The Game to Show the Games

Wimbledon to ESPN, and what’s beyond

When it comes to keeping sporting events on broadcast in the US, could Wimbledon be a victim of its own relative popularity?

Compare Wimbledon to the French Open. Both events air at about the same time of year, in about the same time slots, on NBC and ESPN2. But NBC airs Wimbledon coverage on weekdays during the second week, and doesn’t do the same for Roland Garros until the men’s semifinals on the last Friday. The result: American tennis fans harboring seething hatred towards NBC for tape-delaying Wimbledon matches during the second week to air its Today show, which may have cost NBC their part of the Wimbledon contract, despite apparently promising to end those delays down the road. (Reading between the lines, one could surmise that NBC was willing to show matches live, so long as they could do so on their own Versus network once ESPN’s contract ended after 2013. This may have come down to the mere fact that the cable rights weren’t up at the same time.)

Now, tennis has fallen so far in popularity that the fact there is any tennis in the middle of the week at all on broadcast television is clearly a relic of the days when Americans actually cared about tennis. Still, it’s rather odd that the more prestigious and popular Wimbledon will apparently become a cable-only affair, while the less prestigious Roland Garros will continue to have an NBC presence… at least in the short term, because while I don’t know how long NBC’s French Open contract lasts, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it follow Wimbledon to cable, as it barely makes a blip on the sports radar ratings-wise these days.

Interestingly, there will be coverage of Wimbledon on regular ESPN during the second week, including the mens’ and womens’ finals, with ESPN and ESPN2 providing simultaneous coverage of different parts of the same event, which they’ve previously only done for soccer tournaments during the last round of group play. This obvious use of ESPN’s family of networks is why I had been hoping for ESPN to win the NCAA Tournament or Olympic contracts, events popular enough to actually justify such use, but it was not to be. What makes this interesting is that regular ESPN doesn’t cover the US Open, which is more popular stateside, but there is more sports competition that time of year. Also, there is normally some kind of soccer tournament in late June and early July at least every other year; would Wimbledon interfere with coverage of the World Cup or Euro tournament? I might have ordinarily expected ESPN to hand some of the coverage off to Tennis Channel, like they do for the US Open.

Apparently, besides NBC, Fox was considering making a run, but the thought of Fox doing a sport as straight-laced as tennis makes me shudder. However, I’m surprised CBS apparently didn’t make a run. They already carry the US Open and don’t have a morning show worth salvaging. On the other hand, the rest of their daytime is in better shape than NBC’s. But after losing out on the NHL and Olympics, in the end this represents ESPN’s first true head-to-head sports rights victory over NBC since the Comcast merger went through, even if a small one, and the first time anyone other than Fox has ended an incumbency. Because of the problems with NBC’s coverage, however, it’s unclear what it represents for NBC’s long-term prospects against ESPN.

We may find out about that soon enough, though, for far more than a mere blip on the radar like tennis. There’s an unexpected new battleground on the horizon. The NFL may be making plans to take Thursday Night Football full-season as a consolation prize for not getting their 18-game schedule. And that could be, by far, the biggest battleground in sight. More on this one later.

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Let the sports television wars begin!

Over the last few months, the first shots have been fired in a multi-million-dollar war for control over the sports television landscape.

For the past decade, if not the past two decades, ESPN has controlled this ground, at least on the cable side, leveraging its strong portfolio of rights across multiple sports to build the biggest brand in cable television. Sports is one of the few pieces of programming that attracts the most valuable viewers, and ESPN has used it to become the most profitable division of the Walt Disney Company and one of the most popular, well-known, and notorious brands in America, while extending its reach around the world. And ESPN’s dominance has meant that most sports need to play by ESPN’s rules or risk irrelevance.

Now others are eyeing ESPN’s turf. In fact, four of the other five major media companies have at least partially positioned themselves for their own piece of ESPN’s riches. All had some stake in the game before, but all have also attempted to set themselves up to become much more serious at the sports rights game, and ESPN only raised the stakes when it broached a whole new world in what’s possible on cable when it snagged the rights to the BCS. Comcast fired the first salvo by acquiring NBC Universal, expressing its intent to turn NBC Sports into an entity on par with ESPN. Others have made their own moves to keep up, with Fox expressing its intent to bring more sports back to FX and CBS rebranding the CBS College Sports Network to drop the “College”. Billions of dollars are at stake, and the major media companies want a piece of the action.

Playing this game comes at a price, and increased competition will mean increased rights fees, which is very bad news for sports on broadcast television – cable networks collect money from subscriber fees in addition to advertising, which broadcast hasn’t really branched into, “retransmission consent” fees collected by individual stations notwithstanding – and very good news for sports leagues and conferences. Yet it’s very possible they’ll play a significant portion of the game with none of the suitors, instead choosing to play it with themselves. Over the last decade, the league-owned network has become all the rage. All four traditional major professional leagues have their own networks, as well as two college conferences (with a third soon to join them), and while it’s common for such networks to be run or launched by the media companies (NBA TV is run by Turner, for example, and the Big Ten Network is run by Fox), it’s probably more the norm for leagues to keep their networks to themselves, as with the NFL Network.

There are five contenders to the sports programming prizes, each seeking to obtain as many of them as they can, with the ever-present specter that the leagues granting the prizes may choose none of them and keep them to themselves.

As the incumbent ruler of the roost, ESPN remains the best positioned of the bunch, but time will tell if it can keep its advantage. ESPN has just about everything the other contenders could ask for. “The ESPN family of networks” has no equal among the other contenders, and the jokes about “The Ocho” become less funny every day. ESPN boasts not one but two full-time sports networks seen by the vast majority of the country (the only ones of their kind), including what is for most the sports highlight show, plus a broadcast outlet (available in a pinch even if they sometimes seem to want to kill sports there), a college sports network (with rights most competitors would die for), a sports news network (also the only one of its kind), a Spanish-language network, a 3D network (also the only one of its kind, although other networks have produced 3D broadcasts), and just for good measure, a classic-sports network. Throw in a video-streaming service (further advanced than any other), a radio network, a network for mobile devices, heavy investment in international rights, and a virtual monopoly on college-sports syndication, and ESPN is basically a one-stop shop for anything a league could need.

But now Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal has sent the message that they intend to challenge ESPN for the throne. Certainly they seem to be the next-best positioned, being the only other contender with anything resembling the all-sports network ESPN represents, bringing two with the soon-to-be-rebranded Versus and Universal Sports, not to mention the sport-specific Golf Channel (whose brand is already appearing on golf broadcasts on NBC). The merger coupled all of this with a broadcast presence on NBC, and while they don’t have a Spanish-language sport-specific network, they do have a Spanish-language outlet with Telemundo and mun2. Comcast also has something ESPN doesn’t: a collection of regional sports networks, which builds a strong brand for them in local markets. They also benefit from synergy with their cable operations, something no other contender can boast.

But Versus still has a long way to go before they have the quality of sports contracts ESPN has, NBCSports.com is well behind the other contenders online, NBC itself continues to struggle as a broadcast network, the closest thing they have to a college-sports network is the mtn., and the recent departure of Dick Ebersol cripples Comcast’s ability to pick up strong sports rights without one of the most respected names in sports broadcasting.

Potentially the wild card in this battle is Fox, the only other contender with a strong presence on both broadcast and cable. Fox is also the only other contender with its own collection of regional sports networks, which remains a bigger brand than Comcast’s, as well as FX, Speed, Fox Soccer Channel, the Big Ten Network, and Fox College Sports, all of which Fox has taken steps to unify under the Fox Sports brand as of late. Fox doesn’t have a sport-specific network other than their past efforts to make one out of FSN, but they do match ESPN note-for-note in various areas that other competitors don’t: a sports-specific Spanish-language network, a nightly highlights show on FSN, a radio network (which, unlike ESPN Radio, lacks any rights and might not be pursuing any), and being ESPN’s main competitor for international rights. All this makes Fox almost as well-positioned to challenge ESPN as Comcast is.

Turner is the next-best positioned; in fact, with NASCAR, MLB, NCAA Tournament, and the crown jewel, NBA rights, Turner has the best existing presence on cable of any contender except ESPN, and that has led to the development of some of the better sports streaming capabilities. Already stocked with sports on TBS and TNT, Turner’s taking of a share of the NCAA Tournament led to an expansion of sports onto truTV, and that appears to have gotten the idea into their minds of adding more sports onto that network; they were reportedly considering putting the NHL on that network. But Turner’s big Achilles heel is its lack of any sort of broadcast presence; I doubt the CW, which parent company Time-Warner is a partner in, will ever find sports to be in line with its target audience. (Which is too bad, because sports would be the best way for the CW to truly become a fifth major broadcast network.)

The remaining broadcast network is CBS, but CBS doesn’t have much other than its own broadcast network. They may be looking to change that: CBS took what was once ESPNU’s truest competitor, the CBS College Sports network, and dropped the “College” from its name, making it simply CBS Sports Network. But CBS Sports still has nowhere near the distribution of even Versus or ESPNU, and it’s doubtful that CBS would be able to snare any truly valuable rights for the network. CBS also doesn’t have much of anything else either; they don’t even hold a stake in the Westwood One radio network anymore.

But while CBS brings a strong broadcast presence (at this point, maybe the strongest broadcast brand) but has no presence on cable, Turner has one of the strongest presences on cable, but nothing on broadcast. It’s no surprise that the two companies, already partners on the CW, make natural partners for sports as well, each complementing the other with their strengths, as was demonstrated most readily when they joined forces to cover the NCAA Tournament. For big events that require both a broadcast and a cable presence, the combined forces of CBS and Turner can present a formidable force where neither would even be a contender individually.

These contenders have already started facing off over some significant sports rights, and the battles have already taken on some interesting dimensions, with ESPN picking up surprisingly few wins. Fox fired the first salvo when it picked up cable rights to the Big 12, putting games on FSN and FX for the next 13 years. Things got interesting when ESPN and Fox tag-teamed on rights to the Pac-12, apparently in part to keep Comcast from establishing a foothold in the market. This belatedly gives Fox the beachhead they were seeking in college sports during their time controlling the BCS contract. Comcast then took control by renewing NBC’s and Versus’ existing NHL rights.

However, the big prize was the much-delayed race between Fox, ESPN and Comcast for the rights to the Olympic games, America’s second-most important property. Despite conventional wisdom holding that the loss of Ebersol would hurt Comcast most in Olympic negotiations, on Tuesday NBC kept control over the Olympics through 2020 by paying nearly twice as much as the competitors. The outcome was a bit of a surprise, both that ESPN didn’t pay more after blowing a lot of smoke about making a play for the Games, and that NBC didn’t pay less, especially after losing substantial sums on the most recent contract, speculated to be among the reasons for Ebersol’s departure (in the end, this round wound up being a replay of the last, Ebersol-led bid), and blowing a lot of smoke about fiscal responsibility.

But Comcast apparently decided that a four-Games bid would ultimately cost less for them, and hopes to make more money in part by spreading the wealth to its cable networks, including Versus. However, unlike a lot of “professional” analysts I’ve read, I’m not convinced a two-week event every two years is going to give Versus the push to achieve ESPN-like legitimacy or carriage fees. NBC did indicate a commitment to showing more events live, including all of them by Rio 2016, but it’s possible many of them will only be available online. The biggest downside? ESPN continues to be shut out of the two events that would most take advantage of their family of networks, the NCAA Tournament and the Olympics. The former in particular would have been a great fit given ESPN’s existing commitment to college basketball.

Where will the next battles be? There will certainly be some interest in the Big East, but the next truly big showdown will be over Major League Baseball, whose current contract ends in 2013. That should be as entertaining and gripping as the battles we’ve already seen – they all should. And I’ll be getting the popcorn ready to keep an eye on all of them.

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The realignment wheel keeps on turning…

I have to say, I’m disappointed and a little confused to hear of TCU’s move to the Big East, a move that effectively ends any chance of changing or breaking the hegemony of the Big Six conferences over college football. Admittedly, adding Boise State isn’t quite an equal trade-off for losing Utah and BYU, but a conference with both TCU and Boise State wouldn’t fall that far from the Mountain West’s former heights. The timing of the announcement is especially auspicious considering how soon it came after Nevada’s upset win over Boise, suggesting another program approaching the same level was moving to the Mountain West with the Broncos.

I understand why the Big East gets out of the deal – access to the fertile recruiting grounds of Texas – but I’m having a hard time understanding what TCU gets, especially having to travel so far to play all their games in all sports. Sure, they join an AQ conference (as has for some reason become the new Orwellian term for what we used to call “BCS conferences”), but what does that really mean? All it really means is an automatic trip to a BCS bowl if they win the conference, which I guess is kinda a good thing, but it’s de facto the same thing they were getting in the Mountain West, only there going undefeated was a prerequisite. The Big East is, to put it bluntly, the laughingstock of the BCS conferences. While there have been years when it’s been strong and even a year or two when it’s produced national championship contenders, there have been far too many years like this one, when it’s struggled to get even a single team in the Top 25. TCU is probably as likely to go undefeated in the Big East as they were in the Mountain West, and more importantly, as likely to play for a national championship, that is, hardly. Pollsters are a bit smarter than they’re given credit for, and don’t automatically value “BCS conferences”, but rather particular conferences like the SEC perceived to have more good teams.

And while the Big East does get a foothold in Texas, the conference as a whole is becoming increasingly unwieldy – already stretched thin at 16 teams, it now just gets ridiculous at 17, pushed even further towards a split of the football and non-football schools at the same time that prospect becomes increasingly unlikely with the football side adding a team that’s Christian but not Catholic while encouraging Villanova to jump up to FBS (straight to a BCS conference, even!) for no other reason than it’s already associated with the conference. Sure, they recently won ONE FCS championship, but still, who wants to bet Villanova will prove to be as bad a fit in the Big East football conference as Temple was? I’m getting increasingly despondent at the after-effects of the ongoing realignment and the Franken-conferences it’s producing in the non-BCS; apparently the WAC’s big idea for saving itself after losing three of its best teams is to add the likes of… drum roll please… Texas State! (On the plus side, with so many FCS teams moving up to FBS, it creates more room for the NCAA to add more pointless bowl games, after raising the specter of a 5-7 bowl team with this year’s additions!)

The big loser in this is Boise State. Boise thought they were creating a non-BCS superconference with too many good teams for the BCS to ignore and not give AQ status to, and they might have had the Big 12 not stopped Texas from bolting to the Pac-10. Now they find themselves in a situation not that different from where they were in the WAC, especially with rumors the Mountain West was considering adding Hawaii, a situation basically equivalent to the WAC adding Air Force – only with arguably a worse TV contract, especially if the Mountain West sticks to form and shoves its few known-before-the-season marquee games to CBS College Sports or the mtn., but that’s an entirely different rant. Had they known this would happen, they might have just stayed in the WAC.

But what makes Boise’s situation even worse, as well as the situation of all the other non-BCS schools and BCS opponents, is that (not counting BYU) they are now the only non-BCS school that matters. The plight of the non-BCS schools has effectively been reset to the status quo before 2005. Undefeated non-BCS schools may still go to BCS bowl games, but they will likely be fewer in number and, except for Boise themselves, treated much like Hawaii in 2007, not as legitimate national championship contenders; don’t expect any non-BCS team to be #3 in the preseason polls ever again. Boise probably knows this and is chomping at the bit to leave the Mountain West for likely independence at the next opportunity, unless that experiment fails for BYU. Without the pressure from the non-BCS schools, there will be much less pressure for a playoff and the BCS status quo could last for far longer than its opponents have heretofore anticipated.

Unless, of course, TCU going undefeated in the Big East but passed over for the national championship by a 1-loss team from a better conference creates more pressure for a playoff than ever before…but it may be more likely that the BCS simply pushes TCU through, no matter how weak, and simply closes its ears to the complaints from the increasingly empty non-BCS room.

Belated remarks on BYU going independent in football

The biggest loser in the Not-So-Great Conference Shakeup of 2010 may be the Mountain West, who got screwed through no real fault of their own whatsoever.

Yay, the Pac-10 may singlehandedly destroy the Big 12! We could wind up with the Kansas schools or even more, and then the BCS would HAVE to let us in to the party! Oh wait, they called off the dogs – well, at least we got Boise State out of the deal, although now that’s a wash because the Pac-10 is adding Utah to complement Colorado and become the Pac-12. Oh well, at least it’s a wash…

…except BYU has just lost its biggest link to the Mountain West and wants to go independent in football and join the WAC in other sports! But wait, we’re adding Nevada and Fresno State to effectively destroy the WAC! But wait, BYU is STILL leaving, only they’re joining the West Coast Conference in other sports instead of the WAC! Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

(Incidentially, the one underplayed angle in all this is the surely-salivating-to-ESPN-execs-tongues prospect of regular BYU-Gonzaga games in the West Coast Conference. Though BYU is rarely if ever the best team in the Mountain West, it is one of the Mountain West’s stronger teams in basketball, and Gonzaga has to like the prospect of having a legitimate playing partner other than St. Mary’s.)

The Mountain West is left with 10 teams, one more than before, but only two BCS-caliber programs instead of the present three: TCU and Boise State. Nevada and Fresno State are good teams in football, by non-Boise WAC standards, but at best they’re on the level of an Air Force: they’ll sneak into the Top 25 sometimes, but they’ll rarely make true national headlines. (Air Force knocking off BYU being an exception.) That won’t help the Mountain West’s case for becoming a BCS conference or dissolving the system. In fact, BYU’s move by itself could make the system stronger than ever, especially if they get a BCS auto bid (which could be a smarter move than you might think precisely for that reason).

But why would BYU make the move? Notre Dame is under heavy pressure to join a conference at some point, so BYU is bucking the trend by leaving one. Of course they weren’t getting much help getting into the BCS by staying in the Mountain West. But the big thing BYU is banking on is its status as the Mormon university. They are banking on becoming the new Notre Dame, Notre Dame West, with every game getting national coverage and a truly national following. They want to leverage their BYU network and turn it into a national powerhouse. (It’s unlikely any football games would air on BYU TV, but the mtn. deal prevents even non-football sports from airing on BYU TV.)

The success of BYU’s declaration of independence depends heavily on whether or not BYU can put together a schedule at least as good as what they had in the Mountain West, and the outlook is staggering. If you’re going to set yourselves up to be the new Notre Dame or Notre Dame West, it makes sense to set up a rivalry with the real Notre Dame. Throw in Texas, Oregon State, and Utah, and that’s four games against teams in BCS conferences, with an eye for more. Good luck getting that in the Mountain West. And BYU has signed a deal with ESPN, which means the full ESPN hype machine will be in full effect and BYU games will regularly be on a platform with wider availability than Versus. All that’s left is recruiting.

If BYU can continue to recruit and play at the same level that they have been in the Mountain West, and regularly play in BCS games, independence will suddenly look like a viable prospect and Notre Dame can start saying “I told you so”. This could be the move that ultimately sets up the next great conference shakeup and finishes off the Big 12. The Pac-10 and Big 10 are too tightly-knit to lose any teams to independence, but they and the SEC may be the only reasonably invulnerable conferences, and even then Nebraska and Penn State have to consider the possibility (though the Big Ten Network revenues may be too much to resist).

(USC will definitely be tempted if probation and Lane Kiffin don’t prevent the program from maintaining its Carroll-era heights, especially compared to the rest of the Pac-10 – and if a team that lost its upperclassmen and can’t go to a bowl is still ranked in the polls and that ranking is warranted, I guarantee USC will win a national championship the first year off probation.)

If Texas decides the outlook is right, they could jump to independence in a heartbeat (just look at how much more money it makes in all sports than the next non-Big 10, non-SEC, non-Notre Dame school), with Oklahoma following (though the Big 12 could stay together after all if enough other teams follow suit). Other teams that were once both independent and powerhouses before the 90s shakeup – Florida State, Miami (FL) – could bolt as well, which is bad news for the ACC. With ten members, the ACC could stay alive, if not taken very seriously and looking like the new Big East (though Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Boston College, and a few others are good teams), but the Big 12 would be down to eight pissed-off members, who might start looking at other conferences or at independence themselves.

But that’s trying to predict the unpredictable. Right now the future involves the impending destruction of the WAC, which is down to six teams and couldn’t even field a conference if Hawaii leaves. If the WAC can keep Hawaii in the fold they will try to replenish their numbers, probably with potential playing partners for Louisiana Tech from Conference USA and possibly the Sun Belt, but if it can’t a lot depends on what the Mountain West decides to do next, and whether they want to go straight to a football championship game or wait for better options than the WAC’s castoffs (like the Kansas schools should BYU’s defection eventually cause the Big 12 to implode).

If they do decide to go for a championship game, they will and should take Utah State and New Mexico State (the former is already rumored to be Mountain West-bound). Both, along with MWC-bound Nevada, are among the WAC’s best teams in basketball (when all is said and done the Mountain West’s new lineup would have had five teams in the NCAA Tournament last year), New Mexico State brings New Mexico’s in-state rival in-house, and while Utah State’s potential playing partners are both gone it does re-establish the Mountain West’s foothold in the sizable Utah market. That leaves Idaho, San Jose State, and Louisiana Tech. LA Tech likely joins Conference USA; Idaho and San Jose State, two of the worst college football programs in the nation, may have no choice but to go to FCS or shutter their football programs entirely. Perhaps the Big Sky or Summit League will take Idaho (although most of the Summit’s schools don’t play football so if Idaho keeps the football program the Big Sky may be the only option). The Big West may be the only geographic and cultural fit for San Jose State, and most if not all of their schools don’t play football, so their football program may be screwed unless they or Idaho want to go to the Great West.

Then begins the process of keeping a close eye on how BYU does financially and athletically over the next decade, as the future of college football may lie in their hands.

As the Realignment Turns

I’ve stayed out of the ongoing talk of conference realignment in college football, in part because there wasn’t really anything concrete to talk about and anything could happen, and in part because of what I’ve had to deal with in my own life. But there is something concrete now, with Colorado joining the Pac-10, Nebraska joining the Big 10, Boise State joining the Mountain West, and apparently, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State all jumping ship to the Pac-10.

I have to say, I was surprised when I heard this last rumor. The Pac-10 seemed to be the most likely candidate not to expand at all; it’s quite possibly the most tight-knit group in college sports, any expansion would require a unanimous vote (so if one school had a problem with a potential addition it could scuttle the whole deal), and right now it’s neatly organized into five natural geographic rivalries. (This proposed expansion actually comes pretty close to preserving those geographic rivalries; the only inconsistency is in the Texas schools and Colorado, and even that can be divided into Texas/Texas A&M and Texas Tech/Colorado.) 16 teams is an unwieldy size for a conference, as the non-football Big East has shown, and as demonstrated by the convoluted “pod” systems proposed for a 16-team Big 10. And taking a whole bunch of teams from a single conference can result in those schools forming cliques. I could easily see the “original” 10 becoming the equivalent of the old Big 8 schools vis-a-vis the newcomers from the Southwest Conference, er, Big 12.

I knew the Pac-10 had interest in Texas – any conference would, and Texas had come calling when the old Southwest Conference broke up – but I didn’t anticipate them gobbling up basically the entire Big 12 South. This tells me one of two things:

  • The Pac-10 is deliberately destroying the Big 12 to erase competition when the TV contracts come up for renewal next year.
  • The Pac-10 wanted Texas, but was told they needed to bring along Texas A&M and Texas Tech as well. (Recall that when Texas finally joined the Big 12, Texas politicians forced the Big 12 to take Texas Tech and Baylor over the objections of basically everyone else.) They then added Oklahoma and Oklahoma State for the hell of it and/or to preserve the Red River Rivalry.

If the latter of these is true, that suggests the price for adding Texas may have been too much for the Big 10 to take – they were willing to add Texas, but not Texas A&M and Texas Tech as well (and Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would have been a non-starter, especially if the Big Ten still wanted to add Notre Dame). Otherwise, for Texas to pass up the Big Ten would seem to suggest that the proposed Texas Longhorns Sports Network would make so much money it’s a better bet than having to split the gerbonkers money from the Big Ten Network. Nebraska would probably be the Big Ten’s third choice for expansion behind Notre Dame and Texas in some order, bringing a fantastic football program, a great volleyball program, but not much else and a small immediate market (though it will help the BTN in other areas); certainly the Big Ten won’t take kindly to the Pac-10 stealing their thunder, and they won’t just sit idly by and let the Pac-10 steal their 16-team idea.

Regardless, if all this happens as planned, the remaining pieces fall into place rather easily. Start with the “orphaned” members of the Big 12: Iowa State, the Kansas schools, Missouri, and Baylor. They would like to think the Big 10 would swoop in and save four of them, but Iowa State and Baylor in particular are weak links (despite Baylor’s basketball program and the potential of Iowa State-Iowa being an intraconference rivalry), and the Big 10 isn’t particularly interested in grabbing a bunch of schools just because they’re available. The Big 10 is primarily concerned with the New York City market and Notre Dame. The Big 10 could take Missouri just to have a lockdown on the St. Louis market, but after that they’re more likely to take Syracuse and Rutgers (possibly Pitt instead of Syracuse) and stop, and wait for that selection to cause the Big East to implode. At which point Notre Dame will come calling, the non-football schools will form their own conference, and six more schools end up orphaned.

Baylor I see going to Conference USA, the Kansas schools could bolt to the Mountain West and give that conference a championship game, and Iowa State could be stuck with the MAC. As for the Big East orphans, I see them getting split by the SEC and ACC. That would leave those two conferences with 15 schools each, one short of the Pac-16 and Big 16. I could see the SEC taking TCU and Memphis, giving it Memphis’ superlative basketball program and an inroad into the lucrative Texas market. The Mountain West could then replace TCU with (say) Nevada. The WAC then nabs a Conference USA team to keep the band together and give Louisiana Tech something resembling a playing partner, offsetting the addition of Baylor (or alternately, just nabs North Texas while C-USA nabs Troy). The former Big East non-football schools probably raid schools like Xavier from the A-10.

One thing to note is that the SEC could come out the big loser in this scenario. Last year the SEC signed contracts with CBS and ESPN that netted them billions of dollars and all sorts of concessions from ESPN – “SEC on ESPN” branding, an “SEC Weekly” show on ESPNU, and so forth – that the SEC thought made forming their own network unnecessary. Now, however, the Pac-10 is positioning itself to maximize value for its own new network, meaning if the ACC doesn’t do the same (and with its contract up right now, it’s entirely possible it won’t), the SEC will be committed to 15 years without its own network. The Big 10 isn’t lacking for games on ESPN, and the BTN’s distribution problems, part of the reason the SEC went to ESPN, have started to fade, so for the money sports the SEC may be at a significant exposure disadvantage, even with its syndicated games being beamed far and wide. I doubt most people in the SEC would prefer to add TCU, Memphis, and (say) Louisville and South Florida to wind up potentially losing much of its football advantage.

However, I do not see this becoming the new status quo in college football into perpetuity, for two reasons:

  • In theory, this creates four superconferences of 16 teams each, so organizing a playoff should be simple: just take the champions of each conference. You could even preserve the Rose Bowl as a semifinal, with an ACC-SEC Sugar or Orange bowl in the other semifinal. Easy, right? Well… except you still have a very strong Mountain West with Utah, BYU, arguably Air Force, Boise State, and most tellingly, the sometimes-good Kansas schools. That’s a coalition strong enough to mount a serious antitrust challenge to any playoff that exclusive, even if it becomes the only relevant non-BCS conference. We’d probably still end up stuck with some sort of imperfect BCS compromise as a result.
  • As mentioned, 16 is an unwieldy size for a college football conference, and could easily result in the formation of cliques. I’ve already mentioned how the Pac-10 will become the “old” Pac-10 and six Big 12 “interlopers” with only the Arizona schools and Colorado forming a narrow bridge between them. The ACC could have it even worse by taking on four Big East schools, which could join with the schools the ACC raided from the Big East a decade ago, especially Boston College, to butt heads with the conference’s Tobacco Road base. As these new TV contracts come up for renewal, people’s TV watching habits may change again, with the Internet becoming the new means for most people to watch sports. The result could be another conference shake-up in a decade’s time that could even result in some conference shrinking, including the ACC splitting in two and some of the Big 12 renegades seceding from the Pac-10 to join some of the better Mountain West teams in a pseudo-Big 12 revival.

However… there are now rumors swirling that Texas A&M is more interested in joining the SEC than the Pac-10. Certainly the SEC would prefer to add A&M, the second-most storied program in the state despite its recent hard times, than TCU, but I’m not buying this story because I’m thinking wherever Texas goes, A&M will follow (from what I’ve read there is no love lost between Texas and the SEC, so that’s out), though if they can maintain their rivalry as a nonconference game more power to them. If A&M does go to the SEC, the Pac-10 could add Utah; I’ve never been a fan of the Colorado-Utah route to the Pac-12, mostly because it doesn’t preserve those natural geographic rivalries, but in this case adding one fewer Big 12 team could help prevent the forming of cliques and Utah is geographically situated to help bolster the bridge between the two parts of the conference. However, there’s also a chance that the defection of A&M could completely undermine the package deal bringing the Big 12 South to the Pac-10, rendering everything unpredictable yet again. Texas to the Big 10 might not be dead yet; the Big East may be offering Notre Dame as a sacrificial lamb to salvage the rest of the conference (“just take Missouri and/or Texas rather than Syracuse or Rutgers!”). Stay tuned.

(If that blog post comes to fruition – and given how conveniently it matches its author’s opinions and hopes I’m skeptical, and even its author only gives it a 24% chance of happening – the Big 12 probably isn’t dead but instead raids the Mountain West of BYU, TCU, Air Force, and maybe New Mexico, leaving Boise State really wishing it hadn’t committed to the Mountain West so soon…)

Belated Notes on the NCAA Tournament’s New Contract

I know my already slow posting pace has become even slower recently. The reasons for that will come out in due time. But I did want to make some notes on the NCAA Tournament signing a new long-term deal with CBS and Turner a few weeks back, and the tournament expanding, for the moment, to only 68 teams. That’s a relief… for now.

Early round games will be broadcast on CBS, TBS, TNT, and… truTV? All of the proposed bidders had fourth channels that weren’t going to be as good as the others; ESPN had the best package with ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPN Classic in a pinch or if ESPN was really committed to killing sports on ABC – although given the justification for not putting games on CBS College Sports, ABC Family would have been more likely than Classic or the U (although ESPN apparently didn’t think the U’s limited distribution was a factor). (Fox had FX, Fox Sports Net, and… Fox News? Fox Soccer Channel, in a pinch? Alternately, the Fox College Sports channels? Comcast/NBC had Versus, Universal Sports, and… Comcast SportsNet, or CNBC, or MSNBC?) But CBS and Turner could have used CBS College Sports and even if it didn’t reach as many people, at least it would have fit (and helped further distribution for the network). Heck, they could have even dipped into their existing team-up for the CW, though I don’t know how healthy that network is at the moment.

(Although ESPN had the best package of networks, I wouldn’t be surprised if the biggest call for a 96-team field came from their corner, and that this demand helped kill their chances. ESPN is really crowded with sports events on its schedule; among other things, on the first weekend of the tournament the Nationwide Series race would likely have to be pushed back to 11 AM ET or earlier to accommodate both men’s and women’s tournaments. The major obstacles, especially for ESPNU, are the wrestling championships, which could be moved to another weekend, and the NIT, especially the second round. I wouldn’t be surprised if ESPN wanted to kill the NIT to free up space for tournament games, even if those games would need to be replaced in the main tournament. For the same reason, unless the NIT died I can’t see ESPN not putting first round games on ABC, as it needs one-channel wiggle room and games aren’t being put on the News, and if that’s the case I can’t see them not putting the rest of the tournament on ABC either. Except…)

Needless to say I’m not pleased with CBS and Turner alternating coverage of the Final Four. I had a problem with one LCS being on broadcast and one not, and I have a problem with the Final Four only being on broadcast in alternate years, which doesn’t even make sense to me, unless Turner wanted some Final Fours if it was going to get in to the early rounds. And it was one thing for ABC (and NBC, and CBS) to show regular season college football but for the National Championship to be on cable, but it’s quite another for CBS to show early rounds of the NCAA Tournament but for the championship to be on cable.

But more than that is the problem I have with the Final Four and national championship moving to cable at all. It’s a trend following on from the move of the BCS to ESPN, and the parties involved don’t see any pushback because TBS is nationally available, but this would set a really bad precedent. I don’t know this for certain, but unlike the BCS, the NCAA is a legitimate sanctioning body, and if Congress allowed this to stand it would likely open the floodgates for any championship, right up to the World Series and Super Bowl, to move to cable, and sports to all but abandon broadcast. ESPN may not like losing the tournament but they have to be salivating for Turner to win the argument. It might actually help an ESPN competitor like Versus to have more high-rated sporting events available, but if none takes advantage this would effectively give ESPN a monopoly on all of sports, with a few scraps left for Turner.

It’s interesting, though, that this alternation only starts in 2016 – after ESPN’s current BCS contract ends. Is this a sign that if the sports landscape becomes more broadcast-friendly, CBS might take the Elite Eight and Final Four back? Or that CBS and Turner might be hoping that by 2016, cable will have advanced to the point that a Congress that was reluctant now might be more forgiving? Or that the TV landscape will go all to hell, everyone will be watching on the Internet anyway, and it’ll be a non-issue? If being on CBS will “bring more ratings in the early years”, why not the later ones?

Will Turner start showing regular-season college basketball games? Will this be the end of staggered start times? I imagine the play-in games will move to Turner as well?

The NCAA Tournament “will have one look, but there will be separate branding” – so much for my hopes of Turner adopting consistent graphics across all sports, and on the other hand, is CBS planning on another graphics shake-up? Was the new graphics on the NFL last year a preview of further changes? Will CBS and Turner have different studio teams, and will there be one, two, or four studio teams?

I’m seeing several different theories as to why ESPN lost. One theory is that they’re saving up for an Olympic bid, but another is that ESPN is starting a new conservative bidding strategy as a result of increased interest from Disney bosses. That would mean a conservative Olympic bid as well, as well as a real opening for an ESPN competitor to swoop in.

Oh, and quit whining about Dick Vitale not being able to call a Final Four; I doubt ABC would be willing to put that sort of bombast to such a large and diverse audience on broadcast. He would have called the first two rounds only, since CBS’ B, C, and D color commentators already work for ESPN (though he might have bumped out Bill Raftery for the C spot – ESPN would face revolt if they didn’t hire Gus Johnson and there’s a reason CBS never paired him and Raft, so Dickie V wouldn’t have bumped out Len Elmore). I would have expected Brent Musberger, Bob Knight, and maybe Jay Bilas calling the Final Four – I know Knight is bombastic himself, but think of him as the new Billy Packer. I could see the other Sweet 16/Elite Eight teams being Brad Nessler/Jay Bilas, Sean McDonough/Bill Raftery, and Gus Johnson/Len Elmore, with Mike Patrick/Dick Vitale, Dave O’Brien/Steve Lavin, Mike Tirico/Hubie Brown, and Mike Breen/Mark Jackson/Jeff Van Gundy rounding out the first two round teams, with John Saunders, Hubert Davis, and Digger Phelps manning the studio.

On CBS and Turner, if I were to guess what they’ll do, is take the present teams, remove Dick Enberg who’s done with CBS apparently, add Marv Albert/Reggie Miller (and demote either Jay Bilas or Bill Raftery to the first two rounds only, with Verne Lundquist and either Bilas or Raft becoming the new B team, and Johnson/Elmore rounding out the Sweet 16/Elite Eight teams) and replace Dan Bonner with Doug Collins as Kevin Harlan’s partner for NBA synergy (as with my last two ESPN teams), throw out the Spero Dedes/Bob Wenzel team, and replace Mike Gminski as Tim Brando’s partner with Dan Bonner, Bilas, or Raftery, with the remainder going to Dick Stockton. (After Brando’s infamous performance one or two years ago when he lucked into a Gus Johnson situation and throughly blew it, I wouldn’t be surprised if CBS/Turner kept Dedes instead of Brando. I know the blogosphere hates Stockton, but he works TNT NBA games in the playoffs and is a big name.) Ian Eagle stays only because he already does some NBA playoff work for TNT; he’d be the first to go if it weren’t for that. You’re left with Nantz/Kellogg, Lundquist/Bilas, Albert/Miller, Johnson/Elmore, Harlan/Collins, Stockton/Raftery, Eagle/Spanarkel, Brando/Bonner (I could leave Spanarkel, Wenzel, or Gminski with Brando with Eagle getting Bonner, Bilas, or Raft).

The prospects of the unholy union of Comcast and NBC from a sports perspective

There are a few things I don’t get about the Comcast/NBC merger. For one thing, how can Comcast own both its cable system and NBC’s owned-and-operated stations? (Answer: That would have been a problem a decade ago, but not now. Or maybe it is. Still, it’s one of many questions Comcast will have to answer to pass regulatory and Congress muster, and maybe Comcast wants to sell off the NBC network to a third party, as little sense as that seems to make.)

And as for the common notion that having NBC and Versus join forces could start creating a genuine competitor to ESPN… am I the only one who remembers Versus’ Jamie Davis saying back in March he didn’t want to be ESPN? Or would he now say “We didn’t say we didn’t want to compete with ESPN, just that we didn’t want to be ESPN,” even though he was explicitly responding to people’s expectations and Versus may have to drop their “focusing on certain audiences” tack if they want to compete with ESPN? Or would Versus drop its “not ESPN” shtick in a heartbeat given the opportunity, as evidenced by its past plays for NFL and MLB rights? Or maybe “We have a huge opportunity to create another sports brand in America” just as Versus hits a low point with the DirecTV dispute? And how do Versus and Universal Sports fit together, anyway?

Comcast certainly has a lot of resources now. If it can find the right synergy between Versus and Universal Sports, it now has its own equivalent to ESPN2 – though which is which, and whether they’re equals, or even if Comcast wants to emphasize one or two channels as opposed to the whole, I don’t know. (If they’re equals, does the Tour de France move to Universal Sports? It seems to fit that network’s Olympic-sport theme better…) More importantly, it now has its own broadcast network connection, regardless of how strong NBC is, as well as a start on a Spanish-language presence with Telemundo (and its sister mun2). Versus also now has a connection with a general-interest sports news website, and a Versus connection could help build the brand of NBCSports.com. Those are important bargaining chips in negotiations with sports entities, matching some of the exposure ESPN can give.

Comcast also has some things ESPN doesn’t have, mainly a collection of regional sports networks, though those will help Comcast with the brand more than with national sports rights, as Rupert Murdoch found. (“Oh, ESPN is launching a series of local web sites? Oh look, we already have them!”) It’s anyone’s guess how Comcast SportsNet will benefit from an alliance from NBC and whether it’ll seek greater synergy with Versus and Universal Sports. Those networks could benefit from synergies with NBC stations in the same market. Comcast also has its own video-on-demand service for its cable customers, as well as the Golf Channel. To do: Launch your own version of SportsCenter, get some sort of international presence, get a radio network so you can offer rights there, and overcome the fact that NBC is the only one of the four major networks without a connected college sports network. (Comcast brings the mtn., but that doesn’t count.)

But if Comcast wants to get serious about creating competition for ESPN, they may have an even more uphill climb than most people think, and it’ll be a decade-long process to achieve theoretical parity that’ll also cost a lot of money. It used to be that whoever controlled the NFL cable contract controlled the world of sports, but the BCS deal shows anything not under the scrutiny of Congress could conceivably move to cable, though even there there’s fairly slim pickings. Comcast would need to either somehow pick up a contract on the level of the NFL or BCS (and picking up an NFL contract in addition to ESPN’s is fairly unlikely, and with all their NFL programming and cable ratings records ESPN isn’t giving up their NFL rights without a fight), or find a way to overcome its lack of that kind of big-ticket contract – I don’t see Sunday Night Football moving to cable (unlike some), and the Olympics are not going to give Versus the kind of big-ticket events that draw ratings (most of which are not only already on NBC, but already in primetime).

That means Comcast will need to focus on lots of slightly lesser-ticket events, and that brings me to the blueprint I proposed for an “ESPN killer” in March. (Which seems to suggest look for Golf Channel to pick up the first two rounds of the US Open at the next opportunity…) They will still need at least one major professional sport – and not the Traditional Big Four, which would make the NHL count, but the Modern Big Four, which swaps out the NHL for NASCAR. The NHL counterpoints the NBA and IndyCar counterpoints NASCAR, so baseball – up in 2013 – would be a good fit. ESPN’s partnership with baseball is nearly as deep and long-lasting as its partnership with the NFL, but it seems to be being forced out – after having baseball nearly ubiquitous on the schedule a few years ago, it’s now down to Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday Night Baseball, and no longer shows any postseason games. Comcast could take one (probably Sunday), two (Mon/Wed), or all of those, while making a play for at least some postseason games. If an LCS remains on cable Comcast’s biggest coup would be to take it, giving it much-needed eyeballs. If it can’t get that (though I see this contract as TBS transitioning out of baseball entirely, by having an excuse to dump the Braves), it should go after the Home Run Derby as a consolation prize, consistently one of the highest-rated non-NFL sports events on cable.

Comcast might also be thinking about going after one other sport, just to get one more boost in eyeballs. But if it can’t add the NFL, NBA, or NASCAR, it’s time to start thinking about going after college football – but that opens up a whole new can of worms. NBC brings its Notre Dame contract and Versus already has a deal with the Mountain West and lower-tier Big 12 and Pac-10 games, but generally ESPN gets all the good stuff before Versus, and while Comcast is reportedly thinking about putting some lower-tier Notre Dame games on Versus, Notre Dame would be livid if another college football conference were to share time on NBC. (That could mean Notre Dame and NBC are done after 2015, and maybe then Notre Dame joins a conference.) But Comcast should ideally go after at least three BCS conferences – establishing themselves, at least perceptually, as ESPN’s equal.

Comcast has an interesting opportunity right now (if it’s fine with pissing off Notre Dame), but not a lot of time to take advantage of it (if negotiations aren’t so far along there’s no time at all), and probably can’t wait for the merger to pass regulatory muster (and by merely mentioning this idea out loud I probably doom it not to happen). After seeing the megadeals the SEC and Big Ten received, the Big 12 and Pac-10, finding themselves waiting a year behind the ACC for their share of the pie, have reportedly been thinking about joining with the ACC to form one coast-to-coast college sports network. Here’s an idea: Perhaps Comcast can convince all three of them to abandon ESPN entirely (perhaps one can remain on ABC) and put their games on NBC, Versus, and Universal Sports, plus join with Comcast to form the aforementioned college sports network, convincing them that the three of them combined, with their existing power, can form a college sports television power rivaling ESPN – taking care of your college needs in one fell swoop. Comcast could even take over the Raycom syndication empire and have a college syndication arm to match ESPN Regional Television. This doesn’t give you either of the two conferences that are powers in both football and basketball, the SEC or Big Ten, and it gives you the two weaklings in basketball in the Big 12 and Pac-10, but it does give you the powerhouse conference in basketball, and with it a major coup: the Duke-North Carolina rivalry. What will Dick Vitale do?!?

Versus shuns bowl games right now because it doesn’t fit its “total immersion experience” or something like that. That needs to change if it’s serious about building a college presence and taking on ESPN, and the contracts are on the line pretty much now for the next four years. Tip: The Alamo and Holiday bowls would provide Big 12-Pac-10 matchups. I would also go after either the MAC or Conference USA (the latter is up now, the former in 2016), just to create another even split of the mid-majors, even though that’s more to please me than for any actual ratings. (I’d also go after any two of the WCC (for Gonzaga), the CAA, or Horizon League, for basketball and an even split of those mid-majors, and maybe that College Basketball Invitational or College Insider tournament oddity.)

A union between Comcast and NBC might lead to big changes at Comcast’s sports networks – Dick Ebersol’s expertise might bring the quality of Versus, Golf Channel, and Comcast SportsNet more on par with NBC, and more importantly, ESPN. I also can’t help but wonder if the graphics on Versus shift to be more like the graphics on NBC or Universal Sports, and more consistent. (Versus’ college football and NHL score graphics have never looked very similar. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find modularity between any two of Versus’ sports score graphics, despite theoretically similar overall graphics.) And what happens with the US Olympic Committee? They wanted to launch their own network with Comcast, which raised the hackles of its partners since it didn’t form one with partner NBC or hitch on to Universal Sports. What happens with that project? Does it hitch on to Universal Sports? Does it form a new network with Comcast/NBC, or someone else? If it forms a new network with Comcast/NBC, does most of Universal Sports’ programming move there, clearing the way for US to become “Versus 2” or vice versa? Also, I don’t see any need for Versus to change its name – odd as it sounds, and odd as it sounded at the time, it’s better than “OLN” ever was and kind of fits in its own little way. I can see a contrast between ESPN and “Versus”. Not that I wouldn’t be surprised if Comcast did change the name, but it fits in with such NBCU channels as “Stealth” and “Chiller”.

Things could get very interesting over the next ten years (and potentially just the next five) as Comcast seeks to shake up the sports TV landscape… before the Internet overturns the TV landscape in general.

The twilight of the National Football League

Watching Friday’s “Pardon the Interruption” last night, as Tony and Mike interviewed bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell (whose books I haven’t read but am very interested in nonetheless) about his New Yorker piece on the brains of NFL players, I was struck by a sudden realization.

The NFL – the undisputed king of the American sports landscape – could be in the waning days of its popularity if not existence.

For decades now, especially as boxing faded away with the decline of Ali and Tyson, the NFL has been the dominant sport on the landscape by appealing to our bloodlust. People tune in to the NFL each week, in part, because they want to see violence, brutality, and pain. Even if that may not be strictly true, it is true that for non-fans (especially for baseball fans), football is identified with that sort of violence and brutality, which fans are willing to take a blind eye to.

American culture, as well as other developments, may be turning against that tolerance to the NFL’s brutality. There’s been a confluence of events that’s started to show that people are starting to care more about the NFL’s brutality than in the past. Most of them are in the background for now, like the ongoing pension fight between retired players and the Player’s Association and pieces like Gladwell’s that actually quantify the effects (even in college and high school) and have led to an increased emphasis on concussions, but we’ve also seen the NFL itself make rule changes that have been seen by some as appealing to pollyannas, especially when it comes to protecting the quarterback. The NFL is becoming a more conscientious place about the well-being of its players, with “safety” becoming the watchword of the day, but nothing it can do might protect them as well as keeping them out in the first place.

I can’t link to a video of the PTI interview because ESPN hides almost all video from PTI and “Around the Horn” behind its “Insider” subscription wall, but I can tell you that the interview did touch on this very possibility. Gladwell suggested that to completely make the NFL safe might require massive rule changes that would turn the game into something else, and the prospect was raised of Congress potentially deciding the NFL needed to be banned and driven underground. Perhaps the most likely doomsday scenario, though, may involve parents deciding they cannot, in good conscience, allow their kids to play such a violent sport – or even kids making that decision themselves.

There’s another cultural development that doesn’t bode well for the NFL: our bloodlust is starting to move on back to combat sports, specifically MMA. If young people decide they would rather get their bloodlust filled by MMA, leaving the remaining new potential NFL fans no longer considering violence as a criterion in its favor (and maybe as a criterion against), there might be less direct connection to the league and the NFL may start suffering in comparison to less violent sports. Maybe this means baseball and basketball, maybe it means something new like soccer.

And this might affect the popularity of football on all levels, not just the NFL. Which would be one way to end college football’s playoff debate…

I like a la carte too, but let’s not get too excited.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a bit of a debate raging on a la carte television – allowing you, the cable television consumer, to pay for only the channels you’re actually interested in watching. Consumer groups like it, because it saves the consumer money, but the cable channels don’t, because small cable channels would be more likely to find an audience if cable companies pushed them on companies. But really, the large cable channels would be hurt more than the small ones, because channels most people find useless, like Oxygen, wouldn’t be picked, saving money for smaller channels people might have more interest in. That would reduce the resources of all of cable and possibly swing some of the cable channels’ advantages back to broadcast, as well as make niche networks, appealing to niche markets, more viable.

But to claim, as this blog did in July, that it would completely revolutionize the news and sports industries?

It’s become mandatory to have cable if you’re a sports fan, and a la carte would take away a significant portion of the revenue stream for the sports networks that gives ESPN an unfair advantage over the broadcast networks, but to say it would end journalistic botches like the Roethlisberger scandal? To say it would force the news networks to become actual news networks instead of partisan machines? MSNBC and Fox, and to a lesser extent CNN, play to partisan crowds because partisan shows like those of Keith Olbermann, Bill O’Reilly, and Lou Dobbs get ratings that straight news doesn’t. You’re saying that, even though more people watch the partisan shows than straight news, more straight news people would order the news channel than partisan news people? That’s a bit of a leap of logic, especially since the media’s turn towards partisanship encompasses more than just the cable news networks, being the order of the day on the Internet. (Wait, isn’t one of the big selling points of the internet choice? Isn’t that what this guy wants? Doesn’t this mean a right-winger could order Fox and leave out CNN and MSNBC entirely?) A large portion of Howard Stern’s audience may have left him when he went to satellite radio, but to say that what’s popular in “cable TV socialism” is completely different than what would be popular in a la carte makes no sense, especially since there would be no alternative.

Honestly, I think the horse has left the barn on the changes this blog post wants, which might have happened had the government never imposed “socialism”, but not now. To say ESPN would have a lot of its power taken away might have made sense before 2005 or even last year, but with the BCS and Monday Night Football now in its pocket I think there are enough people desperate enough for those two things, and more besides, that they’re willing to fork over enough for ESPN for it to still be a powerful force. Sports fans are a notoriously passionate and desperate bunch. And to say that fixing cable would fix the news networks makes no sense at all, and in this day and age, where our partisan discourse (which is slowly creating a real “two Americas”) is reinforced by the Internet and with the news networks entrenched in their ways, I doubt it would lead to significant movement.

Besides, any debate on the role of television, broadcast or cable, is probably missing the larger point (hinted at towards the end), that it’ll all be swept under the dustbin of history as the Internet comes in within a decade or two. And while I suspect when that happens, broadcast and cable “networks” will become largely obsolete and sports entities will produce and distribute games themselves, all evidence suggests ESPN will still have its popular website and the partisan discourse on cable news will continue unabated on the Web.

Now how imposing a la carte and moving to the Web would affect entertainment, now that’s a question worth asking…

Let’s look at the big picture.

First, in order to keep Extra Innings the cable companies swung a deal that gave MLB Network wide distribution, not just on the Sports Entertainment Pack.

Then, Comcast and the NFL spontaneously settled their differences out of the blue, and Comcast agreed to give the NFL Network wide distribution as well. At the same time, Comcast also finally reached an agreement with ESPNU, and that’ll involve wide distribution as well.

Now, in the past week, Comcast has engaged in similar distribution-broadening with the NHL Network, and now NBATV. (Although the NBATV deal was reported on as early as March.)

That doesn’t even mention the end of the impasse between Comcast and Big Ten Network last year; outside the Big Ten footprint it was placed on the Sports Entertainment Pack.

So I have to ask: Is Comcast giving up on its Sports Entertainment Pack?

What’s next? Will CBS College Sports or the FCS networks get bumped up? What about the Tennis Channel? Will new channels like GOL TV get added to make up for the losses? Is ESPN Classic getting bumped down, as was rumored? Could I even have the opportunity to get the mtn. outside that conference’s footprint?
(I’m certainly not complaining about the sudden jolt in options, and the ability to watch all the cool new stuff, especially on NFLN and ESPNU.)