Yeah, forgoing revenues is generally favored vs. paying out. For your credit, you were right, they got out at 60% of their bill (which is apparently industry standard). Turns out the hateful 8 wanted the money more than another go-round with OUT.
Yeah, I'm not sure how it all plays out. Each B12 team got $42MM this past year, but in 24-25, there would have been 14 schools instead of 10 to spread it between. So at the same total, that would have been $30M/team. Not sure if any TV deals were renegotiated just for those years. FOX also forced the swap of the Michigan game so the they could get rights to that one for both matchups, I think, instead just the one - though that doesn't seem like it impacts any schools individually. I don't see why the B12 would agree to just keep money that was already theirs anyway, except in that it lets that money get distributed between 12 instead of 14 schools. But that wouldn't have required much negotiating - it would as though the GoR didn't exist AND the team had to pay no penalty for leaving, so that doesn't sound right. It'll be interesting to see what we learn as this plays out.
The reports that exit talks had stalled said FOX was the holdup so maybe the Michigan swap was enough in itself? I'm a bit skeptical that's all that it entailed since essentially no penalty was paid here...
I guess you can watch network TV with an antenna. But if your team isn't playing on ABC or Fox (or whatever channels college football are on, I forget), then you are pretty much screwed. Hearing rumors of an Apple TV deal makes me very excited personally.
Wonder if this is the reason why Amazon has reportedly backed off. If I’m putting up bulk of the money, I’m getting my pick of the games. However I’m sure PAC would like to retain and sell their marquee games to cable if possible.
My guess is the PAC got a very rude awakening from the legacy cable providers about the appetite for their content sans-LA, but the PAC is very gun shy about putting the lion's share of their inventory on steaming. They have to choose whether they want to get out from under their awful availability problem or whether they want raw cash. They can't have both. It cannot be understated how much the Big 12 has outfoxed the PAC over the last year. Yormark really ate Kliavkoff's lunch.
Pulled summary from Inside Texas: My summation 1. Apple only wants the entire package. Pac members don’t want all eggs in one basket. Especially one that is behind a streaming service that also has additional paywalls 2. Amazon just wants one game a week. Something akin to their Thursday night nfl game. Obviously. Number 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive. 3. Fox bowed out months ago. They are all in on BIG and secondary tier other conferences. 4. NBC. Never really in it. Notre Dame and big taking their best spots 5. CBS. BIG and nothing else. 6. Espn is all in on sec and cheap acc. 7. Espn and Amazon haven’t spoken with pac for weeks. Maybe ship has sailed ? 8. Even if they could get a deal with big players. Not many prime time slots available. Everyone else would eat at the trough first. 9. Might be fox regional or cbs sportz1 type minor interest. But that won’t drive numbers or paydays 10. Pac network is a net negative along with the 50 million they still owe comcast. As discussed. They don’t really have a way of producing their own content and are dependent on a studio. Which Amazon and Apple don’t have.
Moving on from Bowlsby was the best move the Big 12 could have made and the PAC should have followed suit. I know he was just hired but everyone saw right through that ridiculous "alliance" with the BIG/ACC, ended up losing his largest market to the "alliance," and then completely outmaneuvered by a rookie commissioner just a few months on the job.
I think streaming is fine, but it can't be Apple. They just aren't big enough. Amazon works. Hulu and their whole "live sports" thing could make sense. Netflix has talked about wanting to get into live TV. YoutubeTV is big enough to work and got the NFL package from DirectTV. But not Apple.
I'd be curious to know who are the biggest streaming services. Amazon obviously has a ton of them via Prime subs but I'd be curious to see how many monthly active users they all have.
