http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/luke-decock/article...
After six years of deliberation and discussion, the ACC is close to an updated television deal with ESPN that will include the long-awaited ACC cable channel as well as innovative "over-the-top" components, content delivered directly to viewers via the Internet, known as OTT.
The announcement regarding a new ESPN deal could come as soon as the ACC's football kickoff event in Charlotte on Thursday and Friday, where ACC commissioner John Swofford is scheduled to meet with the media Thursday morning.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/luke-decock/article...
This would be a huge game changer for the ACC and thus VT.
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Hoping for the best.
Tired of SEC Network, it just makes me more wary of UT as the season approaches.
Beyond anything, if more money into ACC schools pockets. I wonder how long until the hannels are available stand alone
Are you F%#king serious ACC and Swofford. THREE years from now to get this thing launched, they have been talking about this for how many years and it's still THREE years away? What the hell has to be worked out?
Digital version launches August 2016, can be accessed through WatchESPN app with tv subscriber information.
Honestly for football games digitial is shit. There is absolutely no reason this should not be in place for 2017 football season. Swofford is a failure again.
Hear you and not happy about it, but outside the ESPN penalty many national journalists thought there was no chance it would come to fruition right now given what is happening with PAC-10 network and cord cutting. Given what is happening with ESPN this isn't that surprising, and we all debated whether they would go network vs. digital option, looks like they split the baby and punted the network option down the road.
Wish we were getting the real thing, but I'll take it.
On a side note, some bullish on ACC network tied it to ND joining the ACC at some point. Yes, ND will never join a conference, we all know. The argument was premised on how heavily the committee emphasized a conference championship for making the playoff, and if ND missed a year because of this it could push boosters on the bubble over the edge. If that ever did happen, not that it will, it would push the ACC network way up in viewer base.
Not sure I totally agree, their deal is great, but missing a chance in the playoff could sway opinion.
pressure is now ramped up in Dallas this week. and ND independence in football is greatly aided by having 5 P conferences.
Unfortunately, digital is also the only thing many of us want.
Disagree - We are at a pivotal changing point in the way people consume media. I'd rather the ACC/ESPN take it's time and get the product right, rather than rush it out, just to have another longhorn network.
I know (from both previous post and this one) that you have no desire to watch streamed content, much less cut the cord completely. However, you must admit that consumers' attachment to cable is changing. At this point, streaming is a better option (in terms of convenience and cost) for viewing anything other than live content right now. In 5 years, I expect live streaming to on par with cable, and in 7-8 years, I think it will be better.
Getting it right is better than getting it now. I'd like to see this play out before I call it a failure. That said, I don't have much confidence in the ACC leadership either.
I would agree if ESPN/ACC didn't have examples to learn from and had not been talking about his for last 3 years. This will have taken 6 plus years to happen. Not ok in today's world. As for watching content on streaming that's not true, I watch Netflix and Amazon at least every other day, but for live events where there are multiple events occurring at same time having the ability to press one button and switch between 4 games is awesome. I can pause all 4 games, skip commercials or move between them at ease.
Perhaps 2019 gives the ACC enough time to alter its league schedule to nine conference games.
If this isn't launching until 2019, it will be interesting to see if they are still behind the times with not having everything available without a cable subscription. I don't see ESPN still being primarily a cable channel at that point.
ACC baseball, basketball, lacrosse, soccer and Wrestling! And I don't have to watch it on my phone! Yeeeaaaassss!
Now, when are we getting a mens lacrosse program?
When we can find scholarships, so not in the foreseeable future.
Weekly reminder to join the Hokie Club.
If I am not mistaken, Title IX is the reason we don't have a Varsity Lacrosse program, not lack of $ in Hokie Club.
Only because title nine dictates an even number of men's and women's scholarships. If we had more scholarship money, we could fund a men's lacrosse team AND enough scholarships sprinkled across other sports to offset those scholarships. Or, you know, a girl's lacrosse team.
http://www.hokiesports.com/lax/
We already have a Women's Lacrosse team. This along with Women's Golf were the moves to bring us closer to another Men's sport.
Well there you go. I guess those 85 football scholarships absorb a couple women's team's worth of scholarships. I do know I'm gonna push my daughters into sports from an early age cause it's a whole lot more likely they'll get a scholarship than my son even if none of them are phenoms.
We are working on our own starting basketball squad. Just have to hope they grow out of their cant walk on flat surface phase.
My dad jokes I ruined his hopes for a women's bball starting lineup. Jokes on him, I have four older sisters who be like:
With enough money Whit could add another woman's team also.
We have unfunded scholarships right now. Title IX essentially just increases the cost by necessitating more scholarships. I'll be interested to see where we are after this football season.
They've been talking about it since I was a student 20 years ago. Apparently we still need another women's sport or two before they can add men's lax.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/17102933/acc-espn-agree-20-...
Any guess how many times we'll have played ND by the time 2036 rolls around? 4?
At minimum 6. Pretty sure part of the contract is that ND has to play every team at least once every 3 years.
I think it's more of a function of 5 ACC teams per year for ND. With 14 teams, that roughly translates to every three years.
A good bit more than we will have played FSU and Clemson, sadly.
Speaking of acc and espn, ESPNU is showing the notre dame-loluva game. Always great to rewatch their misery
So what does ESPN/ACC fill 24 hours a day with? What shows will become part of the ACC culture?
I'd imagine there will be a lot of coach's shows. Some recruiting stuff. Classic football and basketball games. Theres plenty of good olympic sport material to put on there too.
You have to have some unique shows also.
Well, I would personally like to see a show about each school in the conference. Each episode of the show could feature a member of the conference and how it is unique. Go in depth about the school itself, not just its atletic department.
It will probably be similar to the format of SEC Network. Classic games, variety of live sports, talk shows.
easy:
The Annual "They're BACK!" special on Miami. Which will run for at least 4 times daily.
The hour long 15 credit course for UNC called "Mental Preparedness for Intro to Introductory Basket Weaving".
"Wide Right" and 3 hour inside look at FSU.
"Know your Public Ivy" a 30 part documentary at all things douche at lolUVA, Duke, etc
Nightly primetime special on "All Things Irish" despite not being full members
just to name a few
Hahaha
Hopefully a call-in live-broadcast/radio show. "NC STATE AIN'T PLAYED NOBODY!!!"
If they use the footage from these last 15 or so years, they've already got enough for an all-day marathon.
Hopefully Bass fishing
I'd be so down for this. Our bass fishing team was amazing when I was in school.
I heard uva wants to host a weekly wine tasting show.
They think it'll look this:
But it'll really look like this:
By the time this launches cable will be close to dead. How the fuck can you be so late to the game. 2019 is to far away and who knows who will be the top dog.
So you're response to a good thing happening is to immediately complain about it? Got it.
I don't feel like this a good thing. This is a everyone has one, and we need to follow situation, that took years for them to make. If this happened before or at the same time the SEC did it, I would be much happier about it.
At this point it would have been better to be progressive and think ahead like the BIG did when they came up with their own station.
Making a deal with a streaming company for a streaming station is the power move that forces all others to follow down the road. Amazon is going to be a major provider of streaming sports very soon because they can outbid the cable companies.
I want us to take the next step instead of following the other companies. It's the only way to get ahead of the others and get better revenue.
Trends in the market
It may just be an aberration, but Netflix just took a huge dive on the stock market because they didn't add as many subscribers as anticipated by analysts.
I only bring this up because it's a fairly important tidbit in the narrative that streaming OTT services will make cable go way of the dinosaurs sooner rather than later.
Netflix isn't the best option. Amazon, basically prints money right now is.
My issue with digital has been and always will be: inability to quickly flip between games, inability to skip commercials. I get those options with my cable.
Yes, this is an issue, but for me I just spin up a few different screens and switch the audio from one source to another so I don't have to bother switching stations, just audio feeds.
It's weird to see this written about a company that has just recently started turning a profit.
Cable has at least another 25-30 year life span of similar returns because most adults in this country are not going to switch to an exclusive OTT solution. While growth is flat because 30 and unders are going to an alternative solution, the majority of viewers use traditional cable, fios or in home satellite. And ESPN is the only channel that can dictate its terms to the providers.
In 3 years, there will little change to the cable landscape but expect a different viewing experience with advertisers - to keep the cash flowing they have to find a solution to dvr'ing past commercials. I expect to see screen overlays, scoreboard sponsorships, 15 second breakaways, etc. to get the job done.
I expect to see ads on jerseys very soon.
I certainly hope not. I refuse to get a MLS jersey of my favorite team because I hate the fact it says "Orlando Health" bigger than the team logo
Still, could be worse....
Is it bad that my first thought was "Bimbo Coles has a soccer team?"
NBA is going to jersey ads next year, its also why the salary cap is expected to rise almost $40 million a team over a two year span. That is why you saw so many people get "crazy" deals this offseason. NBA salary cap rose from $74mil to $95mil, and teams were required to spend at least $85mil on salary. Next year its expected to jump to $114 mil, with $102mil minimum spending.
Yup. Any way ads can be sold, they'll eventually be sold. Jumping on this bankwagon would be good for the ACC
I don't see ESPN remaining exclusive to cable for the next three years. They already have the infrastructure to go OTT and I'm sure Disney is looking at HBO Now and ready to jump on the success that they've had.
This is really all up to the subscribers, though. If people keep dropping ESPN like they have been for the past few years, Disney will be forced to move to OTT.
I'm guessing the 2019 launch has something to do with existing contracts. If you're already locked in with Raycom or whoever, it'll be expensive to break those pre-existing contracts.
So if cable is going to be close to dead in three years, you're saying that the ACC is getting ahead of the curve?
Here is my main issue with this. It locks is in with ESPN for a hell of lot longer then needed. So long that if a new revenue stream is created like when the BIG network came out, there isn't anything we can do, but basically fall behind the other conferences again.
When the NFLs game rights are up in a few years FOX and CBS etc. are more then likely going to get outbid for the rights because Amazon can come in and out bid them all.
We might have lost out on the short-term by waiting it out, but in the long term it would have probably been just as revolutionary as when creating a conference specific Chanel was new. Now we just sit and fall further and further behind the SEC, and BIG
First of all, the NFL still is in love with the over the air model. Even the Yahoo game last year got broadcast in the local markets.
Secondly, Amazon hasn't proved its staying power yet. The reason they got so powerful in the first place was because they offered all of their products so cheap and had a low threshold for free shipping. Well now, they've forced the competition out, raised their prices, require sales tax in most states, and keep upping the free shipping threshold unless you pay $100 for Prime. In short, they've lost a lot of what made them attractive back in the day, but now they've become such a giant in the field that most folks don't see where else to turn to. With streaming (and live streaming) still being so relatively new, people like the NFL aren't going to start putting a lot of their eggs in that basket until they figure out exactly what the landscape is going to look like.
It's a big reason why the NFL broadcast a game last year on yahoo and will be broadcasting games on Twitter this year. Amazon is a much more powerful company then either of them, and I'm only saying that because they are the best player in the market. The NFL is getting ready.
High hopes for the digital content. Every ACC game should be viewable on both cable and digital.
This. I intend to watch ACC games over the ESPN app but will not be signing up for a cable subscription. I wonder if the ACC digital channel will be on a separate sports package or not.
From what I've read, it looks like the digital channel will be available through the Watch ESPN app, meaning that you'll have to have an ESPN subscription to view it. If you're a cord-cutter, that leaves you with 2 options, I would think: either borrow a valid login from someone who still has traditional cable/satellite (I suspect there'll be a healthy black market for valid login credentials) or purchase ESPN through something like Sling TV. The second option was my plan for football season even before the ACC digital channel was announced. For $20/mo, you get 19 different cable channels, including ESPN and ESPN2. I'm assuming that subscribing to Sling TV will get me access to the ACC digital content, or else I will not be a happy camper.
Yup, I did Sling last year and I plan on doing it again when the season rolls around.
Do they still have the sports extra package, which has a few extra sports channels for an additional $5/month? Is it worth it?
I never bought it because it didn't have what I wanted. It offered like NBCSports, BigTen, Longhorn, SEC, I think, maybe PGA TV.
If I recall correctly, it has ESPNU and a bunch of other stuff I may or may not use. During football season, I think ESPNU carries enough games that it's probably worth the 5 bucks even if I never watch any of the other channels. Since they don't lock you in for a year or more like cable or satellite, I like the option of just paying an extra $5/month for a few months of football season and then cutting it off 'til next year.
Having WatchESPN access will allow you to stream every ACC game, no matter what linear channel they're on. It should work identically to the SEC network
I'm pretty sure you still need to subscribe to any particular ESPN channel to access the stream on WatchESPN. So if your cable service only gives you ESPN 1 and 2, that's all you can stream.
So far, it sounds like this digital network is just a glorified branding for some ESPN3 programming.
If your cable provider/internet provider/Sling provider includes watchespn access, everything is included. There isn't any tiering of content.
Did this change? There were certainly times last year where I couldn't get some of the content on one of the ESPN networks due to using Sling.
I like it.
a) if it gives me more/better/easier access to VT games, I'll be tuning in, and
b) if it gives ACC teams more money, it's a good thing in terms of staying competitive.
More money and coverage for the ACC is great.
But when will I be able to just pay for an online WatchESPN subscription?
It'd be cool if the digital broadcasts gave the option to choose your announcers. So we could listen to Jon (or Bill...?) and Mike instead of the 24th-best commentators ESPN has to offer for a Virginia Tech/Boston College nooner. I'm sure it won't happen but it would be easy enough to do
WatchESPN had something like that for the national championship game. The Home Town Radio stream had the radio announcers and also had some stats and alternate angles in three boxes at the bottom.
I love how we're extracting fundage from a biased network that has traditionally hated us.
Lock in the $$$$.
The key will be the terms - hopefully we won't be seeing every Tuesday is ACC game of the week in the fall.
I think being tied to ESPN is a good thing in that they have by far the most watched non-conference specific college coverage in all sports. Your team not on yet? - you watch game day, or bracketology, or whatever else ESPN has on WAY before the local P5 network. The tighter we are tied to them, the more ESPN will be following the ACC, and the more incentive to talk about us. Lets face it, when ESPN loves you, recruiting gets much easier.
Would ESPN hire everyone from Raycom? Swofford's Son?
I feel like ESPN is starting to drop off and Fox Sports is making a push forward. I'm glad the ACC has made a deal, but I'm wondering if ESPN is worth it for the long term.
Will locking in for so long eventually hurt us financially? I've heard people bemoaning the Nike deal. Can this end up being a deal where other comparable entities end up making more money?
You are not the only one. I think the ACC could have been the first network on Fox Sports.
Fox Sports is reportedly in the process of bringing the AAC into its own network so I dont think the ACC would have ended up being their first. That said, I also dont think Fox Sports is close to ESPN in terms of overall network capacity. Fox is growing, certainly but ESPN has as many as 19 channels on my Comcast lineup I believe and it may be more for channels even I dont have and that doesnt even account for the power of Disney being behind it if it needed to really separate itself from Fox. Some of Fox presentations certainly have better quality it terms of innovation and presentation than ESPN right now but I also think you have started to see ESPN respond to that with a complete overhaul of their production sets, their change from "Sportscenter" being a constant one show all day to now being broken up over four different productions, one from the East coast studio, two from the West Coast studio and then the late night/all night from Bristol with Scott Van Pelt. They also have significantly ramped up hiring and fine tuning of their staffs for a variety of shows. Just here in DC we have lost as many as 8 sports related broadcasters to ESPN in the last three years.
I thought late night/all night was from the West Coast - I seem to remember SVP talking about moving when he left the radio gig with Rusillo.
On top of all that, Fox Sports is going through its own set of growing pains right now. Much was made of ESPN's layoffs earlier this year, but Fox Sports cut a bunch of behind the scenes staff as well as they seem to be searching for their identity. I also wonder whether their level of spending just to compete with ESPN is sustainable.
I know that it's not something tons of people are interested in, but there's been a lot of discussion in the sports media realm about Fox Sports hiring Jamie Horowitz - he's the architect behind creating the First Take juggernaut, and he's a big reason why guys like Cowherd, Whitlock & Bayless have been brought into the fold at Fox. They're getting paid a ton of money with very little to show for it in terms of ratings (although admittedly, it's early on in their run to be sure). Right now, ESPN's studio shows are still destroying anything that shows up on FS1 in the ratings department.
So while it's true that FS1 and (more recently) FS2 have obtained better carriage with major cable companies, they still lag behind ESPN in almost every facet.
Apparently this new deal is causing the Big XII to consider expanding their membership:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2016/0...
But the momentum changed Monday when ESPN reported that the ACC would soon announce a partnership on a new cable network and had agreed to a so-called "grant of rights" locking in its members for the next 20 years.
That means more money for the ACC, more stability and more of a threat to the Big 12 should another league — say, the Big Ten — consider expansion again the next decade.
Sure - lets throw more poo on the pile and pass it off as a masterpiece.
What hasn't caused the Big 12 to consider expanding membership?
True, hand in hand with the ACC deal going on was news that Houston was in talks with the PAC12 regarding expansion and Houston is considered one of the Big12's top targets for expansion. I am sure we can come up with a huge list of other reasons. Simple fact of the matter is until they expand back to twelve members at a minimum they are vulnerable in terms of the Power conferences.
Plus until they get to 12, they look stupid for being a group of higher education institutes that can't count.
We should just put the Big 12 out of its misery and split the teams up between the BigTen and SEC. Kansas schools, IASt, and Mizzou go to Big Ten, Oklahoma schools and TCU go to SEC, Tx goes indy, TxTech, Baylor, and WVU get dropped to midmajors.
Mizzou is SEC.
Yes they currently are. But they'd have to drop a team to add both OKs and TCU to get to 16. I suppose the Big Ten could drop MD so they could add Kansases and IASt, meaning we could snag MD back and give up NCSt to the SEC. And drop Wake to midmajor while picking up ND and Navy.
Still not quite balanced but closer.
That involves a whole lot of schools giving up a whole lot of money. Plus the litigation to resolve breaking the contracts.
If all athletic departments were entered into a NFL style draft, where would VT be selected?
My money would be an early second rounder
My top 5 in no order would be: Ohio State, Florida, Stanford, Texas, North Carolina
UNC?
basketball?
Basketball, baseball, soccer (M & W), and Lacrosse... UNC is pretty darn good at all of them. They're definitely an elite level athletic dept.
I was looking more from the money angle.
VT somewhere in the 20s
Depends on how heavily they weigh Bass Fishing.
I'd just weigh the winners and runners up of the Director's Cup from recent years.
So:
1) Stanford by a wide, wide margin
UCLA, Florida, UNC, OSU, Michigan, LOLUVA, PSU, A&M...Grand Valley State, Williams...schools like that.
I am torn here. I was also thinking along the lines of the Director's Cup as it does the best to show overall performance but then you have the opposite side of the scale bringing into light revenue and the ability to continue to compete. I would probably have to balance my selection between the two based on where I was pick wise. Harder yet is with schools like Stanford and other Private schools, they aren't required to disclose information in the same fashion as public schools.
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/
...and we wonder why Texas A&M is able to raid us regularly for coaches....#1 in Revenue in 2015 and "Profit" by a long measure. One area I question is since the goal is to be a non-profit, how much of the "Profit" I calculated using the USA Today spreadsheet varies because of schools spending inordinate amounts on internal Taj Mahal projects. Look at Texas, which showed only about a $10mil "Profit" off of $183mil in Revenue. I would love to see how much of that $173mil in expenses was spent directly on student athletes and how much was spent on fluff.