Conference Realignment

gtie73

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Can we be united against FSU?

Gym Class I Give Up GIF by Blue Ice Pictures
ok by me
 

Techster

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This is the point I made earlier in this thread. It makes sense if you look at it through the lens of consolidation...not just of conferences, but of on air talent, production costs, travel for crews, etc. Probably going to save hundreds of millions every year just on those items.

 

LT 1967

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Ross Dellenger reporting that the ACC/ESPN deal will be 72 million for Stanford, CAL, and SMU. Approximately 55 Mil of the 72 Mil to be for the Performance distribution.

Presidents and ADs meeting tomorrow. Ross says there is confidence among the members that the deal will pass and that the deal will be completed by early next week.
 

CEB

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This is the point I made earlier in this thread. It makes sense if you look at it through the lens of consolidation...not just of conferences, but of on air talent, production costs, travel for crews, etc. Probably going to save hundreds of millions every year just on those items.


I think Stewie’s tweet is a bit inaccurate. Tons of articles out there but one of them (probably somewhere in this thread) had a really good blow by blow of the PAC demise. They had an offer of $30m / school. They countered at $50, B12 jumped on a new $30M-ish deal in the interim and PAC missed out.
I guess in the end no one would give them the money, but the money was there and they said no thanks...
 

Vespidae

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This is the point I made earlier in this thread. It makes sense if you look at it through the lens of consolidation...not just of conferences, but of on air talent, production costs, travel for crews, etc. Probably going to save hundreds of millions every year just on those items.


It’s human nature.

A former colleague of mine had worked for a motorcycle dealer. The owner told him, “Don’t take anything less than $5,000.“

So my colleague quotes a price, the prospect heads for the parking lot, and the owner chases after him. And then closes for $4100.

”I thought you said, don’t take less than $5,000?”, my friend said.

The owner replied. “Yep. That’s the showroom price. $4100 is the parking lot price.”

Things don’t change.
 

yeti92

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Do we have to make them actual members, or can they just be temporary until 2036 but with no voting rights?
 

cpf2001

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This is the point I made earlier in this thread. It makes sense if you look at it through the lens of consolidation...not just of conferences, but of on air talent, production costs, travel for crews, etc. Probably going to save hundreds of millions every year just on those items.


I know I've been beating this drum a lot, but it sounds like a really bad thing for the future of the sport.

There are two types of businesses: those that grow, and those that extract on their way down after a peak.

All of this conference shuffling looks like the "haves" just trying to extract a bigger share from a declining future.

Like if Google came out tomorrow and said "hey, we've never made much money on anything but ads, so we're shutting down all our R&D and other businesses" - does that make you want to buy them for the long term?

There's no guarantee that CFB could be better managed to *grow* the game in all these markets, and for all these programs, that are getting shafted by the consolidation, but if you don't even try then you definitely won't succeed.

A visionary at the head of the sport would say "shoot, so much of our revenue is concentrated into just a few programs? That's *so many opportunities* to grow other programs up to those levels!" Not "well, kill the losers, lol."

Obviously we know there's no powerful central leadership, but let's stop celebrating the supposed acumen of the most vicious dogs in a dogfight that's liable to leave everyone slowly bleeding out.
 

roadkill

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I know I've been beating this drum a lot, but it sounds like a really bad thing for the future of the sport.

There are two types of businesses: those that grow, and those that extract on their way down after a peak.

All of this conference shuffling looks like the "haves" just trying to extract a bigger share from a declining future.

Like if Google came out tomorrow and said "hey, we've never made much money on anything but ads, so we're shutting down all our R&D and other businesses" - does that make you want to buy them for the long term?

There's no guarantee that CFB could be better managed to *grow* the game in all these markets, and for all these programs, that are getting shafted by the consolidation, but if you don't even try then you definitely won't succeed.

A visionary at the head of the sport would say "shoot, so much of our revenue is concentrated into just a few programs? That's *so many opportunities* to grow other programs up to those levels!" Not "well, kill the losers, lol."

Obviously we know there's no powerful central leadership, but let's stop celebrating the supposed acumen of the most vicious dogs in a dogfight that's liable to leave everyone slowly bleeding out.
A common business cycle is one where you start with a lot of competitors vying for a piece of the market. The best ones, and the best-financed ones, make it to the highest tier. Others fall by the wayside. Then, to gain further competitive advantages, consolidations (mergers and acquisitions) start to occur.

We’re obviously in the last part of this cycle. Ultimately, I still believe that the remaining pieces of the P5, or possibly all of FBS, will have their own separate governance, and bow to the oversight of the Playoff once it grows some more. Marquee matchups will control the lion's share of the revenue.
 

cpf2001

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It’s the haves trying to extract a bigger share of a growing pie. And it is growing. Just not evenly.

I think the free-money-era and media arms race prompted by the emergence of streaming made people confuse revenue growth spurred by media company turf wars with actual growth.

I'm worried about attendance trends. I'm worried about viewership trends. Even the highest rated playoff games the past three years have gotten a fair bit fewer viewers (more than 10% less) than the highest rated one of the years before that: https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-playoff-ratings-bcs-history/ And we haven't come close to the 34M who watched Ohio State/Oregon in 2014.

A common business cycle is one where you start with a lot of competitors vying for a piece of the market. The best ones, and the best-financed ones, make it to the highest tier. Others fall by the wayside. Then, to gain further competitive advantages, consolidations (mergers and acquisitions) start to occur.

We’re obviously in the last part of this cycle. Ultimately, I still believe that the remaining pieces of the P5, or possibly all of FBS, will have their own separate governance, and bow to the oversight of the Playoff once it grows some more. Marquee matchups will control the lion's share of the revenue.

I think it's shortsighted to look at the cycle within the sport instead of around the sport. IMO the competition is every other sports league, and CFB's fractured management is very bad at making moves that will position it to be relevant nationally against other leagues.

Every program that gets left by the wayside is some fraction of fan eyeballs and $$$ from the 2000-2015ish heyday of the sport. And there's a smaller pool of programs with a smaller geographical footprint, and smaller combined student bodies, to replace them from.

If the NHL contracted down to just the Canadian teams + Minnesota/NY/Bos/Pitt/Philly, say... would you consider that a positive for the sport's future revenue? How's that sort of geographical retrenchment around the biggest names different than what CFB's doing?
 

bobongo

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Wolken being funny. Others do it, its a business decision. ACC does it, and suddenly it's jaywalking on Moral Ave.
I suppose a fella needs clicks.....
It's pretty much the ACC throwing in the towel on the future of the conference. They're just scarfing the money off the table and running with it. Stanford and Cal are desperate, and the ACC is taking advantage of the situation. The only way this makes sense in the long run is if they can lure ND to the ACC with it. But ND isn't coming.
 
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