I hate taking the "anything is an improvement" stance, especially since these contract events are rare and have significant repercussions for many years. But the Pac is in an incredibly weak negotiating position right now. When you're losing your top media market AND you can't even make your games available to people actively seeking them...you can't use the status quo as a viable counter offer. Deal length is a major question for me.
I'm just glad this will be the last season of using a borrowed login to watch.
Tough spot for Kliavkoff. He's watching his career go down in flames by holding the bag that Larry Scott shat in. At least he'll be compensated beyond our wildest dreams.
Anecdotally, I know one current college student who couldn't get into Berkeley, nor could she even get into consummate safety school, UC Los Angeles. She goes to Michigan. I know another who couldn't get into any UC. He goes to Wisconsin.
I might have missed it here, but is it a done deal that the Pac12 Network is going away? What would that even look like? A liquification of all assets? I certainly liked that I could see EVERY game and wouldn't want to lose that. Money, Money, Money. And I don't want our second tier status to mean all our games are marginalized to weird times and days.
Fairly certain it will either be dissolved or absorbed. The Pac-12 Network payout was $2.5 million per school last year, most of their revenues went to cancelling out operating costs. It just isn't paying dividends and there's no national Pac-12 Network deal happening independently. The TV arm is not rehiring executives either.
The distribution side will almost assuredly disappear, taken over by a competent distribution entity, be it ESPN, Amazon, or both.
The production side will exist if there is a significant Amazon distribution component. Whether Amazon buys it or sub-contracts it to the Pac-12 conference probably depends on how much Pac-12 production Amazon will have, and whether they plan to use the production capacity for other sports.
If ESPN takes the bulk of the beyond tier 1 stuff, with some of the best on ESPN2 and ESPNU, and the bulk of it on ESPN+, they have considerable production capability, but also already a LOT to produce; they might buy or subcontract for the use of the Pac-12 Net production capability.
The Pac-12 Net/conference has gotten to where they do a pretty good job of production, they just need competent distribution. I suspect the issue of whether to sell the production operation or keep it and sell its services (someone will still have to do the production work, and there is enough of it that no one else is going to just pick it all up without adding the capacity to actually do all the events currently being done) is a significant issue that's holding up locking down the details of the new deal. I'm not at all sure Amazon wants to run the production, especially if they can get a favorable arrangement to have some other non-Pac-12 stuff produced that they can distribute. ESPN would more likely want to buy the new production setup, which will be setup and shook down by the time they take over, and use it for both P-12 and other regional (Mt. West, WCC, etc.) content production work.
So, if I read this right, our payout with the ESPN/Amazon deals, at $29 mil, would be about 10X what we get now from good old run-more-promos-than-ads-PAC12-Network?
Scott should have negotiated a deal with ESPN so the Pac-12 had its own mini-network under the ESPN umbrella. Instead he tried, through hubris, to re-invent the wheel and create a freestanding network that never obtained enough distribution to be relevant. If someone can unload the assets for a decent price that would be quite an accomplishment.
The P-12 network could have wound up looking a lot like the ACC Network. The conference and Scott thought by the time of this contract renegotiation the network would ultimately return more value if they didn't have to share it. Part of that was vastly over-estimating the expansion into the Asia market, which never materialized, but would have changed everything.
The other gross miscalculation was that the terms of the (primarily) Comcast contract would preclude any DirecTV distribution. Had the P-12 landed on DirecTV and taken off in Asia, the overall strategy would have worked beyond fabulously. But being wrong on those 2 key points was a disaster, and the length of the contract locked in the consequences of it for a very long time.
Hoping that I can actually pay money to stream Cal & Pac 12 games. Even the frickin' NFL has moved with the times. I don't care about TV at all. I just want to stream my sports and movies dagnabit!!!
The Pac-12 network production side, which will have a new setup in East Bay, will have some considerable value. Selling it will bring in a good sized chunk of money, but it will be a one time lump of money (or maybe spread out over several years for payment), but then its gone. And the ADs will have all the new money spent within a week.
Contracting out production services would provide a revenue stream going forward, though it won't be nearly as large per year as a one-time fire sale. It would be the better strategy long-term for universities that want stable income and assured quality of services. But whether the conference is prepared to effectively manage a production company in a time of rapidly evolving technology is another matter. And the athletic departments will want every penny they can get as fast as they can get them. So they can spend them, and then complain that they need more to keep up.
I hate taking the "anything is an improvement" stance, especially since these contract events are rare and have significant repercussions for many years. But the Pac is in an incredibly weak negotiating position right now. When you're losing your top media market AND you can't even make your games available to people actively seeking them...you can't use the status quo as a viable counter offer. Deal length is a major question for me.
I'm just glad this will be the last season of using a borrowed login to watch.
Actually, there will be 1 more year of the status quo. The new arrangement will take affect in the summer of 2024 for the 2024 fall season.
True. Just meant that the status quo wasn't acceptable. Pac can't just walk away.
Tough spot for Kliavkoff. He's watching his career go down in flames by holding the bag that Larry Scott shat in. At least he'll be compensated beyond our wildest dreams.
Fiscally speaking, it sounds like we're still heavily incentivized to bail for the B1G. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to add an actual academic school.
Look up Michigan and Wisconsin academics- they are a bit behind us, but Top 10, if not Top five.
Jokes are hard :)
Anecdotally, I know one current college student who couldn't get into Berkeley, nor could she even get into consummate safety school, UC Los Angeles. She goes to Michigan. I know another who couldn't get into any UC. He goes to Wisconsin.
Most schools prefer out-of-state students. I know Cal does, in many cases.
https://www.wisc.edu/about/nobel-prize/
Wisconsin has 19
Michigan has 20.
https://www.bestmastersprograms.org/50-universities-with-the-most-nobel-prize-winners/
Out of state tuition $s make budgets look much better for public institutions.
We always were, but they don't (yet) want us. We're another mouth and don't bring much pie.
Seems like they don't want to add anyone else yet.
Except the Bay Area market.
I might have missed it here, but is it a done deal that the Pac12 Network is going away? What would that even look like? A liquification of all assets? I certainly liked that I could see EVERY game and wouldn't want to lose that. Money, Money, Money. And I don't want our second tier status to mean all our games are marginalized to weird times and days.
Fairly certain it will either be dissolved or absorbed. The Pac-12 Network payout was $2.5 million per school last year, most of their revenues went to cancelling out operating costs. It just isn't paying dividends and there's no national Pac-12 Network deal happening independently. The TV arm is not rehiring executives either.
The distribution side will almost assuredly disappear, taken over by a competent distribution entity, be it ESPN, Amazon, or both.
The production side will exist if there is a significant Amazon distribution component. Whether Amazon buys it or sub-contracts it to the Pac-12 conference probably depends on how much Pac-12 production Amazon will have, and whether they plan to use the production capacity for other sports.
If ESPN takes the bulk of the beyond tier 1 stuff, with some of the best on ESPN2 and ESPNU, and the bulk of it on ESPN+, they have considerable production capability, but also already a LOT to produce; they might buy or subcontract for the use of the Pac-12 Net production capability.
The Pac-12 Net/conference has gotten to where they do a pretty good job of production, they just need competent distribution. I suspect the issue of whether to sell the production operation or keep it and sell its services (someone will still have to do the production work, and there is enough of it that no one else is going to just pick it all up without adding the capacity to actually do all the events currently being done) is a significant issue that's holding up locking down the details of the new deal. I'm not at all sure Amazon wants to run the production, especially if they can get a favorable arrangement to have some other non-Pac-12 stuff produced that they can distribute. ESPN would more likely want to buy the new production setup, which will be setup and shook down by the time they take over, and use it for both P-12 and other regional (Mt. West, WCC, etc.) content production work.
Good insights
So, if I read this right, our payout with the ESPN/Amazon deals, at $29 mil, would be about 10X what we get now from good old run-more-promos-than-ads-PAC12-Network?
We rich
Thank you
I think you mean 'liquidation' but considering it will be an earthshaking event...
PAC12 Magma
Scott should have negotiated a deal with ESPN so the Pac-12 had its own mini-network under the ESPN umbrella. Instead he tried, through hubris, to re-invent the wheel and create a freestanding network that never obtained enough distribution to be relevant. If someone can unload the assets for a decent price that would be quite an accomplishment.
if he had done that then P12 would probably have gotten TX and Oklahoma and then think where we'd be... that guy was just a dumpster fire
The P-12 network could have wound up looking a lot like the ACC Network. The conference and Scott thought by the time of this contract renegotiation the network would ultimately return more value if they didn't have to share it. Part of that was vastly over-estimating the expansion into the Asia market, which never materialized, but would have changed everything.
The other gross miscalculation was that the terms of the (primarily) Comcast contract would preclude any DirecTV distribution. Had the P-12 landed on DirecTV and taken off in Asia, the overall strategy would have worked beyond fabulously. But being wrong on those 2 key points was a disaster, and the length of the contract locked in the consequences of it for a very long time.
He really Knowltoned the Pac 12.
Hoping that I can actually pay money to stream Cal & Pac 12 games. Even the frickin' NFL has moved with the times. I don't care about TV at all. I just want to stream my sports and movies dagnabit!!!
The Pac-12 network production side, which will have a new setup in East Bay, will have some considerable value. Selling it will bring in a good sized chunk of money, but it will be a one time lump of money (or maybe spread out over several years for payment), but then its gone. And the ADs will have all the new money spent within a week.
Contracting out production services would provide a revenue stream going forward, though it won't be nearly as large per year as a one-time fire sale. It would be the better strategy long-term for universities that want stable income and assured quality of services. But whether the conference is prepared to effectively manage a production company in a time of rapidly evolving technology is another matter. And the athletic departments will want every penny they can get as fast as they can get them. So they can spend them, and then complain that they need more to keep up.