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Hurtlocker

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Everything posted by Hurtlocker

  1. Yeah, it gets a bit grey here because I'm not sure if the network valuation includes the inventory or not. What I do know is that within the contract that included Fox and ESPN, the PACN received 2 football games from each school, or 24 games per season, which is kind of the minimum you need to start your own network. USC/UCLA are gone now though and their 4 games are leaving next year. Meaning they either need to get back to 12 or they need to add 2.4 games per year per school to feed the PACN beast. Creative scheduling be damned to napkin math, you really only have 6 home games a year per team. So, at ten, you have 40% of your inventory off the market and unable to sell. The B12, who didn't have a conference network, just sold 100% of its games for $32m/team/year. If the Pac is on even financial footing, they should see a contract of around $20m/year/school for the 60% of inventory it did sell. It will need to make up the difference with the PacN. Either it: Starts paying out $10-15m per year for that 40% of inventory after never really paying more than $3-4m prior or The Pac takes back the inventory, sells the PACN infrastructure (which has value, there are studios and uplinks, and people with expertise - maybe $100m?), and sells 100% of their inventory like the B12 or ACC did, which would likely eclipse the B12 by $2-5m per team per year due to the asset sale. We approach the sunken cost fallacy realm here, but if GK is dangling a carrot from a bad investment, Colorado will want to wait until the last minute to see what that is. Their big fear will be leaving for a big loss (buyout, pay comcast debt) and then also missing out on a future asset sale. It may be a dilapidated house in a bad neighborhood, but its still an asset.
  2. I'd doubt the B12 got that valuation with a Friday CCG and I'm not sure ESPN would want to since it pulls in 10m without brands. I can see both the SEC and B12 playing its game their though, like SEC mostly ATL, with a few DFW/Nashville and in those years the B12 is in Arrowhead or NRG or Paul Brown. Or Jerry gets the B12 at noon and the SEC in prime. With the B1G gone from the mouse, they can schedule the B12/ACC/SEC in sequence.
  3. I'd add that one of the biggest cons that is keeping them in orbit right now, and maybe by GK design, is the Pac schools' equity in PacNet. Clearly USC and UCLA have no issue walking away from it, they've hit gold. But none of the others, even the Ducks and Huskies, seem to have that lucrative escape set up for them. Some people ran the numbers during Covid when the Big Ten sold another 10% of BTN to Fox for cash, that the PacNet could be worth about $250m. If they got that number, which I doubt, but let's play nice, that means roughly $17-19m per remaining school after paying off Comcast/Holiday bowl debt. That is probably enough to keep CU/AZ at the table, even if it is just for one more contract. They'll want to wait it out until USC/UCLA pay the debt, but don't get the sale, and that sale, spread over time, adds $2-3m per year to a contract with a higher valuation than they can get if they keep the PacNet. That network is an anchor on their earnings right now. It takes inventory without showing it to enough people to pay what they need and, with ten teams, a greater percent of their inventory has to go to it than before. The Pac is likey worth the new B12's numbers if they had all their inventory to sell. The only way to do that is dump the PacNet. At ten, they'd even make more writing off the loss of scuttling the network than they would in trying to keep it operational.
  4. Haha on both counts. Yean, the amount of fucks I give about research dollars is pretty minimal.
  5. Fair my man, I think I missed where ASU joined. 😄
  6. You seem to be missing the bigger picture here over a quick example of how 12 would look last year or just odd revenue bravado. If this was a pro sport then what you claim has merit. However, even with NIL, it is not. This means you either need to move toward a system where it is professional, including getting the anti-trust exemption to negotiate en masse which is another giant issue, or you need to find a way to make it work under the current system. So far, they are doing it under the current system. However, in that system the more revenues grow while opportunities decrease for all schools participating within it, the brighter the spotlight begins to shine on the current system - and there is one very, very important nugget they will fight to protect, even eliminating sports, if possible, as the Big Ten had mentioned in the past. The moment the courts or the IRS or Congress deems that the CFB structure qualifies for the UBI doctrine the entire bundle of revenue associated with that is carved out of the tax-exempt status that most universities reside, and it becomes taxable revenue. And, in this situation, you cannot look at the athletic department as a whole, because the revenue is made in football, and lacrosse doesn't do anything as an expense for football. You could write off coaching salaries and staff that work within the sport, but by and large football makes far, far, far more money than it spends, it pays for nearly every other sport in an athletic budget. If deemed UBI, it would be taxed. Last year Texas had the following football financials: $161.5m in revenue (70% of all revenues) $50.6m in expenses (26% of all expenses) $110.9m in operational profit If deemed UBI, that piece cannot be shielded anymore, so it's now taxed. Booster donations are no longer tax exempt since football is now for-profit. A lot of this money evaporates quickly, non-revenue sports evaporate due to no revenues. There is also possible conversations on if the entire organization loses its non-profit status if money is provided as a payment for a service (e.g. players cannot be employees, which is why scholarships are used and tied to academics, the primary business of the university). Though I doubt you'd see it threaten academia. In short, it's not fairness that will provide more playoff opportunities, it will be offered because it costs less to have the optics of fairness, than to consolidate to the point where the entire operation is deemed "for profit". The more schools/states/regions you placate with post season spots, the less likely this spotlight gets too bright and the B1G/SEC get to keep their massive financial advantages.
  7. The biggest offense there is clearly the stale tortillas.
  8. What i found interesting in that article is his talking about marketing: The SEC has given up cash in the past for exposure and marketing, and its a good move every time. Worked for Boise State too when they did it. I'm interested to see how that develops with a group of brands that are still a lower case b.
  9. It shouldn't affect it too much. The biggest audience builder is casual fans watching marketed "good games", then its kind of fanbase and cross pollination, as you reference. Usually what influences audience numbers are (in order): Network, network marketing, and time slot Ranked match up or something "on the line" Game going down to the last 5 minutes Brand They all kind of multiply the results and I only put brand last because a non brand team in a close game with something on the line in a great time slot will out draw a brand with nothing on the line in a blow out. Have all of them though, and its an explosion like the Texas/USC natty coming down to the last play and locking up biggest CFB audience of all time. Going forward I don't expect much of a drop for the B12, one of the entire reasons they got the contract they did is their audiences outside Texas/OU increased 40% in their games against each other from the last deal. They don't have brands, so they won't be commanding $60-70m, but they have competitive teams with fervent fan bases who seem focused on developing, so they should be able to continue growing if they don't shoot themselves in the foot. As for Texas and OU, I'm very confident we'll see a major uptick in Texas' audience numbers in the move to the SEC, by at least 30+%, regardless of record. I'm not as convinced the Sonners will hold serve. They easily could be heard in the B12 because they won and outsized all but Texas. That isn't the case any more. They need to not only out message Texas, but now they need to do the same with Bama, LSU, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida, all of whom have better demographics. If they can't turn on repetitive 10 win seasons i think they risk becoming an A&M or Arkansas.
  10. This playoff count thing is a bit more difficult to read. While I agree that there will be a weighting of brands, at some point losses matter. Generally, there is a big argument over who is the top team, out of two, rarely is it the top team out of four, which is what you'd need to get 3 in the at large, since the CCG champ gets a bye. I think the B1G/SEC having four in any year is about as rare as the ACC/B12 having 3. Much more likely the B1G/SEC will always get 3 in and sometimes one of them will creep in a 4th, while one only gets two in a rare year. Along the way, the ACC/B12 manage two a year, in the years their best non-champ has 2 or less losses. Autos: SEC, B1G, ACC, B12, PAC, G5 At large/year: B1G/SEC - 2, ACC/B12 - .75, Pac - .5 (mostly due to 9 conf games with 10 teams) Last year the count would have been: SEC - 3 B1G - 3 ACC - 1 B12 - 2 PAC - 2 AAC - 1 The only realignment shake up was one of those PAC teams was USC. You can't just assume their record would be the same, as they would have had to play the three big hitters in the B1G above them in the rankings. Probably more likely the fourth B1G team drops below 10-2 Washington who may have fared better without USC. Also of note, the entire concept of moving to 12 was to provide more access, not less, as the CFP is the only collegiate sport championship with a tiny representative sample of who gets a chance at the prize. Basketball has 68 teams, baseball has a large percentage, football has four, from primarily two conferences. When they moved to four they paid the rest of FBS more money to ward off lawsuits and those at the top don't want to fight lawsuits that will likely shake the foundations of their gravy train. They need more variety in the championships for optics, even if those teams are seeded 9-12 and always lose in the first round. Matter a fact, ESPECIALLY if those teams are 9-12 and lose in the first round.
  11. Damn, just when I didn't look one up and gave someone credit, bitches let me down
  12. Dear god, wtf is going on here. Georgia plays Tenn-Martin, Ball Fucking State, and UAB next year. Aggy plays Abilene, Louisiana Monroe, and the Lobos. The Vols play Austin Peay and the juggernaut that is UConn. Hail State plays SE Louisiana, Western Michigan, and Southern Miss. LSU plays Grambling and Georgia State, while Arkansas plays the Catamounts and FIU. Generally speaking, most SEC schools schedule like bitches. A few, like Bama, schedule like Texas. If you're pissy about other's schedules now, just wait for two years. IMO, 10 P5 games should be the minimum allowed to qualify for the post season. Schools need to nut up.
  13. If the B10 grew like it normally does, it takes Arizona before ASU, AAU and all, also the B10 needs basketball too. Though Delaney had a quote that there is a point where a conference stops being a conference, and he thought it was 16. Pretty confident the Pac is just going to rebuild without LA. Funny thing about college towns, they fucking rock when you're in college. Not so much after.
  14. Used to have to go to Tuscon to have eggheads talk to me about missile development. It's a goddamn desert and hot as fuck. Not sure why you'd play any day games before November.
  15. I can see this, but, at the end of the day, that's about where they reside right now. Likely, as you say, by not marketing it well enough and not competing well enough. ASU ranks 43rd in FBS in average football attendance over the past 5 years, running at 59% of capacity. So, big stadium, small crowds. And while that's not the end all be all number, it is a pretty good indicator to how fanatic one's fanbase is. ASU is still in the top 50, but it's not exactly saying "we're worth all the accolades you'd think we'd have being a massive university in a massive market." Now to your examples, Kansas has been a shit show and is not in the Top 50, so ASU has them, but Kansas State is in 37th place and has had their percent of capacity around 81% for 5 years, Tech is 29th in average attendance and 77% full, and Iowa State is 24th and running at 79% capacity. As for TV, ASU's biggest audience last year was 1.92m against USC, their biggest non blue blood game was 1.2m against Utah. Kansas State's biggest non-blue blood game was 3.4m, Tech's was 2.5m and Iowa State's was 4.4m Branding starts at home. ASU could be a powerhouse, but it isn't currently even in the same tier as the schools you mentioned. It is potential, looking for an audience.
  16. Agreed, i think the only solution they have at the moment is to sell the PacN at a loss, to get out from under the $70m they owe, and then bundle everything into a rights fee. Who needs a linear network, is the real question. If the answer is no one, they're fucked.
  17. Not sure what happened there, but it won't let me delete, enjoy this picture of a cat in a silly hat!
  18. This, trust me, they've seen numbers. They just haven't seen numbers to keep everyone happy. Also, i think they're dealing with something the B12 didn't have to deal with, which is the PacNet. Contractually i think they fed around a third of their football games to the PACN, or around two games per team per year. Dropping to ten means that jumps to 40%, leaving a lot less to sell to other partners. Their best bet is unloading PACN to a buyer and including those games as a rights deal going forward. That is far more difficult to cobble together than just selling rights. Its an anchor currently.
  19. Don't think the money infusion will come in as fast as the PAC needs, but some interesting thoughts from Front Office Sports here:
  20. Why wouldn't they stay with those schools in whatever is made out of the west coast? Oregon State and Washington State will still be there, so that's six. Just depends on if Oregon/Washington/Colorado/Arizona stick around or if you add SDSU/UNLV and some combo like Rice and Tulane if academics is the thing. Indy is a bitch in today's market.
  21. Right, but most conferences require a one-year notice or things escalate. That either occurred two weeks ago or will occur in two weeks.
  22. Right, my point was if they have to give a year's notice, and the time to give a year's notice just past, then they'd either need to have a year without any media, pay a staggering buyout to leave immediately, or they'd have to take whatever deal is offered, which will require a GoR.
  23. They can't be on the media contract without it. So if the fiscal is July to June, that means their exit year is July 2025-2026. The Pac media deal, whatever it is, will start in the summer of 2024. Only way that works is if they sign the media deal and stick around through it, or some really random situation where they're not paid nor shown on TV for a year. Now, could you with a big buy out, sure, but none of these teams are sitting on piles of cash to burn. If USC/UCLA gave proper notice for a giant raise, the rest definitely will too. I'm still convinced that the PAC's fiscal is August/July. Which is the same situation we just discussed, but the window on announcing anything hasn't closed yet. Another wrinkle in this is that the PAC's language just states everything resets on August 1st, 2024. Maybe they don't have to announce if that triggers, they just don't need to sign up for more. This would make the Pac extremely unstable, though, far worse than today.
  24. If 6/30 is the date required to provide notice, then realignment with the Pac is over, at least in terms of schools leaving. The next notice would be next June, with another year out. But to survive that year, they'd need to be on a media contract, which requires a GoR. So if they're not gone before the end of the next fiscal, they're not going to be gone.
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