Friday, March 15, 2019

ACC Network news, tons of it (UPDATED)

So the ACC added some great cable companies, has still put itself in a horrible revenue situation, and once again, insists on giving away it's limited revenue to Raycom so Tobacco Road can leach off the ACC.


https://csnbbs.com/thread-872266-page-2.html

Saying ESPN sold it's rights to Raycom is totally disingenuous, that's true on paper only. The ACC made ESPN sell a package of rights to Raycom as a condition of the deal. It was an artificial carve out, otherwise ESPN would have never sold those rights, and wouldn't have had to buy them back. 

Acting like ESPN was the one who sold them by choice, and ESPN bought them back, and ESPN decided it would be good to have Raycom produce games for them is just being purposely obtuse.

In the last TV contract, the ACC required ESPN to turn around and sell that package to Raycom to keep Raycom alive. Had the ACC not required it, ESPN wouldn't have done it. You can know that by the fact that ESPN has sold nothing back to Raycom to broadcast.

The ACC forced a middle man into the deal that was unnecessary and wouldn't be there, and ate some of the value. The maddening thing is that Raycom just turned around and resold some of those rights to Fox. So for a lot of the games, Raycom did nothing but middle and take a piece of what would have been a ESPN-Fox transaction. Absurd.

Maybe giving Raycom a production deal reduced the up front cost of the buy back, but they wouldn't have even had to do the buy back if they hadn't forced Raycom into the deal to begin with.

If you want to defend the ACC's subsidization of Raycom on some grounds of nostalgia or partners or whatever, please do so. But don't make it out to be a sound business move for the ACC to have subsidized Raycom in the last contract, or that the production deal makes any sense outside the context of trying to mitigate that bad decision.

There's no business reason or financial benefit for not cutting ties with Raycom in the last contract. There may be financial benefit to cutting this production deal in exchange for a lower buyback of content you should have never put in Raycom's hands in the first place. At BEST it's making the least awful of a bad situation.

Of course, it could be much worse than that, because there's no history that the ACC is making prudent financial decisions when it comes to protecting Raycom. For all we know, the ACC paid a premium for the buyback, AND signed a production deal. That would have been the advantage of buying them out clean...if the ties were cut, then at least you would know. But now in perpetuity, you'll always have to wonder what percentage of the schools' disbursements are being siphoned off to subsidize an obsolete business that wouldn't otherwise exist without the giveaway.


https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/playstat...this-year/

Quote:As of today though ACC Network has announced that DIRECTV, Google Fiber, Hulu Live TV, Layer3 TV, Optimum, PlayStation Vue, Suddenlink, and Verizon Fios will carry the ACC Network. (Currently, only DIRECTV is listed not DIRECTV NOW.)

https://floridastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/how-much-would-it-actually-cost-to-leave-the-acc.253050/#post-4333712

Pursuant to the GOR (which was done in 2013 and extended further in 2016), FSU gave up all 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier media rights. 

The ACC network will launch 5 years after the SEC network launched, 7 years after Pac networks launched, and 12 years after the Big 10 network launched. 

The ACC also receives the smallest per member payouts for giving up those rights. 

Here are the per member payouts of the major conferences as of '17, who holds what rights and when the deal expires:

Big 12 ($28.7 million per member for FY'17):
1st and 2nd tier - ESPN and Fox (expires 2024-25)
Third tier – Each member. 
Note: ESPN and Fox pay the Big 12 $200 million per year for their TV rights. For their third tier rights, Texas receive an additional $15 million from its individual deal, OU gets an additional $8-$9 million, and schools like Baylor, TCU, West Virginia and Oklahoma State, get an additional $6-$8 million.

Pac 12 ($28.7 million per member for FY'17):
1st and 2nd tier - ESPN and Fox (expires in 2023-24)
Third tier - PAC Network 
Note: ESPN and Fox pay the Pac 12 $250 million per year for their TV rights. The PAC-12 has retained third tier rights for the PAC Network. The Pac-12 Network is owned by the Pac-12 Conference and generates money for the conference.

ACC ($26 million per member for FY'17):
1st, 2nd and third tier - ESPN (expires 2035-36) 
Note: ESPN pays the ACC $240 million per year for all TV rights, but in 2019, the ACC Network starts and could be a source of additional revenue per member. ESPN will own the ACC network, so ESPN will continue to own all TV rights for ACC members.

SEC ($41 million per member for FY '17)
1st and 2nd tier - CBS and ESPN (expires in 2033-34)
Third tier - SEC Network
Note: CBS and ESPN pay the SEC $380 million per year for their TV rights. ESPN owns the SEC network, so ESPN will continue to own all TV rights for SEC members, but the SEC network currently generates money for the SEC.

Big 10 ($38.5 million for FY '17):
1st tier – ESPN, Fox (expire in 2022-23) and CBS (hoops)
Third tier - Big 10 Network
Note: Reportedly, ESPN, Fox and CBS are now paying the Big 10 around $440 million per year for their TV rights. Fox just paid $240 million per year for just half of the Big Ten's 1st tier media rights package, which is about 25 football games and 50 men's basketball games. ESPN pay $190 million per year. CBS is paying $10 million per year on average for some basketball rights. The Big 10 retains some third tier rights that go to the Big 10 Network by virtue of its partial ownership of the Big 10 network. The Big-10 Network is a joint venture between Fox Sports and the Big Ten, with Fox Entertainment Group as 51% stakeholder and operating partner, and the Big Ten Conference owning a 49% stake. The Big 10 network currently generates revenues for its members.

Swofford has put the ACC in the worst position in terms of third tier rights/conference network and the ability to bid media rights out to the market. 

The Big 10 has a network up and running and won't have the opportunity to re-bid and renegotiate its overall media deal until '22-'23.
The Pac 12 has a network up and running and won't have the opportunity to re-bid and renegotiate its overall deal until '23-'24.
The Big 12 has retained its third tier rights and won't have the opportunity to re-bid and renegotiate its overall deal until '24-'25.
The SEC has a network up and running and won't have the opportunity to re-bid and renegotiate its overall deal until '33-'34.
The ACC does not have a network up and running and won't have the opportunity to re-bid and renegotiate its overall deal until '35-'36.



https://csnbbs.com/thread-872266.html

https://www.greensboro.com/sports/accxtr...0b687.html

Quote:Raycom takes new role as ACC Network plans to debut
Ownership of two high-end production trucks along with its longtime relationship with the league and ESPN made it the perfect partner to continue working behind the scenes on broadcasts when the ACC Network launches on Aug. 22.

“We got a very, very good — lucrative — production contract from ESPN,” Raycom CEO Jimmy Rayburn said. “A lot of the games next year will still be produced from top to bottom, but they just won’t have the Raycom name on it.

“Our bread and butter will still be the ACC, just in a different form.”

Not only will Raycom remain in a production role, but it will also continue to serve as the league's digital partner, help develop some programming on the ACC Network and manage the league's rights.

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