Here's a shocker - the TV contract will suck.

[CL82]

But north Jersey is no more dense than Philly. That's the point I was making. And I guarantee you that PSU is more popular in Philly than Rutgers is in North Jersey. I was harangued by neighbors of my in-laws when I made fun of JoePa's coke bottle glasses and high waters. It was a joke. They were dead serious. And these were 60 something professionals. I seriously doubt a joke about Schiano's helicopter would elicit any response from random people in a neighborhood in north Jersey. OK, so that's a meaningless anecdote, but I still bet PSU is 10x more popular in Philly than Rutgers in north Jersey.

Not so sure about that ...if RU is having a good year. When it's not, I doubt most people would turn on a TV.

 

[upstater]

Not so sure about that ...if RU is having a good year. When it's not, I doubt most people would turn on a TV.

...if? Haven't been too many good years. I've spent some time in Bucks Cty., PA the last decade, and that's the easternmost cty next to New Jersey. They are rabid for college football there.

 

[RoderickSpode]

You know what, duck* that.

According to that little DMA thingy, the Danbury Fair Mall is in Rutgers' designated market. And if you look, you'll notice that UConn is not actually located within the Hartford/New Haven market.

Ridiculous. What I don't get is why cable providers in the NY DMA would have agreed to the deal mentioned by zls44. I can't imagine there was a lot of demand for the BTN in the northeast when it was first added to their channel lineup. Did they just gloss over that bit, figuring there was no chance in hell that the B1G would ever invite Rutgers?

 

[CL82]

...if? Haven't been too many good years. I've spent some time in Bucks Cty., PA the last decade, and that's the easternmost cty next to New Jersey. They are rabid for college football there.

RU fans in NJ are bandwagon fans. RU is rode the good numbers from those up all the way to the B1G.

 

[zls44]

Did they just gloss over that bit, figuring there was no chance in hell that the B1G would ever invite Rutgers?

Yes.

 

[zls44]

Franks post on Big East BBS:

"I asked McMurphy via direct message on Twitter and he confirmed to me the following:

(1) This offer from NBC is for all-sports (not just basketball)

(2) There aren't other multimedia partners involved. This NBC offer is for everything TV-wise. ESPN can match it and get the package itself, but it's either one or the other. Fox isn't interested.

The offer reflects that there is only one legit suitor. As I've said a countless times here, the only way that the Big East makes a large amount is of there's a bidding war. Well, there simply isn't a bidding war here - NBC/Comcast has shown to be a thrifty organization, so this offer reflects that it's not going to drive up the price on its own to be charitable."

 

[djct1999]

Time for the talking heads at UConn to think outside the box. Being a part of this league, especially this TV deal, is suicide. Perception quickly becomes reality. Time for us to hold our chest high, proudly say who we are and where we belong, refuse to settle, and wait patiently. By agreeing to this, its as if UConn is accepting its fate to become the next UMass.

 

[upstater]

Franks post on Big East BBS:

"I asked McMurphy via direct message on Twitter and he confirmed to me the following:

(1) This offer from NBC is for all-sports (not just basketball)

(2) There aren't other multimedia partners involved. This NBC offer is for everything TV-wise. ESPN can match it and get the package itself, but it's either one or the other. Fox isn't interested.

The offer reflects that there is only one legit suitor. As I've said a countless times here, the only way that the Big East makes a large amount is of there's a bidding war. Well, there simply isn't a bidding war here - NBC/Comcast has shown to be a thrifty organization, so this offer reflects that it's not going to drive up the price on its own to be charitable."

He's absolutely right about NBC, they have always been very thrifty.

As for Fox, it's making a colossal blunder if it shells out $50 million a year to the CYO7.

But it's their money.

The old BE got $3 million a year for all sports. So the NBC offer may be low but it's not wacky at all. It's in the right range.

The only surprise here is the money the Catholics may be getting (though we've seen nothing to verify that).

Regardless, go with ESPN even if NBC doesn't match. If NBC doesn't want to overpay, tell them to take a hike.

This league can grow, it can become a top basketball league with UConn in front, and in 5-7 years, it might not be bad at football either. 7 years from now, would anyone be absolutely certain that UConn, Cincy, Temple, Memphis, and Houston will not all be ranked?

 

[whaler11]

He's absolutely right about NBC, they have always been very thrifty.

As for Fox, it's making a colossal blunder if it shells out $50 million a year to the CYO7.

But it's their money.

The old BE got $3 million a year for all sports. So the NBC offer may be low but it's not wacky at all. It's in the right range.

The only surprise here is the money the Catholics may be getting (though we've seen nothing to verify that).

Regardless, go with ESPN even if NBC doesn't match. If NBC doesn't want to overpay, tell them to take a hike.

This league can grow, it can become a top basketball league with UConn in front, and in 5-7 years, it might not be bad at football either. 7 years from now, would anyone be absolutely certain that UConn, Cincy, Temple, Memphis, and Houston will not all be ranked?

A

 

[djct1999]

He's absolutely right about NBC, they have always been very thrifty.

As for Fox, it's making a colossal blunder if it shells out $50 million a year to the CYO7.

But it's their money.

The old BE got $3 million a year for all sports. So the NBC offer may be low but it's not wacky at all. It's in the right range.

The only surprise here is the money the Catholics may be getting (though we've seen nothing to verify that).

Regardless, go with ESPN even if NBC doesn't match. If NBC doesn't want to overpay, tell them to take a hike.

This league can grow, it can become a top basketball league with UConn in front, and in 5-7 years, it might not be bad at football either. 7 years from now, would anyone be absolutely certain that UConn, Cincy, Temple, Memphis, and Houston will not all be ranked?

Yes. In seven years, the AP Top 25 will include 8 teams from the SEC, 6 Teams from the Big 10, 5 teams from the Big 12, 4 teams from the Pac 12, 1/2 teams from the ACC and depending on the year/acc, 1 team from the MWC or NBE. I think its a better bet to say in 7 years UConn, Cincy, Houston will not be a part of the NBE rather than ranked in it.

With this tv deal, there is absolutely no room to grow. In fact, I will go as far as saying that in 7 years its more likely that UConn football doesnt exist than UConn football being ranked in the NBE.

 

[upstater]

Yes. In seven years, the AP Top 25 will include 8 teams from the SEC, 6 Teams from the Big 10, 5 teams from the Big 12, 4 teams from the Pac 12, 1/2 teams from the ACC and depending on the year/acc, 1 team from the MWC or NBE. I think its a better bet to say in 7 years UConn, Cincy, Houston will not be a part of the NBE rather than ranked in it.

With this tv deal, there is absolutely no room to grow. In fact, I will go as far as saying that in 7 years its more likely that UConn football doesnt exist than UConn football being ranked in the NBE.

Sorry. In my post, I was thinking basketball. Not football. The new league will be lucky to get more than one team ranked.

 

[zls44]

Fox has a long history of making overpays for TV rights because they value the cache of having programming more than counting pennies (NBC). They overpaid for MLB, NFL (first deal they did) and the World Cup.

 

[buggsy]

But north Jersey is no more dense than Philly. That's the point I was making. And I guarantee you that PSU is more popular in Philly than Rutgers is in North Jersey. I was harangued by neighbors of my in-laws when I made fun of JoePa's coke bottle glasses and high waters. It was a joke. They were dead serious. And these were 60 something professionals. I seriously doubt a joke about Schiano's helicopter would elicit any response from random people in a neighborhood in north Jersey. OK, so that's a meaningless anecdote, but I still bet PSU is 10x more popular in Philly than Rutgers in north Jersey.

That's just stupid. I live in the Philly suburbs. PSU is not nearly as popular in Philadelphia as Rutgers is in North Jersey...let alone 10 times more popular. And since Rutgers has become a solid program, PSU's South Jersey base has shrunk as a good number of people that once routed for the Nits are now backing Rutgers, especially the Rutgers Camden folks that used to have a PSU football allegiance . RU's football ratings in Philly have increased significantly since we became competitive.

When RU is doing well, most of NJ and in particular, the 4-5 million people in North Jersey really take notice and get behind Rutgers.

The TV ratings prove that. RU has the highest rated college football game in the NYC DMA on ESPN...and 4 out of the top 5.

ON ESPN2 Rutgers played in all 5 of the top 5 rated games.

That's not an anecdote. Those are facts. So stop it with the "PSU is more popular in Philly than RU is in North Jersey" BS.

You discredit yourself with such dumb statements.

 

[upstater]

That's not an anecdote. Those are facts. So stop it with the "PSU is more popular in Philly than RU is in North Jersey" BS.

You discredit yourself with such dumb statements.

HILARIOUS! Wow, you've taken homerism to a new level!!!!! Is that you Al?

PSU not as popular in Philly as Rutgers in North Jersey!!!!

Thanks for the howl.

 

[TheRogers]

The $23M for everything just doesn't make sense. Why bother putting all that work on a bid that has no chance of being taken seriously. At $3M per team, going independent can get you that amount. I'm hoping it's one of two things:
a) A big misunderstanding (bloggers these days aren't too keen on specifics)
b) Another sucker punch at the Big East when they are already down.

A stretch would be setting a price that would force UCONN and Cincy to explore some other avenue (indy route or C7 + indy FB) but even that is a real stretch because SMU, Houston, UCF, and Memphis would just stay put and make about the same.

Something is not right with this info.

 

[HuskyHawk]

The single biggest misconception in conference realignment is the notion that football in and of itself is what drives value. That's absolutely incorrect. Brand names are the ones that drive value. Sure, a top level football program is going to be much more valuable than top level basketball program. There's no question about that. However, the mistake is in thinking that a league of low level football brand names would be more valuable than a league of top level basketball brand names. Even if you were to argue that a bad football game gets better ratings than a good basketball game, that only tells you a fraction of the story. A football game is expensive to produce and there are only a limited number of time slots that you can play that game in, while basketball is relatively inexpensive to produce and you can place it in virtually any time slot on any day of the week. Those massive dollar amounts for football are in exchange for the expectation that you are drawing extraordinary ratings that few programs are able to garner these days. If you're not getting extraordinary ratings, though, then your value in football goes down. A 1.0 rating for basketball is much more profitable than a 1.0 rating for football. So, what networks need for football are numbers at the 3.0 level or higher for 1st tier games or else you're not going to get a premium for them.

Beyond that, McMurphy pointed out something VERY important in his Tweets last night: Fox approached the Catholic 7 BEFORE they decided to split off. So, if you think that the C7 is getting overpaid, then you might be correct. However, Fox HAD to overpay them in order to make the decision to split. The C7 wouldn't have split if they were merely going to get the same amount that they would have received in a hybrid. It's pointless to try to compared the value of the C7 offer to the Big East offer because the C7 offer was specifically made big enough as a catalyst to get a group of 7 schools to defect from a league, while the Big East offer is a "normal" run of the mill TV rights offer. As a result, you have a situation where (1) Fox actually effectively paid the Big East to split up, so they're not interested in the "New Big East" and only want the C7 and (2) ESPN's interest in the New Big East has been tepid at best. Regardless of whether you go line-by-line and say the Big East *should* be worth more than the C7, the fact is that there's only one suitor here with NBC... and despite what people might wish, NBC has absolutely zero incentive to bid against itself and bid up the price of the Big East as a charitable measure. It's simple market forces - only one network wants the Big East here, so they're going to get paid as if though only one network wants them and there wasn't a bidding war for the rights.

Finally. Been trying to make this point all year. Weak branded football has less value than strong branded basketball. Even the prior ESPN offer to the Big East probably had a much higher basketball component than the football schools would admit. This means that a crappy Iowa football team is still worth more than a good ECU/USF/UCF. It just is. I said it over and over, but any school with a west/south/east/north state U or that is a public school named after a city will have a weak national brand. Those are regional schools by default. Every school in the NNBE fits this profile except UConn. Louisville is now the only school with that profile in a major conference, showing just how bleeped up that decision was.

Debating the merits of Temple, Houston and Memphis as tolerable members of the NNBE is one thing, but what everyone omits about the C7 is just how damned good it would be with UConn and Cinci, plus Xavier, Dayton and Creighton or SLU. While I think football independence is impossible, if there was any way to get UConn football into CUSA or MWC, that would best preserve and promote our brand.

 

[upstater]

I said it over and over, but any school with a west/south/east/north state U or that is a public school named after a city will have a weak national brand.

There are some AAU schools with city names. They may have weak brands in the world of sports, but they are not regional.

 

[HuskyHawk]

There are some AAU schools with city names. They may have weak brands in the world of sports, but they are not regional.

There is one...Pitt. I had forgotten Pitt, which makes two schools from that category in major conferences. I am talking about national athletic brands. So I am not counting a school like Stony Brook or Buffalo that has no athletic reputation to speak of, although they too have only regional appeal. Rochester and U Chicago are private, I said Public. USF, UCF, ECU, Memphis, Houston....are all regional schools.

 

[buggsy]

HILARIOUS! Wow, you've taken homerism to a new level!!!!! Is that you Al?

PSU not as popular in Philly as Rutgers in North Jersey!!!!

Thanks for the howl.

You didn't even know that RU was in the NYC DMA...and you want to thank me for the laugh?

If ignorance is bliss, you must be one happy dude.

Yes, RU is absolutely more popular in Central Jersey and North Jersey than PSU is in Philly, and as I've said, our TV ratings have proven that. Wasn't always this way, but has been since it at least 2005 when we played Arizona State in the Insight Bowl.

Now regarding your hilarious statement that North Jersey is no more dense than Philly? REALLY? YOU SAID THAT? REALLY?

Philly has a population of 1,536,471 million (U.S. Census Bureau).

NJ has a population of 8,865,000 (U.S. Census Bureau)

The Central Jersey (where RU is physically located) and North Jersey counties that fall in the NYC DMA make up 79 percent (YES, that right, just under 80% of NJ's total population.) The 7 South Jersey counties that fall under the Philly DMA comprise just 21 percent of the state's total population.

So let's compare-

Philly + 1.54 million
Central & North Jersey (NYC DMA)- 7.02 million

(that's nearly 6 times more populated than Philly. Yikes, you weren't even in the same stratosphere. You kind of feel a little stupid now...don't you? Come on, you can admit it.)

Maybe you should think a little (or at least do a little research) before you post... you wouldn't come off as so ignorant.

 

[noeynox]

Buggsy. Your school hit the lottery in conference realignment. Why are you here? Doesn't matter what anyone says or thinks about RU. You made the cut, we haven't yet. Go hangout on big ten boards or play in traffic. Please allow us to wallow in our misery in peace.

 

[upstater]

There is one...Pitt. I had forgotten Pitt, which makes two schools from that category in major conferences. I am talking about national athletic brands. So I am not counting a school like Stony Brook or Buffalo that has no athletic reputation to speak of, although they too have only regional appeal. Rochester and U Chicago are private, I said Public. USF, UCF, ECU, Memphis, Houston....are all regional schools.

Depends on what you mean by regional. The majority of Buffalo students, for instance, live 7 or 8 hours away from the school.

 

[huskypantz]

You didn't even know that RU was in the NYC DMA...and you want to thank me for the laugh?

If ignorance is bliss, you must be one happy dude.

Yes, RU is absolutely more popular in Central Jersey and North Jersey than PSU is in Philly, and as I've said, our TV ratings have proven that. Wasn't always this way, but has been since it at least 2005 when we played Arizona State in the Insight Bowl.

Now regarding your hilarious statement that North Jersey is no more dense than Philly? REALLY? YOU SAID THAT? REALLY?

Philly has a population of 1,536,471 million (U.S. Census Bureau).

NJ has a population of 8,865,000 (U.S. Census Bureau)

The Central Jersey (where RU is physically located) and North Jersey counties that fall in the NYC DMA make up 79 percent (YES, that right, just under 80% of NJ's total population.) The 7 South Jersey counties that fall under the Philly DMA comprise just 21 percent of the state's total population.

So let's compare-

Philly + 1.54 million
Central & North Jersey (NYC DMA)- 7.02 million

(that's nearly 6 times more populated than Philly. Yikes, you weren't even in the same stratosphere. You kind of feel a little stupid now...don't you? Come on, you can admit it.)

Maybe you should think a little (or at least do a little research) before you post... you wouldn't come off as so ignorant.

As far as a population comparison goes, this was kind of a swing and miss, dude. Philly proper has 1.5 mil. Metro Philly has a population of over 6 million. If you're going to compare a large region (north/central NJ) to Philly, you should at least compare to the metro area and not the city limits.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Depends on what you mean by regional. The majority of Buffalo students, for instance, live 7 or 8 hours away from the school.

The number of people outside of New York who even know that SUNY Buffalo exists is pretty scarce. They number who know they play football is fewer still. Yet I saw lots of UConn stuff in San Jose, CA. That's what I mean by regional. Cinci is regional as well, despite having good athletics. Nobody who isn't from southern Ohio or an alumn is going to become a Cinci fan. They will all adopt Ohio State instead. Same is true of Buffalo, Memphis, USF, UCF, ECU etc. In contrast, I was always a Nebraska football fan growing up in Connecticut. Houston did attract a national following with Phi Slamma Jamma. Just as UNLV did. Memphis maybe...to a lesser degree.

That's what the conferences want. Names that resonate coast to coast. Iowa vs Minnesota sounds better than Houston vs. Southen Miss. More non-fans of those teams will tune in, even if the teams in the latter game are better. That's why flagship state Universities and big name private schools like Stanford, Duke, Vandy and Notre Dame are sought after.

 

[RS9999X]

The BiG has a war to fight to get the network on regular expanded cable and off the Sports Tiers or Gold packages. Then there's carriage fees. Jersey cable operators might roll over and play dead. NYC won't. Contrary to belief the BIG cut separate deals with some cable operators and among some regional sub divisions of major carriers. Rutgers is a good move to wrap up Penn East and Philly and to make some good inroads into NYC. They've got some work to do. It's why VA and UConn look good.on paper. VA Beach to Springfield Mass and Providence would pretty much be BiG Country.

Sent from my Lumia 920 via Windows 8. Now bite me Apple Droids.

 

[CL82]

The $23M for everything just doesn't make sense. Why bother putting all that work on a bid that has no chance of being taken seriously. At $3M per team, going independent can get you that amount. I'm hoping it's one of two things:
a) A big misunderstanding (bloggers these days aren't too keen on specifics)
b) Another sucker punch at the Big East when they are already down.

A stretch would be setting a price that would force UCONN and Cincy to explore some other avenue (indy route or C7 + indy FB) but even that is a real stretch because SMU, Houston, UCF, and Memphis would just stay put and make about the same.

Something is not right with this info.

Obviously they misunderstood when their sources said that NBE was going to make $23M per team. Silly mistake. I'm surprised everyone got so excited over it.