02-08-2023, 08:53 AM
The Pac-12 channel is garbage because it's not on real tv. It reaches like 15 million people. Pathetic. That is annoying for most programs in the Pac-12 that want more eyeballs and revenue but it should be intolerable to Stanford, which needs to recruit nationally. We need to think outside of an insular Bay Area bubble and think about what normal people see on tv. For all intents and purposes, nobody is watching the Pac-12 Network. Nobody. They don't get it in their cable subscriptions.
Some of the criticisms of the Pac-12 for its media rights journey resonate with me because of all the stories of clueless and craven Pac-12 executives, but a lot of them strike me as wishing the sky weren't blue. The Pac-12 doesn't have much leverage in the media because our fans aren't diehards, not many people live in the Pacific time zone compared to the rest of the country, time differences make our games much less attractive to the majority of eyeballs, and the demographic/cultural/other factors that make our fans less diehard also make the product on the field in the most lucrative sport less enjoyable. Hard sell.
The solution to me is for programs that can - USC and UCLA already did, I imagine Stanford, Washington, Oregon looking hard - to bail on the sinking ship. I understand the arguments about tradition and distance/travel, but to my simple mind if we want to maintain major sports we simply have to hitch our wagon to something people care about. Not enough people care about the Pac-12, especially with USC's departure.
Some of the criticisms of the Pac-12 for its media rights journey resonate with me because of all the stories of clueless and craven Pac-12 executives, but a lot of them strike me as wishing the sky weren't blue. The Pac-12 doesn't have much leverage in the media because our fans aren't diehards, not many people live in the Pacific time zone compared to the rest of the country, time differences make our games much less attractive to the majority of eyeballs, and the demographic/cultural/other factors that make our fans less diehard also make the product on the field in the most lucrative sport less enjoyable. Hard sell.
The solution to me is for programs that can - USC and UCLA already did, I imagine Stanford, Washington, Oregon looking hard - to bail on the sinking ship. I understand the arguments about tradition and distance/travel, but to my simple mind if we want to maintain major sports we simply have to hitch our wagon to something people care about. Not enough people care about the Pac-12, especially with USC's departure.