UTEP AD talks C-USA tv revenue seys it ain't realignment

[Coach Bill Lewis]

A declining cable television market, a growing gap between the major and midmajor conferences and some losses suffered in realignment are about to add up to a significant loss in revenue for Conference USA.

The league will soon announce its new television deal, likely in a week at the C-USA meetings in Dustin, Fla., and a number of reports show revenues declining by about half, to around $7 million a year total for the 14 schools from the current amount of just over $14 million. That means the University of Texas at El Paso's cut of revenue will go from about $1 million a year to half that.

"We anticipate around that," UTEP athletic director Bob Stull said. "It will be down. We don't know how much."

The current deal was negotiated in 2011 and C-USA is the first midmajor conference (a group including the Sun Belt, Mountain West, American Athletic and MAC) to negotiate a new deal since the 2012 realignment.

Conference USA won't comment until the deal is announced, but Commissioner Judy MacLeod did make some general statements in a speech to the Norfolk Sports Club last week.

"Right now, the television market is horrible," she said in comments reported by the Virginian-Pilot. "ESPN eliminated 300 jobs and Fox Sports is doing away with a lot of its regional staffs.

"The way people consume content is rapidly changing. We have young people who work in our office who don’t have cable or DirecTV. The pool of money that's there is going to the big guys. The Big Ten and the SEC are must-see TV."

Read more: El Paso Times

 

[VideoEagle]

Yes the contracts were going to be smaller even before realignment, but the realignment made it worse. 

[UNTFan23]

13 hours ago, VideoEagle said:

Yes the contracts were going to be smaller even before realignment, but the realignment made it worse. 

Cable companies have also been slow on changing as their customers change how they are consuming media.

Edited May 10, 2016 by UNTFan23

[Wag Tag]

On May 9, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Coach Bill Lewis said:

A declining cable television market, a growing gap between the major and midmajor conferences and some losses suffered in realignment are about to add up to a significant loss in revenue for Conference USA.

The league will soon announce its new television deal, likely in a week at the C-USA meetings in Dustin, Fla., and a number of reports show revenues declining by about half, to around $7 million a year total for the 14 schools from the current amount of just over $14 million. That means the University of Texas at El Paso's cut of revenue will go from about $1 million a year to half that.

"We anticipate around that," UTEP athletic director Bob Stull said. "It will be down. We don't know how much."

The current deal was negotiated in 2011 and C-USA is the first midmajor conference (a group including the Sun Belt, Mountain West, American Athletic and MAC) to negotiate a new deal since the 2012 realignment.

Conference USA won't comment until the deal is announced, but Commissioner Judy MacLeod did make some general statements in a speech to the Norfolk Sports Club last week.

"Right now, the television market is horrible," she said in comments reported by the Virginian-Pilot. "ESPN eliminated 300 jobs and Fox Sports is doing away with a lot of its regional staffs.

"The way people consume content is rapidly changing. We have young people who work in our office who don’t have cable or DirecTV. The pool of money that's there is going to the big guys. The Big Ten and the SEC are must-see TV."

Read more: El Paso Times

 

Streaming video is going to kill cable!

[Arkstfan]

ODU AD says contract may be $4 million to $6 million and they are budgeting on the assumption it will be $6 million. Also article from Virginia says TV rights were cut after the defections and exit fees were used to supplement it. Based on CUSA tax filings the TV rights were actually cut from $14 million to $10 million.

I'm reminded of what happened to the pre-Benson WAC

CFA TV deal collapsed, ABC was talking about not even picking up their rights. Big 8 raids the SWC and the WAC goes to 16 and is able to secure a TV deal that would pay the 16 roughly what they had received at 10.

Then a few years later the core members no longer like what they have and sit down and create a new league and got a bit more money per team but put the regional schools together (SDSU being the outlier) but culled Hawaii, Fresno, SJSU, TCU, Tulsa, SMU, Rice, UTEP making the WAC map look like a doughnut with a big hole in the middle.

MWC members were more interested in playing regional teams and built a dang good brand in the process.

Somewhere out there is a CUSA president who no longer sees the value of playing "them" i.e. schools in the other division and wants to shift things around geographically and quit splitting the CFP money 14 ways when the optimal number is 10, though 12 has value in scheduling.

[Army of Dad]

19 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

ODU AD says contract may be $4 million to $6 million and they are budgeting on the assumption it will be $6 million. Also article from Virginia says TV rights were cut after the defections and exit fees were used to supplement it. Based on CUSA tax filings the TV rights were actually cut from $14 million to $10 million.

I'm reminded of what happened to the pre-Benson WAC

CFA TV deal collapsed, ABC was talking about not even picking up their rights. Big 8 raids the SWC and the WAC goes to 16 and is able to secure a TV deal that would pay the 16 roughly what they had received at 10.

Then a few years later the core members no longer like what they have and sit down and create a new league and got a bit more money per team but put the regional schools together (SDSU being the outlier) but culled Hawaii, Fresno, SJSU, TCU, Tulsa, SMU, Rice, UTEP making the WAC map look like a doughnut with a big hole in the middle.

MWC members were more interested in playing regional teams and built a dang good brand in the process.

Somewhere out there is a CUSA president who no longer sees the value of playing "them" i.e. schools in the other division and wants to shift things around geographically and quit splitting the CFP money 14 ways when the optimal number is 10, though 12 has value in scheduling.

Isn't 12 a better bet just in case the Big12 waiver goes away?

[Arkstfan]

It's not a waiver, its a rule change so it would require approval from the Division I Council (AD's mostly) and Board of Directors (presidents) to change it back.

12 works nicely because it's easy. Two divisions of six, play 5 divisional games, play three crossover and everyone comes to your stadium at least once in four years.

10 you have to either play a 9 game schedule playing everyone or two divisions of 5, play four division games, four crossover skipping one team and are all but assured that the title game will be a rematch.

But you get more dollar bang for your buck with 10.