[Snorlax94]

Short of a miraculous Big Ten life raft, best way forward has to be Independent in football, and then WCC in everything else, right?

In football:
- Secure some kind of streaming rights deal with Apple or Amazon or other streamer for $10-15 mil (thinking we could get half of what ND gets?)
- Aggressively pursue high-major road games with big payouts, and continue to compete at the highest possible level with Power Conference opponents (Depending on school, could be $1-4 million per game)
- Allows Stanford to maintain rivalries with USC, UCLA, Oregon, etc.

Basically, the ND model with lower expected payouts, but crucially maintaining a Power Conference program and national brand that allows football to continue supporting the other programs.

I think independent is better than the other options, but is it realistic? We have one tenth the fan base of ND, and while we may be tech savvy I don't see anybody offering us big money to stream Stanford football. I hope I'm wrong on this, but I have a hard time believing someone's going to pay $10m for rights to football. Even that is a significant step down from what Stanford is getting from the Pac-12 this year, right?

In every bit of chaos there is opportunity but I haven't found it yet. This seems like a disaster all around for Stanford athletics.

In terms of how much stanford could get from streaming, it’s all about the marketplace.

Apple has indicated it was willing to pay money for pac-12 content, so we know they have the need and the money. With the pac-12 disintegrating, now what can apple+ buy? I could totally see an independent Stanford being the best fit, or maybe some combination. But it looks like Apple+ is willing to invest in new sports content, which is good news, because many (LIKE ESPN) are making cuts. The contract renewal came up at a terrible time. A few years ago streaming companies were outbidding each other like mad — Amazon ponied up $1B to put on the Lord of the Rings prequel, which was not very good. It is a much worse market now, but thankfully there is at least one extremely wealthy bidder in the market.

I subscribe to Apple+ (and netflix, amazon, hulu, disney, paramount, peacock and max) and I could see Stanford sports fitting Apple.

[Snorlax94]

Short of a miraculous Big Ten life raft, best way forward has to be Independent in football, and then WCC in everything else, right?

In football:
- Secure some kind of streaming rights deal with Apple or Amazon or other streamer for $10-15 mil (thinking we could get half of what ND gets?)
- Aggressively pursue high-major road games with big payouts, and continue to compete at the highest possible level with Power Conference opponents (Depending on school, could be $1-4 million per game)
- Allows Stanford to maintain rivalries with USC, UCLA, Oregon, etc.

Basically, the ND model with lower expected payouts, but crucially maintaining a Power Conference program and national brand that allows football to continue supporting the other programs.

I think independent is better than the other options, but is it realistic? We have one tenth the fan base of ND, and while we may be tech savvy I don't see anybody offering us big money to stream Stanford football. I hope I'm wrong on this, but I have a hard time believing someone's going to pay $10m for rights to football. Even that is a significant step down from what Stanford is getting from the Pac-12 this year, right?

In every bit of chaos there is opportunity but I haven't found it yet. This seems like a disaster all around for Stanford athletics.

In terms of how much stanford could get from streaming, it’s all about the marketplace.

Apple has indicated it was willing to pay money for pac-12 content, so we know they have the need and the money. With the pac-12 disintegrating, now what can apple+ buy? I could totally see an independent Stanford being the best fit, or maybe some combination. But it looks like Apple+ is willing to invest in new sports content, which is good news, because many (LIKE ESPN) are making cuts. The contract renewal came up at a terrible time. A few years ago streaming companies were outbidding each other like mad — Amazon ponied up $1B to put on the Lord of the Rings prequel, which was not very good. It is a much worse market now, but thankfully there is at least one extremely wealthy bidder in the market.

I subscribe to Apple+ (and netflix, amazon, hulu, disney, paramount, peacock and max) and I could see Stanford sports fitting Apple.