- Joined
- Jan 17, 2013
- Messages
- 3,528
- Reaction Score
- 12,175
There was a clip from Marchand & Ourand recently where they talked about where the BE would be if their rights were up for renewal today and the feedback was that they’d be “in a very similar situation to the PAC12 as a ”nice to have” but not a “need to have””.
Obviously just one (very informed) person’s opinion but I would tend to agree with that. Then you look around and every other league will have a streaming component for basketball starting next year… no chance there isn’t streaming on the BE deal IMO. Especially if they don’t like the FOX renewal offer. Even the B1G is putting 45 hoops games on Peacock starting next year.
I hear you but I think there are things that nicely position the BE...
1. Big markets - Southern New England, NY, NJ, Philly, DC/VA/MD, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Omaha.
2. On-court success. Villanova, UConn natty's. BE conference KenPom, etc rankings have had them in the top 3 or 4 conferences annually for the long term and the short term. The BE has a track record of better on court performance and eyeballs than PAC basketball.
3. Fan bases that care and legacy BE fans still have cable at rates higher than other fanbases. Ratings are solid and growing. As an example, passionate "cabled" fanbases have better positioned the Big12 over the PAC because TV executives know better.
4. The BE tourney as an entity itself. Most unbiased observers put it as the top or second best tourney in all the land.
5. Fox is likely to partner with ESPN+ to stream their content on the ESPN app and that will snare additional eyeballs for everyone and drive up revenues.
Streaming will always be a part of things, but to say BE basketball is going to be on a similar plane to the PAC is likely just lazy thinking at this time. It is apples and oranges simply due to people disregarding the BE because we don't have football.