re: Do the troubles at ESPN bother anyone else?

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ESPN was fine until the ultra liberal gay friendly folks at Disney decided to buy the white heterosexual males favorite channel and then proceed to shame us into believing that we are all Neanderthals because we don't want to watch two guys sucking dick

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So you are saying we added Missouri and Texas A&M because Disney wanted gay football in the SEC?

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I'm sure your last statement nails me, but if your prediction is correct, the quality of college sports on television is going to take a huge hit. I can't wait to see somebody's journalism dept. bringing me my college football fix every Saturday.

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We're already doing it with basketball.

Mike Morgan and Roy Philpot calling conference basketball games are a fine example of $200.00 per game talent calling a game and pulling it off. Same thing applies to SEC Network baseball coverage. As a matter of fact it's all been a big experiment having member institutions providing logistical support to contract production crews and local color and play by play talent.

Listen, without telling too much ... I used to be involved in the business on one level and I am very familiar with how it works and where it is going. ESPN has been teaching us how to pull it off from the get go ... every time we see inventory broadcast on the SEC Network, the home member institution has had a major hand in providing that inventory.

Now, SEC Nation and the Finebaum Show, two major players for our network, they are ESPN owned and produced but only with the consent of the SEC and with the conference's oversight. Finebaum's deal is contingent upon the network itself remaining healthy as is the SEC Nation show and all of its talent.

Both would be free to break away in the event of ESPN's failure to meet obligations to the conference.

And let me state again, while trying to make it easier to understand.

1 - nothing is going to change as long as ESPN meets it's quality content and financial obligations to the conference.

2 - cord cutting is inevitable. It's happening. The need for high power sat transmissions and the equipment to do so, along with satellite bandwidth contracts, is coming to an end in the near future ... at least regionally. They may still be needed for national transmissions but at greatly reduced costs because there are ways to utilize provider assets to reach out beyond our immediate footprint soon to be completely serviced by below ground fiber optics.

3 - while gross revenue may decline, net revenue to the conference will increase thanks to lower operating costs and the fact that we'll be keeping a bigger piece of the pie. We're basically splitting profits with ESPN 50-50 right now and, for that matter, we're probably not even realizing 50% because ESPN's costs are inflated to help bolster their bottom line. Meaning they are charging us too much for what they do ... we could do it for a third of what they are billing off the top and they know it. (As is being proven by their current talent dump and other cost cutting measures)

4 - we regain control of the commentary. ESPN is not our friend.

5 - we sub-out the advertising to local and regional agencies and rely far less on national inventory buys and sells which we're practically giving away at times. It's strictly fill because ESPN doesn't want to get down and dirty with moderate regional advertising agencies ... they think it's beneath them. We're having to discount those in the first place while sponsorships are out there for the taking that will pay us far more to be associated with our product and our rapidly growing, and diverse, regional population.

6 - all of this creates peripheral jobs for OUR region, our footprint and our population base ... rather than us funding overpaid liberal leaning asshats in the Northeast and far west who are trying their best to influence us through our beloved conference affiliations with their left leaning political philosophy.

We're learning to do this on our own as we go. We're heavily involved with every production and we'll continue to be so for the life of this current contract. But the day is coming, very soon, where we will no longer need them ... IF we are so inclined. And that puts us in a very safe, secure, stable position from which to negotiate when the time comes.

I think an HBO/independent type sports broadcasting system would be amazing. Imagine having 2 guys that didn't have to keep things PG calling a college or NFL game. That would make watching some games so much better. I get so tired of the standard "he worked really hard this offseason, coaches love the way he lifts weights, etc" bull they waste time with between plays. Imagine some of your favorite podcast guys calling a game. Like the guys on pardon my take or something. It would be so much better than Joe Buck and co.

ETA: still have the traditional broadcast for all the boring people but have an alternate broadcast with people that don't have to watch what they say

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That's the old model. New model says the production aspect can be done on a regional/conference level through the individual University J-schools.

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LOL you think J-Schools have that kind of equipment? Alabama does (the Digital Media Center is fantastic), but the others do not. I know LSU has frick all for broadcast equipment ... just a bunch of old cameras and old computers with Avid...that's about it.

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I know LSU has frick all for broadcast equipment

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They also haven't updated IT infrastructure basically at all since the state started cutting their budget every year.

ESPN is a bunch of ball washers.

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We're already doing it with basketball.

Mike Morgan and Roy Philpot calling conference basketball games are a fine example of $200.00 per game talent calling a game and pulling it off. Same thing applies to SEC Network baseball coverage. As a matter of fact it's all been a big experiment having member institutions providing logistical support to contract production crews and local color and play by play talent.

Listen, without telling too much ... I used to be involved in the business on one level and I am very familiar with how it works and where it is going. ESPN has been teaching us how to pull it off from the get go ... every time we see inventory broadcast on the SEC Network, the home member institution has had a major hand in providing that inventory.

Now, SEC Nation and the Finebaum Show, two major players for our network, they are ESPN owned and produced but only with the consent of the SEC and with the conference's oversight. Finebaum's deal is contingent upon the network itself remaining healthy as is the SEC Nation show and all of its talent.

Both would be free to break away in the event of ESPN's failure to meet obligations to the conference.

And let me state again, while trying to make it easier to understand.

1 - nothing is going to change as long as ESPN meets it's quality content and financial obligations to the conference.

2 - cord cutting is inevitable. It's happening. The need for high power sat transmissions and the equipment to do so, along with satellite bandwidth contracts, is coming to an end in the near future ... at least regionally. They may still be needed for national transmissions but at greatly reduced costs because there are ways to utilize provider assets to reach out beyond our immediate footprint soon to be completely serviced by below ground fiber optics.

3 - while gross revenue may decline, net revenue to the conference will increase thanks to lower operating costs and the fact that we'll be keeping a bigger piece of the pie. We're basically splitting profits with ESPN 50-50 right now and, for that matter, we're probably not even realizing 50% because ESPN's costs are inflated to help bolster their bottom line. Meaning they are charging us too much for what they do ... we could do it for a third of what they are billing off the top and they know it. (As is being proven by their current talent dump and other cost cutting measures)

4 - we regain control of the commentary. ESPN is not our friend.

5 - we sub-out the advertising to local and regional agencies and rely far less on national inventory buys and sells which we're practically giving away at times. It's strictly fill because ESPN doesn't want to get down and dirty with moderate regional advertising agencies ... they think it's beneath them. We're having to discount those in the first place while sponsorships are out there for the taking that will pay us far more to be associated with our product and our rapidly growing, and diverse, regional population.

6 - all of this creates peripheral jobs for OUR region, our footprint and our population base ... rather than us funding overpaid liberal leaning asshats in the Northeast and far west who are trying their best to influence us through our beloved conference affiliations with their left leaning political philosophy.

We're learning to do this on our own as we go. We're heavily involved with every production and we'll continue to be so for the life of this current contract. But the day is coming, very soon, where we will no longer need them ... IF we are so inclined. And that puts us in a very safe, secure, stable position from which to negotiate when the time comes.

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The three Daves: We are getting the band back together!!!

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LOL you think J-Schools have that kind of equipment?

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May not be J schools

When UK is on TV it is ESPN but it is the state educational TV doing the work. If you have ever been to Lexington, KET's facilities are right next to CWS.

I believe we could do production on a professional level and it would still be affordable for the conference if we were to provide the service ourselves.

As an example look at the WWE Network. A lot of people, and I'm one of them, thought they were cutting their own throat when they rolled this out a few years ago. Their TV viewership was already down by quite a bit from their heyday and they were giving up a ton of PPV revenue since people could watch everything the WWE puts out for ten bucks a month.

Instead its slowly but surely grown into a profit making machine for the WWE. With a subscriber base of just north of a million folks the company has increased revenue over the last few years at a steady clip. And that is for a now niche entertainment.

Arkansas vs Mizzou from last year, hardly a game that had major national implications, had 2.5 million people watching it. LSU vs Texas A&M had 2.8 million. Bama vs Auburn had 8.25 million viewers. Hell half a million people tuned in to watch Cinnci and Tulsa play.

The market would seem to be very strong for college football, particularly in the SEC footprint. We would have the problem of seasonal variation, the WWE runs their events year round while the SEC does nothing in the summer and would have its biggest numbers for only three or four months in a year.

Still, combined with a TV deal, even a reduced TV deal, ads and gate revenue the SEC could easily turn a profit doing this and while the risks would be on the conference the profits from something like this would be all ours as well.

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I believe we could do production on a professional level and it would still be affordable for the conference if we were to provide the service ourselves.

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Totally agree Sulli ...

BTW, fwiw trivia. McMahon and the WWE both can thank Jerry Lawler for the original idea. Lawler was a nightmare to deal with but he was a helluva smart guy when it came to negotiating media contracts.