Agree with Houston. If they are adding SMU I don’t see the point of leaving out Houston. They would be travel partners.
Houston will naturally want to stay with Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech. I dont see the appeal for then to jump to the PAC.
I’d like the PAC to add San Diego St (all sports), Boise Football only, and Gonzaga all sports
I thought the Big 12 already grabbed Houston?
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Missed Houston was already a Big 12 addition, in that case I would add Fresno State. Fresno area has > 1,000,000 viewers in their local population.
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I still say the best two options are to do what you can to kill the Big-12 by taking TCU and Kansas.
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Agree. First option needs to be raiding the B12.
SMU & SDSU for USC & UCLA is a depressing trade off. But the B12 had to pick up a handful of spares when it lost OU and Texas so I guess this is the way of everyone but the B10 & SEC now. Hanging on by fingernails till one of the P2’s pick you up.
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Is there reason to expect this is possible? I don’t follow it closely enough to know.
Not that I know of.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is probably the best case scenario and I hate everything about it:
Geography matters. Travel partners matter. The PAC could still stick to some of those sorts of traditional arrangements.
- Kansas is an AAU school. Kansas State is good at football (sometimes). Kansas City media market.
- I despise everything about Texas, but a foothold there would be good. I joke somewhat about shiny rocks, but ABQ is a media market and home to a flagship state university. Travel partners of UNM and Texas Tech, or other TX school.
- SDSU and UNLV simply for their media markets.
Part raiding, part media share grabbing, with a tiny bit of academic justification. ■■■■ USC and UCLA.
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Same amount of Playoff football appearances.
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I don’t understand why our fanbase is so delusional. We aren’t raiding the B12. They’re about to raid the hell out of us. We should get on board with being one of those schools.
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Why is it delusional?
The best option for the PAC is to try to get some B12 schools. Not saying it will happen, I’m saying that is the best option. Why aim so low?
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It is extremely likely that ESPN will now pull their PAC offer. They have very few inventory needs and don’t need the whole PAC. They have likely let Big 12 know (especially given the timing of announced negotiated early exit for UT and OU) that if the Big12 grabs 4 P5 teams from the Pacific/Mountain Time zone, their deal will likely be increased by $200M or more per year. ESPN ends up with a 16 team Big 12 spanning all 4 time zones and actually saves $300M over the life of the contract. The Big 12 would go from $31.5M per team (12 teams) to over $36M per team (16 teams), which we would be absolutely insane not to jump on that train. Otherwise Big12 will probably add UW, OR, ASU and either Arizona or Colorado. We should be angling to be one of the teams they add . . . not clinging to a dying conference.
Yes when you need to fill evening programing you obviously choose a conference in Central time that competes with the SEC over the one primarily in PST.
Trust me by week 7 of the Big 1G those SC an UCLA teams being 3-4 or 4-3 aren’t as appealing in the night slot.
The reports of the Pac 12 death have been greatly exaggerated.
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Is it?
It’s the 49th market in the country.
By comparison Salt Lake is now 29th.
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I don’t know how “tied” to traditional TV networks we want to get here. Let’s face what is happening now…
Now, a large portion of TV content is no longer watched “live,” meaning many TV shows that run on regular weekly time slots are no longer being viewed on the network channel at that time. The show is either recorded or streamed later through an internet platform. This method of viewership is growing in a multiplicative way. As many of the networks don’t know how to manage advertising on a streaming platform, many of their shows are losing ad revenue on the stream. The only segment of network programming that is holding its own (for now) is live event programming - primarily sports. Now, even that is getting chipped away by the big streaming platforms buying rights to the content.
Amazon’s rights purchase of NFL Thursday Night Football, Apple’s purchase of rights to MLS, and Peacock’s purchase to WWE and EPL all show there is more than one way to get your event broadcast now. Yes, Amazon broke the internet (for a time) broadcasting TNF, but by the end of the season, many of the technical issues were resolved. Given Apple’s due diligence in preparation for the MLS season, their broadcasts should come off with very few (if any) disruptions. Peacock has had no issues with exclusive content (probably due to being NBC on a streaming platform).
Where am I going with this? Right now, the only people watching PAC 12 athletics on network TV live in the Eastern and Central time zones are either 1) The hardest of the hard core fans of the schools playing in the game; or 2) Gambling degenerates with money riding on the game. No one else is watching. Moving to a streaming platform would allow games to be played at a more normal schedule, meaning early afternoon kickoffs and only the occasional “Midnight Football” game. In short, expanding to streaming would allow our alumni and fans in the East to enjoy our games live and have a life. Right now we are at the mercy of the traditional networks, and only very limited access to any national prime time slots. Streaming could flip the script. I know a lot of people are fretting the money. We will see an increase in revenues with the new contract with traditional TV. The question is can we get more from streaming? Most indicators are we will get more. More money, better programming slots and more exposure nationally.
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Football is still watched live and the higher ratings are from teams in Tuscaloosa, Athens etc. Size of market doesn’t matter if the product isn’t good. If it’s good football people will watch.
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Let me fix that for you. Size of market doesn’t matter if you have an established brand, but, size of market does matter if you are the only brand (see Big10 with Rutgers). The Big10 doesn’t care that Rutgers athletics suck, but it guaranteed their TV network would be offered in the north east cable systems,
That is why Kansas should be the PAC’s top priority. You can grab Kansas City for your TV market and Kansas delivers that big market where it is THE big name brand. In the Dallas/FW area, the big brand is not TCU or SMU, but if you can get TCU, a bigger brand than SMU, then you can capture some of that market.
This has really nothing to do with athletics, it is about product branding and growing market share. We may hate what college football has become, but big brands have always been dominant, with upstarts coming and once in a while, like Miami with Schellenburger, and now Utah has built up its brand. But otherwise, the big brands continue to be the big brands, and will continue to be the big brands that bring in the TV viewers.
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Id like to welcome our newest troll (joined hours ago)
Honestly, the Big XII is a collection of truck stops. Thats a HARD NO to partner with any of the schools in that conference vs. the existing schools on the West coast.
Some of you have bought into the scam that the Big XII will have the superior media deal. There’s no evidence of that.
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