Crunching Pac 10 Regional TV numbers

If the Pac-10 wants to stay competitive they need to get something done with their TV package. Can’t remember what game it was, Stanford I think, but anyway the broadcast was horrible. Having a Pac-10 channel would be sWeet!

Any idea when this kid is going to “give his final answer”?

Go into the states of Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana and the Pac 10 games are all televised. So to say we only have broadcasting in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona is not completely accurate. Now I realize those other western states are not so significant in terms of tv viewing percentages, but we do have them.

We may land Colorado, but like you said we’d have to have a better tv deal to entice the Bufs to leave the Big 12. If Mizzou leaves for the Big 10 it may open the door for Colorado to bolt too.

The only way we draw tvs from Texas is if we get the Longhorns or Aggies. Nobody in the long star state pays much attention to the RedRaiders, Owls, Mustangs, Bears, Cougars, and Horned Frogs. Texas has two schools they watch and they are Texas and Texas A&M. Could we get the Longhorns or Aggies? Not ever going to happen.

Best case scenario for the Pac 10 expansion plans are either:

- Colorado and Colorado State or Air Force
- Colorado and Utah
- Utah and BYU

Colorado maybe … and if we go into Texas then we are dealing with the RedRaiders, Owls, Mustangs, Bears, Cougars, and Horned Frogs. The Longhorns and Aggies won’t leave their grass roots history for the big city league. I’m not found of the Pac 10 exploring Texas altogether. Conference USA tried a continental league and it failed miserably. I believe to some extent geography is important in keeping the league viable. Taking Colorado is stretching that georgraphical viability.

Eventually ESPN will be nation wide. Look at their ESPN.boston.com, ESPN.dallas.com, ESPN.chicago.com, and new on the web is ESPN.losangelas.com.

I believe in the future, ESPN will have broadcasting in all corners of the nation. Currently the broadcasting comes from Bristol, Connecticut. Eventually their will be an ESPN-West, ESPN-South, ESPN-Midwest, and an ESPN-East.

I’m quite sure ESPN does not like the fact that leagues are diving into their own networks. The Big 10 network has got to bother the hell out of the ESPN folks. Like the NFL got rid of the USFL, ESPN will get rid of league networks. How will they get rid of them? Easy, they will buy them out.

ESPN’s goal is to have a monopoly of all broadcasting control- look they finally got Monday Night Football. ESPN won’t sit while leagues form their own networks. In the meantime, the Pac 10 will sit on their hands and wait like they always do.

But I agree with you John, the league is far behind all the other BCS leagues in terms of marketing. At least the Big East and ACC have basketball to keep them afloat.

there are so many “easy” financial arguments against, I can see the commissioner having a very difficult time selling all of the universities on the idea even if a preferred plan is hatched. An expansion proposal is a difficult thing to digest in this situation where all of the schools have what amounts to veto power.

specifically, the University of Texas. That is the only Texas school they want because its the only school that fits and that will actually increase the academic and athletic prestige of the PAC. The chances of luring UT are slim at best. The PAC would likely have to offer a greater financial share rather than the standard equal revenue share. That alone would cause chaos because USC at least would demand the same, and that would cause a negative domino effect within the conference.

John, the most important thing that you highlighted is the PAC must be creative in overcoming its regional obstacles. Colorado and Utah are no-brainers but we must target Texas to guarantee our future as an elite conference. My solution: Move the PAC to partially performance based revenue sharing, where share % is based on overall balance, performance and health of a university`s athletic program. Factors include qualifying for postseason, with heaviest weight given to the revenue sports of football and mens basketball, next heaviest to womens teams in basketball, volleyball, softball. gymnastics and soccer to promote gender equity and reward balanced athletic programs. Factor in a plus or minus multiplier for graduation rates and NCAA infractions and you have a mini intraconference Presidents Cup for cash. The best part is Texas already excels in all these areas so they would be almost guaranteed to get a larger revenue share in the PAC. In addition, the PAC should target a natural rival of Texas, like Nebraska (better fit, less disruptive) or Oklahoma (more athletic prestige, more cultural problems). Under my scenario you end up with a robust PAC14 that rivals the SEC. A more attractive and lucrative national tv product that could support its own network and a more attractive year-end conference tournament in basketball. PAC-14: Arizona. Arizona State. CAL. Colorado. Nebraska(or Oklahoma). Oregon. Oregon State. Stanford. Texas. UCLA. USC. Utah. Washington. Washington State

Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
California
Stanford
UCLA
USC

Arizona
Arizona State
Texas
Texas A&M
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Colorado
Utah

Besides restructuring the TV deal to actually be worth a crap, the conference has to expand to keep up with the rest. It’s nice to have our little 10 team conference on the west coast, but it’s not fiscally responsible. We get no national love and are buried over here in our own timezone, away from the large markets. Nobody’s going to stay up to watch a 10 o’clock start. So, beside getting a deal worth it’s weight, we need to expand out of the west coast and pick up schools that will bring positive revenue and fit the academic profile.

Who are they? I don’t know yet, but it needs to happen.

1. No Adding Subpar/Non-Research Schools – Please stop bringing up the Boise State, etc. as expansion targets. They are not PAC10 quality and there is no such thing as being “close”…you either are or you aren`t. For a long time (particularly in the 80s), Washington State and Arizona State were receiving a lot of pressure from their conference peers to strengthen their overall academic offerings. Sports are not more important than academics to the Presidents of the PAC10. 2. No Schools w/Religous Affiliation – Please stop suggesting BYU, Texas Christian University, etc. as expansion targets. It won`t happen because they play by different rules, academically, athletically and financially. It is not a coincedence that the only nonpublic PAC schools bring unsurpassed prestige in academics (Stanford) and athletics (USC), they are exceptions for that reason only. There are ZERO religous schools and this will continue, unless and until Notre Dame decides it wants to join the PAC.

One thing that people need to keep in mind here is that the Pac-10 faces an uphill battle for TV revenue, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Why? Geography.

The majority of the population in this country resides in the Eastern and Central time zones. Pac-10 teams have a limited window to get on the TV sets in the East Coast when people are watching due to the 3 hour time difference. As such, the Pac-10 has to be willing to be creative and play more prime-time games on days other than Saturday in order to gain more eyeballs.

As well, the conference fights the national perception of not being the top conference in the country. The SEC is regarded as the best (which is usually true, but not as much as SEC proponents would have you believe), and the Pac-10 battles the Big-12 for consideration as the 2nd best. It’s hard to steal TV sets in the East Coast away from SEC games when the option are there – people in the East Coast and Central Time Zone are more apt to watch an SEC, Notre Dame, Big-12, Big-10 or ACC game than a Pac-10 game if given the option.

Also, the Pac-10 schools highly value their academic reputation, modeling themselves after the Big-10 in that regard. All of the Pac-10 schools are top-shelf research institutions. You can quibble with a few of them (WSU, Oregon, OSU, Arizona), but compared to the NCAA as a whole, the Pac-10 schools are top-notch in terms of academics.

Finally, the Pac-10 schools value tradition very highly. The in-state rivalries are cherished, and full round-robin schedule is also highly valued as helping determine a “true champion” as well as avoiding the scheduling mess that the conference had before when 1 or 2 in-conference schools were skipped (remember the imbalance of home games with Oregon and Oregon State?)

What this all adds up to is severe difficulty in expanding the conference. On the one hand, I think the schools know they are fighting an increasingly losing battle for revenue dollars. The current financial disparity between the Pac-10 and other BCS conferences should be a big wake-up call for the conference, as well as the fact that the gap has grown considerably over the last decade+. The conference knows it needs to increase revenues, primarily through better TV revenues. That will pressure the conference to look to schools that can increase TV revenue. While having a good football team helps (Boise State) in terms of boosting the prestige of the conference, you also need strong TV markets to sell to the networks (which hurts Boise). And we also need to keep in mind that football isn’t the only revenue producer for the conference – basketball also needs to be considered (also hurts Boise).

What complicates this is the academic part – as well noted, there aren’t many schools that both bring a healthy TV audience and prestige AND a superior academic reputation. Colorado is an obvious choice, but Utah isn’t quite as strong (though the best of the most realistic options). If the Pac-10 really wanted to get serious about keeping up with the rest of the country, they’d think really big and try to steal some of the big guns from the Big-12 like Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Not all of those schools are superior academically, but they would be a big boost to the conference in terms of TV revenue, and would create a conference that could legitimately be considered the best in the country.

It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out. I think Larry Scott is smart enough to know what ought to be done, but he works for the Pac-10 school presidents, and there’s no guarantee they will be forward thinking enough to pursue an aggressive strategy. And that’s too bad, because their inherent conservative nature when it comes to athletics and football in particular could doom the Pac-10 to falling behind the Big-10, Big-12, ACC & Big East and being no better than the MWC.