Conference Realignment

[slugboy]

How real is this discussion? Is this likely, imminent, or just a thought exercise? I haven't seen anything near this substantial of a discussion in other channels. Whats driving it?

I’m confident that we’ll play an ACC schedule in 2023 and for a while after.

All the conditions are there for an unsustainable revenue gap. However, I’ve seen plenty of organizations faced with an unsustainable situation continue straight ahead and set full steam straight for the iceberg. For example , we’re watching the NCAA do that with NIL.

 

[orientalnc]

I’m confident that we’ll play an ACC schedule in 2023 and for a while after.

All the conditions are there for an unsustainable revenue gap. However, I’ve seen plenty of organizations faced with an unsustainable situation continue straight ahead and set full steam straight for the iceberg. For example , we’re watching the NCAA do that with NIL.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond is also a perfect example.

 

[forensicbuzz]

The premature breakup of the ACC only happens if ESPN and Fox want it to happen- they will be the behind the scenes architects. Currently the ACC is a bargain for espn, but maybe the money gap continually makes the product worse until the viewership numbers tank?

I disagree with this. They could drive this to happen, but at the same time they can’t stop it from happening.

 

[orientalnc]

SEC expansion benefits the SEC in what way???

FSU - The SEC already owns the entire TV market in Florida and Georgia. There is no additional revenue with FSU coming to the SEC.
Clemson - See FSU, above.
NC State - The SEC Network is already on every cable system in NC.
VA Tech - The SEC might want eyes in VA, but VT already tried this and the State Leg said VT and UVA have be in the same conference. UVA has plenty of money, they don't want the SEC schools.

B1G expansion benefits the B1G in what way???

UVA - They already have Northern Virginia, but this would solidify the mid-Atlantic region.
UNC/Duke - This is the plum for the B1G. The three big NC markets where they are currently weak connects to the mid-Atlantic.
GT - The Atlanta market is the next plum, but would eyes divert from the SEC?

It is also possible the B1G will stand pat until Notre Dame decides to join a conference.

 

[Richard7125]

Where have you been, all of this has been discussed for a while now, you must have just dropped in. So I'm not going to go through it all.

I’ve been here. I just didn’t believe anyone would take a comment about 8 teams going from the ACC to the SEC/Big10 seriously.

 

[RonJohn]

I’ve been here. I just didn’t believe anyone would take a comment about 8 teams going from the ACC to the SEC/Big10 seriously.

Just listen to the FSU commenters/Youtube people/etc. Somebody posted something on Twitter about FSU announcing their departure before the beginning of the football season, and they all are taking it as a verified fact instead of just someone on Twitter. Nobody cares about what is actually true, only what the collective group believes to be true. It goes so far as to morph. This guy said X, so Y must be true also, then Z, then ....... The really bad thing is that even though 99% of what they are all discussing is simply made up, if someone says ONE THING that is correct and ten that are not, he will gain credibility for that one thing. Then when he says something in the future, the mass public will accept it as fact even though his track record is only 10%.

 

[slugboy]

SEC expansion benefits the SEC in what way???

FSU - The SEC already owns the entire TV market in Florida and Georgia. There is no additional revenue with FSU coming to the SEC.
Clemson - See FSU, above.
NC State - The SEC Network is already on every cable system in NC.
VA Tech - The SEC might want eyes in VA, but VT already tried this and the State Leg said VT and UVA have be in the same conference. UVA has plenty of money, they don't want the SEC schools.

B1G expansion benefits the B1G in what way???

UVA - They already have Northern Virginia, but this would solidify the mid-Atlantic region.
UNC/Duke - This is the plum for the B1G. The three big NC markets where they are currently weak connects to the mid-Atlantic.
GT - The Atlanta market is the next plum, but would eyes divert from the SEC?

It is also possible the B1G will stand pat until Notre Dame decides to join a conference.

FSU and Clemson are viewers and subscribers. People will pay extra to see games like FSU-Tennessee. With Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC picked up about 15-20 marquee matchups a year. Texas pulls in more interest than almost anyone, but Clemson and FSU still pull in more interest than about half the SEC—more than Missouri or Arkansas or Mississippi State. They’d be a net positive for the SEC if they had media rights.

 

[orientalnc]

FSU and Clemson are viewers and subscribers. People will pay extra to see games like FSU-Tennessee. With Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC picked up about 15-20 marquee matchups a year. Texas pulls in more interest than almost anyone, but Clemson and FSU still pull in more interest than about half the SEC—more than Missouri or Arkansas or Mississippi State. They’d be a net positive for the SEC if they had media rights.

Explain to me how the SEC benefits based on viewers and subscribers. At least during the life of their current agreement.

 

[RonJohn]

FSU and Clemson are viewers and subscribers. People will pay extra to see games like FSU-Tennessee. With Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC picked up about 15-20 marquee matchups a year. Texas pulls in more interest than almost anyone, but Clemson and FSU still pull in more interest than about half the SEC—more than Missouri or Arkansas or Mississippi State. They’d be a net positive for the SEC if they had media rights.

This post is mostly just my opinion.

I don't think they would be a net positive to the SEC for some time going forward. We are still in a transition from the old media system which was driven mainly by subscribers in media markets to direct consumption of media. The SEC Network already gets an additional dollar or more for every cable/sat/subscription television service in Florida and South Carolina. FSU and Clemson add zero dollars to that, which is still a significant part of the SEC media dollars. I am not sure, but I don't think Texas added any dollars to that either. Remember that ESPN and their affiliated networks (including SEC) still get much more revenue from subscriptions than they do from advertising. Adding a large media market can increase revenue by millions per month, while adding better games only increases ad revenue somewhat.

I think that it will be several more years before the SEC could make significantly more in direct to consumer media products vs the current television subscription model. I think the SEC is planning for the future. They added Texas and Oklahoma at the end of their current contracts, not because it is in the best interest now, but because they didn't want to wait another 15-20 years to do it. With Clemson and FSU, currently they would not only not increase their revenue to match payouts to Clemson and FSU, they would not even get the media rights for those teams. Imagine a chart of two lines: The money made from direct to consumer media and the total cost of the ACC GORs. The direct to consumer money will be increasing every year, while the GORs cost will be decreasing every year. At some point it will make sense for the SEC to recruit them. I don't think we are at that point yet.

 

[forensicbuzz]

The SEC and B1G have very different TV revenue models.

The B1G is about markets and TV sets within those markets. They benefit from having a presence in every large TV market they can. So, NC, FL, ATL, SF/SJ are markets they want to be in.

The SEC is more about actual eyeballs on games. They’re drifting towards a subscription-based / March-up based situation. They care more about marquis match-ups and less about geographic territory.

As someone has posted on here before, the B1G is interested in a national stage for their network and TV partners, while the SEC is focused on marquis match-ups on other networks.

Because they have two different paths to their end goals, the SEC and B1G have two different approaches to what they’re doing. Plus the AAU is a big deal to the B1G.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

ESPN does not have the leverage nor the cash to control college athletics like they did 8-10 years ago.

True, but they have way more leverage and cash than the combined schools of the ACC...

 

[slugboy]

Explain to me how the SEC benefits based on viewers and subscribers. At least during the life of their current agreement.

The SEC already negotiated more money from ESPN for Texas and Oklahoma. What ESPN wants is big games. They want Texas vs Alabama much more than Arkansas vs Missouri, and they’re willing to shell out more money for that.

Or, they were willing to last year.

Clemson vs UGA and FSU vs Tennessee are those kind of games. Ole Miss has gotten into the mix lately under Kiffin. ESPN wants big numbers.

 

[g0lftime]

Bed, Bath, and Beyond is also a perfect example.

I have a bunch of 20% off coupons I can share.

 

[orientalnc]

I have a bunch of 20% off coupons I can share.

I saw a request on Twitter from someone collecting coupons to wallpaper a workshop bathroom. I think they got enough replies to wallpaper the Superdome.

 

[Root4GT]

Any time you add a team the conference adds a share going out from it's revenues. If a team can't bring in more in revenue annually going forward why would either the SEC or B1G want to add more teams?

ND is likely the only team in the Country that would bring in more revenue than paying out an additional share would cost. Both Conferences are nearly saturated with coverage/teams.

The West Coast market was the one where lots of viewers could be added simply due to the Time Zone difference for 7-8PM Pacific Time starts for games. Very few East coast people watch those games. With B1G teams playing in LA lots more Midwest eyeballs watch some of those late games.

 

[roadkill]

Any time you add a team the conference adds a share going out from it's revenues. If a team can't bring in more in revenue annually going forward why would either the SEC or B1G want to add more teams?

ND is likely the only team in the Country that would bring in more revenue than paying out an additional share would cost. Both Conferences are nearly saturated with coverage/teams.

The West Coast market was the one where lots of viewers could be added simply due to the Time Zone difference for 7-8PM Pacific Time starts for games. Very few East coast people watch those games. With B1G teams playing in LA lots more Midwest eyeballs watch some of those late games.

It will be interesting to see what ND does when its current NBC contract expires after the 2024 season, which isn't that far away. They currently receive only $22M from NBC plus about $10M from the ACC, putting them at or near the bottom of the P5. Should they choose to remain independent, they would need to negotiate much higher revenue from a network in order to attain competitive revenue. An easier path would be to join a conference.

 

[TooTall]

It will be interesting to see what ND does when its current NBC contract expires after the 2024 season, which isn't that far away. They currently receive only $22M from NBC plus about $10M from the ACC, putting them at or near the bottom of the P5. Should they choose to remain independent, they would need to negotiate much higher revenue from a network in order to attain competitive revenue. An easier path would be to join a conference.

Best case scenario, is ND joins ACC in 2025, which is the next time the scheduling PODS switch up.
If we get them, we can renegotiate with E$PN and that will help us make it to the end of the GOR before we bolt to BIG with ND, F$U, UNCheat and UVA.

 

[RonJohn]

I don't think that the Big10 would do this, but:

The estimates that I saw for UCLA joining the Big10 said that the Big10 network price change in LA went from 10 cents per subscriber to $1.50 per subscriber. The Atlanta media market is at about 2.7 million households. Rough numbers projecting to the entire state that would be 4-4.5 million TV subscription households in the state. If the Big10 network is able to increase by $1.4 per subscriber per month, that would be $67 to $75 million additional gross revenue without even broadcasting a single game from Atlanta. (I don't know how a home market area is defined in the distribution contracts, so it might not count if home games are not broadcast. But it might just be a team in the market.) UNC would be in a similar position. That money wouldn't make up what the payout to GT nor UNC would be, but it isn't so far off that it would be immediately discarded. The SEC on the other hand, would not immediately make additional revenue off of any ACC team South of Virginia.

Once again, I do not see this scenario happening, but I think it is a lot more likely than any of the "theories" being spouted on social media.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

It will be interesting to see what ND does when its current NBC contract expires after the 2024 season, which isn't that far away. They currently receive only $22M from NBC plus about $10M from the ACC, putting them at or near the bottom of the P5. Should they choose to remain independent, they would need to negotiate much higher revenue from a network in order to attain competitive revenue. An easier path would be to join a conference.

NDs TV money will probably triple this time around. I'm guessing around $75 million a year.

 

[cpf2001]

I don't think that the Big10 would do this, but:

The estimates that I saw for UCLA joining the Big10 said that the Big10 network price change in LA went from 10 cents per subscriber to $1.50 per subscriber. The Atlanta media market is at about 2.7 million households. Rough numbers projecting to the entire state that would be 4-4.5 million TV subscription households in the state. If the Big10 network is able to increase by $1.4 per subscriber per month, that would be $67 to $75 million additional gross revenue without even broadcasting a single game from Atlanta. (I don't know how a home market area is defined in the distribution contracts, so it might not count if home games are not broadcast. But it might just be a team in the market.) UNC would be in a similar position. That money wouldn't make up what the payout to GT nor UNC would be, but it isn't so far off that it would be immediately discarded. The SEC on the other hand, would not immediately make additional revenue off of any ACC team South of Virginia.

Once again, I do not see this scenario happening, but I think it is a lot more likely than any of the "theories" being spouted on social media.

Carriage fees like that have been the strategy for a while but they’re hitting some limits. Look at the streaming TV services dropping Bally stuff, or never picking up the new Dodgers TV network.

I see no reason to believe that squeezing more money out of cable subscribers is gonna get any easier with the wealth of other options out there and the overall decline in cable subscriptions especially among younger demographics.

From the numbers linked here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States#Statistics that’s close to a 20% drop in the last few years.

Sports are going to have to move direct to consumer and what sort of league footprints look best for that? I think the B1G has the inside track there. But you probably need something more like a 60 team national footprint so that the left-behinds don’t simply stop paying for your product.