Wilner with a well-laid out article looking at the new economics:
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegespor...am-league/
I\'ve been researching this topic on my own for the last month or so, and my own numbers are (surprisingly) pretty close to what Wilner has. Although I\'m sure he faithfully reported what he heard from the consultants, I do think that one of his conclusions was a little bit off: Colorado and Utah don\'t bring "very little, if anything" - they bring 5.0 million + 2.8 million residents of Colorado and Utah, which correlate to maybe 2 million + 1.1 million households, each of which are potential targets for the high-revenue \'within-footprint\' per-month charge for the new Pac-12 network.
Now, it\'s true that 1-2 million paying subscribers a month *alone* per school would not really be enough to bump the average revenue per school - it would actually decrease it. However it\'s not nothing. And adding the championship game may be enough to bring it about on par.
The final X factor in my calculations was the impact of those extra 7.8 million viewers and 2 extra teams on the ESPN/ABC/Fox/etc. negotiations. This is often a non-linear negotiation (not always directly scalable to population size), and I\'m not sure how much more money could be negotiated - it might depend on particular factors of each network\'s interest in the Denver and/or SLC markets.
One thing he did not mention, however - in those negotiations, the Pac-12 (as opposed to Pac-10) would be able to bring more *inventory* to the table - that is, more actual games that could be broadcast. These games 1) allow the primary TV contractor (ESPN/ABC/Fox/whatever) to not only have 1st choice from a larger selection of games, but 2) allows for more leftover games to supply inventory to the Pac-12 Network.
Anyway, I\'m rambling. Good overview of the main revenue streams, good starting point for discussion, and interestingly - a good article from Wilner.
- MC
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegespor...am-league/
I\'ve been researching this topic on my own for the last month or so, and my own numbers are (surprisingly) pretty close to what Wilner has. Although I\'m sure he faithfully reported what he heard from the consultants, I do think that one of his conclusions was a little bit off: Colorado and Utah don\'t bring "very little, if anything" - they bring 5.0 million + 2.8 million residents of Colorado and Utah, which correlate to maybe 2 million + 1.1 million households, each of which are potential targets for the high-revenue \'within-footprint\' per-month charge for the new Pac-12 network.
Now, it\'s true that 1-2 million paying subscribers a month *alone* per school would not really be enough to bump the average revenue per school - it would actually decrease it. However it\'s not nothing. And adding the championship game may be enough to bring it about on par.
The final X factor in my calculations was the impact of those extra 7.8 million viewers and 2 extra teams on the ESPN/ABC/Fox/etc. negotiations. This is often a non-linear negotiation (not always directly scalable to population size), and I\'m not sure how much more money could be negotiated - it might depend on particular factors of each network\'s interest in the Denver and/or SLC markets.
One thing he did not mention, however - in those negotiations, the Pac-12 (as opposed to Pac-10) would be able to bring more *inventory* to the table - that is, more actual games that could be broadcast. These games 1) allow the primary TV contractor (ESPN/ABC/Fox/whatever) to not only have 1st choice from a larger selection of games, but 2) allows for more leftover games to supply inventory to the Pac-12 Network.
Anyway, I\'m rambling. Good overview of the main revenue streams, good starting point for discussion, and interestingly - a good article from Wilner.
- MC