Pac media rights - Printable Version
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RE: Pac media rights - dabigv13 - 08-02-2023
Good background reading on the recent struggles of ESPN.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/business/media/espn-disney.html
Quote:Disney is now exploring a once-unthinkable sale of a stake in ESPN. Not all of it, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has made clear. But he wants “strategic partners that could either help us with distribution or content,” he said during an interview with CNBC last month. Disney has held talks with the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball about taking a minority stake.
Seems straightforward- the Pac-x needs to buy ESPN.
Quote:The bulk of ESPN’s revenue comes from what are called affiliate fees. These are monthly fees that cable providers — like Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox — pay ESPN for the right to offer its television channels to households. Last year around 71 million United States households paid for a television package that included ESPN, and those cable providers, in turn, paid ESPN an average of $8.81 per month for each home, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates that ESPN has also taken in more than $2 billion annually in advertising in recent years.
But cord cutting has been hurting both those revenue streams. A decade ago, more than 100 million households received ESPN, meaning 30 million fewer households get ESPN today than in 2013. ESPN has consistently raised its affiliate fee to offset this decline, but its ability to continue doing so will be limited in the coming years: By 2027, fewer than 50 million homes will pay for cable television, according to PwC, the accounting giant.
At the same time, ESPN’s costs are exploding. ESPN will pay an average of $2.7 billion annually over the next decade for the right to show the N.F.L., a 42 percent increase from what it used to pay. It will soon negotiate with the N.B.A. on a potentially very expensive renewal of its rights agreement.
According to Disney’s financial filings, it will pay $10.8 billion this year for sports programming. It has future commitments totaling about $57 billion, with some of its contracts running well into the 2030s. These contracts are a result of a spending spree the company has undertaken to head off deeper-pocketed tech companies, which are also hungry for sports programming, and to stock its nascent ESPN+ streaming service.
Quote:The question, then, is when will Disney offer ESPN as a stand-alone streaming channel, allowing people to buy it à la carte, and not as part of some larger package of channels they don’t really want?
“We haven’t said when, but we do know that it will happen,” Mr. Iger said on CNBC.
Pricing, however, is an enormous obstacle. Offering ESPN à la carte will assuredly hasten the erosion of the cable bundle, which is held together mostly by sports.
“The current cable bundle, if you are a sports fan, is probably the optimal way to watch sports content because the majority of sports are in that bundle,” Mr. Nathanson said.
Affiliate fee increases for other Disney channels will slow, or even decrease, when they are sold on their own without ESPN. Cable providers are likely to be far more aggressive in offering cheaper, skinny bundles that do not include ESPN channels.
Disney’s family of sports channels currently earn somewhere north of $12 per month in affiliate fees for each cable subscription, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Estimates vary widely, but if ESPN offered its cable channels à la carte, it would most likely have to charge an astonishingly high fee for the streaming service, perhaps $40 or $50 per month, just to maintain its current revenue.
RE: Pac media rights - TooMuchTV - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 10:16 AM)fullmetal Wrote:Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+ and MLS are on DIRECTV for business customers.(08-02-2023, 03:58 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: The PAC doesn’t have this luxury. Rather than going with a low price and making money on volume, the PAC must get a much, much, much higher price from fewer more passionate fans.
Whereas the Big Ten might get $1 from 50,000,000 cable customers (many forced to pay against will), the PAC needs to get $500 from 100,000. This is imminently doable if you develop a different product from linear TV coverage with different benefits.
(Your analysis is not incompatible with Larry Scott's vision, and I suspect it aligns closely, but let me know if I'm wrong. Pac-12 subscribers could access online streams of the channels, so even if the subscription was through Dish et al., you could get what you paid for online.)
If I understand you right, then how would this new Pac-12 model avoid the apparently pitfalls encountered by Texas' Longhorn Network? Not a perfect comparison, I know--the chief complaint was that the LHN was hard to find on fans' existing cable/satellite providers of choice (not unlike Larry Scott's Pac-12). With Apple TV, I imagine that Pac-12 fans would subscribe if they were already in the Apple ecosystem, but I don't think fans would necessarily become Apple TV subscribers just for Pac-12 content. Also, would sports bars be able to access Pac-12 games on Apple TV? If not, would future alumni club game watch parties be relegated to home gathering potlucks?
The era of a la carte media consumption/subscription is running into consumer inertia. I don't know how Paramount+ or Peacock are doing these days: they grabbed all their licensed content back from licensee networks, iirc, in order to form the core offerings of their own streaming platforms. Was that enough to move the needle on extra/changing subscriptions from consumers?
Do I have it wrong?
From 2021: https://www.austinmonthly.com/whats-going-to-happen-to-the-longhorn-network/
RE: Pac media rights - old spanish trail - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 05:27 AM)cardcrimson Wrote: Charging $500 to watch Pac--Whatever sports? You might get parents, but zero broad audience. Great way to attract players too: Come to the Pac, where your friends and family can watch you if they pay through the nose. . . .
Yep
RE: Pac media rights - OutsiderFan - 08-02-2023
When you have a product, there is nothing more important than distribution. The Pac has failed miserably on this vector.
I have had DirecTV and never been able to get Pac-12 Network because DTV doesn't carry it. To carry it, DTV would need to pay Pac-12 Network a fee. DTV would pass this price on to subscribers who paid for the level of service the Pac-12 Network was on. The Big Ten Network was on the basic DTV package. Why? Because Fox told DTV if you don't carry Big Ten, you can't carry our other channels your customers want. ESPN as partner would say carrier can't carry ESPN unless they carry P12. This is what they did with SEC Net. Without a media partner, the Pac-12 had no such leverage with DTV. If the Big Ten went alone as the Pac-12 did, it too might have been shutout of DTV.
The Tier 1 rights are another matter. They are bought by broadcasters like ESPN, FOX, CBS, NBC who already have carriage deals with the cable and satellite companies and are seeking content to justify their price to the carriers and sell advertising.
The big problem Scott had was he couldn't or wouldn't get a deal that allowed the Pac-12 Network to be streamed without a cable or satellite subscription. The carriers would say "why would we pay you to carry the P12 Net, something we carry to get subscribers, if someone can go to Pac.12.org to watch it?" My solution would have been to tell DTV we'll give you a portion of each subscription we get if put on the basic package. Like, "charge $.50 per month or P12 Net per DTV subscriber and we'll give you $.50/mo for each subscriber to P12 Net online. DTV had about 20M subs in 2017, so this would have equated to about $120M ($6 x 20M) for Pac-12. This would have meant all others wanting Pac-12 Net content not on DTV would have to go online to buy a premium streaming license if not with DTV. Let's say another 5 million people did this, and Pac-12 Net was priced at $99/year. The P12 would have given DTV $30M as partner. Why wouldn't DTV do this? And it would have setup the model to sell P12 Net direct to customer without cable carrier subscription. You could get P12 off your ISP connection. It's just brain dead stupid to set yourself up so you can't collect $99 from a large market, in order to preserve a carrier that pays you maybe $12/year from a much smaller market.
As they evolved the Pac-12 could have had a TV app, become less reliant on DTV for distribution, and I dare say the Pac-12 would have generated more leverage over DTV as DTV lost customers to cord cutting. The Pac-12 should have partnered with DirecTV on Pac-12 Network, not just operated as if it was selling a product to it.
As for today, the Pac-12 network still doesn't have a TV app (like HBO Max, Disney+) to sell its network through Internet-enabled TVs, to at minimum create some leverage for itself in negotiations and create another distribution channel.
If it develops its own distribution, it could then evolve its product and massively differentiate itself from competition. Instead, it has kept itself playing in a tiny box with rules of media companies that don't care about it at all, and are just looking to get cheap content. Again, if you can't win the game you are playing, change the game!
This whole disaster would make for a great business school case study for how to fail in the sports business that is pretty freaking difficult to fail in.
RE: Pac media rights - Giants - 08-02-2023
Meanwhile, per The Athletic, the Big10 is having conversations regarding the addition of two (UO/UW) or four (UO/UW/Stanford/Cal) schools into the conference.
Forget all the machinations re: the P9. It is dead. Time to divvy up the spoils…..
RE: Pac media rights - OutsiderFan - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 12:26 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:(08-02-2023, 05:27 AM)cardcrimson Wrote: Charging $500 to watch Pac--Whatever sports? You might get parents, but zero broad audience. Great way to attract players too: Come to the Pac, where your friends and family can watch you if they pay through the nose. . . .
Yep
Cardcrimson likes to discredit larger points by discrediting small sub-points that ignore the full picture.
In this case, he focuses on "$500" to watch (live games)," while ignoring the larger point that was to add more benefits to the product than just watching live games. There absolutely is a product to be had at that price point, if you figure out how to develop it.
The conference paid who knows how much to media consultants to tell them how to sell what media buyers want. They could have spent the same money doing market research on how to develop a product to fit a new business model they could control.
RE: Pac media rights - Giants - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 01:07 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote: When you have a product, there is nothing more important than distribution. The Pac has failed miserably on this vector.
I have had DirecTV and never been able to get Pac-12 Network because DTV doesn't carry it. To carry it, DTV would need to pay Pac-12 Network a fee. DTV would pass this price on to subscribers who paid for the level of service the Pac-12 Network was on. The Big Ten Network was on the basic DTV package. Why? Because Fox told DTV if you don't carry Big Ten, you can't carry our other channels your customers want. ESPN as partner would say carrier can't carry ESPN unless they carry P12. This is what they did with SEC Net. Without a media partner, the Pac-12 had no such leverage with DTV. If the Big Ten went alone as the Pac-12 did, it too might have been shutout of DTV.
The Tier 1 rights are another matter. They are bought by broadcasters like ESPN, FOX, CBS, NBC who already have carriage deals with the cable and satellite companies and are seeking content to justify their price to the carriers and sell advertising.
The big problem Scott had was he couldn't or wouldn't get a deal that allowed the Pac-12 Network to be streamed without a cable or satellite subscription. The carriers would say "why would we pay you to carry the P12 Net, something we carry to get subscribers, if someone can go to Pac.12.org to watch it?" My solution would have been to tell DTV we'll give you a portion of each subscription we get if put on the basic package. Like, "charge $.50 per month or P12 Net per DTV subscriber and we'll give you $.50/mo for each subscriber to P12 Net online. DTV had about 20M subs in 2017, so this would have equated to about $120M ($6 x 20M) for Pac-12. This would have meant all others wanting Pac-12 Net content not on DTV would have to go online to buy a premium streaming license if not with DTV. Let's say another 5 million people did this, and Pac-12 Net was priced at $99/year. The P12 would have given DTV $30M as partner. Why wouldn't DTV do this? And it would have setup the model to sell P12 Net direct to customer without cable carrier subscription. You could get P12 off your ISP connection. It's just brain dead stupid to set yourself up so you can't collect $99 from a large market, in order to preserve a carrier that pays you maybe $12/year from a much smaller market.
As they evolved the Pac-12 could have had a TV app, become less reliant on DTV for distribution, and I dare say the Pac-12 would have generated more leverage over DTV as DTV lost customers to cord cutting. The Pac-12 should have partnered with DirecTV on Pac-12 Network, not just operated as if it was selling a product to it.
As for today, the Pac-12 network still doesn't have a TV app (like HBO Max, Disney+) to sell its network through Internet-enabled TVs, to at minimum create some leverage for itself in negotiations and create another distribution channel.
If it develops its own distribution, it could then evolve its product and massively differentiate itself from competition. Instead, it has kept itself playing in a tiny box with rules of media companies that don't care about it at all, and are just looking to get cheap content. Again, if you can't win the game you are playing, change the game!
This whole disaster would make for a great business school case study for how to fail in the sports business that is pretty freaking difficult to fail in.
Not worth a business case study.
Like so many business failures in the past (that have been analyzed) it boils down to the lack of leadership. In this case, the chancellors/presidents failed miserably. They had a number of chances to get it right and took the wrong turn at every juncture.
RE: Pac media rights - Chupacabra - 08-02-2023
Oh come on, OF. Paying DirecTV to get Pac12 Network and paying Apple to get it are the same thing. Apple TV is a fine place for distribution.
It's convenient and easy. They are going to have more national reach than a Pac 9 app would ever have. Importantly, there's already a platform that can actually broadcast the games. And they already have the TV app you're asking for!
Aggregation is good for the game. You want your product next to the other conferences so that you can pick up some casual viewers. I'm already concerned that the nature of streaming is going to lose casual viewers.
While it's noble to say, "let's change the game" and "innovate," I don't think that a conference in turmoil should be siloing their games off in any way, shape, or form. Make your product easy to see and get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. That's how cable changed CFB, by letting you pick among 5-8 games on a Saturday afternoon. The opportunity streaming aggregators provide is to pick among 15-20 games. That could be really good!
Don't think I'm saying Apple TV is the best option, because I'm not trying to imply that. I just want the games to go to whatever service will put it next to the most other games.
RE: Pac media rights - OutsiderFan - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 03:26 PM)Chupacabra Wrote: Oh come on, OF. Paying DirecTV to get Pac12 Network and paying Apple to get it are the same thing. Apple TV is a fine place for distribution.
It's convenient and easy. They are going to have more national reach than a Pac 9 app would ever have. Importantly, there's already a platform that can actually broadcast the games. And they already have the TV app you're asking for!
Aggregation is good for the game. You want your product next to the other conferences so that you can pick up some casual viewers. I'm already concerned that the nature of streaming is going to lose casual viewers.
While it's noble to say, "let's change the game" and "innovate," I don't think that a conference in turmoil should be siloing their games off in any way, shape, or form. Make your product easy to see and get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. That's how cable changed CFB, by letting you pick among 5-8 games on a Saturday afternoon. The opportunity streaming aggregators provide is to pick among 15-20 games. That could be really good!
Don't think I'm saying Apple TV is the best option, because I'm not trying to imply that. I just want the games to go to whatever service will put it next to the most other games.
I understand your points. They are valid.
My contention and perspective is nobody cares about the Pac other than Pac fans. That means fans of other conferences as well as the media companies.
In that universe, there are no casual fans viewing Pac games, or if there are, not enough value being generated to justify taking less money to play by the conventional model.
RE: Pac media rights - cardcrimson - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 01:19 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote:(08-02-2023, 12:26 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:(08-02-2023, 05:27 AM)cardcrimson Wrote: Charging $500 to watch Pac--Whatever sports? You might get parents, but zero broad audience. Great way to attract players too: Come to the Pac, where your friends and family can watch you if they pay through the nose. . . .
Yep
Cardcrimson likes to discredit larger points by discrediting small sub-points that ignore the full picture.
In this case, he focuses on "$500" to watch (live games)," while ignoring the larger point that was to add more benefits to the product than just watching live games. There absolutely is a product to be had at that price point, if you figure out how to develop it.
The conference paid who knows how much to media consultants to tell them how to sell what media buyers want. They could have spent the same money doing market research on how to develop a product to fit a new business model they could control.
As for your larger point, you stated that you wouldn't change from DirecTV to get the Pac-12 Channel. Help me understand why you'd now pay $500 to get it streamed? Why would anyone else? What larger point am I missing? Please explain.
As for the ad hominem attack, you've been granted a cloak of immunity here, so continue to bring it on.
RE: Pac media rights - 2006alum - 08-02-2023
(08-02-2023, 05:19 PM)cardcrimson Wrote:(08-02-2023, 01:19 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote:(08-02-2023, 12:26 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:(08-02-2023, 05:27 AM)cardcrimson Wrote: Charging $500 to watch Pac--Whatever sports? You might get parents, but zero broad audience. Great way to attract players too: Come to the Pac, where your friends and family can watch you if they pay through the nose. . . .
Yep
Cardcrimson likes to discredit larger points by discrediting small sub-points that ignore the full picture.
In this case, he focuses on "$500" to watch (live games)," while ignoring the larger point that was to add more benefits to the product than just watching live games. There absolutely is a product to be had at that price point, if you figure out how to develop it.
The conference paid who knows how much to media consultants to tell them how to sell what media buyers want. They could have spent the same money doing market research on how to develop a product to fit a new business model they could control.
As for your larger point, you stated that you wouldn't change from DirecTV to get the Pac-12 Channel. Help me understand why you'd now pay $500 to get it streamed? Why would anyone else? What larger point am I missing? Please explain.
As for the ad hominem attack, you've been granted a cloak of immunity here, so continue to bring it on.
I'm not going to wade into the merits of this debate, but yes, as CardCrimson noted, let's please leave the ad hominems to the side. No need to attack the poster - attack the post. Next violation will be a three-day suspension, per Admin's directives, then a ban. I'd prefer not to do that, because there's been a lot of good debate here, and it's clearly directly relevant to the Stanford sports we all love.
So let's keep things civil. Thanks.
RE: Pac media rights - OutsiderFan - 08-03-2023
John Canzano has reported the following about the Apple TV deal:
- $20M guaranteed per school in the first year
- By year 3 they expect with minimal subscriptions each school will surpass the Big 12 payout of $31M
- Apple TV plans to offer Pac games free for a period of time*
I've read other reports that with good sub numbers the revenue per school could be not quite Big Ten money, but close.
* Apple did this with MLB. Was free when it first started, then you had to have Apple TV+ to get MLB games. I don't know how long Pac games would be available free without Apple TV+.
RE: Pac media rights - jonnyss - 08-03-2023
i would love to have pac-10 (8? 7?) sports as part of directv.
2nd best? i'd love to see stanford games on apple tv+. pay 6.99 per month or 16.99 bundled with several other services? compares very favorably with the price of sling.
RE: Pac media rights - dabigv13 - 08-03-2023
(08-03-2023, 04:18 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote: John Canzano has reported the following about the Apple TV deal:
- $20M guaranteed per school in the first year
- By year 3 they expect with minimal subscriptions each school will surpass the Big 12 payout of $31M
- Apple TV plans to offer Pac games free for a period of time*
I've read other reports that with good sub numbers the revenue per school could be not quite Big Ten money, but close.
If those things were true I don't think we would be seeing the Big 12 eating the Pac's lunch, and doing so with a quickness.
RE: Pac media rights - Giants - 08-03-2023
(08-03-2023, 04:18 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote: John Canzano has reported the following about the Apple TV deal:
- $20M guaranteed per school in the first year
- By year 3 they expect with minimal subscriptions each school will surpass the Big 12 payout of $31M
- Apple TV plans to offer Pac games free for a period of time*
I've read other reports that with good sub numbers the revenue per school could be not quite Big Ten money, but close.
* Apple did this with MLB. Was free when it first started, then you had to have Apple TV+ to get MLB games. I don't know how long Pac games would be available free without Apple TV+.
Yep. And the P12 network was going to blow everyone else out of the water. Quite frankly, I don’t believe anything P9 leadership says. They lost all credibility long ago with all their misstatements.
The old saying…
S… in one hand and wish in the other and see which fills up first
RE: Pac media rights - chrisk - 08-03-2023
But who will benefit if Oregon and UW prostitute themselves for half shares in the Big Ten?
RE: Pac media rights - StanfordMatt - 08-03-2023
(08-03-2023, 06:01 PM)chrisk Wrote: But who will benefit if Oregon and UW prostitute themselves for half shares in the Big Ten?
TV execs
RE: Pac media rights - Giants - 08-03-2023
(08-03-2023, 06:01 PM)chrisk Wrote: But who will benefit if Oregon and UW prostitute themselves for half shares in the Big Ten?
If they were to receive 1/2 shares on an ongoing basis, you would have a point. However, their shares will incrementally increase to reach 100%. My guess 3-5 years. Therefore, moving is a wis3 business decisi9n.
RE: Pac media rights - 82lsju - 08-04-2023
(08-03-2023, 07:53 PM)Giants Wrote:(08-03-2023, 06:01 PM)chrisk Wrote: But who will benefit if Oregon and UW prostitute themselves for half shares in the Big Ten?
If they were to receive 1/2 shares on an ongoing basis, you would have a point. However, their shares will incrementally increase to reach 100%. My guess 3-5 years. Therefore, moving is a wis3 business decisi9n.
didn't Nebraska have to wait five years to get a full share of Big Ten revenue?
RE: Pac media rights - needle - 08-04-2023
[tweet] https://twitter.com/johncanzanobft/status/1687469456774369280 [/tweet]