This excellent article from 3 May 2023 continues the discussion of the predicament of the Pac-12 for sake of a future media contract, but it also summarizes the entire media landscape for the NCAA.
For sake of any angle from any other football league other than the NFL, along with all other leagues, in the US the NCAA coverage on Saturdays on over-the-air TV and on streaming, instead of cable, will only grow in each year now.
All four major US media over-the-air broadcast networks, and any cable affiliates, are simply not going to have another pro football league go up against their record deals for the expanded Big Ten and for the expanded SEC even before other conferences are examined. The advertisers paying record sums certainly wonât be having it.
Iâve never cared about the usually lame noon game on Saturdays other than perhaps the first full Saturday of games before the first NFL Sunday or perhaps during Rivalry Week, but compared to the utterly massive CRAP that is on broadcast channels on most Saturdays much of the year, so much for the better.
This is true for most, including especially many bettors, regardless if you are like me and usually not watching NCAA games earlier in the day on Saturday or any of those overly-hyped, generally awful night games especially for that Big Ten or ACC like on ABC.
So the rumour mill very late on Thursday 11 May 2023, about 90 minutes ago, was churning and here we are now.
So just who is this Brett McMurphy? Well hereâs the video with a discussion of this view and this rumour:
I would bet light on the rumour simply because Oregon and Washington would want off this Pac-12 ship that is sinking and onto the sailing Big Ten, damn all appearances.
Pretty soon, there will be 3 conferences with about 30 teams each. I used to live for NCAA football. Now I canât remember the last game I watched. At least the pro leagues are honest that itâs all about the money.
Interesting that the ESPN doesnât want to be known as the network that killed the Pac-12.
The Pac-12 screwed up when Texas and OU went to the SEC. The Pac-12 should have gone and got Texas Tech, OK State, Baylor and University of Houston. Pac-12 leadership always thought too much about the non revenue sports and this put them at a disadvantage to conferences like the SEC and Big 10.
I laughed in a mocking fashion at that part, for here in 2023 itâs like they somehow believe at ESPN that most people have not noticed already how much they have screwed up college football and its coverage especially as they essentially made the SEC their business partner in the last decade.
Donât bother trying to reason on this front with those SEC homers like usual. Itâs all about their stupid conference and they even cheer for their stupid rivals after the fact in the playoff.
ESPN, we know itâs you and we know also that you knew all along, as via the University of Miami and your lauding documentary of it, that they all have been paid quite well all along.
Stop it with the euphemisms like âtransfer portalâ and all your trash after âstudent athleteâ and âamateurismâ of yore.
Itâs been pro football for decades now since and beyond âPony Excessâ (an excellent ESPN â30 For 30â documentary about SMU in the 1980s along with others like âYoungstown Boysâ).
ESPN has the ACC locked in for another 12 years and there is almost no way out for the ACC schools - Long deals are not good for the vendor - ESPN did a job and snookered the ACC on this one - Although if for some magical reason ESPN did decide to let the ACC out of the deal - which they wonât - there is no guarantee that the ACC would get a great deal from any of the networks. Just ask the Pac-12 how that is working out for them.
Snookered for a long-term deal is the right term! As noted in the streaming thread, as they move all production to streaming feeds unless the feed will be on free broadcast TV (i.e. ESPN on ABC), ESPN will basically be all about college football and the NBA, with some NHL and NFL in there, and the rest of the sports will simply be relegated and stashed to streaming just like awful ESPN did to the CFL in these recent years.
The XFL will still be at hand, but we shall see on any expansion now too.
California may be the first state to legally define college athletes as also employees.
For sake of precedent, in 2015 at Northwestern University, which like USC in Los Angeles is also a private school, the movement for the athletes to unionize as employees was struck down by a federal board.
Now there is a new front in this battle.
Take your âtransfer portalâ euphemism and shove it up yours too ESPN and Disney.
Itâs free agency like for the rest of the pro athletes.
Well this plot certainly thickens now, for watch even more states copycat on the matter of
âStay in Missouri [or insert state] to play early pro football, and start earning even before you play a single down.â
Per the bill, school officials â including coaches â can join talks with athletes about prospective NIL deals. Furthermore, in-state high school prospects can become immediately eligible for NIL benefits if they sign with an in-state school. Using the early February football signing day as a starting point, those players could be getting paid for six months before suiting up for their first college practice.
If that sounds like an inducement to attend, say, the University of Missouri ⌠you are not alone in thinking as much. The stateâs only Power Five program resides in the nationâs most powerful conference (SEC). University officials and coaches showed up in the state capital earlier this month to celebrate as legislators cast their votes on HB 417.
Note also the following:
Missouri is not alone in the rapidly changing NIL legislative landscape. The stateâs bill is similar to laws either proposed or passed in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, New York and Arkansas â all of which challenge the NCAAâs authority.
Part of this rant by Narduzzi simply sounds like sour grapes after the fact for a system that was flawed in design since at least the 1960s, for it is not amateurism and has not been for the star athletes and for the biggest programs.
Deion comes along having played through the system at Florida State in multiple sports before his Hall of Fame NFL career, and he knows the holes in it including the farce that is this transfer portal. Deionâs not the only one, and heâs far from the first either, who knows and is exploiting the flawed system as well.
Narduzzi should be on the case of the corrupt NCAA, and chief enabler ESPN, and not on Deion and others who are playing a flawed system by the rules at hand. He should chew more on that reality that is hardly new!
Oregon wants it bad. That is why they latch on to every rumor saying they would be invited. I just want to point and laugh at them. Washington at least brings academics, a longer football tradition and the Seattle marketâŚ
Fight On and Go Bombers!
David
The Mountain West Conference gets much larger if the Pac12 implodes. The Mountain West Conference will be the beast of the non BCS conferences when the Pac12 finally goes down for the big dirt nap.
I wonder if Colorado didnât leave due to UT Oklahoma and Nebraska running the old Big12 now those schools are gone and the big dogs are who? The current Big12 doesnât have any big brand schools that will be shot callers. A conference of equals?? Then throw in that all the other Big12 schools are way closer to Denver than WSU or OSU/Oregon or Seattle.
The Alston v. NCAA decision kicked the underpinnings out from whatever was holding amateurism in place. A Supreme Court justice (Brett Kavanaugh) actually said these words in that landmark decision two years ago: âTraditions alone cannot justify the NCAAs decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs student athletes who are not fairly compensated.â
Eat it Disney and ESPN for ignoring what itâs been all along for YOUR profitable gain at the expense of also many.
For avid college football fans out there, itâs the end of an era with the SEC on CBS for the last season here in 2023.
The 10-year SEC deal with Disney and ESPN starts in 2024 as the games for the Big Ten move to CBS, Fox, and NBC starting also here in 2023 and for 7 years.
And so CBS gets to make the most of everything this year.
Notice the three doubleheaders stuffed in there mid-season as CBS goes out with a bang in early December. All games are simulcast on Paramount+ as well.
