If you\u2019re a rank-and-file Power Four school, the message that has been hammered home\u00a0all summer should have you on edge: Fortune favors the brands.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re sitting in a power conference lacking a brand name and TV market, don\u2019t get too comfortable.<\/p>\n
You could wind up like\u00a0Oregon State<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Washington State<\/a><\/strong>. After joining their fellow\u00a0Pac-12<\/strong>\u00a0schools in repeatedly offering public messages of unity and solidarity over the past six months, the two Pacific Northwest schools are now abandoned, looking around and seeing everyone has run for greener pastures.<\/p>\n They are the ones left to shut off the lights in a 108-year-old league. They can find a landing spot in the\u00a0Mountain West<\/strong>\u00a0Conference<\/strong>, whose commissioner, Gloria Nevarez<\/strong>, recently made campus recruiting visits to both schools. A home in another Power Four conference is not in their short-term future.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not the only warning sign this summer for the non-big brands out there.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re any number of also-rans in the ACC<\/strong>, you\u2019ve watched\u00a0Florida\u00a0State<\/a>\u2018s<\/strong> candid, blustery rhetoric assist in tilting the revenue-sharing model in favor of the biggest and most successful brands. The additions of Stanford<\/a><\/strong>, Cal<\/a><\/strong> and SMU<\/a><\/strong> could result in more than $50 million in annual revenue for the league.<\/p>\n Stanford and Cal are expected to accept an initial partial revenue share, perhaps 30% of existing members. SMU will reportedly<\/a> forgo any initial broadcast\u00a0rights share for nine years. Existing members will benefit financially, and success-based initiatives could favor big, successful brands like Florida\u00a0State\u00a0and Clemson<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is an ecosystem where the biggest brands in the biggest conferences have the most leverage. That has never been more clear. And now they are starting to throw their weight around. This summer, Florida\u00a0State\u00a0leaders said<\/a> the quiet parts out loud. <\/p>\n But don\u2019t think other marquee\u00a0brands aren\u2019t thinking the same.\u00a0Ultimately, schools lacking brand names could be thrown by the wayside.<\/p>\n Michigan<\/a><\/strong> regent Jordan Acker<\/strong> told On3 on Friday morning, \u201cFrankly, the way things are going, I\u2019d be terrified of that. I\u2019d be terrified of the idea of a super league of some sort leaving smaller schools behind. It would be terrible for college athletics \u2026 If you\u2019re not a place with a big market, I\u2019d be terrified. All the presidents and chancellors have wrought this on everybody. <\/p>\n \u201cThe consequences here will be absolutely profound. What prevents a TV executive from going the next step and saying, \u2018Why are we paying X amount of dollars for a Rutgers<\/a><\/strong>, Purdue<\/a><\/strong> or Vanderbilt<\/a><\/strong>?\u2019 when they can put someone else on TV?\u201d<\/p>\n Two summers ago, after\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Oklahoma<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0sent shockwaves through the industry with the announcement that they\u2019d be joining the SEC<\/strong>, several TV sources talked to On3 about the next dynamic that would emerge in conference realignment.\u00a0<\/p>\n The biggest brands at some point would grow tired of sharing equal slices of the TV rights revenue pie with schools that weigh down the league. The biggest brands would begin to flex their muscles, leveraging the fact that they are the reason the rights packages now have so many digits and commas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe networks will pay you whatever you need them to pay you for the top inventory,\u201d one veteran media rights source told\u00a0On3. \u201cWhat they don\u2019t want to do anymore is pay $9 million a game for Michigan<\/a><\/strong>\u2013Ohio\u00a0State<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and also pay $9 million\u00a0a game for Rutgers-Maryland<\/a><\/strong>. Every conference is top-heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n The top three or four brands in every conference account\u00a0for more than 50% of the TV viewers, with some slight variation among leagues, another TV source said.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone thinks, \u2018Oh, my God, the SEC has this magic.\u2019 But you don\u2019t realize how pedestrian the numbers are when the big schools aren\u2019t involved,\u201d the first TV source said. \u201cLike Mississippi<\/a><\/strong>\u2013Mississippi\u00a0State<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 the only thing that helps that game is that it\u2019s on Thanksgiving. When you say how about a fill-in-the-blank team versus someone other than\u00a0Alabama<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Georgia<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Florida<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Auburn<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0LSU<\/a><\/strong>? The numbers fall off a cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n What some Power Four members lack in brand name they make up for in the market they deliver. See Rutgers with New York and Maryland with Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n Others that lack both a brand name and a major market should be concerned about which way industry winds are howling.<\/p>\n \u201cI worry about that for our game and for those universities,\u201d\u00a0North Carolina<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0coach\u00a0Mack Brown<\/a> <\/strong>told\u00a0ESPN\u2019s\u00a0Paul Finebaum<\/strong>\u00a0two\u00a0years ago. \u201cI think we will see some schools that just can\u2019t have enough money, enough facilities, enough commitment selling those tickets, be attractive enough for the TV contracts that they will lose who they are and drop down to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n The enterprise is increasingly moving toward a landscape in which the biggest brands play together in their own sandbox. Whether that entails four power conferences or two, whether it entails a full breakaway from the NCAA, that all remains to be seen.<\/p>\n Additionally, Tom McMillen<\/strong>, CEO of LEAD1 Association, told On3<\/a> what he hears from athletic directors regarding an elite football breakaway is this: \u201cPart of the allure of the structure is that you have scheduling pods. God, I\u2019d hate to be the SEC and have to play Texas and Alabama. The scheduling variability is a factor here.\u00a0Maryland can play Towson<\/strong>. They are close by. Probably get a win. Towson gets the money. That would go away in\u00a0a world where every game is hyper-competitive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that you have some schools in there that, like a Cinderella school with San Diego\u00a0State<\/a><\/strong> basketball, is very appealing to public officials. It is not\u00a0just\u00a0<\/em>money wins. And the reason I say that is because, as college sports evolves, there\u2019s going to be more and more attacks on it.\u201d<\/p>\n But what we have seen this summer is this: Another clear-as-crystal reminder that money does in fact win. And for rank-and-file Power Four schools who aren\u2019t the ones driving the escalating TV rights deals, this summer should provoke a serious\u00a0case of agita.<\/p>\n This summer has hammered home the truth: Fortune favors the brands.<\/p>\n The post If your Power Four school lacks a big brand and TV market, you should be \u2018terrified\u2019<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you\u2019re a rank-and-file Power Four school, the message that has been hammered home\u00a0all summer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Networks will pay big money for \u2018top inventory\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Fortune favors brands in new Power Four format<\/strong><\/h2>\n