AAC leader Mike Aresco touts new media rights deal...

[Sluconn Husky]

Its based on the home team. If UConn's the home team, it counts, even if they're playing Stanford.

So UConn will be on no more and possibly less nationally than they were this past season, with the other games unavailable unless you pay for ESPN+, and this guy is trying to make that out to be some sort of value to be thankful for....

 

[hoopsfan22]

So UConn will be on no more and possibly less nationally than they were this past season, with the other games unavailable unless you pay for ESPN+, and this guy is trying to make that out to be some sort of value to be thankful for....

We will pay more to get less of something that's of lower quality. Come on guys what are you complaining about this is a great deal!!!! ESPN says so!!!

 

[CL82]

All of the games will be covered. Every school is obligated to cover them all. So Wichita State will pick that up. How is this so difficult for people to grasp?

What exactly does the phrase "production costs" entail? Does the school also provide for on air talent? Who determines how many cameras and the placement? What is the obligation for halftime analysis?

 

[dogged1]

All of the games will be covered. Every school is obligated to cover them all. So Wichita State will pick that up. How is this so difficult for people to grasp?

Are you going to enjoy that one camera coverage with the student communication major as the play by play and his buddy from intramural basketball as the color?
Despite the sarcasm, we get that the games will be available, they will be out there. They will just cost more and be lower quality and not be over the air. Theses are real negatives.

Edit: @hoopsfan22 , you beat me to it and said it better.

 

[UConnNick]

What exactly does the phrase "production costs" entail? Does the school also provide for on air talent? Who determines how many cameras and the placement? What is the obligation for halftime analysis?

It will likely be a drop down to semi-professional if not full scale amateurish in some cases. The weekend before last we played Sam Houston State in baseball at Huntsville. I didn't see it, but apparently the production value of the telecasts was very poor, with one camera and the images were bouncing around. That is fairly typical of college baseball. Last year when UCONN was playing in the AAC Tournament, they had one camera shooting the image through the screen netting behind home plate, so you had the cross hatches from the screen showing up across 100 percent of the image.

Basketball may be better, but what kind of resources are schools like Tulsa, SMU, ECU and Wichita St. going to devote to covering a women's BB game at their home arenas? A one camera jumping image view with amateur announcers akin to local access cable TV channels? Garth and Wayne do women's college BB.

 

[huskymedic]

The weekend before last we played Sam Houston State in baseball at Huntsville. I didn't see it, but apparently the production value of the telecasts was very poor, with one camera and the images were bouncing around. That is fairly typical of college baseball. Last year when UCONN was playing in the AAC Tournament, they had one camera shooting the image through the screen netting behind home plate, so you had the cross hatches from the screen showing up across 100 percent of the image.

It was one remote outfield camera being buffeted by the wind the other two cameras and the announcing was fine.

The AAC tourney game was because they were moved to an alternate field due to rescheduling of multiple games for the same time due to weather.

There are dozens and dozens of streamed games each week in a variety of sports in a variety of conferences that are quite well produced and announced.

 

[UConnNick]

It was one remote outfield camera being buffeted by the wind the other two cameras and the announcing was fine.

The AAC tourney game was because they were moved to an alternate field due to rescheduling of multiple games for the same time due to weather.

There are dozens and dozens of streamed games each week in a variety of sports in a variety of conferences that are quite well produced and announced.

My point is that schools with marginal WCBB programs aren't likely to commit major resources to the production quality of their home games. No matter how good the production quality may be, it will not likely equal what SNY does.

 

[hoopsfan22]

My point is that schools with marginal WCBB programs aren't likely to commit major resources to the production quality of their home games. No matter how good the production quality may be, it will not likely equal what SNY does.

Not only that, but I will miss the SNY game days when they would often run 4 or 5 hours of UConn WCBB programming especially on those January Saturday afternoon games when it's cold and snowy and you don't feel like going out. An episode of Geno's Legacy, followed by a pre-game, then the game, half time show/interviews, then the post-game with player interviews and Geno's presser, then a new Geno Show, all-access show, birth of a dynasty, etc. Plus SNY always carried the full senior day ceremonies. We're not going to get anything nearly that good under this new contract.

 

[JoePgh]

Not only that, but I will miss the SNY game days when they would often run 4 or 5 hours of UConn WCBB programming especially on those January Saturday afternoon games when it's cold and snowy and you don't feel like going out. An episode of Geno's Legacy, followed by a pre-game, then the game, half time show/interviews, then the post-game with player interviews and Geno's presser, then a new Geno Show, all-access show, birth of a dynasty, etc. Plus SNY always carried the full senior day ceremonies. We're not going to get anything nearly that good under this new contract.

As I said in my previous post in this thread, it is very much TBD whether SNY will continue to have a role in this new world, and I would say that the odds are that it will.

There is a lot of revenue to be obtained from advertisers such as Bob's Furniture and People's Bank -- probably more than enough to allow SNY to recover production costs at the current level of quality plus broadcast rights from ESPN. That revenue would not be available to ESPN in an online-only delivery format. So it would seem to be in the interest of all parties to harvest this revenue by allowing broadcasts to occur. It is just a matter of negotiating who gets how much of the pie.

Don't forget that SNY currently pays UConn a substantial amount for broadcast and online rights to the games. In the new world, SNY would be paying ESPN as the content owner instead of UConn, and only for broadcast rights. They will probably have to pay more, but most likely it will still be quite profitable for them to make such a deal.

 

[zls44]

There is a lot of revenue to be obtained from advertisers such as Bob's Furniture and People's Bank -- probably more than enough to allow SNY to recover production costs at the current level of quality plus broadcast rights from ESPN.

That revenue would not be available to ESPN in an online-only delivery format.

I'm pretty sure the first statement is untrue and I know the second one is untrue.

 

[zls44]

What exactly does the phrase "production costs" entail? Does the school also provide for on air talent? Who determines how many cameras and the placement? What is the obligation for halftime analysis?

Production costs is the cost of building out a control room, cameras, cabling around the arenas, etc. The schools handle hiring the talent as well as the cameras/placement. It comes down to how much a school wants to put into it. There's a bare-minimum standard, but there are some schools that clearly go way above and beyond and it shows. Halftimes are usually canned pre-recorded pieces rather than actual analysis or highlights (example, Preseason all-AAC team, weekly AAC player awards, etc.).

 

[zls44]

and this guy is trying to make that out to be some sort of value to be thankful for....

Yeah, Mike Aresco isn't terribly bright.

 

[CL82]

Production costs is the cost of building out a control room, cameras, cabling around the arenas, etc. The schools handle hiring the talent as well as the cameras/placement. It comes down to how much a school wants to put into it. There's a bare-minimum standard, but there are some schools that clearly go way above and beyond and it shows. Halftimes are usually canned pre-recorded pieces rather than actual analysis or highlights (example, Preseason all-AAC team, weekly AAC player awards, etc.).

Thanks. How much do the fixed and variable cost would be? ESPN increased our deal but off loaded a bunch of costs to us. I wondering what the net revenue is. I understand that it is variable, but on average. I appreciate your informed insight rather than having the board speculate.

The thing that is frustrating is that if ESPN allows SNY to broadcast the games it doesn't want for OTA, then UConn not only gets these broadcast increasing our exposure, but also gets to off load the production/personnel costs to SNY. We're already losing the money we get from selling our tier 3 to them it would be good if we can at least get rid of some of the costs associated with the broadcast.

 

[CL82]

Yeah, Mike Aresco isn't terribly bright.

Meh, he has near zero leverage in negotiating so he's putting a positive spin on our deal. I get that.

 

[JoePgh]

I'm pretty sure the first statement is untrue and I know the second one is untrue.

Would you mind providing some specific facts to back up these concllusionary statements?

Regarding the first point (advertising revenue), currently SNY pays UConn for broadcast rights and also incurs production costs to show UConn WCBB games? Are you saying that SNY’s advertising revenue doesn’t cover that, implying that they currently lose money on WCBB game broadcasts? I find that hard to believe, in view of the time and effort that SNY puts into the current broadcasts and related material. And if they are making money, then why couldn’t they also make money on a new deal where the only change is that they pay ESPN rather than UConn for the broadcast rights?

Regarding the second point which you “know” is incorrect, my understanding is that advertising revenue is based on the number of eyeballs that view the ads. Can there be any doubt that the number of viewers of ESPN online access (where each viewer has to pay $5/month and plug in an HDMI cable to see it on his TV) will be a tiny fraction of the number of viewers that will be available for regular (“linear”) TV? If advertisers pay based on the number of viewers that they expect, then they will pay far, far less to advertise online than to advertise on SNY. That was the basis for my statement.

 

[zls44]

Would you mind providing some specific facts to back up these concllusionary statements?

Regarding the first point (advertising revenue), currently SNY pays UConn for broadcast rights and also incurs production costs to show UConn WCBB games? Are you saying that SNY’s advertising revenue doesn’t cover that, implying that they currently lose money on WCBB game broadcasts? I find that hard to believe, in view of the time and effort that SNY puts into the current broadcasts and related material. And if they are making money, then why couldn’t they also make money on a new deal where the only change is that they pay ESPN rather than UConn for the broadcast rights?

My disagreement is more based on how much revenue you think SNY gets for those ads. I'm not saying its nothing, but I bet its lower than we'd think. Bobs' deal might be part of a larger overall one, they're pretty involved with the Mets stuff on SNY as it is.

SNY's UConn deal's greatest value to them was getting onto CT cable systems and staying there. That's their main objective. Their coverage is fantastic, but UConn allows them to expand their market and have relevant programming in the baseball offseason.

My guess: SNY makes a little bit of money on UConn WBB, but its peanuts compared to the Mets (no fault of UConn's, pro sports TV deals are stupid big). One hint will be how long a ESPN/SNY negotiation takes. The longer it goes, the better the odds are that SNY's getting worried about being squeezed at the margin. If they do a deal quick, great for everyone and it shows they're doing really well business-wise from the games. Let's hope for that one.

Regarding the second point which you “know” is incorrect, my understanding is that advertising revenue is based on the number of eyeballs that view the ads.

I was interpreting it as a claim that ESPN can't sell ads separately for ESPN+/ESPN3 content. They can. They already do this on the audio side with different ad setups for radio streams/podcasts.

 

[zls44]

Thanks. How much do the fixed and variable cost would be? ESPN increased our deal but off loaded a bunch of costs to us. I wondering what the net revenue is. I understand that it is variable, but on average. I appreciate your informed insight rather than having the board speculate.

The good news for UConn is production costs have come way way down as the technology's improved. You don't have to rent satellite time, uplink/downlink like back in the day. UConn can probably put together a digital operation for well until $1 million.

Virginia Tech's new ACC Network studio is $10 million, but that's a much bigger setup than what UConn needs.

 

[CL82]

The good news for UConn is production costs have come way way down as the technology's improved. You don't have to rent satellite time, uplink/downlink like back in the day. UConn can probably put together a digital operation for well until $1 million.

Virginia Tech's new ACC Network studio is $10 million, but that's a much bigger setup than what UConn needs.

$1 million initial capital outlay then how much per game? Does that change much by sport? Is UConn obligated to produce content or can it opt not to do it?

 

[zls44]

$1 million initial capital outlay then how much per game? Does that change much by sport? Is UConn obligated to produce content or can it opt not to do it?

$1m is for all the equipment. Cost per game, no idea. Not a whole lot, though, in the grand scheme. Most of the people working most broadcasts will be students getting real-world experience (read: free labor), less so for MBB/WBB/FB, talking stuff like WLax, Baseball, Softball, etc.

I have no access to any contracts or anything, but the expectation is every home game for all conference sports will be produced. I'm expecting them to do the same for the hockeys (field & ice) even though they're in different conferences.

 

[donalddoowop]

Fair to say that it is becoming harder/more expensive to watch our Huskies?

Yes, as longer as the harder to watch part is because of expense and not because of their play on the court.