re: Pac-12 zooms past Big Ten, SEC in college sports revenue

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quote: They own all their network, correct? Correct 100% of carriage + 100% of advertising. Of all the Big 5 they have the biggest upside by the time contracts renegotiate around 2024. Having only 12 teams also means fewer slices of the pie. Unlike the B12, they have a solid footprint with growing states, a natural moat, and monopoly pricing power.

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This is why we shouldn't have done the deal with ESPN. The coverage and immediate guaranteed money in the short term will be great, but 10 years from now we will know we signed a deal with the devil and wish we owned 100% of SEC network

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The coverage and immediate guaranteed money in the short term will be great, but 10 years from now we will know we signed a deal with the devil and wish we owned 100% of SEC network

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While I agree about 90% here the problem is the 3 issues that are problems for the footprint.

#1 no moat
#2 no monopoly in big states
#3 smaller footprint compared to B1G and PAC

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they have a solid footprint with growing states, a natural moat, and monopoly pricing power.

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I will agree that they potentially have the biggest upside, but at least right now: They have a big lack of enough content problem, carriage problem, and lack of exposure east of the Rockies problem.

The Pac Network only paid out $800,000 to member schools, where as the Big Ten Network was paying out $7.2 million in 2012

I'm curious what the SEC content would be outside of football season?

Because all I've ever heard from SEC fan - is, it's football, football, football...and sometimes baseball and now rarely, basketball...and pansies out west follow softball, volleyball, track and field, water polo, etc.

So how is this going to work?

Pac-12 network follows the seasons and shows highlights of football games. Is the SEC network just going to show highlights of the football season during the off-season?

Because a lot of SEC schools don't even play year round sports and Olympics sports - and if they do - they don't do it well. What is to watch? The Auburn/Bama football game on continuous loop?

I don't understand these so-called networks...even Pac-12 - which has a fanbase for these sports no one really gives a shite about. SEC has no fanbase for these year round sports and they suck at it.

I don't get it. SEC Network might as well be called SEC Football/Kentucky basketball Network and just show highlights...because that's the only sport the SEC is really competitive at.

Golf, volleyball, tennis, track, water polo???

Who outside of the Pac is going to watch this shite?

It's usually Pac vs. Pac in the finals.

Thanks for the link

B1G operates on fiscal year ending June 30th if memory serves

Article is from fall 2013 which means numbers are probably from July 1, 2012 to June 30. 2013 fiscal year. So that would be around 15% / 85% from a year or 2 from this point in time. Did that jump significantly in the past year or so is part of the question. The bigger question is which will be the growth engine going forward.

I was speaking to some B1G folks and they seemed to think long term the ad revenue would be the bigger deal. Maybe the 60 carriage / 40 advertising after Maryland and Rutgers integrated and the B1G expanded into the east coast advertising footprint. If the B1G added Johns Hopkins it certainly was not for football. Lacrosse is a big deal in the eastern corridor even if not as popular elsewhere.

Football drives the bus now but the top tier where the real money resides is already cherry picked. Content and growth is the domain of the other sports. In that area the dollars seem less restricted going forward.

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I don't get it. SEC Network might as well be called SEC Football/Kentucky basketball Network and just show highlights...because that's the only sport the SEC is really competitive at.

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When realignment was starting to roll in 2010, 3 of the top 5 Tier III deals in place were teams with primary college basketball teams (North Carolina, Kentucky, and Kansas). Florida was in the top 5 but not sure how much was football and how much was basketball. The issue being that basketball content is valuable in the off season and the only thing holding back even bigger revenue for basketball is the NCAA tournament.

In the early 70's the NCAA controlled the TV rights for both football and basketball. Along came Oklahoma / Georgia vs the NCAA and football was taken from the NCAA and split between the CFA schools (mostly everybody but the B1G and PAC) and the non CFA schools (B1G + PAC + ??) and those TV media values went from the NCAA to the schools.

If the Big 5 (and maybe someday just 4) left the NCAA tournament and formed its own, that billion or so each year would then go to the schools and not the NCAA. The monetary gap between football and basketball would narrow considerably overnight. People still watch March Madness so those dollars would just switch and not the demand. Folks forget in the past the NIT was the big tournament and the NCAA was the upstart.

In a more simplistic view, football provides the bulk of the money but everything else provides the bulk of the content. There is a place for both in a conference specific network.

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I'm curious what the SEC content would be outside of football season?

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Same content as the Pac 12 network for the most part and if I had to venture a guess, even the minor sports will be as popular as anywhere else, which isn't saying much. Basketball will be more popular for the other conference networks, but it's still very popular here. Baseball is actually a revenue sport to a few schools down here and will carry live sports well into June.

Football, the real money driver in this whole thing is just bigger in SEC country than anywhere else, and the SEC will have 10 more games in it's inventory than the Pac. Also, The SEC Network will only have the national network, not 6 other regional networks to provide content for. That's huge. Content is problem for all of these conference networks, but in reality it should be less of a problem for the SEC network especially because of the popularity of baseball. Nobody else has an equivalent to carry into the summer. Hockey is big for some up north, but it's season is the same time as other seasons.

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I just don't believe or know that SEC fan will tune in considering what I've read on this board that last 6 years of denigrating every other sport that wasn't football.

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This board is often far out of touch with fans of schools. If 15,000 folks show up for a gymnastic meet at Alabama or 24,000 show up for a women's basketball game at Kentucky it seems pretty obvious there is a fan base.

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Maybe it is...maybe once the SEC gets good in these other sports people will take pride. I don't know.

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I think that is part of it, but the bigger part will be long term fans who have been priced out of football by the corporate folks moving in. Say you have been Alabama football fan all your life but can no longer afford to go. You probably don't stop being a fan but maybe you start attending basketball or baseball because it is easier to afford. My guess is that is where the growth will come from.

Well, I'd say as a conference the SEC is near the top of indoor/outdoor track and field, golf, gymnastics, softball, and women's basketball. Even with all the talk on this board, the minor sports should be pretty close to the same as any other conference. If nothing else is on a lot of people will watch something that there school is participating in even if they aren't that good.