Could they also work on distribution even if the make no changes, and they need to make changes! I have YouTube T.V. As a result I have SEC and BTN channels but no PAC 12. My choices are pay a boat load for FUBO T.V. to literally get one channel I care about, or don't watch the PAC12. I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money to watch PAC12 on YouTube T.V., and am not afforded that choice.
It's absurd. I can understand (although not really) that it might not be part of your cable/streaming/satellite package. But why, oh why, can't you purchase as a standalone subscription if its not?!
Which demonstrates their lack of business acumen. Most of us would be willing to pay a reasonable subscription fee to watch PAC12 on our platform of choice. Instead, we either don't watch, which is a loss of advertising revenue for them, or we find work arounds that net them zero subscription dollars. Brilliant business plan :-)
Any provider CAN get Pac-12 Network. It;s not all Pac-12 here, The other networks all affiliated with ESPN or FOX and they took a cut, albeit they did get carriage
Comcast/DISH/FUBO/SLING all have PAc 12 Network
We went thru the same BS for 12 years with Blazers. Its not just P12 that has carriage issues
IIRC, they had no choice and contractually they weren't able to offer it OTT D2C
In defense of the P12/Larry a bit, it wasn't as clear to see the importance of negotiating in the ability to offer D2C and surely it would have reduced the financial payouts as the traditional providers want to have some modicum of exclusivity to offer the content as add on packages to traditional cable/sat
What a colossal boner these morons pulled. And the President’s make the call, so put the blame there instead of the canned Larry Scott. It should’ve been obvious that Olympic sports are ideal for streaming, NOT a cable channel looking to reach all of the USA. Water polo doesn’t flying Alabama, BTW. University communications offices have create in-house/hi quality broadcast operations. Stream it. And add SDSU ASAP, Kliankoff!
If there is good news, It’s that P-12 Presidents have their backs against the wall. They should be shell-shocked into making a great business deal. Thanks for your great reporting in this John!
Sometimes they had Cal baseball games on one of the reginal networks, but not Pac-12 Bay Area. They showed reruns instead. The only way to see was through the computer. Made no sense. Have one network. Put extra games on ESPN plus. Sell to ESPN.
Larry Scott made 2 critical errors in setting up the Pac-12 network. 1) going with 6 regional feeds and a "national" feed, instead of just one; and 2) not having a partner like the Big Ten (Fox) or SEC (ESPN) had to give the new conference network some leverage in dealing with distributors. Both the "reduce the number of feeds" and "find a network partner" fixes suggested by Thompson have been widely known and discussed for the last 5-10 years by the media, industry experts, TV networks and officials of Pac-12 member schools. It's way past time to get real.
Why is there such a hesitancy to invite those g5 schools at a reduced payout? Say, 10mm. Way more than they are getting now, and gives in conference “easy” wins for a decade while the brand gets polished and becomes sell-out city in DFW, and Las-Vegas
At a reduced payout... for how long? That's the key. They have to justify their media value. Boise State brings 517,000 TV households in Idaho. That's worth a fraction of what San Diego State (1.1 million homes) brings.
John, I worry San Diego State looks desperate and frankly, probably does not sell well in its own TV market.
Their stadium is literally named Snapdragon Stadium
Why not have Long Beach State reinstate football under that theory, rename it UCLB & add it. That brings in the LA market in theory.
Play off of the George Allen storyline.
Or add SMU-the Dallas market is massive, dwarfing San Diego, if the end goal is adding theoretical TV markets.
There are other factors other than TV market, at least in my opinion.
Oklahoma is in a tiny TV market (45th I think), to be charitable and yet has a national following, something the Ducks are moving towards, despite their TV market.
I think teams like Kansas, if available, might make more sense.
Also, I've seen a lot of criticism of the number of sports carried on the Pac 12 network, but wasn't that imposed upon Scott by the Conference?
Thanks again for this forum and your articles. I really enjoy them.
San Diego is the 2nd largest city in California. The metro area population has around 3.3 million people. Their DMA ranking will likely move from 27 to the 22-24 by 2023. They could have the #1 or #2 DMA ranking in the PAC 12 if they join.
Very good points Jack B. How do the SD State games draw on local TV, win their time slot or what shows draw better? With all respect, is it like incl Portland State in the Portland/OR market? Dave M
According to an article written by Zach Miller in 2021 comparing numbers for 89 teams from 2015-2019, San Diego State ranked 86th out of 89, with an average viewership of 63,000 per televised game.
I believe that is not just local TV, but whatever viewership data was available, which is even worse.
This team that everyone is screaming for doesn't even exist in the minds of football fans. And this is a team that actually wins games in its own conference.
Miller did make one confusing comment. He said he counted any game he could not find numbers for as a zero. I hope he meant he did not include them in the equation.
The Ducks were 26th nationally that year, although in fairness that did include the trainwreck 2016 season and the semi-trainwreck 2017 seasons.
Chris, I hope you are right, but question how SDSU is going to make this work.
Schools like Oregon State and WSU can barely make it on the revenue generated by athletics, requiring significant money from the University donors or general fund.
SDSU has a small endowment (less than $300 million) and does not appear to have the donor base or financial cushion to fund athletics at a level to be in a Power 5 conference.
While I understand the potential for a TV market other factors are necessary to make it work for SDSU and the conference.
TV ratings for SDSU have to be viewed in context of who they had as opponents. The game rating for SDSU vs Utah State is going to be lower than SDSU vs Washington State. The TV game rating for SDSU vs Nevada is going to be lower than SDSU vs Oregon. You cannot judge SDSU solely on SDSU. A more high profile conference affiliation, and the ratings will be higher with the viewership greater in S.D.
5 years is a fairly long period of time to examine performance, though.
I worry the current Commissioner is basing decisions in general based upon twitter and media perception.
It is obvious people are telling John Canzano San Diego State is the front runner to join the Conference, a decision that worries me.
SDSU is likely not going to perform well in any TV market, just as Oregon State has not performed well in the same market Oregon operates within.
Another decision that worries me relates to that studio. Thanks to non-stop media attention to old factors (the initial costs), the current studio in San Fran will likely be abandoned, even though substantial finish out costs will have to be incurred all over again in another location, a location that may not be as attractive to talent essential to operate such a network.
I have not seen one article analyzing whether the current studio might make sense over the next decade when factoring in sunk costs in the existing studio.
I worry Jon Wilner is running the show now and that is not healthy.
He is garnering a lot of hate, which is kind of sad and just not warranted. Disappointment, sure, but hatred?
The guy was hired by the Conference and handcuffed in many ways.
He landed a major contract, but probably made it too long, although that would have been hard to predict at the time.
The Network had many issues mandated by the Conference Charter, from what I've read, but at least he had all rights terminate at one time, which might bring some value.
The Network also had a shockingly high equity value, but didn't a couple of teams block the Conference from perhaps cashing in on that value?
Scott also was innovative in terms of women's sports treatment and in terms of offering post playing career assistance to athletes.
I've never liked the hate directed at the guy, even though I agree it was time to move on.
John, I know people told you he treated subordinates poorly and that you reported that some time ago, but were any bullying or harassment claims filed under California law, or just general claims filed with the Conference office?
I never was impressed with the claims that he spent too much on entertainment-he was the head of a major media/Conference-it goes with the territory.
But the bullying claim worried me, until I realized the Conference did not seem to take it seriously (they gave him a $500k bonus after your report.
I don't like the reporting that he treated subordinates poorly and that does give me pause.
I don't like bullies.
As for the bad decisions, don't we really have to wait and see how his decision to have all media rights expire at the same time plays out?
My initial reaction to the new guy is one of way more worry than any concerns I ever had as to Scott. He seems like a very nice guy, reassuring and so forth, and I hope he pulls this off.
Once again, he may well have a great plan and we will see it unfold. I'm crossing my fingers.
He’s a businessman… a very bad one. He can be that and still not qualify as truly evil. Not everything he did stunk, but on the whole he was in charge as the conference slipped from arguably #2 behind the SEC down to #5. Implying he was a victim is just so wrong on so many levels. Go back and read some of Canzano’s Oregonian columns where he laid bare the truth.
I read John's articles and disagreed with the tenor of most of them. I like John, but thought the articles were too personal to be considered unbiased journalism.
I'm not implying Scott is a victim, by the way.
I just don't happen to believe the story is as one sided as everyone is making it out to be.
We are dealing with several sports programs in this conference that people simply do not watch on TV. That's tough to sell.
Larry Scott mistreated staffers... treated the ADs as if they were less-than... was self serving. The four-part series I did uncovered wide spread mismanagement... lavish travel, no expense policy for executive team.... it was a mess that was unchecked. He simply wasn't doing a good job. I'm sure he's a nice guy and he's definitely not dumb, but he deserves the criticism.
And John, I want to emphasize that I am not denigrating your opinions. You have spent hours on these issues and I respect that.
My gut reaction simply differs from many in looking at this situation.
I have bigger fish to fry. I am retired and have two teenagers to keep track of, for starters. They are tremendous fun, and your columns are one of the things that I really enjoy to distract from the day to day reality of life. I just make quick reactions to most of what I read and move on.
Please STOP the crawler on bottom of screen on Pac 12 network. It just repeats the same tiring minor news over and over and over. Very irritating and distracting when watching a game. Or at least only run it for two or three cycles every 30 minutes.
45 famously said 'elections have consequences' and boy was he right. Could say the same about the appointment of L. Scott at the Pac12. The damage is staggering.
I'm all for having Olympic sports get covered and shown as widely as possible, but I'm unclear how much actual audience size (and thus monetary value) there really is for them.
It definitely seems like a fit for a paid over the top add-on.
I'm hopeful that content could all land on ESPN+ at some point.
Agree. I think those things were really important to a few presidents... but probably not at all watched by viewers. One network... with main feed... moving forward... then take the rest of that content for a digital offering that can be sold to die-hard niche fan streamers.
The Pac-12 is essentially the Left Coast politically. The presidents reflect that approach in terms of "equity", "correctness", etc. etc. It is why the Pac10/12 will never be a major player in football and men's basketball because decisions are not made based upon the same priorities of the SEC, BigTen and Big12. One of the few good things that came from PacNetwork was an improvement in women's basketball, but it remains of little consequence in terms of dollars and viewership.
I’m pretty sure it was Gary Stevenson who was the first Pac-12 Network president. He left real fast after about a year from startup. Wonder what he would have to say?
Could they also work on distribution even if the make no changes, and they need to make changes! I have YouTube T.V. As a result I have SEC and BTN channels but no PAC 12. My choices are pay a boat load for FUBO T.V. to literally get one channel I care about, or don't watch the PAC12. I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money to watch PAC12 on YouTube T.V., and am not afforded that choice.
Same boat...
It's absurd. I can understand (although not really) that it might not be part of your cable/streaming/satellite package. But why, oh why, can't you purchase as a standalone subscription if its not?!
No one does it ala carte
If it was it would cost much more.
FUBO is $79,99 with the Pac 12 in the package
Or the lessor package is $69,99 and then for $10,99 you can add the Sports Pack and get EVERY pac 12 channel and others.
It's not a boatload. Yotube is $65 I believe. Yeah, you'll pay more. A boatload? Not sure
You will get MORE channels overall. Notable is ROOT Sports for the Blazers.
Yep -- you are all over it Noury
We've ended up using a login for P12 App from family/friends who have access through cable.
Total mess
Which demonstrates their lack of business acumen. Most of us would be willing to pay a reasonable subscription fee to watch PAC12 on our platform of choice. Instead, we either don't watch, which is a loss of advertising revenue for them, or we find work arounds that net them zero subscription dollars. Brilliant business plan :-)
Any provider CAN get Pac-12 Network. It;s not all Pac-12 here, The other networks all affiliated with ESPN or FOX and they took a cut, albeit they did get carriage
Comcast/DISH/FUBO/SLING all have PAc 12 Network
We went thru the same BS for 12 years with Blazers. Its not just P12 that has carriage issues
IIRC, they had no choice and contractually they weren't able to offer it OTT D2C
In defense of the P12/Larry a bit, it wasn't as clear to see the importance of negotiating in the ability to offer D2C and surely it would have reduced the financial payouts as the traditional providers want to have some modicum of exclusivity to offer the content as add on packages to traditional cable/sat
problem was the contract was too long.
Should have been 5 years and then move forward.
What a colossal boner these morons pulled. And the President’s make the call, so put the blame there instead of the canned Larry Scott. It should’ve been obvious that Olympic sports are ideal for streaming, NOT a cable channel looking to reach all of the USA. Water polo doesn’t flying Alabama, BTW. University communications offices have create in-house/hi quality broadcast operations. Stream it. And add SDSU ASAP, Kliankoff!
Larry was convincing... but you're right. They hold responsibility, too.
If there is good news, It’s that P-12 Presidents have their backs against the wall. They should be shell-shocked into making a great business deal. Thanks for your great reporting in this John!
Sometimes they had Cal baseball games on one of the reginal networks, but not Pac-12 Bay Area. They showed reruns instead. The only way to see was through the computer. Made no sense. Have one network. Put extra games on ESPN plus. Sell to ESPN.
.......then-commissioner Larry Scott in the summer of 2012 "was less about generating revenue and more about keeping his bosses happy."
You know you are doomed with this type of operating philosophy.
Larry Scott made 2 critical errors in setting up the Pac-12 network. 1) going with 6 regional feeds and a "national" feed, instead of just one; and 2) not having a partner like the Big Ten (Fox) or SEC (ESPN) had to give the new conference network some leverage in dealing with distributors. Both the "reduce the number of feeds" and "find a network partner" fixes suggested by Thompson have been widely known and discussed for the last 5-10 years by the media, industry experts, TV networks and officials of Pac-12 member schools. It's way past time to get real.
Thanks, John for your articles. There is always something interesting for me to read.
Thanks for being here.
Great article, thanks John.
thanks
Why is there such a hesitancy to invite those g5 schools at a reduced payout? Say, 10mm. Way more than they are getting now, and gives in conference “easy” wins for a decade while the brand gets polished and becomes sell-out city in DFW, and Las-Vegas
At a reduced payout... for how long? That's the key. They have to justify their media value. Boise State brings 517,000 TV households in Idaho. That's worth a fraction of what San Diego State (1.1 million homes) brings.
John, I worry San Diego State looks desperate and frankly, probably does not sell well in its own TV market.
Their stadium is literally named Snapdragon Stadium
Why not have Long Beach State reinstate football under that theory, rename it UCLB & add it. That brings in the LA market in theory.
Play off of the George Allen storyline.
Or add SMU-the Dallas market is massive, dwarfing San Diego, if the end goal is adding theoretical TV markets.
There are other factors other than TV market, at least in my opinion.
Oklahoma is in a tiny TV market (45th I think), to be charitable and yet has a national following, something the Ducks are moving towards, despite their TV market.
I think teams like Kansas, if available, might make more sense.
Also, I've seen a lot of criticism of the number of sports carried on the Pac 12 network, but wasn't that imposed upon Scott by the Conference?
Thanks again for this forum and your articles. I really enjoy them.
Snapdragon is Qualcom.
There are stranger names out there: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2660820-ranking-the-12-strangest-stadium-names-in-sports
I like the article.
San Diego is the 2nd largest city in California. The metro area population has around 3.3 million people. Their DMA ranking will likely move from 27 to the 22-24 by 2023. They could have the #1 or #2 DMA ranking in the PAC 12 if they join.
Very good points Jack B. How do the SD State games draw on local TV, win their time slot or what shows draw better? With all respect, is it like incl Portland State in the Portland/OR market? Dave M
According to an article written by Zach Miller in 2021 comparing numbers for 89 teams from 2015-2019, San Diego State ranked 86th out of 89, with an average viewership of 63,000 per televised game.
I believe that is not just local TV, but whatever viewership data was available, which is even worse.
This team that everyone is screaming for doesn't even exist in the minds of football fans. And this is a team that actually wins games in its own conference.
Miller did make one confusing comment. He said he counted any game he could not find numbers for as a zero. I hope he meant he did not include them in the equation.
The Ducks were 26th nationally that year, although in fairness that did include the trainwreck 2016 season and the semi-trainwreck 2017 seasons.
This was Miller's own analysis.
Some of that time the Chargers were in town. They left. Long gone
Old stadium was a dump. Crumbling, toilets didnt work. This place is moden, classy.
Put Pac 12 in here and it rocks going forward.
Chris, I hope you are right, but question how SDSU is going to make this work.
Schools like Oregon State and WSU can barely make it on the revenue generated by athletics, requiring significant money from the University donors or general fund.
SDSU has a small endowment (less than $300 million) and does not appear to have the donor base or financial cushion to fund athletics at a level to be in a Power 5 conference.
While I understand the potential for a TV market other factors are necessary to make it work for SDSU and the conference.
TV ratings for SDSU have to be viewed in context of who they had as opponents. The game rating for SDSU vs Utah State is going to be lower than SDSU vs Washington State. The TV game rating for SDSU vs Nevada is going to be lower than SDSU vs Oregon. You cannot judge SDSU solely on SDSU. A more high profile conference affiliation, and the ratings will be higher with the viewership greater in S.D.
5 years is a fairly long period of time to examine performance, though.
I worry the current Commissioner is basing decisions in general based upon twitter and media perception.
It is obvious people are telling John Canzano San Diego State is the front runner to join the Conference, a decision that worries me.
SDSU is likely not going to perform well in any TV market, just as Oregon State has not performed well in the same market Oregon operates within.
Another decision that worries me relates to that studio. Thanks to non-stop media attention to old factors (the initial costs), the current studio in San Fran will likely be abandoned, even though substantial finish out costs will have to be incurred all over again in another location, a location that may not be as attractive to talent essential to operate such a network.
I have not seen one article analyzing whether the current studio might make sense over the next decade when factoring in sunk costs in the existing studio.
I worry Jon Wilner is running the show now and that is not healthy.
Message to Larry Scott-You're a loser !!!!!!!!!!
You're.
It all depends.
He is garnering a lot of hate, which is kind of sad and just not warranted. Disappointment, sure, but hatred?
The guy was hired by the Conference and handcuffed in many ways.
He landed a major contract, but probably made it too long, although that would have been hard to predict at the time.
The Network had many issues mandated by the Conference Charter, from what I've read, but at least he had all rights terminate at one time, which might bring some value.
The Network also had a shockingly high equity value, but didn't a couple of teams block the Conference from perhaps cashing in on that value?
Scott also was innovative in terms of women's sports treatment and in terms of offering post playing career assistance to athletes.
I've never liked the hate directed at the guy, even though I agree it was time to move on.
He's a businessman, not Putin or even Art Briles.
don't agree that it was hate... he treated subordinates poorly... made bad decisions... mostly promoted himself vs. the conference.
John, I know people told you he treated subordinates poorly and that you reported that some time ago, but were any bullying or harassment claims filed under California law, or just general claims filed with the Conference office?
I never was impressed with the claims that he spent too much on entertainment-he was the head of a major media/Conference-it goes with the territory.
But the bullying claim worried me, until I realized the Conference did not seem to take it seriously (they gave him a $500k bonus after your report.
I doubt they just ignored the assertions.
I don't like the reporting that he treated subordinates poorly and that does give me pause.
I don't like bullies.
As for the bad decisions, don't we really have to wait and see how his decision to have all media rights expire at the same time plays out?
My initial reaction to the new guy is one of way more worry than any concerns I ever had as to Scott. He seems like a very nice guy, reassuring and so forth, and I hope he pulls this off.
Once again, he may well have a great plan and we will see it unfold. I'm crossing my fingers.
He’s a businessman… a very bad one. He can be that and still not qualify as truly evil. Not everything he did stunk, but on the whole he was in charge as the conference slipped from arguably #2 behind the SEC down to #5. Implying he was a victim is just so wrong on so many levels. Go back and read some of Canzano’s Oregonian columns where he laid bare the truth.
I read John's articles and disagreed with the tenor of most of them. I like John, but thought the articles were too personal to be considered unbiased journalism.
I'm not implying Scott is a victim, by the way.
I just don't happen to believe the story is as one sided as everyone is making it out to be.
We are dealing with several sports programs in this conference that people simply do not watch on TV. That's tough to sell.
Larry Scott mistreated staffers... treated the ADs as if they were less-than... was self serving. The four-part series I did uncovered wide spread mismanagement... lavish travel, no expense policy for executive team.... it was a mess that was unchecked. He simply wasn't doing a good job. I'm sure he's a nice guy and he's definitely not dumb, but he deserves the criticism.
And John, I want to emphasize that I am not denigrating your opinions. You have spent hours on these issues and I respect that.
My gut reaction simply differs from many in looking at this situation.
I have bigger fish to fry. I am retired and have two teenagers to keep track of, for starters. They are tremendous fun, and your columns are one of the things that I really enjoy to distract from the day to day reality of life. I just make quick reactions to most of what I read and move on.
Thanks for your hard work and perspective.
Having all the conference presidents and AD's buy into Larry's scheme
doesn't say much for their collective critical thinking abilities...
Some were enamored with the idea of being media executives, I think.
Please STOP the crawler on bottom of screen on Pac 12 network. It just repeats the same tiring minor news over and over and over. Very irritating and distracting when watching a game. Or at least only run it for two or three cycles every 30 minutes.
They didn't have staff monitoring that crawl for a spell.
45 famously said 'elections have consequences' and boy was he right. Could say the same about the appointment of L. Scott at the Pac12. The damage is staggering.
All too much information for me. I’ll stay away from Vegas and watch the games from home. Thanks for your in-depth information gathering.
I'm all for having Olympic sports get covered and shown as widely as possible, but I'm unclear how much actual audience size (and thus monetary value) there really is for them.
It definitely seems like a fit for a paid over the top add-on.
I'm hopeful that content could all land on ESPN+ at some point.
Agree. I think those things were really important to a few presidents... but probably not at all watched by viewers. One network... with main feed... moving forward... then take the rest of that content for a digital offering that can be sold to die-hard niche fan streamers.
The Pac-12 is essentially the Left Coast politically. The presidents reflect that approach in terms of "equity", "correctness", etc. etc. It is why the Pac10/12 will never be a major player in football and men's basketball because decisions are not made based upon the same priorities of the SEC, BigTen and Big12. One of the few good things that came from PacNetwork was an improvement in women's basketball, but it remains of little consequence in terms of dollars and viewership.
I’m pretty sure it was Gary Stevenson who was the first Pac-12 Network president. He left real fast after about a year from startup. Wonder what he would have to say?
There was nothing wrong with any of this initially. The problem was the LENGTH of the contract
If this was 5 years it would be over and onto the next thing.
At the time this was done it was the largest package in college sports. It was just too long