New CUSA TV Deal

BTG_Fan1 · March 14, 2018

Left a lot to be desired

Hunter Green · March 14, 2018

Maybe the MWC isn't such a bad option after all. Or maybe resurrect the SWC.

MattMakesLoans · March 15, 2018

1 hour ago, Hunter Green said:

Maybe the MWC isn't such a bad option after all. Or maybe resurrect the SWC.

This kind of attitude is what is wrong with OUR school. We get something new, its going to bring us more money & exposure. And them someone comes and shits on it, because they want something.

GTWT · March 15, 2018

14 minutes ago, MattMakesLoans said:

... because they want something.

Perhaps something better?

meangreenJW · March 15, 2018

13 minutes ago, MattMakesLoans said:

This kind of attitude is what is wrong with OUR school. We get something new, its going to bring us more money & exposure. And them someone comes and shits on it, because they want something.

I tend to agree with you. Downside is we lose ESPN but we had very few linear games on anyway. The SBC is more ESPN+ than anything which will be a subscription streaming service. This gives us more national linear games, gets on facebook which has a huge audience, and more money. ESPN shit on us long ago. They basically got our games for free this last deal. CBS is actually paying something. Would love to see CUSA staff push to get our champ game on big CBS and CBSSN

UNTLifer · March 15, 2018

No BeIn Sports? I enjoyed their coverage.

Harry · March 15, 2018

Good summary article from Minium:

https://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/article_035d751a-27d6-11e8-a537-5bf6c33fcc22.html

BTG_Fan1 · March 15, 2018

1 hour ago, UNTLifer said:

No BeIn Sports? I enjoyed their coverage.

Wren said they’d are still working on other deals and it sounded like beIN and potentially ESPN

peanuts104 · March 15, 2018

As someone that only pays for internet and streams everything, I'm all for stadium. ESPN3 blows chunks. The stream qualities are always very inconsistent, which is infuriating. I like the idea behind stadium and that way we're not sharing the same emaciated (relative to the traffic they get) servers as all the other schools on ESPN. I liked BeINs coverage though. The only thing wrong with stadium and BeIN is the commentators. I don't understand why they don't use local media for the sportscasting.

RiseUNT · March 15, 2018

ESPN3 sucks. If you aren't a blue blood ESPN sucks. If you aren't on the East coast ESPN sucks. Give me Bein, free facebook streaming, and CBS.

If our championship games are between ranked teams CBS will pick it up.

Silent Eagle · March 15, 2018

1 hour ago, peanuts104 said:

As someone that only pays for internet and streams everything, I'm all for stadium. ESPN3 blows chunks. The stream qualities are always very inconsistent, which is infuriating. I like the idea behind stadium and that way we're not sharing the same emaciated (relative to the traffic they get) servers as all the other schools on ESPN. I liked BeINs coverage though. The only thing wrong with stadium and BeIN is the commentators. I don't understand why they don't use local media for the sportscasting.

I thought mcnabb was great. He did his research. The commentary team was awesome the game I watched on beIN. Plus, I can go straight into a Juventus match.

Rudy · March 15, 2018

I don't mind streaming games, as long as it's not some shitty scoreboard feed. Do it right with a production and announcers. The problem is that it limits our exposure. Who is going to just stream some random school's games? No one. The only people who will stream it are those who have a vested interest in the game. And it's not like you can just roll into your favorite sports bar and have the waitress turn on the NT game. Thus limiting our exposure and atmosphere even more.

RiseUNT · March 15, 2018

19 minutes ago, Rudy said:

I don't mind streaming games, as long as it's not some shitty scoreboard feed. Do it right with a production and announcers. The problem is that it limits our exposure. Who is going to just stream some random school's games? No one. The only people who will stream it are those who have a vested interest in the game. And it's not like you can just roll into your favorite sports bar and have the waitress turn on the NT game. Thus limiting our exposure and atmosphere even more.

Sport bars are dying just as fast as ESPN

meanrob · March 15, 2018

4 hours ago, meangreenJW said:

I tend to agree with you. Downside is we lose ESPN but we had very few linear games on anyway. The SBC is more ESPN+ than anything which will be a subscription streaming service. This gives us more national linear games, gets on facebook which has a huge audience, and more money. ESPN shit on us long ago. They basically got our games for free this last deal. CBS is actually paying something. Would love to see CUSA staff push to get our champ game on big CBS and CBSSN

ESPN3 is awful for streaming quality but the Facebook feed with the social media annoying chick is horrible too. Unfortunately the streaming feed and NT audio feed never match up.

As far as audience, the last Facebook game I watched had a people viewing counter at the bottom and the number was at 1300. On any platform there isn't a big audience for CUSA games so I say forget getting the most money and just go for quality. Whether that's streaming or over the air.

MrStrange18 · March 15, 2018

Do we think this will get most/all of our games broadcasted on a watchable outlet? If so, I think I am for this.

I was not excited at first... but more revenue and IF it makes the games easier to watch. I'm in.

aztecskin · March 15, 2018

Did a little summarizing of everything I read at CUSA Report.

It sounds better than the last deal and definitely better than the Sun Belt's deal. I don't think we can expect much better considering the options out there. This league is full of smallish fan bases and so for that reason I think any deal that would require non-Saturday games would be bad for the league.

Each program has to focus resources toward building the game day experience and then that should translate to better ratings and then better deals over a longer period of time.

dmaxel · March 15, 2018

Mo money, mo money, mo money.

Arkstfan · March 15, 2018

Really not much there for any Sun Belt or CUSA chest thumping.

Both deals are 10 games on linear TV. One is ESPN family the other CBSSN. Neither league pays production for linear TV.

CUSA has the Stadium semi-OTA/streaming deal for another 15 games but the release suggests that roughly half are only available on Facebook rather than on Stadium OTA affiliates or app.

After that looks like Sun Belt has to produce around 51 football games for online and CUSA will have to produce 60 or find a third partner who will split costs maybe.

Hunter Green · March 15, 2018

21 hours ago, MattMakesLoans said:

This kind of attitude is what is wrong with OUR school. We get something new, its going to bring us more money & exposure. And them someone comes and shits on it, because they want something.

Son, you should switch to decaff.

BTG_Fan1 · March 16, 2018

6 hours ago, dmaxel said:

Mo money, mo money, mo money.

What is ASN? Is it the Armed Services Network or something else?

Arkstfan · March 16, 2018

31 minutes ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

What is ASN? Is it the Armed Services Network or something else?

Sinclair's first stab at doing what became Stadium. American Sports Network. Weird thing that made no sense to me with ASN and still doesn't make sense is that Sinclair is a partner in Stadium and then doesn't put it on some markets that have Sinclair stations. In Little Rock they started out putting ASN on 7.2 and I thought they did a pretty good job. Then one Saturday I tune in to watch USM and someone and instead we were getting a Division II or III game out of like Iowa. Another Saturday try to watch ya'll play and had Stony Brook. Finally gave up when I flipped over to check out UNT-Rice in hoops and the flipping telecast was in 480p, made me miss the 13 inch black and white tv I had in college. Now they don't carry Stadium. I'm all about more games available.

I really like the Stadium second-tier component unless the release is accurate about 7 of 15 being Facebook. I watched NMSU-UNM on Facebook and it was OK once I figured out how to turn off the floating thumbs and hearts but I hate casting to a TV because I'm tying up two devices, but that's my beef. The facebook distribution is great for access to recruits.

Completely off-topic lower division games can be fun to watch, and you will get a chuckle out of seeing the players huddle up on the sidelines and they aren't as tall as their coach.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Arkstfan

meangreenJW · March 16, 2018

5 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

Really not much there for any Sun Belt or CUSA chest thumping.

Both deals are 10 games on linear TV. One is ESPN family the other CBSSN. Neither league pays production for linear TV.

CUSA has the Stadium semi-OTA/streaming deal for another 15 games but the release suggests that roughly half are only available on Facebook rather than on Stadium OTA affiliates or app.

After that looks like Sun Belt has to produce around 51 football games for online and CUSA will have to produce 60 or find a third partner who will split costs maybe.

While both pay typical "production costs" ESPN charges $1,500 on top of that for ESPN3. Not sure what ESPN+ will be. I only know that because Wren said in an interview last year the school paid more money to put the football games up on ESPN 3 instead of CUSA.tv.

From a user standpoint, I like ESPN 3. I typically use the Watch ESPN 3 app on my apple TV even for the linear broadcasts so it would be a one stop shop rather than a mixture.

Best guess SBC will get $200-250 after expenses. CUSA will get about $400k. CUSA wins on revenue, SBC wins on reach (ESPN has more viewers than CBSSN).

Sadly, neither is too much to get excited about.

Arkstfan · March 16, 2018

6 minutes ago, meangreenJW said:

While both pay typical "production costs" ESPN charges $1,500 on top of that for ESPN3. Not sure what ESPN+ will be. I only know that because Wren said in an interview last year the school paid more money to put the football games up on ESPN 3 instead of CUSA.tv.

From a user standpoint, I like ESPN 3. I typically use the Watch ESPN 3 app on my apple TV even for the linear broadcasts so it would be a one stop shop rather than a mixture.

Best guess SBC will get $200-250 after expenses. CUSA will get about $400k. CUSA wins on revenue, SBC wins on reach (ESPN has more viewers than CBSSN).

Sadly, neither is too much to get excited about.

AState expects at least $350,000 after expenses but we were already producing at ESPN3 standards so it really is almost no increase in expense other than doing more hoops, baseball, and volleyball than normal.

ESPN has hired AState to do the production for some championship events in the Sun Belt because our RTV department insisted on building a production truck instead of production rooms. RTV also does part of the Liberty Bowl production so we aren't quite the norm. Only bad part is athletics bought the equipment and donated it to the RTV department and RTV rather than athletics profits when it is occasionally leased out to someone who needs mobile production without satellite capability.

I wouldn't swap the linear component with CUSA just because of reach, but I would take the Stadium second-tier component without hesitation because there is that big gap between linear and ESPN+

outoftown · March 16, 2018

To me this is clearly a better deal than the last one. Honestly, with the way ESPN is going, there is almost no improved reach vs CBSsports anymore even less if ESPN is trying to push leagues to ESPN+. Stadium is a good thing, and has proven to be decent quality. But most importantly the increase in money seems to be quite big. If WB is correct and this is really a 400% increase for the primary tv part then I guess we are back to almost half a million or so per school with the added benefit of having to ship less money back to the networks for production. That is not at all negligible and decent negotiating I would say.

Definitely beats the belt deal in my mind.

Edited March 16, 2018 by outoftown