Ovies & Giglio: New B1G media deal puts ACC on the clock
now
But the big news of the day as it relates
to us here in the triangle is the Big Ten's
new media deal that was officially announced this afternoon
I will admit it sounded really weird when I watched
the Cbs sizzle reel
This music starts to play
We all know this music when you hear this music
you think one thing and one thing only let's be
real Tennessee getting destroyed by Alabama
Right
Uncle Vern is about to pop on
Right
Here we go
Sec football time
But no I'm watching the sizzle reel
I'm getting Maryland highlights
Greg Siano pops up on my screen stuck down
Did they hurry guys get Northwestern in there Did they
forget north west No there's Northwestern
At the end of the clip there's Northwestern with a
player doing a salute
I'm sure that warm jim Philip's heart
Right
So it was it was a little off putting to
hear that music with Big 10 highlights associated with it
But that's what we're going to get going forward
It's a billion dollar deal with that spread all spread
across three different broadcast networks
Fox who will have their big noon saturday 12 o'clock
a brilliant marketing strategy to put those games right out
of the gate
And why noone football while fans might hate it Television
loves it
CBS will get the 3 30 window
NBC gets the evening game at seven o'clock again
I cannot stress this enough
A billion dollars
This starts in 2023 U
C
L
A
And Southern cal are going to join the Big 10
I believe in 2024
And it runs for seven years which to me is
the most important part of this deal
Why Well The Big 10 has been really strategic with
the length of their media deals for two reasons
The first one is it allows them to be flexible
and take advantage of the market conditions meaning that they
already have a negotiation floor based on what other conferences
are doing
The other part is oh is there now a need
at a network that just lost big time college football
looking at U
C
B
S
Well we can now fill that need and that's exactly
what they did with CBS who's paying more for that
3 30 window than they did with the sec previously
It's kind of funny right You're thinking yourself seriously the
second tier Big 10 game is more valuable now than
it was for the sec
Well I'm sure the sec would have gotten more money
if they had stuck around with CBS but they decided
to put all their eggs in one basket with ESPN
so they can control everything with one network
And I don't know I just don't mean college football
windows on television
When I say control everything
They also wanted to control the talking points and they
understand that while CBS has college football and Fox has
their college football and NBC is going to be on
board
Who causes the conversation
Who directs the conversation when it comes to national college
football E
S
P
N
And they're gonna have a media rights partner now that
clearly has a vested interest in promoting sec football all
the time
Don't forget they're adding Oklahoma to yes again these these
conferences the Big 10 the sec they made the right
choices in the schools that they decided to add
That's where the money is
You can do it the one way like you said
the sec hey we're going to ESPN we're gonna bundle
this thing together or you can split it up and
make the more money on the short term basis
I think for the Big 10 by those smaller contracts
those are smart because this this contract and the move
to add U C L A and U S C
Is a direct result of texas and Oklahoma
Move by the sec
Same for Notre dame
You know Notre dame is re ups at the right
time because cbs not being involved not having the sec
puts a little bit of pressure on NBC to say
hey we can't just we can't just lowball you and
just think we're gonna re up with you just because
we've had a longstanding relationship particularly when CBS is out
there works out for Notre Dame works out for NBC
NBC
Now getting this Big 10 programming shoulder programming as they
like to say these are the kind of teams that
are like Notre dame let's be honest
You know if it's it's the third choice right So
you're gonna be talking well again I don't even think
you know Purdue michigan state Wisconsin Iowa Illinois
These are all schools that if you're if you're inclined
to watch Notre dame at three or vice versa you're
gonna watch the leading or the or the after about
taking advantage of the market conditions that also involves playing
the conference realignment came right we bring up U
C
L
A
In southern cal well because of the shorter television contract
window they timed it and we talked about this five
or six years ago when the original deal went through
for the big 10 they positioned themselves for other grant
of rights and other television deals to run out
They timed it perfectly with the pac 12 and when
they're coming around to hey look we're gonna we're gonna
make a billion dollars a year
Hey U
C
L
A
Southern cal you you wanna help us out with this
Alright cool
Let's do it
So we should we should note the fiscal year payout
for the big 10 in 21 which was down because
of some covid issues of course because they had floated
money to 20 I should clarify was 679 million
So they're about to jump from 679 million to one
billion that's significant
That is significant
So but but that's timing it's all the time and
not not being locked into a deal which gets us
which gets us to the seven year window
Alright the A
C
C
S
Grant of rights essentially
The thing that's keeping the conference together because it would
be it would ruin a school financially if they tried
to leave the conference right now because the media rights
that they would go and sign but we'll use north
Carolina is the example because I do think that north
Carolina is the linchpin in all of this
It's not Clemson it's not florida state
It's not Miami it is North Carolina which would be
attractive to the big 10 and the sec but specifically
the big 10 I think it aligns more with the
big 10 right now
If north Carolina wanted to leave the A
C
C
It would financially ruin them
They would sign with the big 10 and all the
money they make from that media rights deal goes where
back to the A
C
C
Back to the A
C
C
Now it would be financially beneficial for the rest of
the schools and the A
C
C
Like they were getting North Carolina's money spread across everybody
else
Cool
Right
But obviously north Carolina is not gonna do that assuming
that grant of rights holds up in a court of
law
Ah Well that gets to the second part
If North Carolina can get a block of schools to
challenge the grant of rights to say they can get
five different schools in the A
C
C
You have to get to eight
Okay in order to tear it up tear it up
tear it up
Let's see let's say that block of schools happened
But I would even argue that you can get five
to really test it
Not to rip up but to test test it
But I don't see that happening Yet at least
But now they have to be together
I would now now that we know that the big
10s meteorite steel last for seven years
It bugs me out to 2030 which is closer to
2036 math
You get to that point
You can start having conversations saying hey look we can
go about this two ways
We can put our financials on ice for the next
five years and try to or in this case they
will try to buy their way out
Or now that we're nearing the end we can get
more schools with us and things would break off
And that's why I say the A
C
C
Is officially on the clock
Now that we know what the deal is
It's no longer a matter of speculation we know what
the window is for the A
C
C
It's seven years probably shorter than that because these things
will probably start happening before the seven years is up
So let's go with five years
They've got five more years to figure something out financially
to keep the A
C
C
Together
Otherwise we're looking at another massive seismic shift in college
realignment If everything stays the same though I think things
will stay the same
I think things will stay the same because I don't
see where the I would like to bet against that
I don't know where the A
C
C
Is going to get the entire landscape right
Like when we had like you love to give me
a hard time about conversations that happened in 2004
Well you're not really remembering what it was like in
2003 and 2004
Right So what I'm saying to you is in seven
years are we sure And the biggest thing to bet
on here is is it still gonna be football And
I hate that I hate to say this and I'm
not saying this callously but football is a lot has
the football does have the potential to turn into boxing
It does
And what happened with boxing in the eighties was there
was a death in the ring and it doesn't take
a lot to get to that point and we don't
want to see that in football
Obviously no one wants to see that but it would
be it would be a fool's errand to say that
it couldn't happen that it's not within the realm of
possibility
And those are the things that you look at participation
levels in football particularly when you line up education levels
with participation levels in football and affluence and participation levels
in football and are are we are we gonna have
a supply of players in 10 years We're gonna have
the same or is it gonna be like we've seen
in the supply chain issues during the pandemic and post
pandemic years here
That's where I'm saying to you can we bet on
this that's also where I would say to you the
Big 10 is smart to say all right we're going
to the last two deals the big 10 have made
have been smart short window deals I'm saying to you
a lot can change in seven years holistically not just
hey what you're saying about tv you're absolutely right about
tv Because football is what sells that's what sells
Yeah
And and broadcast broadcast broadcast TV specifically and broadcast TV
is not gonna go anywhere anytime soon
And that's why football is getting the money that it's
getting right now from broadcast television
And again knock on wood as somebody who worked in
the newspaper business for 24 years I was just saying
in 2003 we probably could have said oh the newspaper
business is not going anywhere right
Sports talk radio business isn't going anywhere
Broadcast tv is not going anywhere
Sure
Sure
Sure sure sure
Yeah I'm not trying to be a contrarian I'm just
trying to point out that a lot can change
Yeah we don't know where I am and I'm with
you on that
Ultimately I do agree with you that you cannot predict
where the media landscape is going to be in the
next five years
Nobody could have predicted Tiktok right Nobody could predicted to
tuck essentially
We were like oh it's instagram Snapchat it's this it's
that
And all of a sudden here comes this app that
absolutely obliterates everybody else and now people are playing catch
up
Nobody could have predicted that five years ago and now
I'm the one like a dummy at the end of
the day watching cat videos on Tiktok with catchy little
songs
Are you the dummy or you entertained I am I
am entertained
There you go