There is no doubt that there is a demand for AAC content - the issue is whether there is enough demand to drive the price up to a point that the AAC would see a significant increase in revenue for its teams. Because acquiring the AAC content would have a minor impact on online subscriptions, tv subscriptions, and viewership, it's likely that that demand will be fairly low. Unless an online provider charges separately for AAC content, there is no point in buying it from their perspective since it won't affect their bottom line much (if at all), and tv providers will only want AAC content as secondary content with the occasional high profile game (ranked AAC team, potentially competitive AAC P5 home game, or bowl games) being distributed through premier channels.DfromCT wrote:I agree, which is why I think it will be a major coup if he was able to get that kind of money. Realistically, the only hope we have of getting something along the lines of $6-10 million/conference member would be if there's an entry to the (expanded playoff) for the AAC or a top G5 team and/or if the other media players are willing to outbid each other in search of content. But I agree, the AAC is not compelling content, but with all the different outlets combined, content COULD be in demand.Aberzombie1892 wrote:A new contract at $12-15M per team (~half of P5 tv only revenue - no NCAA units/bowl revenue/network revenue/etc.) would be extraordinary given the current deal and would be enough to get convince BYU and Boise to join the AAC. However, that seems unlikely since the market has continued to show that big players will overpay for elite content (P5/NFL), but underpay for content not considered to be elite (everything else). As a very recent example, Amazon just paid $50M for 10 NFL games - that's ridiculous on paper, but, if Amazon experiences the increases in subscribers/viewers that Twitter did the year before when it owned those exact same rights, it's certainly worth it on the financial end. That's the difficult part for the AAC - it's content isn't really elite in the sense that no tv network/streaming provider will see a significant increase in viewers/subscribers solely by purchasing the AAC tv rights the way that they would by buying the rights to the B1G, SEC, B12, ACC, PAC12, and/or NFL.DfromCT wrote:This cannot help the AAC w/r/t our next media rights contract. ESPN will be offering the P5's less money, so all bidders will be keeping bids down rather than trying to outbid one another. I think the AAC will get more money than the current (bought on the cheap) deal, but not nearly anything close to what the P5's currently receive. Half would be a major, MAJOR coup for Arresco.
$6M per team would still be quite the coup - it's not impossible if it includes all sports and all teams (incl. Navy and Wichita State), but it's still unlikely since that number would have had to have been the result from a bidding process that would have made it that high. If the online providers and ESPN don't bid, the AAC may have to take what it can get from NBC, CBS and FOX even if it would be less than what it should be getting.