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Interesting take on potential BT members #19 & #20 (TAMU and ND)

Comments like "This isn't hard." or "Didn't think that needed to be explicitly stated." are meaningless in a discussion. It's just a empty, insulting comment that suggests that you can't provide any solid evidence to support your position. For example, if TAMU is historically much more likely to play in big games than Colorado, please tell us about those big games. Against who? When? Colorado won the national championship in 1990. A&M won one in 1939.

And once again, FSU is not AAU.

There are many factors that must be weighed before chosing the best candidate for conference expansion and it is complex. TV markets, academics, state flagship, geography, SEC footprint, rivalries and culture.

Another issue, I was on the faculty of A&M for about five years and I lived in Texas. Judging from the fans sporting baseball hats, bumper stickers and T-shirts, I estimate the state is about 60% Longhorns, 25% Aggies and 15% Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor etc. There is no question that A&M is the little Brother.
Here’s your evidence:


TV viewership between 2015-2019:
ND 4
FSU 14
TAMU 17


IU and Purdue, along with 40 other programs.



Colorado 58
 
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Thank you for your response but the BTN gets paid the same way now as it did back in the Rutgers/Maryland days. That has not changed. It's still (approximately) $1/subscriber in footprint and ten cents/subscriber out of footprint. It doesn't make any difference whether the carrier is cable or streaming. Thus if the school is in a high market TV area, that is more money for the conference.

But the BTN is national now, not just restricted to the geographical footprint of B1G schools. People in Colorado can already get BTN if they want it, adding Denver doesn't expose them to BTN to the same degree it did before.

So while adding the Denver marker, under the 2010ish model would make a lot of sense, under the current focus (marquee games that draw a few million viewers) FSU or a TAMU that was mentioned in an earlier post makes more sense than Colorado.
 
But the BTN is national now, not just restricted to the geographical footprint of B1G schools. People in Colorado can already get BTN if they want it, adding Denver doesn't expose them to BTN to the same degree it did before.

So while adding the Denver marker, under the 2010ish model would make a lot of sense, under the current focus (marquee games that draw a few million viewers) FSU or a TAMU that was mentioned in an earlier post makes more sense than Colorado.
I agree, comparisons are difficult because of several variables, e.g. cable vs streaming, different conference alignments, Coach Prime's debut and other factors. So let's look at the coming season, 2024. The TV networks have selected their games for the first three weeks. Here's how Colorado stacks up:

Week 1: North Dakota St at Colorado - 8:00 game on ESPN. This is the primary channel, ESPN, not ESPN+. Note that there are eleven other games Disney downed to ESPN+ during that same time period.

Week 2: Colorado at Nebraska - 7:30 on NBC. Having the third choice among 14 other Big Ten games that day, this was NBC's selected Big Ten Saturday Night Game for prime time following its Notre Dame game at 3:30.

Week 3: Colorado at Colorado State - 7:30 prime time game on CBS.
 
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Thank you for your response but the BTN gets paid the same way now as it did back in the Rutgers/Maryland days. That has not changed. It's still (approximately) $1/subscriber in footprint and ten cents/subscriber out of footprint. It doesn't make any difference whether the carrier is cable or streaming. Thus if the school is in a high market TV area, that is more money for the conference.
10+ yrs ago, the only real way the B1G collected BTN subscriptions was thru cable services due to the low level of streamers. Today, there are more streamers than cable, so basing decisions on cable subscriptions isn’t logical. 10 yrs ago, it made sense.

 
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10+ yrs ago, the only real way the B1G collected BTN subscriptions was thru cable services due to the low level of streamers. Today, there are more streamers than cable, so basing decisions on cable subscriptions isn’t logical. 10 yrs ago, it made sense.
I'm not " . . . basing decisions on cable subscriptions . . . ." That isn't the issue at all. If you scroll up and re-read what I wrote, I said that Colorado is in the Denver Designated Marketing Area and that it is 17th largest in the country. Some then argued that the regional TV market was no longer an important consideration due to streaming. There is no logic to support that reasoning.

The BTN gets paid the same for its product whether it is aired on cable or a streamer. It's the same as the TV contracts with the OTA networks. Fox, NBC and CBS pay the Big Ten Conference for football games. It makes no difference if those networks then show the games on cable or on a streaming service. Obviously, they do both.
 
I'm not " . . . basing decisions on cable subscriptions . . . ." That isn't the issue at all. If you scroll up and re-read what I wrote, I said that Colorado is in the Denver Designated Marketing Area and that it is 17th largest in the country. Some then argued that the regional TV market was no longer an important consideration due to streaming. There is no logic to support that reasoning.

The BTN gets paid the same for its product whether it is aired on cable or a streamer. It's the same as the TV contracts with the OTA networks. Fox, NBC and CBS pay the Big Ten Conference for football games. It makes no difference if those networks then show the games on cable or on a streaming service. Obviously, they do both.
I agree the B1G gets paid the same today. My comment was in response to markets being important 10 years ago, but market size is “less important” today. Yes it does represent the number of potential eyes, but IMO FSU would have more total eyes than Colorado due to FSUs national presence.
 
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I agree the B1G gets paid the same today. My comment was in response to markets being important 10 years ago, but market size is “less important” today. Yes it does represent the number of potential eyes, but IMO FSU would have more total eyes than Colorado due to FSUs national presence.
Yep, that is probably true. But as previously stated, there are multiple factors involved. FSU is not AAU, they are in the SEC footprint, they are a Little Brother not a flagship, they are in the middle of nasty lawsuits concerning exit from the ACC that probably won't be resolved for years and they are an outlier with substantial logistical problems for Olympic teams. Former ND AD Swarbrick:

"It’s so hard for our kids to travel the way they do. I think we’ve talked about it before, but when you’re going to Tallahassee, and you start with a bus trip to Midway, and then you connect once along the way before you get there, and then you’re on a bus trying to get to campus, it’s probably 18, 16 hours that you’ve been involved in traveling."

 
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Thank you for your response but the BTN gets paid the same way now as it did back in the Rutgers/Maryland days. That has not changed. It's still (approximately) $1/subscriber in footprint and ten cents/subscriber out of footprint. It doesn't make any difference whether the carrier is cable or streaming. Thus if the school is in a high market TV area, that is more money for the conference.
This is not correct. Jim Delaney negotiated where EVERY cable subscriber had to pay the $1.10. That has gone away now it’s streaming. The formula has all changed.

I do think regional tv market plays an impact because when you have a national game on fox/cbs/nbc they want more viewers. Better ratings = more money for us. But it’s not just Tallahassee, you are picking up viewers all over florida and the southeast.
 
This is not correct. Jim Delaney negotiated where EVERY cable subscriber had to pay the $1.10. That has gone away now it’s streaming. The formula has all changed.
So what is the new formula? Right now, the BTN still has millions of customers on cable and also millions on streaming. It's hard for me to imagine that the BTN has two different fee structures for them.
 
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So what is the new formula? Right now, the BTN still has millions of customers on cable and also millions on streaming. It's hard for me to imagine that the BTN has two different fee structures for them.
Big ten is giving multiple times what they were under the old formula. The cable cutters have minimized the importance of cable subscribers and the networks (fox, cbs, and nbc) are shelling out stupid money to cover us as well as streaming revenue. So marquee matchups pulling in new viewers who would otherwise not already be watching the big ten matchup and viewers who do not already subscribe to BTN are a bigger part of the equation. What we have learned about me fans is they are not subscribing to peacock to watch ND. They had only 251,000 fans watch the navy game in 2023. Their fan base is blue collar casual fans who will turn on free tv and not pay for subscription. I don’t know big ten numbers but that 251,000 barely moves the needle. And compare nd’s viewership to other network games last year in the same time slot its not very good.
 
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Did you read the article? Colorado games were in the Top 50 six times. ND only four times. Colorado is also ahead of FSU and A&M.

Appearances by program
8: Alabama, Georgia
6: Colorado, Ohio State, Washington
5: Michigan
4: Florida State, Notre Dame, Tennessee
3: Florida, Nebraska, Oregon, Texas, USC
After the honeymoon of coach Prime wears off, if you got to any sports bar outside of CO, and they have the choice between putting on an ND or CU game (with a similar opponent), 90% of them are putting on ND.
 
You might check out this map, notably New England, New York, Maryland, Alaska and Nevada.


That article is a year old, and as previously noted, that bump in popularity was from their head coach. I can be wrong, but I believe the shine is off "Prime" and his handling of Colorado so far.

If they didn't have national media constantly updating us on their head coach's goings on, they would have been largely irrelevant. Colorado is not a program that moves the needle for the B1G or SEC, otherwise they would already be in one of those 2 conferences.
 
OK, so what is it? What is the new fee schedule? Do you have a link to support your statement?
how about getting $70m per year per team vs the $20m+/- we were getting several years ago just from tv revenue . Big ten used to get money per subscriber now the package is hedged by media as one package.
 
how about getting $70m per year per team vs the $20m+/- we were getting several years ago just from tv revenue . Big ten used to get money per subscriber now the package is hedged by media as one package.
You are conflating the total TV package with the Big Ten Network. The BTN made $28 million in 2023, which isn't much divided among 14 schools. We do not have any information regarding cable revenue vs streaming revenue, which is the topic being discussed.

 
You are conflating the total TV package with the Big Ten Network. The BTN made $28 million in 2023, which isn't much divided among 14 schools. We do not have any information regarding cable revenue vs streaming revenue, which is the topic being discussed.

 
You are conflating the total TV package with the Big Ten Network. The BTN made $28 million in 2023, which isn't much divided among 14 schools. We do not have any information regarding cable revenue vs streaming revenue, which is the topic being discussed.

no I’m referring to the full $18.9m tv package the big ten got in 2012 vs $70m today. The $/cable subscriber for BTN is still roughly the same and the number of cable subscribers has gone down but somehow our TV revenue is up 3.5x. It’s not the BTN anymore that’s driving revenue it’s the networks.
 
I don’t get this. If B1G wanted Colorado why not get them when they raided the pac? I don’t see it happenin
We are talking about IF - and it's a very big IF - ND joins the Big Ten, who would be coming in with them. If ND doesn't join, I doubt the Big Ten expands again.
 
We are talking about IF - and it's a very big IF - ND joins the Big Ten, who would be coming in with them. If ND doesn't join, I doubt the Big Ten expands again.
You don't see a 24 team super league (actually, two of them)? I think that is the eventuality. On a side note, a friend (HUGE NFL fan, not so much college football) sent me an article about how it's not if, but when the NFL starts running games over Labor Day weekend. Can't afford to lose all those eyes. College football can't be happy about that, they more or less ruled the roost with wall-to-wall coverage from Thursday till last night.
 
We are talking about IF - and it's a very big IF - ND joins the Big Ten, who would be coming in with them. If ND doesn't join, I doubt the Big Ten expands again.

I don't think it's that big of an if, more of a when. And dollars to donuts Colorado is not part of the when. They aren't some big fish waiting to be scooped up - there are very few of those not already in the P2.

They got good ratings last weekend, it was an entertaining game of which there were few. This weekend will be much the same (probably). It's still the same effect of Prime and all the hype the media is putting into Colorado. When he isn't there next year because they go 11-1 this year since the B12 isn't a good conference, Colorado will be back to irrelevance.
 
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I don't think it's that big of an if, more of a when. And dollars to donuts Colorado is not part of the when. They aren't some big fish waiting to be scooped up - there are very few of those not already in the P2.
They're a state flagship, they're AAU, they're a football brand, they're not an outlier and they have an archrival in the Big Ten - Nebraska. FSU, A&M, UNC and UVA can't say that.
 
We are talking about IF - and it's a very big IF - ND joins the Big Ten, who would be coming in with them. If ND doesn't join, I doubt the Big Ten expands again.
I actually think it’s the opposite that ND may not even be on the short list. Or if they are it’s at a discounted rate like Washington and Oregon - I just don’t see us picking up a lot more viewers
 
Colorado is who we thought they were.
You are confused. I didn't say the Buffs were a good team. I said the CO-NE game would draw a lot of viewers. Let's see what the TV ratings are this week. Here are the TV ratings for Week 1, when Colorado played a nobody against several big games:

 
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You are confused. I didn't say the Buffs were a good team. I said the CO-NE game would draw a lot of viewers. Let's see what the TV ratings are this week. Here are the TV ratings for Week 1, when Colorado played a nobody against several big games:

And I showed you where their TV ratings were worse than Purdue and IUs over a 5 year period.
 
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And I showed you where their TV ratings were worse than Purdue and IUs over a 5 year period.
We aren't talking about a five year period. This is the 2024 season and we are talking about college football TV ratings for this year, 2024. Honest to God, why do you keep trying to distort the discussion? Last week I predicted that CO-NE would be one of the most-watched games this weekend. THAT is the issue. I'm not talking about IU in 2019. I'm not talking about Purdue in 2021. I'm talking about Colorado in 2024. So why not wait a day and see what the TV ratings are?

And by the way, next week Colorado plays Colorado State, two unranked teams. I further predict that this game will be among the most viewed games in Week 3.
 
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Just an opinion but IF FSU and Clemson leave I am just guessing the SEC will make a big play for them and two more. For the B1G if FSU is their target getting into the Florida market would be great and the B1G would have to find a travel partner addition to make it work.

Assuming the two go to the SEC and the ACC is open how about adding NC, Duke, Kansas and ND and if the Irish say no Oklahoma State?
 
We aren't talking about a five year period. This is the 2024 season and we are talking about college football TV ratings for this year, 2024. Honest to God, why do you keep trying to distort the discussion? Last week I predicted that CO-NE would be one of the most-watched games this weekend. THAT is the issue. I'm not talking about IU in 2019. I'm not talking about Purdue in 2021. I'm talking about Colorado in 2024. So why not wait a day and see what the TV ratings are?

And by the way, next week Colorado plays Colorado State, two unranked teams. I further predict that this game will be among the most viewed games in Week 3.
No, we are discussing which programs the B1G would add.

Which would be programs with long track records of TV ratings, like TAMU, ND, or FSU, not a flash in the pan like Prime U.
 
No, we are discussing which programs the B1G would add.

Which would be programs with long track records of TV ratings, like TAMU, ND, or FSU, not a flash in the pan like Prime U.
Again you misrepresent the discussion. We were talking specifically about a single expansion partner with ND IF the Irish were to join the Big Ten. The discussion can be summarized:

School-----State Flagship--AAU-- Football Brand--In Large TV market--Outlier--Archrival in B1G

Colorado--Yes---------------Yes----Yes---------------Denver-----------------No------Nebraska

FSU--------No---------------No-----Yes---------------Tallahassee-----------Yes------None

A&M-------No---------------Yes----Yes---------------College Station-------Yes------None
 
Again you misrepresent the discussion. We were talking specifically about a single expansion partner with ND IF the Irish were to join the Big Ten. The discussion can be summarized:

School-----State Flagship--AAU-- Football Brand--In Large TV market--Outlier--Archrival in B1G

Colorado--Yes---------------Yes----Yes---------------Denver-----------------No------Nebraska

FSU--------No---------------No-----Yes---------------Tallahassee-----------Yes------None

A&M-------No---------------Yes----Yes---------------College Station-------Yes------None
TAMU and FSU are way bigger brands than Flash in the Pan U. Hence their much bigger TV ratings over a long period of time.

No one cares about the rest of your made up Criteria.
 
Just an opinion but IF FSU and Clemson leave I am just guessing the SEC will make a big play for them and two more. For the B1G if FSU is their target getting into the Florida market would be great and the B1G would have to find a travel partner addition to make it work.

Assuming the two go to the SEC and the ACC is open how about adding NC, Duke, Kansas and ND and if the Irish say no Oklahoma State?
I don’t think the SEC will take FSU. Lots of talk that would be a poison pill with florida.
 
Just an opinion but IF FSU and Clemson leave I am just guessing the SEC will make a big play for them and two more. For the B1G if FSU is their target getting into the Florida market would be great and the B1G would have to find a travel partner addition to make it work.

Assuming the two go to the SEC and the ACC is open how about adding NC, Duke, Kansas and ND and if the Irish say no Oklahoma State?
And I wouldn’t take any of those schools. They will dilute us and our payments and if we don’t take them neither will sec
 
The only data that matters in this argument:

TV viewership between 2015-2019:
Since then, Colorado has changed conferences and changed coaches. And IU's TV numbers in that era came from being in the Big Ten Eastern Div, which meant annual games with Ohio St, Michigan and Penn State. If you look at the IU game by game numbers to include Rutgers, Maryland and Michigan State, you will understand that your database of information is now meaningless.

Watch the Colorado numbers for Week 2 and Week 3 of THIS YEAR, not that meaningless pre-COVID stuff.
 
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