What Will Revive the Conference

[PAC MAN]

Responding to @utenation & @All Hail

Don't forget that the Big 12 Tier 1 & 2 deals are equal but each Big 12 school is allowed to sell their tier 3 deals on their own.  That's why UTerus earns $15M/yr from the LHN and I think OU earns about $8-9M/yr.  Where it's a problem with the Pac-12 is that each school is getting like $2.5M/yr (latest figures) versus a minimum of $4-6M for each Big 12 school.  The question is that is it really that big of a gap between the two conferences?

BUT....

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/16/college-hotline-pac-12-finances-total-revenue-school-payouts-network-income-comps-with-secb1g-and-more/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/big12/2017/04/26/big-12-revenue-tax-return-sec/100929214/

Each Pac-12 school in 2016 earned about $28.7M per school versus between $28 to $28.9M per Big 12 school.  Big 12 raked in $313M versus the Pac-12's $488M.

The real problem is the cost of the Pac-12 Network.  If we were paid a similar amount for those third tier rights by like ESPN, each school would be getting $10M instead of just $2M.  If we got rid of the Pac-12 Network and contracted out to someone for those third tier rights with let's say Amazon, Pac-12 schools would be on par with the Big 12 when it comes to the third tier rights.  And if the Pac-12 Network was owned by like Fox Sports like the BTN, chances are good that the take home pay would be greater than $10M per year.  But there's Asia...where at least more than half of the world resides in...$$$.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/18/college-hotline-the-pac-12-revenue-deficit-relative-to-sec-big-ten-is-real-and-its-spectacular/

The B1G and SEC will be taking in about $15M more per year in 2018 especially when the new B1G media rights kicks in.

The revenue gap between the other P5 conferences and Pac-12 appears fixable.  Like @Pac12Fan said, move the conference and network HQ out of the expensive Bay Area!  Nothing wrong with moving that to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, or even Denver.

 

 

[Chad Sexington]

1 hour ago, Downthefield said:

Yeah,  I guess you guys are right.  We can't do anything about scheduling P5 teams because they'll cancel on us.  We can't even trust the games that the games we have scheduled will be played.  And an innovative inter-league arrangement wouldn't work because who knows, we might play the same teams again in bowls, and who would want that.  If Utah just schedules BYU and USU, the Oregon teams stay close to Portland State, the Washington teams lock down Eastern Washington, and Northern Arizona is a regular for ASU and Zona, we'll all be fine.  Nobody east of the Rockies is going to watch us anyway.  And other than our notoriously soft interior lines, and a need to cut one conference game so we ditch the brutal nine game Pac-12 schedule, and we'll be just fine.  We're only $5 million per school behind the muscled Big XII, and we'll never be able to compete with the B1G or SEC as they push for $55-$60 million per school.  No need for this thread.

You make some decent points, but there's no need to panic. 

[KUGRDON]

4 hours ago, Chad Sexington said:

You make some decent points, but there's no need to panic. 

There is a need for more revenue, just no ideas for how to do that in this thread.

[EastCoastFan]

The fools gold here is comparing ourselves with the weak-kneed Big XII, a league that may not exist by the mid-2020's when their best teams are raided by the Big Ten and SEC.  Texas (with ESPN fed up with absorbing Longhorn Network losses) and Oklahoma (on everybody's invite-to-party list) won't be in that league a decade from now.  The only comparison that matters in the long run for the Pac-12 is with the B1G and SEC.

I've worked closely with people at one B1G school, and their every plan involves beating the SEC and being on top.  They're not starting their thinking looking at their bowl record -- that's a product of success, not the cause of it.  They think TV/internet market, which not only gets then mega-dollars, but it also wins them $$$ for staff wars and the attention of recruits.  The last thing they'd be talking about is weekends in Reno.

Think about what they've done in the B1G.  Penn State is resurrected to a perennial top ten team after the worst scandal in college athletic history, one that would have closed many programs down; Harbaugh, every time he sneezes gets more sports press than Belichick; Purdue and Minnesota are raking in far more cash than USC; the addition of Rutgers broke the back of resistance by NYC cable operators on carrying and paying for the B1G Network; Maryland not only wins the DC market, it's the opening infantry operation in their Southern Strategy to sweep down and grab the Tarheels and Georgia Tech.  That conference knows how to win the war we're all in.

Our answer here is to deny there's a problem and say it'll go away, or come up with winning ideas like only playing in-state FCS schools.  Larry Scott's big payday was supposed to be the $$$s flowing in from the Pac-12 network, with the Grand Eastern Rim strategy the answer.  Yeah.  Somehow, going after college football viewers in Texas or Carolina might make more sense than Shanghai and Australia.

[Chile_Ute]

3 hours ago, KUGRDON said:

There is a need for more revenue, just no ideas for how to do that in this thread.

Start selling plasma.

[Chad Sexington]

5 hours ago, KUGRDON said:

There is a need for more revenue, just no ideas for how to do that in this thread.

I'm following an expansion thread on Texas' independent board, ShaggyTexas. There's the usual idiocy, nonsense and drivel that a person might expect from such a 1400 page thread, but there's also some good insight. 

One major recurring theme is that the BigXII and PAC12 should pursue the type of schedule agreement that the PAC12 once explored with the B1G (the one that was down voted by USC and Stanford to protect their ND series). That the leagues should pursue that in lieu of any type of merger. I think that it's an interesting idea and could help in matters of exposure and possibly revenue. That such an agreement would effectively leverage the relative strengths, and conversely cover weaknesses, for both leagues. They want to keep their league because they don't like any of the alternatives.  I think we could probably say the same  

In this same thread are numerous comparisons between BigXII and PAC12 power centers of Texas and California, primarily that the U of Texas, alone, demands more attention in its state than all four California schools do in theirs combined. How is it that the PAC12 can have the demographics without having the influence?  I think it's a good question.

They have a similar problem to the one we have. They're not happy playing second to the B1G or SEC either. Neither do they have sufficiently enticing expansion candidates. Our answer hinges on what the California schools do. I know that Utah is doing everything in its own power, but our impact has a ceiling that is much lower  than that which the California schools have. I know that the answer is not to sacrifice programs on the altar of a supposed "flagship program," nor is it to distribute revenue unequally. Neither the B1G nor the SEC does either of those things, and the PAC12 should be looking at "best practices" of those leagues. 

If the California schools have the power, they also have the responsibility. That's where the answer lies. Tell the conference offices to save money in staff or location or whatever. Those are small changes that would result in some small benefit to each of the schools of around $2mm annually. Get the California schools on board with scheduling, eight league games with no fixed crossovers. Play ball with the rest of the league in pursuing schedule agreements purely for exposure purposes. Push back on game time slots with broadcast partners, or pursue alternatives with Google or whichever partner can take us to the next revenue model. Play Sacred Heart or The Little Sisters of the Poor in Week 9 or 10. Exposure is now, IMHO, our biggest problem. Most of our hurdles are self-inflicted. 

One man's opinion. 

[Bruininthebay]

The OP is implicitly about footballs problems, but keep in mind that the major competition in for the highest total of national championships; we aren't the SEC or Big Ten.   Stanford beat my Bruins to go to 114 -113 in the women's soccer national championship game but we'll even it up soon enough. 

Of course revenue affects the health of the overall  athletic department but consider we have a very different TV business arrangement than the other conferences do.  We operate the conference network so as long as we stay in the black this is fine and we control the profit and revenue so that as revenue grows the conference  keeps all that revenue.  While the Big Ten has control, they don't earn everything their network earns from advertisers because Fox has (and will keep after Disney deal) about 49%   The SEC and ACC networks essentially pay the schools as "talent" with incentives triggered by cable subs but ESPN decides how all the money flows.   We were never in a get paid now mode like the SEC and ACC are.

If you've spent time in the midwest or the south then you know that there is relatively little to do so college sports is way more important than it ever will in the western United States where we have tons to do beyond football.  People have a more active lifestyle in the west, have more options than college football most weekends, and live in areas with some of the best culture and natural geography in the entire world so the amount of fan interest is just not going to be as intense as it is in fly over country.

Also consider that East coast viewers tend to not follow the Pac 12 because the games are on so late.  ESPN and Fox are paying us for Window 4 games but the late starts have killed our national awareness because the games are on so late.

Neither the Pac 12, SEC, Big Ten or ACC wants Oklahoma to join.  Oklahoma definitely couldn't get into the Big Ten because they aren't an AAU school and are very far from becoming one.  There is no way that the SEC would expand without Texas because that is the only school with potential to earn the $80 million in additional revenue that paying two more schools in a theoretical sixteen team conference.   West Virginia is just as good a choice for the 16th SEC team along with Texas.  Oklahoma just isn't that important a state.

[EastCoastFan]

Here's one plan being tossed around in SEC country for adding Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, with KU and Texas headed to the B1G:

Link:  https://www.seccountry.com/sec/16-team-sec-expansion-proposal-conference-playoff-college-football-oklahoma

 

[All Hail]

6 hours ago, KUGRDON said:

There is a need for more revenue, just no ideas for how to do that in this thread.

The answer is simple but would involve Larry Scott swallowing his own pride and admitting he was wrong.  We need to partner with a real fucking distributor.  Whether that's Fox, or preferably ESPN, we need one of those media engines to increase our branding and distribute our fucking product and they need to be part owners so that they have a real financial incentive to do so.  Not partnering with a distributor was the stupidest business decision in conference history.  It was a huge gamble -- when a gamble wasn't needed - and it has completely fucked us.  Now the economic separation between conferences is laughable.  When Mississippi State and Rutgers make 10 million more than USC per season, we have fucked ourselves.  Can you imagine a future where Northwestern is outbidding USC for a football coach?  That future is coming real soon. 

[Chad Sexington]

Page 1348 of the Shaggy Texas realignment thread that discusses the concerns we seem to share:  http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/108844-Realignment-talk-not-going-away/page1348

[Bruininthebay]

2 hours ago, Downthefield said:

Here's one plan being tossed around in SEC country for adding Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, with KU and Texas headed to the B1G:

Link:  https://www.seccountry.com/sec/16-team-sec-expansion-proposal-conference-playoff-college-football-oklahoma

 

Extremely credible source.  Oklahoma and Oklahoma to the SEC is imminent...

[Scscsc89]

10 hours ago, KUGRDON said:

There is a need for more revenue, just no ideas for how to do that in this thread.

Ok, but you migh not like it.   Drop Wazzu & Oregon State down to G5 so that the remaining schools can each have a bigger slice of the pie AND we can go back to a round robin in football.

[KUGRDON]

26 minutes ago, Scscsc89 said:

Ok, but you migh not like it.   Drop Wazzu & Oregon State down to G5 so that the remaining schools can each have a bigger slice of the pie AND we can go back to a round robin in football.

Realignment is inevitable.  Money rules.   CFB is huge business being run for the exclusive financial benefit of ADs, coaches and staff.  There will be a watershed moment or charismatic leader which causes players to organize.

Players will be making good money (for college students) 5-10 years from now with the SEC paying the highest “salaries”.  Only consolidating realignment can keep schools like USC in the mix.

 

[Scscsc89]

Yep — I’m not for it, but I think it will happen.

[Scscsc89]

Playoff payoff in first 4 years, per Wilner...

Big 12: $31 million (per school)
Big Ten: $27.3 million
Pac-12: $26.1 million
SEC: $25.3 million
ACC: $22.9 million

[PapaG]

On 1/4/2018 at 7:49 PM, potrerosf said:

There are more enough American, CUSA, MAC, Mountain West and Sunbelt teams looking for games with Power 5 teams to schedule this way.  All of the Group of 5 play eight conference games, so they intend to schedule at least two Power 5 games every year and there are 65  teams in both the "Power 5" and the "Group of 5".

Those teams need home games too, and it would be stupid for Pac 12 teams to consistently schedule home-and-home series with a G5 conference.  

Playing FCS teams sure doesn't seem to be hurting the ACC/Big 12/SEC in terms of making the playoffs.  Had tOSU scheduled Youngstown State instead of Oklahoma, they would have been in the playoffs over Alabama.  USC and UCLA pride themselves on not playing FCS teams, yet neither of them has even sniffed a playoff berth.

[PapaG]

On 1/5/2018 at 9:06 AM, Orange said:

You realize Corvallis is actually closer to Portland than Eugene is, right?  

And no, Eugene does not "stand on its own" with respect to being a large city.  At all.  

It's 160,000 people, and it's growing at a very slow rate.  No metric of measuring metro or statistical population areas puts Eugene in the Portland area.  Oregon is successful thanks to branding, and its Nike backing.  Period.

I assume he meant more about Portland because of so many OS and UO alumni that live here.  Eugene can't stand alone, obviously, but Corvallis being closer to Portland geographically isn't important in terms of Portland's TV market.  Lose OS and Wazzu, and the Pac 12 loses tens of thousands of eyeballs that aren't going to be made up by people watching Pac 12 football in Kansas City or Oklahoma City.

[Bruininthebay]

The overall compensation for the remaining ten schools (9 urban + Oregon/Nike) would equal or exceed the present value for a couple reasons.

First, the decrease in less intriguing matchups for viewers and guarantee every team plays every other every year means that there are a greater number of valuable games to TV broadcasters relative to the value of 

Second, the remaining ten schools would receive a propionate increase even if compensation is the same.

The 'Tens of thousands" of OSU and WSU game viewers compensate but do not eliminate the operational loss created by producing and broadcasting ~20 low rated games every year. 

FYI Just because there is money in the revenue column doesn't mean that the business is making a profit.

[PapaG]

On 1/5/2018 at 12:28 PM, Orange said:

Honestly, that strikes me as an incredibly sad life.  But they sure seem to be happy....

I couldn't do it.  I'd be miserable if my life revolved around a football game and attending as many as possible.

 

As an example, I play in a friend's charity golf tournament every mid-September.  Friday-Saturday, done by noon on Saturday.  The golf is fun, the cause is great, but my favorite part of that weekend is after the tournament at my friend's house.  Huge pool, TVs everywhere, basketball hoop in the pool for HORSE games, and we drink beer and watch football all Saturday afternoon, head out for breakfast Sunday am, then do the same damn thing Sunday watching NFL games before taking the 6am-ish flights out of there Monday morning to our respective home towns.

If UO played in Phoenix, where living here I go to maybe 3 Ducks games at most a season, I'd probably go to one at most and just have pool parties for the games and watch them on TV while BBQing and drinking from the kegs.  I don't know why anyone who lives in the Phoenix area would want to go to a game.  That's a commitment!  Even more with the Cardinals since the stadium Glendale is in the middle of nowhere with nothing but chain restaurants in that little village by it.

My brother was at the Bama-Miss State game this year in Starkville and said it blew away any college football experience he's had attending a game, anywhere.  

[PapaG]

On 1/5/2018 at 4:29 PM, Downthefield said:

What I was attempting to say was that if a team like Colorado can schedule two P5 teams a year, any Pac-12 school ought to be able to.  Even Oregon State with the schools I listed.  And if Stanford can schedule three P5 schools, teams like Oregon shouldn't be "bulking up" with things like their "notable" 2018 out-of-conference schedule, with the killer lineup of Bowling Green, Portland State, and San Jose State.  A slate like that will rivet fans of college football from coast to coast to watching the Ducks.....

Huh?

First of all, Texas A&M backed out of playing Oregon, and in a year Oregon plays only 4 home games in the Pac 12, they are going to replace that game with a home game so it's a 7/5 balance.  Every major program wants 7 home games every year.

For the 2019 game, UO set up a game with Auburn since they already have 7 home games scheduled.  Sorry, but UO isn't going to play only 6 home games in a season, nor should they do so.  A one-off away game against a P5 with no scheduled return isn't going to happen, either, which is why the Auburn game is at Jerry World in 2019.

Also, here is CU's past and future OOC games.  I believe all CSU games are in Denver.

2015 CU OOC - UMass/Nichols State/@Hawaii/CSU (Denver)

2016 CU OOC - CSU/Idaho State/@Michigan

2017 CU OOC - CSU/Texas State/Northern Colorado

2018 CU OOC - CSU/@Nebraska/New Hampshire

2019 CU OOC - CSU/Nebraska/Air Force 

2020 CU OOC - CSU/Fresno State/@aTm

2021 CU OOC - UMass/aTm/Minnesota - TWO P5 teams, for now...

2022 CU OOC - TCU/@Air Force/@Minnesota - TWO P5 teams ... for now