One thing I do wonder about with the direction things are going is the role game attendance plays (or doesn’t play) with the future of the sport. While I know the TV networks want full stadiums, energetic crowds, and a great atmosphere because it helps them showcase how great the event is…ultimately they don’t really care. Their biggest products (Super Bowl, Final Four, CFP) are often the worst fan experience because they are in generic locations with a mostly corporate crowd. Additionally, almost all teams are having trouble filling stadiums these days. That isn’t just the Rutgers and Illinois schools either - Michigan and OSU are having trouble filling many of their games - and yet ticket prices rise.
The networks shelling out billions and taking more control over the sport, the conferences, and the schools would rather you sit at home and watch on TV than go to the games. The schools say they want to improve the fan experience, but ultimately they have to cater to the networks and chase revenue. I’d love to believe that these massive TV deals would allow the big schools to make their tickets more affordable and allow the smaller schools the ability to make them really cheap. But I doubt that happens either. So is the overall product still worth billions if the stadium is half empty? Most NFL teams have solid attendance, but pay attention mid-season to see how often the TV even shows the stands because frequently they’re half empty by then. Even the NFL popularity has resulted in a lot of people just throwing on the RedZone channel so they don’t have to watch so many dang commercials and timeouts.
Somehow the EPL has thrived as a product despite no in-game advertising and constant pace of play. Baseball is trying everything to tighten up the timing of their games for a better viewing product. Football is happy to throw commercials all over the place to justify their investment. Not sure when this comes to a head and the product isn’t as fun. Basketball may be somewhat immune because they want to cram a 2-hour game into the TV schedule on a weeknight and show the next one.
It seems like the direction this is going is to eventually pay the players as employees more than the backdoor NIL payments. I think we’re still a bit far off from that simply because the leadership in the sport has always been so archaic in their thinking while lining their own pockets plus the athletes are not organized or represented in a way that would enable them to negotiate contracts or salaries. Additionally, the role Title-9 laws play in any sort of player compensation is likely to be complex - as is equality among sports. We’ve seen what’s going on with USA soccer between the men and women. How do you handle paying football, hockey, badminton, chess, etc.?
I think it is headed there with all the money being thrown around, just not an easy transition. What might prompt it would be something dramatic like the B10 or SEC becoming an independent super conference that creates their own rules and pay structure.
I’m calling this conference realignment “The B1G Revenge”.
I’m excited about the B1G monetarily competing with other conferences and for now surpassing them. I’m sure this will show on the field of play. The B1G has always been reactionary to the southern conferences. The SEC will now try to one up the B1G but unless they use Amazon or some other weird outlet it’ll be tough to do.
I’ll never forget how the B1G was treated in the 90s by the NCAA, TV networks and their southern friends. The B1G was told to start their own network they had no interest. What grand advice that ended up being though it was given in arrogance at the time.
This last move by the SEC to take Texas and Oklahoma seems to have stoked a fire in Kevin Warren. It’s almost like he was prepared to take action and did so swiftly.
I’m not so naive to think I’m not going to have to sacrifice, maybe watching more commercials, purchase streaming services and a few other torturous burdens to bear. I am however looking forward to cutting my ESecPN programming to more than offset that cost.
Watching a B1G game without all the SEC, ACC and Big 12 promotions along with other propaganda in the content will be wonderful. Maybe the SEC promotions continue but I’ll know they are paying for it. The ESecPN is faltering and hemorrhaging customers down another 10% in fiscal year 2021. The B1G Network is looking up and is in as many households (75 million) as ESecPN. With the LA TV market added to the B1G footprint it’s conceivable the B1G Network will surpass ESecPN.
When sponsors took control of the sporting arena certainly we knew we’d arrive at this one day. I just never imagined the Rust Belt buying Sunny California and possibly the Sunrise Coast as well. I knew neither would consider lending a helping hand to the Rust Belt so it had to be this way.
When I hear what this is to UCLA those student athletes have got to be ecstatic. I know for every win there’s at least one loss and wonder what will become of the Washington States’ of college sports.
I don’t think we launched the BTN because the other networks weren’t interested. The Big Ten has always been a pretty good TV draw. The league just saw a business opportunity and cashed in.
The network’s foundation traces back to 2004, following negotiations between the Big Ten and ESPN on an extension of the conference’s broadcast contract with the network.
With three years remaining in the existing deal, the conference sought a significant increase in rights fees. ESPN, however, balked, causing Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany to begin exploring the creation of his own network.
Will this affect me watching Michigan’s games if I don’t subscribe the Peacock? Eh, maybe three or so a year. (Although my wife says that this won’t affect me at all since, in truth, I will often click it off or maybe not watch altogether if I’m too nervous about the way a game is going.) But the problem is that I am otherwise addicted to watching a lot of Big 10 basketball games 20% sounds like a lot of basketball-less Tuesday or Thursday nights.
Yeah, that would be in line with the 20%. I assume there will be a handful of notable weekday games that end of on Peacock so that everyone gets a slice.
