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Bruininthebay

Fox gives up Big 12 Title Game rights

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https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/01/14/Media/Big-12.aspx

Per the above linked article, Fox has relinquished its broadcast rights to the Big 12 championship game in odd number years - including 2019.

This is an interesting move.  Some commentators are speculating that Fox is doing this to create a spot for WWE Smackdown on Friday nights, which has nothing to do with college football, while others believe that this demonstrates that the media rights for the Pac 12 and Big 12 are over-valued.

Personally, I think this will allow the SEC, the ACC and the Big Ten to further distance themselves as the conference of the biggest of the big time conferences, while the Pac 12, Big 12, Mountain West and American form a middle tier of FBS football which is clearly better than the MAC, CUSA and the Sun Belt but definitely a rung below the top three conferences.

Alternately, it could mean that Fox is looking to purchase American rights because they get the same ratings as the Big 12 but won't cost nearly as much.

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College football telecasts are way over saturated. It may be great for your average college football fan, but not so much for the networks. The networks are currently losing money and that will translate to reduced TV contracts for the conferences in the next round of negotiations. We are used to pinching pennies to make ends meet. The P5 conferences aren’t and it’s going to hurt them worse. 

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11 minutes ago, soupslam1 said:

College football telecasts are way over saturated. It may be great for your average college football fan, but not so much for the networks. The networks are currently losing money and that will translate to reduced TV contracts for the conferences in the next round of negotiations. We are used to pinching pennies to make ends meet. The P5 conferences aren’t and it’s going to hurt them worse. 

You make a very good point.

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30 minutes ago, soupslam1 said:

College football telecasts are way over saturated. It may be great for your average college football fan, but not so much for the networks. The networks are currently losing money and that will translate to reduced TV contracts for the conferences in the next round of negotiations. We are used to pinching pennies to make ends meet. The P5 conferences aren’t and it’s going to hurt them worse. 

Schools like Cal and Oregon St are already hemorrhaging money from what I've read. Just imagine when their conference check gets downsized by 30 - 50%... 

"You pukin morons are just plain too dumb."

-bluerules008 aka jibscout aka Hal "Mosquito Man" Newman

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1 hour ago, Bruininthebay said:

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/01/14/Media/Big-12.aspx

Per the above linked article, Fox has relinquished its broadcast rights to the Big 12 championship game in odd number years - including 2019.

This is an interesting move.  Some commentators are speculating that Fox is doing this to create a spot for WWE Smackdown on Friday nights, which has nothing to do with college football, while others believe that this demonstrates that the media rights for the Pac 12 and Big 12 are over-valued.

Personally, I think this will allow the SEC, the ACC and the Big Ten to further distance themselves as the conference of the biggest of the big time conferences, while the Pac 12, Big 12, Mountain West and American form a middle tier of FBS football which is clearly better than the MAC, CUSA and the Sun Belt but definitely a rung below the top three conferences.

Alternately, it could mean that Fox is looking to purchase American rights because they get the same ratings as the Big 12 but won't cost nearly as much.

take Clemson out of the ACC and that conference is worse than the PAC-12 this year and the B1G was pretty pedestrian too

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I agree @Del Scorcho in terms of on the field performance.  However, I think that geography and time slots have a lot more to do with why certain college football teams get compensated more than others do.

The Big Ten and SEC Networks are on steady growth curves while the Pac 12 is certainly not, and the Big 12 never had enough inherent value for an entire conference network but rather the Longhorn Network instead.  I believe the entire Pac 12 Network and the Longhorn Network have about the same number of subscribers and revenue overall, but dividing by 12 makes the shares a lot smaller than not having to divide AT ALL.  Obviously the Big 12 Championship game being partially renounced by Fox demonstrates that the Big 12 media rights were overvalued somewhat.

The ACC Network is going to role out in 2019 and ESPN believes it will be as big or bigger than the SEC Network due to the better demographics of ACC fans as compared to SEC fans. For a very long time, Ray-com Sports had the media rights of the ACC and Raycom earned a lot of extra revenue by simply acting as a middle man for ESPN broadcasts.  The ACC Network is much more likely to follow the trajectory of the SEC Network than the Pac 12 Network imho..

Both the decision by Fox to renounce their Big 12 CFP rights and the role out of the ACC network affects the American and Mountain West media rights negotiations, but exactly how is unclear. 

It could be that Fox is MORE interested in the American because they already have enough central time zone college football content and need more eastern time zone content, especially in Florida and the Northeast, but it could also mean that Fox is going to focus on the NFL and professional sports leagues because they can't get even close to comparable viewership to ESPN for their broadcasts of college football.

Personally I think Fox Sports would benefit from acquiring both the American and the Mountain West media rights, given they have all that money from selling 20th Century Fox to Disney, while ESPN benefits from acquiring the Mountain West but not the American.  The Pac 12 Network may not be much, but it's a competitor to ESPN on the West Coast and in Window 4 so ESPN/Disney has a need for the MW while the American is unnecessary because ESPN already acquired media properties that will get better ratings in the timeslots that the American can provide.

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2 hours ago, Del Scorcho said:

take Clemson out of the ACC and that conference is worse than the PAC-12 this year and the B1G was pretty pedestrian too

Alright, you hooked me.
UW would be the 2nd best team behind Clemson. But the rest of the ACC would own the PAC12 with only exceptions being UNC & Louisville. The ACC has not been good in years' past, but this year, they were very good. IMO, better than the Big10. While Wazzu would still be fine against most of them, the rest of the Pac12 would get slaughtered by the likes of BC & NCstate. That is how BAD the Pac12 is now.

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20 minutes ago, BobbyBoSox said:

Alright, you hooked me.
UW would be the 2nd best team behind Clemson. But the rest of the ACC would own the PAC12 with only exceptions being UNC & Louisville. The ACC has not been good in years' past, but this year, they were very good. IMO, better than the Big10. While Wazzu would still be fine against most of them, the rest of the Pac12 would get slaughtered by the likes of BC & NCstate. That is how BAD the Pac12 is now.

Taking the entire season into account, and not cherry picking one good game or emphasizing one bad game, FSU was horrible compared to their normal standard,  Wake was average at best, Louisville was 2-10, and BC would have been just another average team in P12.   Washington and WSU were really good for P12.  Clemson and Syracuse were really good (well great for Clemson), but rest of teams?   Conferences were comparable in talent would be my guess when you look at middle of the pack and bottom.  NC State had a solid season too.

Just from location and money,  UCLA, USC, and Stanford will always be just a recruiting class and coach away from playing big boy and possibly championship football.  A couple down years for any specific program doesn't change that.  This year the Washington schools were at top.  LA schools could be back with the right staff in a hurry.  

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2 hours ago, alum93 said:

Just from location and money,  UCLA, USC, and Stanford will always be just a recruiting class and coach away from playing big boy and possibly championship football.  A couple down years for any specific program doesn't change that.  This year the Washington schools were at top.  LA schools could be back with the right staff in a hurry.  

Stanford in particular doesn't have much of a fan base.  The undergraduate enrollment is small and the school is elite so it doesn't elicit much casual fan support in the Bay area.  Stanford is pursuing the same casual fans that SJSU is in the Bay area : fans who don't want to root for one of two NFL teams or the Cal Bears - though the Cardinal are often nationally ranked. 

Historically Stanford could fill a 89,000 seat stadium but even after renovation to the present 50,424 capacity it's rare for Stanford Stadium to be packed without a large number of visiting fans.  The Big Game is always heavily weighted to Cal fans because the enrollment at UC Berkeley is so much larger.

USC, Cal and probably UCLA have as many fans as Stanford in the Bay area.  SJSU once was better than Cal on the field but had fewer fans - Stanford was definitely the worst football team.  Ever since Bill Walsh went to Stanford after coaching the 49ers, SJSU became the fifth most important football team in the Bay area and nothing has really changed since.

I'd like to think that a good UCLA football team would be a huge deal but the fact is that when USC football is really good, the level of casual fan support in LA is on another level.  UCLA basketball is a big deal but its not same as football from a casual fan perspective.  The Pete Carroll era USC sideline was a thing to behold.

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