07-02-2010, 10:57 AM
More bidders only enhances the odds of the Pac-10/12 getting a lucrative deal. Â If Fox is alone in the bidding they will certainly not pay a lot. Â Fox also could easily predict ESPN\'s probably bidding max. Â ESPN seems to have a nice collection of college deals already in the library, so they are unlikely to bid to the numbers the Pac-10/12 hopes to attract.
Finding a true wildcard like Comcast/NBC could really help the bidding math. Â The bidding claim probably also helps Comcast/NBC keep any future ND deal lower, a net good for Stanford IMHO.
The idea of appearing on a Comcast created Pac-10/12 network is not great, but even the Big Ten struggled to get their network distributed. Â Does anyone really believe that Pac-10 water polo, softball and tennis contests are going to generate brobdingnagian ratings for a major network?
Comcast could also push the Pac-10/12 on to NBC during the fall when ND is away from South Bend, on onto East Coast prime time for Saturday nights, and almost non-stop during the weekends in the winter. Â All fine by me. Â
Last year, NBC\'s winter sports were dominated by snowboarding and other winter X-Games sports. Â Getting a full slate of Pac-10 content could allow NBC to compete with CBS and ABC. Â Or to put this a different way, I think Comcast may realize that NBC\'s prime time ratings challenge has been impacted to some degree by NBC\'s inability to offer more traditional weekend sports programming year-round. Â Enter the Pac-12.
In the end, I would hope the Pac-12 could get a deal with closer to 100% national coverage most of the time, but I like the idea that new bidders decrease the ability for everyone to predict the size of a winning bid.
Finding a true wildcard like Comcast/NBC could really help the bidding math. Â The bidding claim probably also helps Comcast/NBC keep any future ND deal lower, a net good for Stanford IMHO.
The idea of appearing on a Comcast created Pac-10/12 network is not great, but even the Big Ten struggled to get their network distributed. Â Does anyone really believe that Pac-10 water polo, softball and tennis contests are going to generate brobdingnagian ratings for a major network?
Comcast could also push the Pac-10/12 on to NBC during the fall when ND is away from South Bend, on onto East Coast prime time for Saturday nights, and almost non-stop during the weekends in the winter. Â All fine by me. Â
Last year, NBC\'s winter sports were dominated by snowboarding and other winter X-Games sports. Â Getting a full slate of Pac-10 content could allow NBC to compete with CBS and ABC. Â Or to put this a different way, I think Comcast may realize that NBC\'s prime time ratings challenge has been impacted to some degree by NBC\'s inability to offer more traditional weekend sports programming year-round. Â Enter the Pac-12.
In the end, I would hope the Pac-12 could get a deal with closer to 100% national coverage most of the time, but I like the idea that new bidders decrease the ability for everyone to predict the size of a winning bid.