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

[ben ji]

Does Yahoo have any outlets or partnerships with TV?  Seems like those guys have done some really impressive sports journalism lately.

Not that I am aware of but they really estasblished themselves after that shapiro/miami article

[MakeItRain]

Losing talent has nothing to do with any empire slipping.  They could have kept Andrews if they wanted to.  As much as I love Gottlieb, he doesn't make a rusty penny for any network.

What is interesting about FOX that the landthieves post doesn't mention is that in August they're turning FUEL network into their own 24/7 national sports network.  The edge have over CBS & NBC are the leagues and conferences they have rights deals to.  If the Big 10 leaves ESPN they will obviously end here, frankly its inevitable.  I don't think CBS or NBC has the wherewithal to challenge Disney, FOX certainly does.

[ednksu]

You'd have to be pretty stupid to notice that ESPN is having its empire chipped away.  Erin Andrews and Dougie Gots skipping to rival networks is a big deal I think.  They are young talent, both for different reasons, but both the face of, or future face of major college sports.

Erin Andrews is not a "talent", at least not anymore and as she gets older...She is terrible on the fox pregame show.

You do have a point though regarding gottlieb and other talent leaving...A couple of months ago gottlieb was trashing ESPN while doing a radio show because they told everyone to talk "tebow" any chance you get. ESPN rules the roost for now but the market is itching for a decent competitor which I'm hoping FOX can bring to the table.

EA is definitely talent.  She is still a huge face for whatever reason for college football. 

My hope is that we get more college sports channels to defuse ESPN's bully power.  I would love to see costs come down and more options for viewers.   

[ednksu]

Losing talent has nothing to do with any empire slipping.  They could have kept Andrews if they wanted to.  As much as I love Gottlieb, he doesn't make a rusty penny for any network.

What is interesting about FOX that the landthieves post doesn't mention is that in August they're turning FUEL network into their own 24/7 national sports network.  The edge have over CBS & NBC are the leagues and conferences they have rights deals to.  If the Big 10 leaves ESPN they will obviously end here, frankly its inevitable.  I don't think CBS or NBC has the wherewithal to challenge Disney, FOX certainly does.

Losing the face or faces of your major commitments is certainly a sign of something changing.  Thinking otherwise makes you a rube at best.  Gottlieb was the new face of their college basketball system as more and more people realized that Knight and Mush were actually hurting their coverage.  While I agree EA wasn't a major piece of the College Gameday world like Herbie or Coros, she was a significant contributor, even if it was just eye candy.  The fact is its a marker that other stations/networks are willing to pony up cash to get up and coming talent.  If one of the older commentators was bought up by CBS you could explain ESPN letting a person go/put out to pasture.  There is no way for ESPN to spin Gotts leaving other than him finding a better situation and CBS stepping up to make something happen.

[WillieWatanabe]

You'd have to be pretty stupid to notice that ESPN is having its empire chipped away.  Erin Andrews and Dougie Gots skipping to rival networks is a big deal I think.  They are young talent, both for different reasons, but both the face of, or future face of major college sports.

Erin Andrews is not a "talent", at least not anymore and as she gets older...She is terrible on the fox pregame show.

You do have a point though regarding gottlieb and other talent leaving...A couple of months ago gottlieb was trashing ESPN while doing a radio show because they told everyone to talk "tebow" any chance you get. ESPN rules the roost for now but the market is itching for a decent competitor which I'm hoping FOX can bring to the table.

EA is definitely talent.  She is still a huge face for whatever reason for college football. 

My hope is that we get more college sports channels to defuse ESPN's bully power.  I would love to see costs come down and more options for viewers.   

CBS has a sports channel, so does NBC, and as MIR said, FOX will too soon(RIP SPEED). You know what's happened so far? jack crap. Until they can get games that people actually care about, those channels will not touch ESPN.

[ednksu]

You'd have to be pretty stupid to notice that ESPN is having its empire chipped away.  Erin Andrews and Dougie Gots skipping to rival networks is a big deal I think.  They are young talent, both for different reasons, but both the face of, or future face of major college sports.

Erin Andrews is not a "talent", at least not anymore and as she gets older...She is terrible on the fox pregame show.

You do have a point though regarding gottlieb and other talent leaving...A couple of months ago gottlieb was trashing ESPN while doing a radio show because they told everyone to talk "tebow" any chance you get. ESPN rules the roost for now but the market is itching for a decent competitor which I'm hoping FOX can bring to the table.

EA is definitely talent.  She is still a huge face for whatever reason for college football. 

My hope is that we get more college sports channels to defuse ESPN's bully power.  I would love to see costs come down and more options for viewers.   

CBS has a sports channel, so does NBC, and as MIR said, FOX will too soon(RIP SPEED). You know what's happened so far? jack crap. Until they can get games that people actually care about, those channels will not touch ESPN.

Did you watch college football and K-State this year; re: Fox prime time?  I never said this was an overnight revolutionary process.  But its clear there is a shift going on.  Its good for the conferences, consumers, and smaller teams. 

[MakeItRain]

Losing talent has nothing to do with any empire slipping.  They could have kept Andrews if they wanted to.  As much as I love Gottlieb, he doesn't make a rusty penny for any network.

What is interesting about FOX that the landthieves post doesn't mention is that in August they're turning FUEL network into their own 24/7 national sports network.  The edge have over CBS & NBC are the leagues and conferences they have rights deals to.  If the Big 10 leaves ESPN they will obviously end here, frankly its inevitable.  I don't think CBS or NBC has the wherewithal to challenge Disney, FOX certainly does.

Losing the face or faces of your major commitments is certainly a sign of something changing.  Thinking otherwise makes you a rube at best.  Gottlieb was the new face of their college basketball system as more and more people realized that Knight and Mush were actually hurting their coverage.  While I agree EA wasn't a major piece of the College Gameday world like Herbie or Coros, she was a significant contributor, even if it was just eye candy.  The fact is its a marker that other stations/networks are willing to pony up cash to get up and coming talent.  If one of the older commentators was bought up by CBS you could explain ESPN letting a person go/put out to pasture.  There is no way for ESPN to spin Gotts leaving other than him finding a better situation and CBS stepping up to make something happen.

Gottlieb wasn't the face of anything at ESPN.  We know and love him but he had no major assignments at ESPN.  He wasn't on their flagship college basketball shows and he wasn't on any of their top crews, guess you didn't notice he only did the occasional Big West game and Tuesday night Big 12 games.  Yes, he was the most charismatic and brightest basketball mind there but he wasn't looked at as some irreplaceable piece as evident by his relatively low profile on their college basketball coverage.  Gottlieb said that he left because he was given the opportunity to go home and he wants to work a final four.  ESPN isn't interested in spinning losing Gottlieb, they like most sports fans, don't care.  If they wanted to keep him they would have given him a raise, a seat on College Gameday, and the vacated analyst spot on Big Monday.  They didn't deem he was worth keeping, its their loss but no way shape or form a sign of weakness of ESPN's place in sports.

I have no idea why took the time to respond, you'll just post some asinine rebuttal, this has nothing to do with the thread anyway.

[ednksu]

Losing talent has nothing to do with any empire slipping.  They could have kept Andrews if they wanted to.  As much as I love Gottlieb, he doesn't make a rusty penny for any network.

What is interesting about FOX that the landthieves post doesn't mention is that in August they're turning FUEL network into their own 24/7 national sports network.  The edge have over CBS & NBC are the leagues and conferences they have rights deals to.  If the Big 10 leaves ESPN they will obviously end here, frankly its inevitable.  I don't think CBS or NBC has the wherewithal to challenge Disney, FOX certainly does.

Losing the face or faces of your major commitments is certainly a sign of something changing.  Thinking otherwise makes you a rube at best.  Gottlieb was the new face of their college basketball system as more and more people realized that Knight and Mush were actually hurting their coverage.  While I agree EA wasn't a major piece of the College Gameday world like Herbie or Coros, she was a significant contributor, even if it was just eye candy.  The fact is its a marker that other stations/networks are willing to pony up cash to get up and coming talent.  If one of the older commentators was bought up by CBS you could explain ESPN letting a person go/put out to pasture.  There is no way for ESPN to spin Gotts leaving other than him finding a better situation and CBS stepping up to make something happen.

Gottlieb wasn't the face of anything at ESPN.  We know and love him but he had no major assignments at ESPN.  He wasn't on their flagship college basketball shows and he wasn't on any of their top crews, guess you didn't notice he only did the occasional Big West game and Tuesday night Big 12 games.  Yes, he was the most charismatic and brightest basketball mind there but he wasn't looked at as some irreplaceable piece as evident by his relatively low profile on their college basketball coverage.  Gottlieb said that he left because he was given the opportunity to go home and he wants to work a final four.  ESPN isn't interested in spinning losing Gottlieb, they like most sports fans, don't care.  If they wanted to keep him they would have given him a raise, a seat on College Gameday, and the vacated analyst spot on Big Monday.  They didn't deem he was worth keeping, its their loss but no way shape or form a sign of weakness of ESPN's place in sports.

I have no idea why took the time to respond, you'll just post some asinine rebuttal, this has nothing to do with the thread anyway.

Nice asinine rebuttal which has nothing to do with the thread you jerkoff

Point proven, ESPN losing face but more importantly a sign of CBS and Fox stepping their game up, MiR says there is no problem, get proven wrong repeatedly with facts, commentary, he posts some other jerk off pseudo-intellectual post where he tries to act smarter than people in the room when even Dax laughs at him and people with IQ move on. 
http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/july/doug-gottlieb-leaves-espn-for-cbs-espn-adds-two-former-coaches.html
oh look Gotts is considered a cornerstone of the new faces at espn.  ESPN replaces him with a stop gap oscar Pearl and Seth Greenberg who will bolt in a few years, so not a long term solution.  So I'm right here. 
http://www.shermanreport.com/gottlieb/
oh look ESPN did attempt to keep him.  I will say MiR is right about the facts (March Madness draw, family time), totally wrong about the analysis yet again. ESPN has cracks because other networks are finally challenging for time and talent. 

And whats really sad, we're pretty damn close to arguing the same side of the issue.  I think we both agree that ESPN is still king and will be for sometime.  The changes to college sports in conference realignment can be controlled by ESPN if no one steps up to challenge their control.  Its never good to have a market dominated by one voice, so its nice as fans to see another potential challenge in what is quickly becoming a free market of college sports interests. 

[Panjandrum]

What is interesting about FOX that the landthieves post doesn't mention is that in August they're turning FUEL network into their own 24/7 national sports network.  The edge have over CBS & NBC are the leagues and conferences they have rights deals to.  If the Big 10 leaves ESPN they will obviously end here, frankly its inevitable.  I don't think CBS or NBC has the wherewithal to challenge Disney, FOX certainly does.

You're absolutely right.  This article confirms what you're saying (except it's not Fuel; it's Speed).

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2012/11/26/Media/FoxSports1.aspx

"Fox Sports 1" is an interesting concept.  It's basically their way of taking all of the spotlight stuff on the regional networks and putting on the national showcase platform.  Rumor has it that they plan on doing a rival version of "College Game Day", hence why they brought Erin Andrews over in the first place.  If people are getting all uppity about Erin Andrews on Fox, get used to it because they brought her over to be the face of CFB on Fox's platforms. (I realize it's not you, but I'm telling everyone else to pipe down about it.)

Because Fox owns all of our cable rights (and we're the only conference that has that distinction), and the Pac-12 has to hold some of that content back for the Pac-12 Network, the Big 12 will become the de facto conference on Fox.  On any given weekend, we could have games on Fox, Fox Sports 1, FX, and FSN.  But to fill all of those channels, you need more quality games that will draw a national audience, and that's where Florida State and Miami come in.

When people talk about eyeballs and markets, they're talking about conferences that have networks that function on a subscriber-based business model.  That's why the Big Ten did what they did.  That's why the SEC did what they did.  That's why both will probably take another pair between them.

But eyeballs and markets don't matter to us.  All of our games are going to be on national platforms.  And if you have national platforms, you need national brands.  Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, Miami, and to a certain extent, West Virginia.  The rest of the teams in the conference play some pretty good football too, and in any given year, KSU, OSU, TCU, Baylor, etc. will probably be a team worth following.  There will be more than enough quality content for them to get their money's worth.

The other thing that Fox has been subtly doing is buying up T3 rights for the various schools.  Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor, and KSU have all reached similar agreements with Fox for basketball and non-revenue sports.  Fox also created the "Sooner Sports TV" package which is just a bigger version of what we all signed.  So, Fox has their tentacles in our conference at the broadcast, cable, and regional levels.  Which is awesome because they have a distribution mechanism at all levels with considerable bandwidth, and we couldn't ask for a better partner to maximize our exposure at all levels.

This is a good example of how it will help us in basketball as well: http://www.big12sports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205683379&DB_OEM_ID=10410

[MakeItRain]

Sorry in advance for people who don't care but I'm going to post on this one more time.  I feel likeI know a little bit about this TV stuff so I can't help but post about it.  So if it bores you please stop now.

edn, you are right to think that losing talent can signal trouble for a show or network.  It's rare but it has happened, namely to CNNSI when they lost Dan Patrick and Fred Hickman to ESPN.  There are significant differences that don't make that applicable to ESPN today.

-CNNSI was a start up and Ted Turner/Time Warner didn't dedicate the resources to reasonable compete with ESPN.  At that point many media critics thought Sports Tonight was the better show so ESPN took the talent.
-Obviously, unlike CNNSI, ESPN would pay big for people they want to keep.
-Since the Dan Patrick/Keith Obermann losses ESPN have made a concerted effort to de-emphasize showcasing talent and focus on the shows, its why they rotate show hosts so often.
-Finally and most importantly, piggybacking the previous point, ESPN doesn't have much talent that if they lost would make any waves with viewer eyes and ears.  Here's the list of important on air talent.

+Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, if FOX dedided to start a gameday type show and plucked one of these guys it would be killer.  I literally think that's it for TV.  The next most visible talents on TV are Dick Vitale and Chris Berman.  Both of these guys are characters more than talent you can build around, there would be no market for either of them.
+Mike and Mike and Colin Cowherd.  I don't like any of them but their radio shows draw bigger numbers than most of ESPN's television shows.  These are easily the two biggest shows on sports talk and Rome and Dan Patrick are way behind.  CBS starting national radio is worth watching here.
+Finally, on the .com side of course is Simmons.  He is starting to have a higher profile on TV as well.  He isn't going anywhere.  No one else who matters has any skin in the NBA and ESPN.com is even more dominant than ESPN tv in their space.  They won't have a challenger here before I get old balls.

[MakeItRain]

  Nice asinine rebuttal which has nothing to do with the thread you jerkoff

Point proven, ESPN losing face but more importantly a sign of CBS and Fox stepping their game up, MiR says there is no problem, get proven wrong repeatedly with facts, commentary, he posts some other jerk off pseudo-intellectual post where he tries to act smarter than people in the room when even Dax laughs at him and people with IQ move on. 
http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/july/doug-gottlieb-leaves-espn-for-cbs-espn-adds-two-former-coaches.html
oh look Gotts is considered a cornerstone of the new faces at espn.  ESPN replaces him with a stop gap oscar Pearl and Seth Greenberg who will bolt in a few years, so not a long term solution.  So I'm right here. 
http://www.shermanreport.com/gottlieb/
oh look ESPN did attempt to keep him.  I will say MiR is right about the facts (March Madness draw, family time), totally wrong about the analysis yet again. ESPN has cracks because other networks are finally challenging for time and talent. 

And whats really sad, we're pretty damn close to arguing the same side of the issue.  I think we both agree that ESPN is still king and will be for sometime.  The changes to college sports in conference realignment can be controlled by ESPN if no one steps up to challenge their control.  Its never good to have a market dominated by one voice, so its nice as fans to see another potential challenge in what is quickly becoming a free market of college sports interests.

Check your tone, young one.

I might be too close to this so I'm asking for help here, did either of those links offer a rebuttal to anything I typed about Gottlieb?  I don't see it.  I hadn't seen that second article before but its almost like I read it right before I posted.  Two of those quotes in that article are mentioned in my post what the point of those links were edn.  Oh as far as the dax comment telling someone they are on the wrong side of dax logic isn't an insult

[Panjandrum]

And it looks like the Catholic schools are about to peace out of the Big East.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8742607/seven-catholic-schools-leaning-leaving-big-east-sources-say

Sources said Wednesday it's becoming "more likely" the basketball schools will break away from the league's football members.

It's unknown if they would attempt to dissolve the league or leave the league as a group. The league can be dissolved by vote of the league members by a two-thirds majority, according to Big East by-laws. With all of the Big East's recent defections, there are only 10 members (the seven non-FBS schools, plus Cincinnati, UConn and South Florida) that can vote on the league dissolving.

A source told ESPN on Wednesday, Temple, as a football-only member, has voting rights, but can't vote on dissolution of the league. With Temple unable to vote, that gives the seven basketball schools enough votes to dissolve the league.

[Katpappy]

  Nice asinine rebuttal which has nothing to do with the thread you jerkoff

Point proven, ESPN losing face but more importantly a sign of CBS and Fox stepping their game up, MiR says there is no problem, get proven wrong repeatedly with facts, commentary, he posts some other jerk off pseudo-intellectual post where he tries to act smarter than people in the room when even Dax laughs at him and people with IQ move on. 
http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/july/doug-gottlieb-leaves-espn-for-cbs-espn-adds-two-former-coaches.html
oh look Gotts is considered a cornerstone of the new faces at espn.  ESPN replaces him with a stop gap oscar Pearl and Seth Greenberg who will bolt in a few years, so not a long term solution.  So I'm right here. 
http://www.shermanreport.com/gottlieb/
oh look ESPN did attempt to keep him.  I will say MiR is right about the facts (March Madness draw, family time), totally wrong about the analysis yet again. ESPN has cracks because other networks are finally challenging for time and talent. 

And whats really sad, we're pretty damn close to arguing the same side of the issue.  I think we both agree that ESPN is still king and will be for sometime.  The changes to college sports in conference realignment can be controlled by ESPN if no one steps up to challenge their control.  Its never good to have a market dominated by one voice, so its nice as fans to see another potential challenge in what is quickly becoming a free market of college sports interests.

Check your tone, young one.

I might be too close to this so I'm asking for help here, did either of those links offer a rebuttal to anything I typed about Gottlieb?  I don't see it.  I hadn't seen that second article before but its almost like I read it right before I posted.  Two of those quotes in that article are mentioned in my post what the point of those links were edn.  Oh as far as the dax comment telling someone they are on the wrong side of dax logic isn't an insult

MIR, edn is trying to make up; but you're playing hard to get. 

[Katpappy]

And it looks like the Catholic schools are about to peace out of the Big East.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8742607/seven-catholic-schools-leaning-leaving-big-east-sources-say

Sources said Wednesday it's becoming "more likely" the basketball schools will break away from the league's football members.

It's unknown if they would attempt to dissolve the league or leave the league as a group. The league can be dissolved by vote of the league members by a two-thirds majority, according to Big East by-laws. With all of the Big East's recent defections, there are only 10 members (the seven non-FBS schools, plus Cincinnati, UConn and South Florida) that can vote on the league dissolving.

A source told ESPN on Wednesday, Temple, as a football-only member, has voting rights, but can't vote on dissolution of the league. With Temple unable to vote, that gives the seven basketball schools enough votes to dissolve the league.

But why?  The artices I read state that the BB only schools get around 1.5 mil and without the BE they merge with A 10 they stand to receive around 350,000 grand.

[Panjandrum]

But why?  The artices I read state that the BB only schools get around 1.5 mil and without the BE they merge with A 10 they stand to receive around 350,000 grand.

They aren't going to join the A-10.

It's my understanding that if they choose to dissolve, they'll get to keep the Big East name.  You can be an NCAA conference with seven members.  My guess is that they split off and ultimately invite the better A-10 schools into their league: Xavier, Butler, VCU, Dayton, and SLU.

I've said it a million times.  The reason you see the same schools recycling over and over again in different conferences is because the natural order of things is to continually cut dead weight by moving to a different conference.

Why would these seven teams join a 14-team A-10 when they can cut out a bunch of the crap schools by just inviting the ones that would get a chubby by playing in a league with St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, etc.?

Answer: They won't join.  They'll invite and make ESPN give them more money than they're getting now.

[MakeItRain]

But why?  The artices I read state that the BB only schools get around 1.5 mil and without the BE they merge with A 10 they stand to receive around 350,000 grand.

They aren't going to join the A-10.

It's my understanding that if they choose to dissolve, they'll get to keep the Big East name.  You can be an NCAA conference with seven members.  My guess is that they split off and ultimately invite the better A-10 schools into their league: Xavier, Butler, VCU, Dayton, and SLU.

I've said it a million times.  The reason you see the same schools recycling over and over again in different conferences is because the natural order of things is to continually cut dead weight by moving to a different conference.

Why would these seven teams join a 14-team A-10 when they can cut out a bunch of the crap schools by just inviting the ones that would get a chubby by playing in a league with St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, etc.?

Answer: They won't join.  They'll invite and make ESPN give them more money than they're getting now.

They really need those A-10 teams though.  Did you hear Gottlieb and Soren talk about this?  They laid it out nicely, but I think there are too many of these peer schools for just one conference.  There are a huge amount of catholic schools in the eastern 1/3 of the country.  Here's the Gottlieb podcast, they talk about this issue starting at the 4 minute mark.

http://www.stationcaster.com/player_skinned.php?s=26&c=373&f=877461

 

[AbeFroman]

We should just set up a relegation system like soccer in Europe. End realignment once and for all. T's & P's little brother.

[Katpappy]

But why?  The artices I read state that the BB only schools get around 1.5 mil and without the BE they merge with A 10 they stand to receive around 350,000 grand.

They aren't going to join the A-10.

It's my understanding that if they choose to dissolve, they'll get to keep the Big East name.  You can be an NCAA conference with seven members.  My guess is that they split off and ultimately invite the better A-10 schools into their league: Xavier, Butler, VCU, Dayton, and SLU.

I've said it a million times.  The reason you see the same schools recycling over and over again in different conferences is because the natural order of things is to continually cut dead weight by moving to a different conference.

Why would these seven teams join a 14-team A-10 when they can cut out a bunch of the crap schools by just inviting the ones that would get a chubby by playing in a league with St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, etc.?

Answer: They won't join.  They'll invite and make ESPN give them more money than they're getting now.

Do you believe a BB conference could make more money without the football schools?

[TheHamburglar]

But why?  The artices I read state that the BB only schools get around 1.5 mil and without the BE they merge with A 10 they stand to receive around 350,000 grand.

They aren't going to join the A-10.

It's my understanding that if they choose to dissolve, they'll get to keep the Big East name.  You can be an NCAA conference with seven members.  My guess is that they split off and ultimately invite the better A-10 schools into their league: Xavier, Butler, VCU, Dayton, and SLU.

I've said it a million times.  The reason you see the same schools recycling over and over again in different conferences is because the natural order of things is to continually cut dead weight by moving to a different conference.

Why would these seven teams join a 14-team A-10 when they can cut out a bunch of the crap schools by just inviting the ones that would get a chubby by playing in a league with St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, etc.?

Answer: They won't join.  They'll invite and make ESPN give them more money than they're getting now.

Do you believe a BB conference could make more money without the football schools?

At that relatively low revenue, you also have to figure in cost savings from not having to send teams to Tampa, Orlando, New Orleans, Dallas, and Houston.

["storm"nut]

What is interesting about FOX that the landthieves post doesn't mention is that in August they're turning FUEL network into their own 24/7 national sports network.  The edge have over CBS & NBC are the leagues and conferences they have rights deals to.  If the Big 10 leaves ESPN they will obviously end here, frankly its inevitable.  I don't think CBS or NBC has the wherewithal to challenge Disney, FOX certainly does.

You're absolutely right.  This article confirms what you're saying (except it's not Fuel; it's Speed).

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2012/11/26/Media/FoxSports1.aspx

"Fox Sports 1" is an interesting concept.  It's basically their way of taking all of the spotlight stuff on the regional networks and putting on the national showcase platform.  Rumor has it that they plan on doing a rival version of "College Game Day", hence why they brought Erin Andrews over in the first place.  If people are getting all uppity about Erin Andrews on Fox, get used to it because they brought her over to be the face of CFB on Fox's platforms. (I realize it's not you, but I'm telling everyone else to pipe down about it.)

Because Fox owns all of our cable rights (and we're the only conference that has that distinction), and the Pac-12 has to hold some of that content back for the Pac-12 Network, the Big 12 will become the de facto conference on Fox.  On any given weekend, we could have games on Fox, Fox Sports 1, FX, and FSN.  But to fill all of those channels, you need more quality games that will draw a national audience, and that's where Florida State and Miami come in.

When people talk about eyeballs and markets, they're talking about conferences that have networks that function on a subscriber-based business model.  That's why the Big Ten did what they did.  That's why the SEC did what they did.  That's why both will probably take another pair between them.

But eyeballs and markets don't matter to us.  All of our games are going to be on national platforms.  And if you have national platforms, you need national brands.  Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, Miami, and to a certain extent, West Virginia.  The rest of the teams in the conference play some pretty good football too, and in any given year, KSU, OSU, TCU, Baylor, etc. will probably be a team worth following.  There will be more than enough quality content for them to get their money's worth.

The other thing that Fox has been subtly doing is buying up T3 rights for the various schools.  Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor, and KSU have all reached similar agreements with Fox for basketball and non-revenue sports.  Fox also created the "Sooner Sports TV" package which is just a bigger version of what we all signed.  So, Fox has their tentacles in our conference at the broadcast, cable, and regional levels.  Which is awesome because they have a distribution mechanism at all levels with considerable bandwidth, and we couldn't ask for a better partner to maximize our exposure at all levels.

This is a good example of how it will help us in basketball as well: http://www.big12sports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205683379&DB_OEM_ID=10410

Would love for the Big 12 to be for FOX that the SEC is for CBS.

[Institutional Control]

Would love for Gus to do every KState game.

[Emo EMAW]

Why isn't USF an expansion option?  Sure, they're sort of the Laney Boggs of Florida (beginning of the movie), but you have to believe if the Big 12 swooped in there and did their hair and took off their glasses they could be prom queen runner up.

[sonofdaxjones]

The last few PANJ and PIMIR (Pseudo-Intellectual MakeItRain) posts:

[Cartierfor3]

Sorry in advance for people who don't care but I'm going to post on this one more time.  I feel likeI know a little bit about this TV stuff so I can't help but post about it.  So if it bores you please stop now.

edn, you are right to think that losing talent can signal trouble for a show or network.  It's rare but it has happened, namely to CNNSI when they lost Dan Patrick and Fred Hickman to ESPN.  There are significant differences that don't make that applicable to ESPN today.

-CNNSI was a start up and Ted Turner/Time Warner didn't dedicate the resources to reasonable compete with ESPN.  At that point many media critics thought Sports Tonight was the better show so ESPN took the talent.
-Obviously, unlike CNNSI, ESPN would pay big for people they want to keep.
-Since the Dan Patrick/Keith Obermann losses ESPN have made a concerted effort to de-emphasize showcasing talent and focus on the shows, its why they rotate show hosts so often.
-Finally and most importantly, piggybacking the previous point, ESPN doesn't have much talent that if they lost would make any waves with viewer eyes and ears.  Here's the list of important on air talent.

+Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, if FOX dedided to start a gameday type show and plucked one of these guys it would be killer.  I literally think that's it for TV.  The next most visible talents on TV are Dick Vitale and Chris Berman.  Both of these guys are characters more than talent you can build around, there would be no market for either of them.
+Mike and Mike and Colin Cowherd.  I don't like any of them but their radio shows draw bigger numbers than most of ESPN's television shows.  These are easily the two biggest shows on sports talk and Rome and Dan Patrick are way behind.  CBS starting national radio is worth watching here.
+Finally, on the .com side of course is Simmons.  He is starting to have a higher profile on TV as well.  He isn't going anywhere.  No one else who matters has any skin in the NBA and ESPN.com is even more dominant than ESPN tv in their space.  They won't have a challenger here before I get old balls.

Wilbon and Kornheiser are pretty important to the brand IMO.

[Gooch]

Twenty bucks says that all of the people that recognize that our game against Texas got better ratings than

The Big Ten Championship game
The Pac-12 Championship game
The ACC Championship game

those people all think it's because of Texas and not because of us. For the record, I think they're wrong, but... still.

I hope you are hawt because you are not very bright.