I apologize in advance if I do not clearly articulate my point I'm trying to make. Just a thought I had over my morning coffee and haven't don't much research into the legalities of the current contracts in place. Bear with me, this may be a little long...
Let me start by acknowledging the angst many of us feel about the discrepancy between the ACC TV payouts and the SEC and B1G payouts. Amongst other factors, I tend to think a lot of that discrepancy can be attributed to the timing of the TV deals and when they were negotiated. The SEC in particular caught lightning in a bottle and was able to negotiate their deal at the height of their conference popularity as well as the height of TV viewership. Some of the other conferences benefited from negotiating their deals when FOX and others were trying to add to their college football inventory so it created a bit of a bidding war and drove the dollar figures up.
The ACC is now left negotiating in the era of cord cutting and having to deal with ESPN floundering on trying to figure out how to pivot to digital content. Unfortunately, our deal came at very poor timing.
Now I see a lot of posts about ESPNs financial woes, and then people being concerned this will negatively impact the ACC and therefore FSU. I disagree! In fact, I think if espn really gets into financial trouble, this could really benefit FSU. Allow me to explain:
For my theory to be relevant, we have to assume extreme financial hardships for espn. So hypothetically let's say espn realizes they negotiated some very bad deals and there is no way for them to remain profitable. The only logical business decision is to declare bankruptcy to get out from under those deals. Blow the whole thing up and start from scratch.
That would mean those ridiculous contracts with the SEC and B1G go away, and therefore the timing advantagethey had over us is no longer an issue. We all come to the table to negotiate our new deals on an equal playing field.
This may actually result in the ACC not getting as much money as once projected. However, it's not really about how much money the ACC media rights generates. All that matters is that it is comparable to what the other conferences make so that FSU is not at a financial disadvantage.
Theoretically we could only make $15M a year in media rights. But that would be ok with me if that also meant the SEC was only making $15-$17M a year. Quite frankly, I would prefer that to be the case. There is too much money in college football at the moment and I don't really want to see coaches start making 9-figure contracts. It would curb some of the arms race that we are in, and dare say.... it could be good for the game.
What do you guys think?
Let me start by acknowledging the angst many of us feel about the discrepancy between the ACC TV payouts and the SEC and B1G payouts. Amongst other factors, I tend to think a lot of that discrepancy can be attributed to the timing of the TV deals and when they were negotiated. The SEC in particular caught lightning in a bottle and was able to negotiate their deal at the height of their conference popularity as well as the height of TV viewership. Some of the other conferences benefited from negotiating their deals when FOX and others were trying to add to their college football inventory so it created a bit of a bidding war and drove the dollar figures up.
The ACC is now left negotiating in the era of cord cutting and having to deal with ESPN floundering on trying to figure out how to pivot to digital content. Unfortunately, our deal came at very poor timing.
Now I see a lot of posts about ESPNs financial woes, and then people being concerned this will negatively impact the ACC and therefore FSU. I disagree! In fact, I think if espn really gets into financial trouble, this could really benefit FSU. Allow me to explain:
For my theory to be relevant, we have to assume extreme financial hardships for espn. So hypothetically let's say espn realizes they negotiated some very bad deals and there is no way for them to remain profitable. The only logical business decision is to declare bankruptcy to get out from under those deals. Blow the whole thing up and start from scratch.
That would mean those ridiculous contracts with the SEC and B1G go away, and therefore the timing advantagethey had over us is no longer an issue. We all come to the table to negotiate our new deals on an equal playing field.
This may actually result in the ACC not getting as much money as once projected. However, it's not really about how much money the ACC media rights generates. All that matters is that it is comparable to what the other conferences make so that FSU is not at a financial disadvantage.
Theoretically we could only make $15M a year in media rights. But that would be ok with me if that also meant the SEC was only making $15-$17M a year. Quite frankly, I would prefer that to be the case. There is too much money in college football at the moment and I don't really want to see coaches start making 9-figure contracts. It would curb some of the arms race that we are in, and dare say.... it could be good for the game.
What do you guys think?
