Canzano: Oregon State and Washington State shopping football games
Plus... Trail Blazers local TV ratings plummet.
Oregon State holds the rights to seven home football games next season, including dates vs. Oregon and Purdue. Washington State has six home games, including one against Texas Tech.
In early January, the schools were talking to multiple media partners but I was told the negotiations were slow.
“It is a very tight market right now,” a source told me at the time.
Several weeks later the quest appears to have intensified. Washington State President Kirk Schulz told me on Tuesday: “We’re in conversations with several potential partners and have to ensure we are weighing program exposure with money for specific games. Kickoff times also will play a role as we make a decision moving forward.”
A source at Oregon State added: “We’re advancing the ball down the field and have received strong interest from multiple groups.”
So where will those 13 college football games end up?
And how long will it take?
Bob Thompson, the retired Fox Sports Network president, has negotiated a series of media deals in the collegiate space. He now works as a consultant. Thompson believes the schools should value exposure over revenue.
He compared the Beavers and Cougars with 49ers’ quarterback Brock Purdy — known as “Mr. Irrelevant” because he was picked last in the NFL Draft. Thompson meant it as a compliment. He pointed out that there’s some extra interest in what happens to OSU and WSU next season because folks around the country are familiar with their plight and remain curious.
That thought dovetails with what a “Pac-2” head coach in a non-revenue-generating sport told me on Monday. The coach pointed out that the Beavers and Cougars have never been talked about more nationally than they are right now.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to seize that platform,” the coach said.
Could the Pac-12 Network morph into a 24/7 channel dedicated to heavily promoting Oregon State and Washington State athletics over the next several months? And could the network continue to operate in some form beyond July 1?
Oliver Luck’s consulting role with the Pac-12 included the exploration of possibilities for the conference’s network, per sources. Luck was charged in the final months of his consultation to determine if there was a viable business model for the network. Meaning, could the Pac-12 Network operate as a production company doing outsourced work for Amazon, Apple and a host of others?
We’ll soon see.
In the meantime, Oregon State and Washington State appear to be inching closer to a resolution on the football media-rights front. It’s possible the schools could sell a couple of their football games (See: Oregon at OSU and Texas Tech at WSU) to a carrier that would give them some wide exposure. Selling the games à la carte is a strong possibility given that 13 games between two Pacific Northwest schools may be too much for a single entity to digest.
“That’s a lot of inventory from two teams,” Thompson said. “It can be compounded by the fact if they don’t perform well then you’ve got 12 or seven or six games from teams that are performing poorly and that’s just not what you want to put on your station or network every weekend.”
Oregon State and Washington State might also tag along on the Fox/CBS package that the Mountain West Conference schools currently enjoy. Or the “Pac-2” could also seek a regional syndication deal with an entity such as Root Sports or find local TV partners for some of the games.
Said Thompson: “They need to maintain some level of exposure even if they don’t get a bunch of money out of it.”
Learning to think like a media company
Bob Thompson is the retired president of Fox Sports Network. He’s been a wealth of information when it comes to media rights negotiations, strategy, and helping the public understand how media companies think.
His latest public service was a 40-minute interview he did on the “Canzano & Wilner” podcast over the holiday weekend. Thompson talked about a variety of subjects, including:
College Football Playoff media deal.
Oregon State and Washington State strategy.
How the ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery bundle will impact the market.
What we all need to watch for in the sports-media landscape.
Thompson knows his stuff. Remember, he told me early in the Pac-12’s negotiations that the 10 remaining schools were worth ~$30 million each after the departures of USC and UCLA. We later found out ESPN offered exactly that amount last fall — and the presidents passed.
Several factors caused the downfall of the Pac-12. I keep wondering if the conference had hired Thompson as a consultant if he would have talked some sense into leadership.
Trail Blazers local TV ratings plummet
The local television ratings for the Trail Blazers are in a death spiral. Portland’s NBA franchise has seen the largest percentage decline in local viewership in the league — down 49 percent.
The team has a dismal record, Damian Lillard was traded, and the games air on Root Sports. Xfinity pulled the games from the standard cable package right before the season and placed them in a more expensive tier. Decide why you aren’t watching the Blazers, but what’s evident is that viewers aren’t into paying for a lousy product.
The majority of the league’s teams increased their viewership in the last year. Portland’s year-to-year numbers are alarming. They’re not being compared to the Suns (+94 percent), the Nuggets (+139 percent), or the Timberwolves (+107 percent). This is a Portland-vs.-Portland comparison and it’s the worst decline in the league, per the Sports Business Journal.
I’ve wondered how the Blazers TV strategy will impact the relationship between young fans and the NBA franchise. Are they getting exposure to the team to fall in love with it? Will kids bond with Portland players? If you’re not being seen on TV can you grow your fan base? I’d love to see the franchise make a return to over-the-air broadcasts (See: KGW, KOIN, KPTV). The Blazers’ TV contract with Root Sports ends in the spring of 2025.
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As Oscar Wilde observed “ There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Does Portland have a G League team or are the Trailblazers the G league team?