Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

[Belvis Noland]

Notre Dame is like a hot girl who somehow became a paraplegic. Still has a great rack, but she's in a goddamn wheelchair.

Curious as to whether Belvis thinks the girl and wheelchair should be crowd surfed.

 

As to the girl, she should absolutely be surfed.  As to the chair and mocat's frat brother, I say no. 

[MadCat]

I agree with that guy that distribution is going to change tremendously, but how exactly are schools/networks going to monetize all of those disparate feeds to various devices.  His "put it on the Internet = $$$" thesis hasn't exactly always played out exactly like that.

Saul probably knows this better than most of us, but I presume, eventually, most of us will be connecting through virtual desktop like portals via cloud based computing so that folks using smart phones, tablet devices, and PCs will be able to use the same stuff.

Also, it appears that the line between phone/tablet OS and laptop/desktop OS is starting to blur, and eventually, most of those will most likely merge into pretty much the same thing for all intents and purposes.

I watched the same KStateHD.tv feed on both a tablet and a PC two weeks ago.  The technical logistics already don't matter.  I don't need Saul to tell me that. 

The implication in the post I was responding to was that either because all of these devices exist or the pipes to consumers are getting bigger and more numerous that owning third tier content is going to become an important, perhaps even dominant, revenue stream. 

What I am saying is that in the case that every big boy school owns their own streaming service or cable channel, that doesn't mean that they are going to be able a earn significant revenue because of it.  Are you going to pay for an FSU subscription?  Do you think that some kind of embedded ads on a feed streamed to whatever screen you happen to watch a Longhorn vs Wyoming game are gong to make more money than the current television advertising model?  Because that's what UNLV guy seems to be saying.

Just because lots of people want to watch something stream over the Internet, does not mean that you are going to be able to get lots of money for it.

You can leverage viewership for more advertising $$$.  If you get enough $$$ from advertising, then you could provide the content for no charge (which could potentially enhance your viewership)...unfortunately, not enough people would want to watch K-State and sit through commercials to do it.

[SleepFighter]

I agree with that guy that distribution is going to change tremendously, but how exactly are schools/networks going to monetize all of those disparate feeds to various devices.  His "put it on the Internet = $$$" thesis hasn't exactly always played out exactly like that.

Saul probably knows this better than most of us, but I presume, eventually, most of us will be connecting through virtual desktop like portals via cloud based computing so that folks using smart phones, tablet devices, and PCs will be able to use the same stuff.

Also, it appears that the line between phone/tablet OS and laptop/desktop OS is starting to blur, and eventually, most of those will most likely merge into pretty much the same thing for all intents and purposes.

I watched the same KStateHD.tv feed on both a tablet and a PC two weeks ago.  The technical logistics already don't matter.  I don't need Saul to tell me that. 

The implication in the post I was responding to was that either because all of these devices exist or the pipes to consumers are getting bigger and more numerous that owning third tier content is going to become an important, perhaps even dominant, revenue stream. 

What I am saying is that in the case that every big boy school owns their own streaming service or cable channel, that doesn't mean that they are going to be able a earn significant revenue because of it.  Are you going to pay for an FSU subscription?  Do you think that some kind of embedded ads on a feed streamed to whatever screen you happen to watch a Longhorn vs Wyoming game are gong to make more money than the current television advertising model?  Because that's what UNLV guy seems to be saying.

Just because lots of people want to watch something stream over the Internet, does not mean that you are going to be able to get lots of money for it.

You can leverage viewership for more advertising $$$.  If you get enough $$$ from advertising, then you could provide the content for no charge (which could potentially enhance your viewership)...unfortunately, not enough people would want to watch K-State and sit through commercials to do it.

Yeah, I get that, which is why I gave an example of both a subscription and advertising based model.  Either way, the number of people watching games (particularly tier 3 games) isn't going to change dramatically just because of THE INTERNETZ.

[MadCat]

Yeah, I get that, which is why I gave an example of both a subscription and advertising based model.  Either way, the number of people watching games (particularly tier 3 games) isn't going to change dramatically just because of THE INTERNETZ.

If a school is able to get more high-interest content to qualify as 3rd tier (i.e. more football games) that would equate to more money.  I'm sure Texas is trying for force more of their content in that direction.  The networks are probably very leery of this sort of shift (unless you have the contract like ESPN re: LHN)

[Pete]

Also it kind of sounds like crazy conspiracy stuff.

It was meant to be, I was speculating, dumb ass.

[SleepFighter]

Again, I agree with you.  There are games you can play to make incrementally more money if you do one kind of thing versus the other. 

But the UNLV guy's post basically says that everyone in sports marketing or whatever is just 100% sure that ESPN is going to be swimming in cash Scrooge McDuck style before the end of the LHN contract because of increases in bandwidth and the fact that we'll all have devices that we can watch anywhere.  I think that guy is full of crap, is all I'm saying.

[michigancat]

I fully expect ESPN and LHN to eventually be a fantastic success.

[steve dave]

Also it kind of sounds like crazy conspiracy stuff.

It was meant to be, I was speculating, dumb ass.

k. sorry

[steve dave]

I fully expect ESPN and LHN to eventually be a fantastic success.

there's no way it fails

[MakeItRain]

From the WVU site, but it's talking about another radio report.

Bill had Lou Somogyi with the Notre Dame 227 site and they were talking about future schedules.  Lou mentioned the 3 home 2 away scenerio for ND and suggested the "away games" for ND would be places like NYC for the Syracuse "home" game and Atlanta for the Clemson "home" game.  I bet you none of the ACC schools will ever see ND actually play a football game in their stadiums.  I for one am thrilled we didn't get the 'ol ND up the keester agreement that the ACC ended up with.

I would make ND play the return game at Lucas Oil Field ( or whatever it is called ) or Soldier Field in that case.

no you wouldn't, no one in the ACC has that much juice, klanpanhandleaggy included

[MadCat]

From the WVU site, but it's talking about another radio report.

Bill had Lou Somogyi with the Notre Dame 227 site and they were talking about future schedules.  Lou mentioned the 3 home 2 away scenerio for ND and suggested the "away games" for ND would be places like NYC for the Syracuse "home" game and Atlanta for the Clemson "home" game.  I bet you none of the ACC schools will ever see ND actually play a football game in their stadiums.  I for one am thrilled we didn't get the 'ol ND up the keester agreement that the ACC ended up with.

I would make ND play the return game at Lucas Oil Field ( or whatever it is called ) or Soldier Field in that case.

no you wouldn't, no one in the ACC has that much juice, klanpanhandleaggy included

You know, if I were king (this is usually the constant in my "I would...." comments).  I realize they are all powerless once they let ND in the (back)door.

[chum1]

Can ND win an ACC conference championship?

[steve dave]

Can ND win an ACC conference championship?

no

[Ira Hayes]

Again, I agree with you.  There are games you can play to make incrementally more money if you do one kind of thing versus the other. 

But the UNLV guy's post basically says that everyone in sports marketing or whatever is just 100% sure that ESPN is going to be swimming in cash Scrooge McDuck style before the end of the LHN contract because of increases in bandwidth and the fact that we'll all have devices that we can watch anywhere.  I think that guy is full of crap, is all I'm saying.

If Alabama and LSU play a football game right now and it's televised on ESPN then ESPN owns the rights to that production forever.  When OU and KSU play on Fox next weekend, Fox will own the rights to that broadcast until Monday morning.

If you want to watch it again? You have to pay the schools. Right now it's primitive.  Pay $85 to kstatehd.tv and watch it again. It will change.

I'm just brainstorming here. I'm sure reality will turn out different:

You want to make a fatty-style video for YouTube?  Here's a convenient service to grab whatever chunk of video you want for a small fee. Want to stick video of your favorite play onto Facebook with your own play-by-play?  Easy. Only a few pennies.

And once people get used to the online distribution they can add even more content. In the old days (now) they invite TV stations to the press conferences. They give it away just to generate interest in the program.  Want to watch the "Charlie Weis gets fired" press conference live in HD? That'll be a dollar. Want to just see the filtered highlights?  There will be 20 versions of the highlights up on YouTube in about a half hour from people who bought it from our convenient video service.

The schools will get paid for that.

[Emo EMAW]

Guys, if the games are more accessible, more people are going to watch them.  Not rocket science here.

[steve dave]

That's a good point Ira

[kougar24]

Nebraska-to-Big-Ten makes no sense.

LOL, oh kougs.

[SleepFighter]

That's a good point Ira

Is it?  It might be, seriously maybe it is, but "cool idea put on the web that people like and use, but doesn't make any money" is a tale as old as time.

[KITNfury]

If he's right at all, we're in the right conference, but not sure it's good for us since we don't have a big brand, but here is UNLV guy's follow up

1. Poll after poll and study after study tell us the samething. Mostpeoplewill time shift through commercials if given the option, BUT most sports fans would rather watch their sports live than taped. It is one of the last places you can find that discrepancy on a nightly basis. You can't bank on The Oscars every night of the week, and the only other genre that tests well for live viewers is cable news. Unfortunately that segment is pretty well carved out with not much potential for future advertising growth. Also it is mostly a 40+ audience which advertisers do not covet, so that is why you typically get the cheap "buy gold" "new catheter" "reverse mortage" products they advertise. This is the mainreason why soap operas and sitcoms are losing their network time slots to cheap reality/talent/game shows and... SPORTS. Game shows are cheap and fill time, but sports are where the advertising money is now. Like a lot of you have commented, look at the exponential growth every sports league have experienced in the last 10 years, and then think the last 3 years, even more so. Do you time shift regular tv? But do you time shift your favorite team? Advertisers know that too. Its not a secret and with Dish Network making dvr's that cut the commercials out completely, the trend is not going to change. "Live eyeballs" has become the new "ratings" in the age of DVR's. Who cares how many people watched the show, how many people actually saw my ad is what advertisers are asking. Thereis a reason youcanfind football on tv 5 nights a week now, and don't be surprised when it gets to 7. Sports leagues say, we offer a unique product with an enormous, coveted audience that NOBODY else can deliver, now let me tell you who to makethecheckoutto. Sports are becoming an advertising monopoly and that is why you are seeing NBC getting into bowl games and sports networks while expensive scripted dramas are heading to pay tv channels ( they never relied on advertising but most importantly, don't have to worry about being outbid by the networks now because ad based networks aren't investing in shows they can't effectively capitalizeon). Ifthe channel you watch has commercials and it doesn't include news or sports I promise you they are scrambling right now. Its a serious problem, but not one that is shared by college football.

2. So why college football specifically? First thank Chuck Neinas, Georgia and Oklahoma among other actors for getting Div 1 football out from under the NCAA's control. What they did for this sport can't be understated, but that is another time. College football is unique in that it is the one "profitable" team sports that some schools actually control, unlike a professional league where you can't be independent, or Div 1 basketball that is still leached off of by the NCAA. This is why it is the perfect trojan horse for banner ads. Soccer overseas is usually each team selling their own property, or very loose affiliations, but resources are usually up to each club. International soccer doesn't have traditional commercials, but they have what every single network would consider the holy grail of advertising, the advertising banner. This idea has been floated forever in the US and even tested on micro audiences and it never even posts in the double digits. I mean, there is a serious adversity to having constant advertisements over live sporting events in this country. So why are the people of England so reasonable and understanding? Its because, unlike in the USA where we see those banners and we see it going to the collective owners, networks, players etc., they international fans know its going directly to their team to make them better. How many ofyou would watch and NFL game with a career builder ad splashed across the top and not complain about the unending greed? Now how many ofyouwould watch your favorite college team if that meant $2 million, $5 million, $20 million in revenue a year for your favorite team and not see it as a source of pride and power? Its how it works over there with sponsors and people believe it will work here under those circumstances. The financial competition between college fans lets me imagine a future where Texas will use their Longhorn Network Google sponsorship as a recruiting tool and a way to trash talk a rival 's channel sponsored by Apple. Who wants to partner with you will say a lot about your brand, just like it does in international sports and NASCAR. This is where college football is the Trojan Horse for the banner ad, since college fans may be the only ones who will accept it knowing their team gets the revenue... and once it gains acceptance it will be everywhere, that you can bank on. Think if FSU owned the rights to all their games in all sports and had the ability to distribute them themselves orhireoutESPN (could call it ESPNoles) to distribute it for you, but you would be the sole rights owner. How much would those advertisements be worth? How many liveeyeballs could you provide in a year for all that content especially if you are using banner ads. Well, you see what ESPN think 1 game is worth from Texas. You see what ESPN and Raycom think of the collective ACC's worth. Lets be honest here, your worth is far more valuable than what you are getting from the ACC. Notre Dame knows that too, especially considering the trends I laid out in point one. I know the average layman scoffs at the LHN, but ESPN is not stupid, they follow the trends and its inevitable that universities are going towards the Texas and Notre Dame route. Think of how Nascar is and how fans identify with the sponsors, that is how advertisers would love all sports to be. Leagues makethat really tough since they are mostly sold as a package, so it makes you rethink the entire concept for conferences and college football teams are in a position to call the shots.

3. Now this is really getting into the weeds, but lets just look at this. What is the point of conferences? Tradition? Scheduling? Just the way it is? Well, the originally formed for scheduling, traveling (geography) and having a consistent measuring sticks for champions was a bonus. Once we got to the television age, conferences took on a different role where money started materializing because tv was looking to fill their time with (ironically) cheap programming. Once tv took off and proved to be an advertising machine, thetime slots became very limited, the money became large and there was much competition to obtain precious air wave hours. Conferences began the modern trend of consolidating larger schools into conferences that offered each network a deep portfolio with a large alumni base to choose from every week. The better the team's branding, the more they drew national audiences and the moretvexecs wanted to do business with that conference. So conferences moved from a model of convenience to that model of collecting "brands" and the originalreason for conferences diminished further. Still, the money wasn't to the point of throwing out the Vanderbilts and Northwesterns, because they actuallyhelpedtheserious sports programs by not getting in the way of their athletic goals so they could pursue whatever academic goals they had. Back in those days very fews teams got on tv a week. It actually helped to have a bunch of unwatchableteams in your conference if you wanted to be on tv more than once a year. So for the EXPOSURE, big time programs were willing to let the little guys take some money for being the Washington Generals. Everybody got what they wanted, Alabama built stadiums and Vanderbilt built schools. Just to reiterate this fact; This is how life before now can be described quite simply: Distribution was limited. Those who got exposure got the recruits and built the branding. Those are the schools like FSU, who should benefit greatly by that decision. As a UNLV fan, I would still watch FSU/Michigan or Texas/USC because its two heavyweights going at it. I couldn't care less about Rutgers against San Diego St., even though the population of those bases are huge. That is why local population isn't important like brand is now. At one point, going back to limited distribution, when games are shown regionally population did matter, but in an age where every game can be shown, the national brand is what matters. That is why West Virginia is in the Big 12 and not Rutgers. This is the Machiavellian trick... they know that the college football fans in New York/New Jersey and Louisville will watch West Virginia v Texas probablyas much or even more so than Rutgers/Texas or Louisville/Texas because it appeals to thehardcore fans AND the casual fans who like big names. That is the power of branding. Now WVU is no UT, not even close, but they have a better brand certainly than Missouri, Colorado or Utah. That is where the Big 12 is making smart moves for thefuture by focusing on match-ups or specifically national branding (the TCU was a desperation move, in my opinion) and going for ND (whiff, but they did insist of full membership), FSU, Clemson, etc instead of opting for regional options, with lesser brands like Colorado St and New Mexico. What do you think would have brought in more eyeballs/money for the PAC? Texas A&M and Oklahoma or Colorado and Utah. Unlike the other leagues, the Big 12, salvaged and briefly guided by the aforementioned Chuck Neinas, were not hung up on the antiquated notion of geography. Sure,by current standards, geography makes sense, butlooking at the big picture, I won't watch Utah/Oregon like I would Oklahoma/Oregon. This is the reason most people believed VT was a much smarter movefor theSEC than Missouri. Sure, there are tv sets in Missouri, but if you peel back that onion the branding and fan draw nationally is very weak compared to VT,orClemson and FSU for that matter. This is a national sport. Do you like watching Green Bay play San Francisco or would you rather them just play regional teams. If you answered yes to them playing national games, you are part of the trend I speak of. This is where we are heading in sports and entertainment. Branding, branding, branding. Its not a specific thing I can point to, but these consumer trends taken in with copious bandwidth in less than a decade, the picture is clear. This is a serious business and smaller schools are going to have to makesomeserious consolations if they want to remain in the old conference model. I really strongly believe the Big 12 is the future model for conferences, if conferences even exist as we know them today, as I wouldn't be surprised for Div 1 scale back to 50 or so teams, but that is way off topic.

Regarding the question about whether the ACC signed a good deal with ESPN, I am not an expert by any means in contract law and don't know any moredetails about it than any of you do. So I really won't comment on the specifics, but generally speaking the new poison pill for the ACC is the bowl exchange Notre Dame worked out with the ACC. That is rough and will have to be corrected if this league is to exist. Not to sound over dramatic, but the first fracture that tore the Big 12 apart was Missouri feeling they were getting jumped in bowl slots year after year, and they were. It caused serious trust issues and resentment. Even the most sunny fans have to admit that is a problem.

What I do know, if I was advising my client I would give them the sameadvice. Hold onto your property if you can afford it as the gravy train is near. If you can't, make sure you have an reasonable out or a short term contract. Why? Simply put:

Distribution was King. The King is dead. Or at least he is really, really sick.

But just to hedge a bit... Without going to far off topic, net neutrality could deal a significant blow to easy access to distribution. There is a reason the major communication companies are desperately lobbying to own control of the internet, because the internet is the distribution of the future. Let me repeat that. The whole reason the net neutrality exists is because it is the key to distribution/publishing of the future. Everything will eventually be distributed over the internet (most likely some type of municipal wifi or fiber options) in ways and speeds we can't even imagine. If the laws remain the way they are today, schools like Texas, Notre Dame, other Big 12 schools with a decent sized brand and even BYU if they remain independent will most likely benefit monetarily morethan any other conference.

So if I can summarize, this is the perfect storm of distribution opening wide AND all the other ad based competition absolutely crumbling around them. Remember in Forrest Gump when the storm hit and left him as the only boat standing and he became a zillionaire overnight. That is what happened to the tv advertising industry and sports. And, its just getting warmed up. Like I said, step outside of what you know and think about where we were 10 years ago. It would have been hard to predict. I see people keep referring to what Oklahoma and Texas Tech make now, but that is truly irrelevant. Think long game... 7-8 years it will blow your mind. Just like 10 years ago $30 million a year for a conference was insane.

Sorry for taking up so much of your time, but a couple drinks and you realize you just wrote a book. Best of luck to the ACC and I hope you guys find a way to beat the trends and stick together

[MadCat]

Okay, I'm going to have to block out my schedule to read that.

[AbeFroman]

I just called in sick to work, all next week, so I can read that post.

[steve dave]

that UNLV guy is obviously panjadrum

[MadCat]

that UNLV guy is obviously panjadrum

separated twin

[Ira Hayes]

He smashed it out of the park.  Especially the part about fan acceptance of sponsorship and advertising when they know it goes directly to their favorite team and makes their team more competitive.

And K-State does have a national brand.  Definitely below UT, OU, WVU, and KU.  But we aren't too far below them.

I think I'll go have a Rev Honey now.

[Pete]

He smashed it out of the park.  Especially the part about fan acceptance of sponsorship and advertising when they know it goes directly to their favorite team and makes their team more competitive.

And K-State does have a national brand.  Definitely below UT, OU, WVU, and KU.  But we aren't too far below them.

I think I'll go have a Rev Honey now.

I think we should put adds on our uniforms like Man U. 

Someone photoshop Sprint to the front of our jerseys