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Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 4673431, member: 833"] ESPN was on every cable box in the country, and had a critical mass of sports programming to give it good positioning on those boxes, often with multiple spots in the first 50 channels. That real estate in the cable channel directory was really valuable, 20 years ago. In a streaming world where every content provider can go direct to consumer, that real estate is virtually worthless. It is no easier or harder to find ESPN than it is to find any other content provider. It is not just the channel, but the broadcast times, that gave ESPN a massive advantage over other channels. ESPN's willingness to commit blocks of time to sports programming gave it an advantage over say CBS or Fox or NBC, who would have to preempt something else to broadcast a game. That is not the case anymore. ParamountPlus (aka CBS) or Apple or even MAX can broadcast a game to any user that wants to watch it. This has simultaneously made the content more valuable to every streaming service, and less valuable to ESPN, because ESPN has lost one of the things that gave it a monopoly position. The non-SEC, non-Big 10 leagues are no longer competing with each other to get whatever broadcast slots are left on ESPN. ESPN has had a monopoly on much of sports programming, particularly for college sports. Those days are over. Any conference can easily access their fans directly or with any broadcast partner. The technology is fairly basic now, the production costs are manageable, and sports programming is valuable to lots of potential buyers. This has been one of my biggest arguments against the panic worrying of a massive concentration of market power by 2 or 3 conferences. Other than restricting access to scheduling their members, it is really difficult for the P2 to enforce their market power on other leagues. [/QUOTE]

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