[oldalum]

[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=14933.msg161066#msg161066 date=1461264704]
I don't think it's fair or even accurate to blame Scott for the Pac-12 falling further behind the other major conferences.

I think it's quite fair.  He is ultimately responsible for the crappy terms of the TV deal and for the failure to get P12N on DirecTV.  Both have major negative implications for exposure of the conference to a national audience.  Maybe others couldn't have done better at the time, but when I look at the deal today I see one that was locked in for too many years without enough flexibility for the conference to renegotiate if market dynamics changed.
[/quote]

Actually I don't think it's fair. We don't know the cards Scott had to play at the time, so I don't see how we can judge now how well he played them. Just looking at the outcome doesn't tell you anything about how well he played his hand. He had a weak hand because of the projected viewership compared to those of other conferences. DirectTV had very strong negotiating power because they were willing to walk away (and did), because they didn't need the Pac-12 because of the weakness of the Pac-12 audience. Scott would have had to match with all other cable channels the same deal DirectTV wanted, which might have made the economics of the network impossible. I would guess (but don't know) that the TV deal is the one that maximized the revenue, which is what I believe he was told to do. If Scott had gone to the Univ. presidents and A.D.'s and said, we can limit night games to improve the at-game fan experience but it would cost us $X billion, they probably would have said we want the $. Maybe he did, we don't know. Now it looks like a shorter deal would have been better, but was that predictable then? If the bottom had fallen out of the market, would we be criticizing him now for failing to get a longer deal? Maybe a shorter deal would have cost us $Y billion, we don't know. My point is, we just don't know enough to judge.

[oldalum]

[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=14933.msg161066#msg161066 date=1461264704]
I don't think it's fair or even accurate to blame Scott for the Pac-12 falling further behind the other major conferences.

I think it's quite fair.  He is ultimately responsible for the crappy terms of the TV deal and for the failure to get P12N on DirecTV.  Both have major negative implications for exposure of the conference to a national audience.  Maybe others couldn't have done better at the time, but when I look at the deal today I see one that was locked in for too many years without enough flexibility for the conference to renegotiate if market dynamics changed.
[/quote]

Actually I don't think it's fair. We don't know the cards Scott had to play at the time, so I don't see how we can judge now how well he played them. Just looking at the outcome doesn't tell you anything about how well he played his hand. He had a weak hand because of the projected viewership compared to those of other conferences. DirectTV had very strong negotiating power because they were willing to walk away (and did), because they didn't need the Pac-12 because of the weakness of the Pac-12 audience. Scott would have had to match with all other cable channels the same deal DirectTV wanted, which might have made the economics of the network impossible. I would guess (but don't know) that the TV deal is the one that maximized the revenue, which is what I believe he was told to do. If Scott had gone to the Univ. presidents and A.D.'s and said, we can limit night games to improve the at-game fan experience but it would cost us $X billion, they probably would have said we want the $. Maybe he did, we don't know. Now it looks like a shorter deal would have been better, but was that predictable then? If the bottom had fallen out of the market, would we be criticizing him now for failing to get a longer deal? Maybe a shorter deal would have cost us $Y billion, we don't know. My point is, we just don't know enough to judge.