 2 American Idol contestants left on this year’s show out of 8 are female (rose jacket Rod Stewart copy Paul McDonald became the first male eliminated since the initial public vote cutdown to the top 13).

What American Idol has going for it, though, is that people still generally watch it live.  In the latest week where figures are available, only 9% of American Idol Wednesday viewers watched it on DVR compared to 29% of the viewers of Modern Family and 28% of the viewers of Grey’s Anatomy.  Add in that it still draws a fairly good percentage of the younger demographics compared to most shows on television and it is a complete ratings cash cow for Fox.  Last year, American Idol was able to charge over three times as much per 30-second ad spot compared to Dancing with the Stars, the latter of which actually draws a higher number of total viewers but a lower number in the Age 18-49 demo.

So, when looking at how the TV audience has shifted, it has become clear what type of program obtains a premium greater than any other: the program that draws the age 18-34 male that watches it live.

Let’s take me as an example of the target demo.  I’m a professional 33-year old male that’s about a loyal to TV shows as Antonio Cromartie, can count on one hand the number of scripted TV shows that I watch regularly, and will purposely watch all of such shows on my DVR in order to avoid a single moment of watching any commercials.  I don’t know about you, but I put my DVR right next to food and water on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  The catch, though, is that I watch a lot of sports.  Even better, I actually watch them live with commercials.  There is no better vehicle to draw me, a member of the most valuable demographic of all (the male under 35), than sports… and there are tons of people like me in that respect.

Dennis Dodds, who has his own excellent write-up on theories on why sports TV rights are rising, stated the following:

Sports have become one of the safest and highest-grossing buys for media companies. There are no coked-up, petulant stars to deal with. Well, at least not a lot of them. The only “winning” is done on the field. Sports are somewhat cheap to produce.  Sports are true reality television, almost immune to being DVRed. Advertisers love that. There is a built-in following whose interest doesn’t wane with time. Even the strongest TV series are canceled. Try taking Alabama-Auburn off the air.

The success rate of new scripted TV shows has become abysmal – ABC may end up not renewing any of its new shows from this season.  In contrast, sports programs are considered to have “high floors” – ratings may not necessarily go through the roof for every single game, but there’s always a good base of viewers , that base includes a lot of members of the most valuable demo, and those viewers watch it live.  The Nielsen DVR report linked above stated that sports and news programs are watched on DVRs the least of any TV categories.

Sports programming also skews toward the younger demographic than the average show on TV.  During the week that ended April 10th, the only shows in the top 10 of the overall ratings that had more than 30% of their audiences under the age of 50 were the two editions of American Idol (approximately 40%) and the NCAA Tournament National Championship Game (47%).  This is consistent with the demographics for other major postseason sporting events, where the World Series, NBA Finals, BCS bowls and NFL postseason last year all had more than 40% of their respective audiences in the Age 18-49 demo.  (Note that if you were able to buy stock in a league, you ought to bet on the NBA.  It’s the only major sports property that draws over 50% of its audience from the 18-49 demo as well as being the most popular in the growing minority populations just using last year’s figures.  With the NBA now having legit contending teams in New York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles along with the Miami superteam, the viewership numbers have been record-setting this season across all of its platforms of ABC, ESPN and TNT.)

Does this necessarily mean that all sports rights fees will necessarily rise at such dramatic rates?  The Pac-12 is looking for even a better deal than the Big 12 (you can count me in as someone that’s more skeptical that they’ll hit those numbers) and the Big East is looking at a possible tripling of its current rights fees.  One ongoing negotiation that may be a better indicator of where rights fees might go for those two conferences is for the NHL, which is a league whose current deal was signed when it was at rock bottom in terms of popularity, has had a resurgence in a couple of key markets (Chicago and Boston), but still largely has a regional as opposed to a national fan base.  The NHL is looking for a substantial increase of around 2.5 times the current deal with Comcast/NBC most likely being retained as the broadcasting partner.

A rising tide lifts all ships in an outright manner, but where the conferences sit relatively each other will likely remain the same: the SEC and Big Ten at the top, the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 in the next tier, the Big East at the next level, and then everyone else.  Similarly at the pro level, the NFL stands alone at the top, NBA and Major League Baseball are in the next tier, and the NHL will be behind them.  Still, the circumstances are good for all sports entities.  While the rise of Internet streaming and mobile devices are going to complicate matters for sports leagues to continue cashing in on cable dollars over the next decade, they’re all getting the benefit of a revenue boom today.

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

(Image from Huffington Post)

West Coast Represent: Pac-12 TV Talks and What it Means for Other Conferences

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Sports1,303 Comments

There were a couple of separate articles today regarding Pac-12 television rights that point to some implications for other conferences.  First, Jon Wilner from the San Jose Mercury-News had a fairly in-depth article today regarding the status Pac-12 television contract negotiations.  Second, Percy Allen from the Seattle Times had an interview with Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott that focused on the conference’s basketball TV rights.  Here are the main points from those articles:

(1) Fox is the most likely long-term TV partner for the Pac-12 with a possibility of some over-the-air football games on the mothership network, while Comcast/NBC is the second option;

(2) ESPN is not willing to pay as much for the Pac-12 as it did for the ACC for a variety of reasons (including lack of time slots and the value of the ACC’s syndicated basketball package);

(3) Larry Scott wants the Pac-12 Network to happen, but Time Warner Cable will be a large obstacle in the Los Angeles market; and

(4) Going forward, all media rights for all Pac-12 members will be controlled by the conference (as opposed to a portion being controlled by the individual schools as it is today).

Let’s examine each of these points from the perspective of the Pac-12 and how they apply to the college sports world at large.

Point #1 about Fox’s involvement isn’t a surprise considering the current relationship that it has with the Pac-12 and the media giant’s increasing focus on obtaining college sports rights over the past several months (including paying $140 million over the next six years solely for the Big Ten Championship Game).  The overarching questions going forward are (a) how serious is Fox about expanding its overall college sports presence and (b) are they willing to use Fox over-the-air for games?  Fox bid on the ACC package last year with an offer that was heavily reliant on FX as the main national platform.  Indeed, David Hill, Chairman of Fox Sports Group, sees an increase in sports programming on FX as a key in making that network competitive with the likes of TNT.  While Fox didn’t win that deal, they did procure a smaller agreement with C-USA plus rights to the Big Ten and Pac-12 championship games.  A hungry Fox can certainly bid up the price of rights for other conferences… as long as ESPN is willing to play, too.  (More on that in a moment.)

As for Comcast/NBC, call me skeptical of them ever becoming a truly major player in college sports.  Comcast-owned Versus certainly is looking for more sports programming, but that’s a fairly unattractive national cable partner compared to ESPN or FX on its face and you’re more likely to see sports move away from NBC as opposed to any events being added.  Sports programs in general are loss leaders for over-the-air networks and the last thing that NBC needs is more losses.  In fact, NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke told Wall Street analysts covering Comcast specifically yesterday that NBC’s current “sports properties lose hundreds of millions of dollars per year.”  NBC lost $220 million on the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and even its gold-plated NFL Sunday Night Football package loses around $100 million per year.  So, it doesn’t exactly sound like the new Comcast ownership is going to be spending very much money on more sports on NBC.  If anything, those quotes from the head of NBCU indicate that they’re preparing to cut back heavily.  Therefore, any conference hoping for Comcast/NBC to come through with some great offer is going to be severely disappointed.

From the Big Ten’s perspective, I see Fox only as a viable option in the conference’s next TV deal if there is essentially a replication of the SEC’s agreement with CBS: the top game of the week gets coast-to-coast over-the-air coverage.  I can’t realistically see the Big Ten considering a deal with Comcast at all.  While much has been made of the Big Ten’s partnership with Fox regarding the Big Ten Network, it must be emphasized that the conference still receives substantially more money from ESPN compared to the BTN.  There are also more Big Ten events on ESPN today than there were prior to the BTN being formed.  From the very beginning, the BTN has always been intended to be a supplement to ESPN coverage as opposed to a replacement.  The Big Ten is smart enough to know that the time slots that it has secured with ABC and ESPN provide incredible exposure and the conference doesn’t want to kill the proverbial long-term golden goose for short-term financial gains.  Any new deal going forward has to provide even more exposure than today’s deal.  Thus, I could see the Big Ten pushing to a movement of the games that are regionalized on ABC right now to national over-the-air Fox coverage.  However, I highly doubt that the Big Ten would ever seriously consider moving ESPN games to FX (and definitely not to the patchwork quilt of Fox Sports Net affiliates).  It’s interesting to note, by the way, that the two conferences that make the most money outside of ESPN (Big Ten with the BTN and SEC with CBS) also make the most money from ESPN. Money certainly talks, but the Big Ten seems to be a property that ESPN will pay up to get them to stay (and the desire to stay on ESPN will be reciprocated by the conference).

That leads to Point #2, where apparently the Pac-12 is a conference that ESPN is not willing to pay up for.  More specifically, ESPN appears to believe that the Pac-12 TV package is worth less than comparable ACC rights.  This doesn’t surprise me at all.  I’ve been fairly consistent on this blog that the ACC is in much better shape than what a lot of sports fans (that have concentrated on the conference’s relative weakness on the football field over the past few years) believe. 

National marquee brand names are extremely important for determining college sports rights and the ACC has 2 big ones for football (Miami and Florida State) and arguably the 2 very biggest ones for basketball (Duke and North Carolina).  The ACC basketball package is also unique in that it draws football-level ratings in several of its markets, which is something that none of the other BCS conferences can claim (even those that might be better on the court in a given year, such as the Big East).  If and when Miami and Florida State get back on track, you’ll see a dramatic turnaround in the football perception (and TV ratings) of the ACC.  In contrast, the Pac-12 is largely reliant on the strength of USC for football and UCLA for basketball in terms of drawing national interest.  Beyond the LA schools and Oregon’s wacky uniforms, the Pac-12 continues to struggle with getting much notoriety in the Eastern 2/3rds of the country.

The Pac-12’s inability to get much of a large bid out of ESPN should be a small warning sign to the Big 12 and a large red flag to the Big East, who are both hoping to receive large TV rights increases from the Worldwide Leader.  Several conferences last summer were under the impression that ESPN paying such a large amount to the ACC meant that the network’s greenback gushers were wide open and they could switch the style up, but if they hate let ’em hate and watch the money pile up.  Instead, it looks like ESPN is going to keep all its money in a big brown bag inside a zoo.  Dan Beebe and the Big 12 members may sweat it out a bit as there were some financial assurances from ABC/ESPN this past summer that aided in keeping the conference from splitting apart.  Personally, I’m a believer that ESPN understands the big picture and seeing that they presently want to avoid the formation of superconferences, they’ll pay enough to the Big 12 so that the conference makes good on its promises to Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M.  With ESPN’s investment in the UT network, the Big 12 needs to stay alive and a few extra bucks on the conference contract would be money well-spent.

The Big East is a different matter.  That conference has already bore the brunt of having football games moved by ESPN to Thursday nights initially, and then when the SEC, ACC and Pac-12 saw that Thursday was a great night for exposure, the Big East has been kicked around to several Friday nights and even some Wednesday evenings.  Much of the hope of a Big East TV contract increase rested on leveraging its valuable and massive basketball package into better football exposure.  However, if ESPN isn’t willing to pay the Pac-12 TV rights in line with the ACC, then it stands to reason that they’re going to value the Big East even less.  Unless Fox or Comcast swoop in with competing bids for the Big East, the conference’s schools are going to have a difficult time coaxing the increases that they’re hoping for from ESPN.  I’m sure that you’ll see the Big East get what amounts to an inflationary increase (maybe 150% of what they receive now), but not enough to get on the same tier as the other BCS conferences.

Under Point #3, Larry Scott seems extremely determined to start a Pac-12 network.  However, Jon Wilner pointed out a large potential obstacle: Time Warner Cable.  He noted that TWC is the largest cable provided in the Los Angeles market and they’ve had a habit of getting into carriage fights regarding regional sports networks.  What Wilner neglected to mention (and I find to be even more important) is that TWC just sent a Valentine’s Day present to Jerry Buss of what’s rumored to be around $150 million per year to create two new regional sports networks in the LA market (one English language and the other Spanish language) built around the Lakers.  With 3 Fox Sports networks in that market already, that means that the LA market will be supporting 5 RSNs and making it even more crowded than the New York City market.  This crowded environment in the Pac-12’s most important market has huge implications on whether a conference network can realistically be formed.  The Big Ten Network only had to compete with 1 RSN in each of the markets within its footprint (even in its largest market of Chicago, which only has Comcast SportsNet Chicago).  Thus, it was a more palatable for the cable providers to give in when the BTN was RSN #2 on their systems… and even then, it took over a year of carriage fights for them to get to that point.  It’s a much different value proposition for the Pac-12 attempting to enter into market that already has 5 other RSNs – TWC has a whole lot more leverage to demand lower subscriber rates or refuse basic carriage entirely.  Note that a potential Big East Network would face the same issues in the NYC market with so many RSNs already clogging up cable bills.  This was a factor in the Big Ten ultimately deciding to not go after schools like Rutgers or Syracuse in this last round of expansion, as the BTN absolutely had to get basic carriage in the NYC market in order to financially justify those additions, and they didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

Finally, with respect to Point #4, Larry Scott confirmed that all media rights for all Pac-12 members would be controlled by the conference.  This is important for one massive reason: the University of Texas.  With the Pac-12 taking that position, it has effectively wiped out any reasonable possibility of Texas joining the conference in the future, as the new Longhorn Network would be unable to exist under those conditions (and I don’t see UT giving up in excess of $10 million per year for any reason).  For the fear mongerers (who are all wrong, by the way) that continue to believe that UT’s ultimate goal is to end up independent or in the Pac-12, at the very least, that Pac-12 option is gone.  (I’ve listed a multitude of reasons of why UT wants to stay in the Big 12 in perpetuity and, in fact, needs that league to live, but many people seem to believe what they want to believe on that front.)

Fans of all conferences should keep a close eye on the West Coast since how the Pac-12 proceeds will be a significant indicator of how TV networks will pay for college sports in this next round of contracts.

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

Decent BCS Conference Rankings, Hoops at the Olympics, and Helmets Galore: Land-o-Links for 8/12/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, Chicago White Sox, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Olympics, Sports1 Comment

When John Danks throws over 6 innings of no-hit ball and the White Sox still lose to the Red Sox, it’s a day when I should avoid writing about baseball. Here are some links on other issues in the sports world today:

1. The Great Conference Debate (Sports Illustrated) – While these types of rankings that sports websites tend to run during the dog days of summer often carry many flaws (please see last month’s ESPN.com rankings of the nation’s college basketball programs), the methodology used here by SI to compare the BCS football conferences is on the better end. I do believe that national title game appearances should be distinguished from other BCS games (and the lack of such distinction partially explains the Big Ten’s drop from first to fourth), but it is a relatively fair assessment overall. As SEC fans continue to bloviate about how even the worst of their teams could dominate the Big Ten (other than what happened in that pesky game last New Year’s Day where Michigan beat Florida in the Gator territory of Orlando, which has been conveniently forgotten by everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line), it’s important to note that the SI rankings themselves show that the Big Ten was considered to be by far the strongest league during the first part of this decade. College football goes in cycles and the Big Ten is going to be a much tougher conference this year with Ohio State returning almost its entire team and improved squads at Wisconsin and Penn State (and hopefully Illinois). It’s also refreshing to see a balanced assessment of the performance of the ACC (as opposed to a lot of writers that have been very quick to pile on the conference for taking teams from the Big East five years ago while proclaiming that Rutgers is all of the sudden some type of powerhouse after its first two winning seasons since the school gave birth to college football over a century ago) – Florida State and Miami have simultaneously performed about as badly as possible over the past few years, which has masked the increased depth of the conference (while also providing the ACC much more upside if and when those schools get back on track).

2. So far, so good for NBA at Olympics (Sports Media Watch) – For those of us real Americans that don’t live in the Pacific and Mountain time zones and are able to watch many Olympics events live, we know that the most important development from NBC’s Olympic coverage is the resuscitation of John Tesh’s NBA on NBC theme song for basketball games. (If there’s one thing that you should know about me, it’s that I will find every opportunity possible to post old NBA on NBC intros from the 1990s Bulls dynasty. This golden classic from 1991, where Marv Albert speculates whether Michael Jordan would go down as one of the greatest athletes to never win a championship, with footage of Ernie Banks and, of course, O.J. Simpson in the days when he was simply a high-profile Hertz salesman, is the sole reason why YouTube was established.) At the same time, with over one billion people watching the U.S.-China basketball game on Sunday, there’s empirical evidence that Asians love basketball almost as much as they love gambling. Being half-Chinese, I can attest to that fact since every time I see a pop-a-shot machine, my hands start to tremble uncontrollably until I’m able to spend twenty bucks on the game to win 5,000 tickets (which I subsequently redeem for a couple of Tootsie Rolls or, if I’m lucky, a plastic dreidel).

The interesting thing that Sports Media Watch points out is the irony that interest in Olympic hoops in the United States has probably increased because of Team USA’s losses to other countries over the past few years. This is right on the mark – I’m truly going out of my way to watch the basketball games this year for the first time since the original 1992 Dream Team and this is speaking as someone that’s a monster hoops fan. For all of the issues that David Stern has had to deal with over the past few seasons (the Tim Donaghy scandal, the Pistons-Pacers brawl, etc.), the one thing that he’s got going for him is that the NBA is the only American professional sports league that has made legitimate inroads on the international landscape in a broad sense. Baseball has been very popular in a few Latin American countries and Japan for a number of years yet has struggled to break out of those regions, while basketball is being more widely adopted as the second major team sport after soccer on all of the continents (as shown by the fact that five countries, including Yao Ming for the host nation of China and not including the United States, chose current or former NBA players to carry in their flags in the opening ceremonies). The other sports leagues talk a lot about international expansion and may play a game here or there overseas, but the NBA is really the only one that is positioned to become a truly global league as opposed to a curiosity in other countries.

And finally…

3. The Helmet Project – This site has supposedly been in existence for quite awhile, but I just stumbled onto it today (which resulted in me canceling all of my meetings during the afternoon). The comprehensiveness of this site is astounding, as it covers the helmets from all of the various professional sports leagues since 1960 (i.e. USFL, CFL, XFL, etc.) as well as all levels of college football. (Even Minneapolis Red Sox can check out his favorite St. Norbert helmets through the years). As much as I love the Illini, the helmet designs throughout our history have been pretty lackluster – our current helmet, which has been around since 1989 with some minor color adjustments, is essentially an orange version of the New York Giants helmet from the 1980s (which they wisely scrapped a few years ago). The old “Illini” written on the side used through much of the 1970s and 1980s was never really impressive, either. An orange helmet with a blue Block I would be simple, clean-looking, and an exponential improvement, in my opinion.

(Image from New York Times)