Technological shifts and the shortsightedness of B1G expansion

okeefe4prez

okeefe4prez

Well-Known Member
SIAP - We all know cable TV revenues are driving this recent expansion. I don't know what will happen in the future, but I think some time in the next 20 years or so we will all look back on this day as one of the darkest days in the history of the conference. Cable TV is going to be toast in less than two decades. Comcast is now actually at a point where it is making bundled TV/Internet packages cheaper than stand alone internet because it is trying to maintain the relevance of a dying business model (Cutting Only Part Of The Cord Could End Up Costing You More (At First)). And we are throwing away roughly a century of tradition (I think PSU and Nebraska comported with the values of the B10) based on what will be short lived profits derived from that dying business model. In addition, close to half of the cost of cable is now going to sports (About half of cable-TV bills go to sports - Philly.com) and I suspect it is only a matter of time before either the government forces a change or an enterprising antitrust litigator wins a massive judgment that will change the way business is done in this industry. It is not 1985 anymore where your cable company blasts every channel to your home and keeps out HBO and Skinemax through a small tubular filter inside of a gray box in your back yard - these bundling arrangements that are currently driving massive revenues from scores of unwilling consumers are absolutely going to die off. Sure, things will likely wind up as pay per view or whatever, but Rutgers and Maryland have fan bases that are a fraction of the size of many B10 schools because people on the East Coast care far more about pro sports than collegiate sports and when that die off occurs, those additional teams will suck out far more revenue than they kick in.

Maybe I'm a nut, but look at this 1993 set of AT&T commercials of them making bold predictions about the future of technology (they got it wrong that AT&T would be providing these services), but we have surpassed many of these dreams. The future will bring accelerating technological change and I think the conference is looking at profits 5 years out and really destroying brand equity in what has long been my favorite sports franchise. It is no different than the shortsightedness government and multinational corporations show - kick the can to the next election or print nice results for the next quarter, let the next politician or CEO deal with the negative long term consequences from shortsighted decisions.

[video=youtube;5MnQ8EkwXJ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnQ8EkwXJ0[/video]

/rant
 
Agree. The whole BTN model was basically framed on strong-arming fans into demanding BTN (and higher cable costs while they're at it) because other wise they couldn't watch their teams anymore.

If you think the crab-shuckers and guidos out east are going to get butthurt if they don't get to watch teams they don't care about. You think 2 million subscribers in Maryland are going to want to add an extra $5 per month to their bill to placate a small fanbase.....
 
Interesting thoughts.

What about this; the majority of cable subs migrate to a satellite platform, like DirecTV...and those Sat companies take advantage of the advances in wireless internet speeds (4G speeds on cell phones are already faster than half of the internet connections in US)...doesn't the source of money just shift to a different provider?
 
JonDMiller said:
Interesting thoughts.

What about this; the majority of cable subs migrate to a satellite platform, like DirecTV...and those Sat companies take advantage of the advances in wireless internet speeds (4G speeds on cell phones are already faster than half of the internet connections in US)...doesn't the source of money just shift to a different provider?
Click to expand...

Also, Sat. providers can make sports content a'la carte. Only the people who want to see BoneG sports will pay for it (unlike cable companies), which makes expanding into areas that are indifferent to football all the more pointless.
 
Eventually cable companies will be a thing of the past once the bandwidth is available to do all this online.
 
JonDMiller said:
Interesting thoughts.

What about this; the majority of cable subs migrate to a satellite platform, like DirecTV...and those Sat companies take advantage of the advances in wireless internet speeds (4G speeds on cell phones are already faster than half of the internet connections in US)...doesn't the source of money just shift to a different provider?
Click to expand...

The source may shift, but my point is these college sports revenues right now are keyed in no small part today off of the involuntary purchases of very expensive sports networks by unwilling consumers. I do not think that model is sustainable and if the model shifts to a PPV model, there is no guarantee that the pie would remain nearly as large as it is today with all of these unwilling consumers sitting in the pool. If that shift occurs, Maryland and Rutgers will be massively dilutive to the Big Ten because they simply lack the numbers of rabid fans that the OSUs, PSUs, Michigans and Nebraskas of the world bring. On the other hand, perhaps Delaney envisions a scenario whereby the NCAA gets cut out of high revenue stuff like the NCAA basketball tourney and he lets us keep that money in the family with the Butlers of the world getting a much smaller nugget of the proceeds from the tournament. Not sure how likely that is in light of the NIT antitrust litigation against the NCAA though.
 
GhostofBTT said:
Also, Sat. providers can make sports content a'la carte. Only the people who want to see BoneG sports will pay for it (unlike cable companies), which makes expanding into areas that are indifferent to football all the more pointless.
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
ssckelley said:
Eventually cable companies will be a thing of the past once the bandwidth is available to do all this online.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. The cable industry is dying and Delany had better have a business case for why this will make sense 10+ years from now. It probably makes sense for the next 5 years or whatever, but I'm not convinced it makes sense long term.
 
Your loss Scorp, ok4p actually posted something worthy of discussion.

Those AT&T commercials were awesome, hard to believe they were from 1993.
 
ssckelley said:
Your loss Scorp, ok4p actually posted something worthy of discussion.

Those AT&T commercials were awesome, hard to believe they were from 1993.
Click to expand...

Agreed on that AT&T commercial - it is hard to remember the world of 14.4 internet in very few homes running on a 386 processor or whatever. But I guarantee you that in 20 years when Scorpion looks back at his Samsung tablet he totes around today, he will laugh at how primitive it was.
 
okeefe4prez said:
The source may shift, but my point is these college sports revenues right now are keyed in no small part today off of the involuntary purchases of very expensive sports networks by unwilling consumers.
Click to expand...

This is why this guy is smart.

I got rid of cable and dish in no small part because I didn't watch much of it. I watched more Netflix and Hulu than I did real-time television because I don't schedule my life to teh TV. The only thing I watched regularly on TV was live sports.

I came to the conclusion that it was not worth $75 /mo to be able to watch sports. I can't be the only one. Of course, since I have a computer, it doesn't really make a huge impact in what I do.


Sidebar: Those retro digital broadcast networks are awesome. Where else can I watch old episodes of WKRP, Benson, Sanford and Son, and Maude? I love them, and I didn't even grow up watching any of them!
 
okeefe4prez said:
Agreed on that AT&T commercial - it is hard to remember the world of 14.4 internet in very few homes running on a 386 processor or whatever. But I guarantee you that in 20 years when Scorpion looks back at his Samsung tablet he totes around today, he will laugh at how primitive it was.
Click to expand...

So true, we just got 4G service where I live and the difference it has made on my iPad is amazing. Like Jon mentioned earlier the internet service on my iPad is faster than what I get on my home devices. It makes me wonder what is next. Perhaps some day my future television will just be a huge tablet like an iPad.
 
GhostofBTT said:
This is why this guy is smart.

I got rid of cable and dish in no small part because I didn't watch much of it. I watched more Netflix and Hulu than I did real-time television because I don't schedule my life to teh TV. The only thing I watched regularly on TV was live sports.

I came to the conclusion that it was not worth $75 /mo to be able to watch sports. I can't be the only one. Of course, since I have a computer, it doesn't really make a huge impact in what I do.


Sidebar: Those retro digital broadcast networks are awesome. Where else can I watch old episodes of WKRP, Benson, Sanford and Son, and Maude? I love them, and I didn't even grow up watching any of them!
Click to expand...

Translation: I'm a prole who works weekends and I can't afford a totally choice HD cable package.
 
ssckelley said:
So true, we just got 4G service where I live and the difference it has made on my iPad is amazing. Like Jon mentioned earlier the internet service on my iPad is faster than what I get on my home devices. It makes me wonder what is next. Perhaps some day my future television will just be a huge tablet like an iPad.
Click to expand...

What kind of janky internet service do you have at your yurt?? You still rockin' the dial-up, brah?
 
GhostofBTT said:
This is why this guy is smart.

I got rid of cable and dish in no small part because I didn't watch much of it. I watched more Netflix and Hulu than I did real-time television because I don't schedule my life to teh TV. The only thing I watched regularly on TV was live sports.

I came to the conclusion that it was not worth $75 /mo to be able to watch sports. I can't be the only one. Of course, since I have a computer, it doesn't really make a huge impact in what I do.


Sidebar: Those retro digital broadcast networks are awesome. Where else can I watch old episodes of WKRP, Benson, Sanford and Son, and Maude? I love them, and I didn't even grow up watching any of them!
Click to expand...

And that is why you're smart, Ghost. I can't ditch cable because my wife MUST HAVE Japan TV and we basically get basic for free due to a key easement our building gave to the cable company for a big piece of switching equipment, but a lot of my friends who make a lot of money have ditched it. I hate to admit it, but I didn't get to see the Iowa-Michigan game live because I was at a friend's place for a 3 year old's birthday party and they didn't have cable. As austerity measures are implemented and food and gas prices trend upward in a labor market with sticky wages, many more consumers will be cutting the cable cord to pay for necessities. I guarantee it. Our empire is dying and a "non-profit" institution that many of us attended and have supported in countless ways is attempting to gouge more money out of those who can least afford it.
 
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