On the point of how much the networks are overpaying for these TV contracts, there are new developments in the MLB issues with Bally (Bally Sports/Diamond Sports Group/Sinclair). As expected, the MLB has taken over broadcasting rights for the San Diego Padres after Bally lost rights after failing to make payment to the Padres. Additional teams will likely soon follow. To it's credit, MLB is taking over broadcast right working to get the Padres games on TV without additional costs to the public. This all came down to an issue where Bally/Diamond misjudged the future of the cable satellite market and grossly over-payed for the broadcast rights in a market where cable/satellite TV subscriptions are dropping so quickly. Bally now claims that it can only make money if they have streaming rights. No doubt that streaming is going to become bigger and bigger. So this really makes me wonder how secure the contracts ABC/ESPN, CBS, Fox, etc. are making with the college football conferences really are. The more I think about it, the more I think the SEC TV deal may be better than the Big-10. I didn't quite see this when the SEC was negotiating strictly with ABC/ESPN, while the Big-10 wanted to spread it's rights over several networks, but looking at it now, I now think the SEC's strategy was more focused on long-term streaming rights. I think the future of sports TV is paying for subscription bundles, much like they do now for movies/programming. People will look for the services that offer the most value of what they want to see. For sports fan, who will offer the best sports streaming service? No doubt in my mind it will be ABC/ESPN. Assuming ABC/ESPN's sports streaming line-up includes all the live sports on all it's current ABC/ESPN/SEC networks, a college football fan will only have to pay for 1 streaming service to watch every SEC game, plus get Big-12 and what little the ACC has. The Big-10 on the other hand, will soon have it's broadcast rights split between Fox/NBC and CBS. Granted they're all free air channels people can pick up with an antenna, which is good for now, but if a Big-10 fan wants to stream games, they're probably going to have to purchase 3 sports streaming services to watch their team and none of them will have what ESPN will offer. I believe ABC/ESPN will remain the king of sports programming into the streaming era.
Lost in all the fun, Miami, USF, Arizona State and Notre Dame got AAU membership today. Could change the landscape of who can move where a bit, that a nice card to hold for those schools (though ND could write their ticket already for the most part it clears that last alleged Big 10 hurdle). Side note, the fact that USF and Miami got it and FSU didn’t is awesome, they have a thread on their On3 board that has 192 posts around it, wish I could read it. I’m sure it’s a solid level of panic.
half of the posts say why aren't we in the AAU and the other half saying we are fsu and it should not matter
FSU shares an engineering school with FAMU. Don’t even have their own. The FSU Biomedical Engineering degree is not even accredited yet. Where is their Med School? Hard to become an AAU school when you are so weak in engineering and sciences
