The B1G adding Rutgers & Maryland could be a major problem when cable dies. | The Boneyard

The B1G adding Rutgers & Maryland could be a major problem when cable dies.

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Awful Announcing: The Big Ten adding Rutgers and Maryland could be a major problem when cable dies

Part of thought process/premise:

>>Whatever outlet is streaming college football games in the 2020s will not want the bloated buffet of games. The present model favors the conferences. ESPN and FOX need live sports content to get cable providers to carry multiple networks. That changes if you’re dealing with Apple or Amazon.

We could see a model where the ten best Big Ten football games per season are on Amazon Prime. The Big Ten is streaming the rest of its football package and almost all of regular season college basketball on its own.

Cable subscribers no longer matter in that scenario. Fans who watch do, the very fans the Big Ten blithely disregarded. Rutgers and Maryland become dead weight.

Those two schools dilute the product. They drag on attendance when they show up to Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. They drag on television revenue. Mich/OSU/PSU are playing Maryland and Rutgers vs. sellable games against Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Iowa. They are also two extra mouths to feed when it comes to distributing the diminished revenue Mich/OSU/PSU are producing.<<
 

SubbaBub

Your stupidity is ruining my country.
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It's a bit of twisted logic.

If streaming is based on the non-casual viewer and it is. It behooves rights holders and content providers to have the largest pool of appointment viewers possible. Just like when everyone stopped watching local news once cable appeared. People will stop watching random games of they have unlimited streaming content options.

Michigan fans will still watch Michigan. Iowa fans, Iowa regardless of the opponent. Only gamblers and BiG fans will watch casually. So it would make sense to add as many potential gamblers and B1G fans to the population as possible. Actively chasing gamblers may be a problem but adding B1G fans is easy.

Anyone watching Iowa v Wisconsin is because they have an interest or mostly because it's on. With streaming you lose the because it's on people immediately.

The attraction of streaming is the direct revenue without the middlemen. It's not about increasing viewship, because you won't. You most certainly lose viewers. The question is how many 19.99 subscriptions can you sell.

RU fans are still buying them.
 
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Even if this doomsday scenario happens, which I doubt, the B1G still gained the fertile recruiting territory that is the eastern corridor between NYC and DC/MD/NOVA. B1G alumni in that corridor will still have access to watching their alma matter play. The B1G also would still have two top peer research institutions that are both in the AAU.

This article is looking at the small picture. Granted, some conferences do only look at the small picture. The B1G looks at the big picture.
 
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"Whatever outlet is streaming college football games in the 2020s will not want the bloated buffet of games."

Why they heck would they care? It's not like they can only show 1 game at a time. It would be like saying Netflix doesn't want to purchase the rights to Disney's movie catalog because 40% of the movies are duds. They still get the 60% that are valuable.

Secondly, the Big10 already sells its games in packages - ESPN shows some and BTN shows more lesser-tier games. There's no reason they couldn't continue to do so. Unless the cost of producing a telecast becomes greater than the revenue generated by it (unlikely), there is No downside to having too much content.
 
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Mayland and Rutgers hit the jackpot with the B1G. The B1G is happy to have them as members, and it will not change the huge amount of money that the B1G will be rolling in now or in the future.
 
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Awful Announcing: The Big Ten adding Rutgers and Maryland could be a major problem when cable dies

Part of thought process/premise:

>>Whatever outlet is streaming college football games in the 2020s will not want the bloated buffet of games. The present model favors the conferences. ESPN and FOX need live sports content to get cable providers to carry multiple networks. That changes if you’re dealing with Apple or Amazon.

We could see a model where the ten best Big Ten football games per season are on Amazon Prime. The Big Ten is streaming the rest of its football package and almost all of regular season college basketball on its own.

Cable subscribers no longer matter in that scenario. Fans who watch do, the very fans the Big Ten blithely disregarded. Rutgers and Maryland become dead weight.

Those two schools dilute the product. They drag on attendance when they show up to Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. They drag on television revenue. Mich/OSU/PSU are playing Maryland and Rutgers vs. sellable games against Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Iowa. They are also two extra mouths to feed when it comes to distributing the diminished revenue Mich/OSU/PSU are producing.<<
Do Apple and Amazon have the broadcasting infrastructure to stream all those games? Honest question.
 
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Do Apple and Amazon have the broadcasting infrastructure to stream all those games? Honest question.

Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Apple are currently expanding their infrastructure to do this. So, if the future, they will have the technological capability to stream all of the games. In that scenario, you may have conferences provide the content, i.e. pre-game, half time, and post game shows as well as the announcers for the game.

As for the "bloated buffet of games", the streaming services won't care how many games they have available to stream. In fact, the more games you have to stream, the more incremental profit. The only issue would arrive if the schools with the most value want more of the revenues for themselves, but that is a different discussion.
 
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Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Apple are currently expanding their infrastructure to do this. So, if the future, they will have the technological capability to stream all of the games. In that scenario, you may have conferences provide the content, i.e. pre-game, half time, and post game shows as well as the announcers for the game.

As for the "bloated buffet of games", the streaming services won't care how many games they have available to stream. In fact, the more games you have to stream, the more incremental profit. The only issue would arrive if the schools with the most value want more of the revenues for themselves, but that is a different discussion.
That's a huge investment, to pull that off you need lavish production trucks at every game, uplink trucks, HD cameras, lighting, and other equipment. experienced production people, down link earth stations across the country, etc, etc, etc. Major tv networks and ESPN have all that stuff, but I have my doubts on anyone else. They could outsource all that but then that severely cuts into profits, if any. If the conferences provide the content, I can't see them footing the bill for lavish production trucks, editing suites, uplink trucks, an army of professional production people, HD cameras. All that for just one game. Somewhere along the way the networks or ESPN will get a big slice of the profits, and if that happens Amazon or Apple make chump change off the deal.
 
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That's a huge investment, to pull that off you need lavish production trucks at every game, uplink trucks, HD cameras, lighting, and other equipment. experienced production people, down link earth stations across the country, etc, etc, etc. Major tv networks and ESPN have all that stuff, but I have my doubts on anyone else. They could outsource all that but then that severely cuts into profits, if any. If the conferences provide the content, I can't see them footing the bill for lavish production trucks, editing suites, uplink trucks, an army of professional production people, HD cameras. All that for just one game. Somewhere along the way the networks or ESPN will get a big slice of the profits, and if that happens Amazon or Apple make chump change off the deal.

Didn't we already go over this in another thread... it's being done daily now by schools and conferences across the country.

Technology changes... I'm sitting here watching the AAC baseball Tournament on YouTube via the American Digital Network. It's easily scalable and going to happen.
 
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That's a huge investment, to pull that off you need lavish production trucks at every game, uplink trucks, HD cameras, lighting, and other equipment. experienced production people, down link earth stations across the country, etc, etc, etc. Major tv networks and ESPN have all that stuff, but I have my doubts on anyone else. They could outsource all that but then that severely cuts into profits, if any.

NFL does it with NFL Network. Big 10 and Network does it.

I posted this before, but here are the largest content buyers and the market cap of their parent companies. Netflix and Amazon are already huge content buyers and they are producing expensive content on their own. I don't think the production costs you sight are the barrier to entry, but the ability to live stream a large quantity of high quality content has been a constraint, but the streaming companies are investing aggressively to fix that problem.

First number is how much they annually spend on content and the second number is the market cap of their parent.

ESPN: $7.3 billion ($173 billion)
Netflix: $6 billion ($68 billion)
NBC: $4.3 billion ($186 billion)
CBS: $4.0 billion ($26 billion)
Amazon: $3.2 billion ($450 billion)

Plus these two new entrants:

YouTube ($650 billion)
Apple TV ($802 billion)

I don't know if you are familiar, but you can watch everything from high school to college games (church services, town meetings,...) from streaming services that you have probably never heard of. In some cases the quality is not great, but it is better than you would think.
 
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Didn't we already go over this in another thread... it's being done daily now by schools and conferences across the country.

Technology changes... I'm sitting here watching the AAC baseball Tournament on YouTube via the American Digital Network. It's easily scalable and going to happen.
Medic, with all due respect, you know didly squat on what you're talking about. I worked in broadcasting for 18 years, I know what it takes to broadcast a college football game.
 
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Medic, with all due respect, you know didly squat on what you're talking about. I worked in broadcasting for 18 years, I know what it takes to broadcast a college football game.

I don't look for your respect - you can't expect to put the nonsense you do out on this board and expect not to be challenged. You think each thread is a silo and people have no memory of previous posts.

You MAY know what it took to "broadcast college football" in the past. Times have changed. Are high school and college sports not being produced and streamed nationally each and every day without lavish production trucks on site?
 
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I don't look for your respect - you can't expect to put the nonsense you do out on this board and expect not to be challenged. You think each thread is a silo and people have no memory of previous posts.

You MAY know what it took to "broadcast college football" in the past. Times have changed. Are high school and college sports not being produced and streamed nationally each and every day without lavish production trucks on site?
Just go away and take your 30,000 pompous posts with you. Get a life.
 
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Don't know what it takes to broadcast a college football game....

But I do know that FSU Productions just produced their first live game (NCAA softball regional/ super regional) for an ESPN linear channel. They have been producing live events for streaming for some years.

"Producing live events for ESPN is nothing new for the Seminole Productions staff, they have been doing it for over six years now. Seminole Productions has produced well over 300 live events for ESPN3, the ACC Network Extra, and even a SEC Network live event at last year's NCAA Softball Regional. Florida State was one of 4 ACC member universities that became the first to provide live events to the ESPN family of networks. The lessons learned from this partnership with the ACC helped ESPN launch the SEC Network in August of 2014."
 
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Don't know what it takes to broadcast a college football game....

But I do know that FSU Productions just produced their first live game (NCAA softball regional/ super regional) for an ESPN linear channel. They have been producing live events for streaming for some years.

"Producing live events for ESPN is nothing new for the Seminole Productions staff, they have been doing it for over six years now. Seminole Productions has produced well over 300 live events for ESPN3, the ACC Network Extra, and even a SEC Network live event at last year's NCAA Softball Regional. Florida State was one of 4 ACC member universities that became the first to provide live events to the ESPN family of networks. The lessons learned from this partnership with the ACC helped ESPN launch the SEC Network in August of 2014."
It's really a co-produced program by ESPN and Seminole Productions. ESPN provided the uplink truck, and paid for the transponder, Seminole did all the rest, however an ESPN technical crew did assist for this first attempt. Granted, it was only a girls softball game, it was not a big time college football game, but it's a start.

That's A First For Seminole Productions
 
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It's really a co-produced program by ESPN and Seminole Productions. ESPN provided the uplink truck, and paid for the transponder, Seminole did all the rest, however an ESPN technical crew did assist for this first attempt. Granted, it was only a girls softball game, it was not a big time college football game, but it's a start.

That's A First For Seminole Productions

?What an I missing from this paragraph in the link provided??

>>What you didn't see: large ESPN broadcast and satellite trucks parked outside of JoAnne Graf stadium on the FSU Campus. You might be wondering how the games were broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU without any broadcast trucks? The answer is simple: because of Seminole Productions.<<

Help me understand - Are they not one and the same in this case?
 
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?What an I missing from this paragraph in the link provided??

>>What you didn't see: large ESPN broadcast and satellite trucks parked outside of JoAnne Graf stadium on the FSU Campus. You might be wondering how the games were broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU without any broadcast trucks? The answer is simple: because of Seminole Productions.<<

Help me understand - Are they not one and the same in this case?
What don't you understand? Seminole provided the on site production crew and production facilities, cameras and cameramen, floor crew, instead of using one of ESPN's production-broadcast trucks and crew, and ESPN provided a technical crew to get the live signal out of the campus and a master control crew to insert commercials. I imagine there was probably a microwave link from the field to Seminoles studios
 
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What don't you understand? Seminole provided the on site production crew and production facilities, cameras and cameramen, floor crew, instead of using one of ESPN's production-broadcast trucks and crew, and ESPN provided a technical crew to get the live signal out of the campus and a master control crew to insert commercials. I imagine there was probably a microwave link from the field to Seminoles studios

My disconnect is you said in your OP that "ESPN provided the uplink truck" but the article stated there weren't any "large ESPN broadcast and satellite trucks parked outside of JoAnne Graf stadium on the FSU Campus"?

Trying to figure out the technical side..
 
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My disconnect is you said in your OP that "ESPN provided the uplink truck" but the article stated there weren't any "large ESPN broadcast and satellite trucks parked outside of JoAnne Graf stadium on the FSU Campus"?

Trying to figure out the technical side...
The article said ESPN provided a technical crew and there had to have been an uplink, unless Seminole has it's own earth station which I highly doubt. The only other possibilities would have been a dedicated fiber line to an earth station farther up the line, again very doubtful. Since this was live there also had to have been contact between the student producers and Bristol master control, to count them down out of the commercial breaks.
 
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The article said ESPN provided a technical crew and there had to have been an uplink, unless Seminole has it's own earth station which I highly doubt. The only other possibilities would have been a dedicated fiber line to an earth station farther up the line, again very doubtful. Since this was live there also had to have been contact between the student producers and Bristol master control, to count them down out of the commercial breaks.

They have their own earth station a few miles from campus and FSU holds the FCC license for it. They have it all and ACC $$ to boot.
 
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They have their own earth station a few miles from campus and FSU holds the FCC license for it. They have it all and ACC $$ to boot.
Medic, as you say you are trying to figure out the technical side. In this case you're assuming incorrectly what an earth station is and what a tv broadcast transmission tower is for getting a signal out to local homes or to anyone with an antenna within the transmitters footprint. Both of those are not the same thing, they are different, vastly different with a different purpose also. In order to get the live signal to Bristol for national or east coast distribution on ESPNU or any other sports channels you need an earth station or a mobile uplink truck, a tv signal transmission tower serving the middle of Florida does not give them that capability.
 
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Without an uplink truck at FSU (as was stated in the article)...just how was the game broadcast on ESPN yesterday?
 
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I found this from back 11 years ago.....media guide.

This has created the ability to do live, multi-camera productions or uplink feeds. With a simple camera connection, Seminole Productions can send the signal through fiber to WFSU’s satellite uplink and bang, Coach Bowden’s wit and charm is instantly seen all over the world.
 
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Rutgers and Maryland are just the tip of the iceberg. You have so many cable and sat. subscribers paying for sports content that do not and will not stream that even for the good games the price will be very high. Lot of bar watching, and much less $'s.
 
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The model FSU used for softball could be an easy model for ESPN or other networks to monetize some of those Tier III rights they own, but aren't currently broadcast. Schools produce and get them to ESPN, then they are distributed through the ESPN3/WatchESPN system. If the costs are sufficiently low it doesn't take much of an audience to recoup the investment. It can essentially become the Longhorn Network without the linear channel for some of these schools/conferences.
 

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