The future of college football ...

[Jim Johnson]

This should scare a lot of people in the world of CFB:

Quote from the end of the article:   For what it’s worth, I’m turning 32. Most of my friends are college-educated, relatively affluent, and on the older end of millennial. None are egregious, anti-television hippies. Not a single one of them has had a cable TV subscription since college.

http://thebiglead.com/2016/01/14/espn-cord-cutting-college-football/

ESPN is able to shell out the billions for it's sports programming because just about everyone with a cable connection has ESPN & ESPN2 at $8 per month!  Even people who never turn on those channels are paying for it.  Cord cutting ... or the biggest fear of unbundling ... will dramatically cut all of that revenue.  (Which also holds true for conference networks like BTN and the Pac 12 and Longhorn network)

To be fair, the author is purely speculating about what the real impact will be.  Will we see a P4 with further consolidation, that will break away from the rest?  Will they shrink down to an NFL-sized top tier, jettisoning some of the smaller, under performing schools?  Will we see schools accepting smaller pools of revenue to maintain the status quo?  What about the impact of court cases like O'Bannon and Kessler?

What is not included in the story, however, is the impact of NBC and Fox - and to a lesser extent CBS.  Those networks don't have the major commitments that ESPN has... to be sure, they will suffer some of the effects of cord cutting... but they are not as overcommitted as the "Worldwide Leader" is.  Which means the impact may be lessened if ESPN's stanglehold is opened up by

[One should note this doesn't just impact college football... the NFL, NBA, and MLB all of big contracts with ESPN.]

Could that be part of the reason C-USA is getting less revenue?

[Sellular1]

The Halves keep having more, while the Nots...

[JTrue]

30 minutes ago, Sellular1 said:

The Halves keep having more, while the Nots...

I'd say the Halves still get about 50%.

[namuh-bull]

I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters, and work with 11people in a small business.  I am the only one who even watches college football.  None of my nephews or nieces do, none of the people I work with do, and neither of my 2  grown sons watch football (but they know everything there is to know about skateboarding and surfing).

 Of all the people I regularly come in contact with, only myself, my sister's finace, who is a huge Notre Dame fan (it was great sitting next to him when we handed them a loss in South Bend), and an old friend who is a rabid Penn State fan actually follow college football.  I have to retreat a bit: my sister does watch games with her fiance, but probably would not if he didn't.  I don't know if that is the norm, but I suspect it isn't far removed.

If cord cutting becomes the norm and ESPN is not included as part of some standard basic channel package, their revenue will plummet.

 

Go Bulls!

[Bulls1181]

The question is how do we profit from this insider information. We have to purchase some ESPN credit default swaps.. They will laugh at us at first but in due time we will quadruple our money.

[NCBull]

Jim, I am of the opinion that you are wearing bacon glasses.  Is that a correct supposition?

[NewEnglandBull]

I would love to be a corporate lawyer as all this mess continues. Those guys are going to clean up as law suites pop up...and they will.

[Rocky Style]

1 hour ago, JimUSFSig said:

This should scare a lot of people in the world of CFB:

* For what it’s worth, I’m turning 32. Most of my friends are college-educated, relatively affluent,

Must be nice!

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, NCBull said:

Jim, I am of the opinion that you are wearing bacon glasses.  Is that a correct supposition?

The world always looks better through bacon glasses.

[theman123]

Wouldn't mind watching ESPN crumble under there own greed.