Good point on OkSU ... how much of those eyeballs are due to OU and TX.
Same on Clemson.
THe ACC GOR is slowing things down, and that is good. It will be interesting to see the value of any other schools in 10 years. With the bog boys making so much per team, a school really has to bring some juice to the table. I think a lot of people get carried away with wild 32 team conference scenarios and just don't look at the reality of the money.
Your analysis was well thought out but I do think you are giving OKSU way too much credit and there are plenty of schools on their level that given a schedule that includes a mixture of TX, OU, UGA, Bama, LSU, UF, AU and Tenn and their numbers go up dramatically. I think this would be true for VT, Virginia, GT (note GT isn't in the discussion but if they started playing Auburn and Alabama which are historical rivals numbers would soar), and UNC.
I found it interesting that you placed UNC in both the 20 team SEC and B1G models as I do think there will be competition for them but both can't have them.
You seemed very committed to the thought that the B1G is focused on ND (which is absolutely true) and more teams on the west coast which I'm not so sure of. I think they will look to the ACC pretty heavily and I don't see either major conference pulling anyone from the Big 12 current roster like Okie State (Kansas could be the exception as a bubble team).
I think Duke as a partner for UNC has been underrated in your analysis as well as that rivalry is played twice a year and is the premier basketball rivalry in all of basketball. That game alone has tremendous value on its on and is extremely unique.
The biggest point we disagree on is you are fixated on the point that a team has to bring 100mm in value all by themselves and I don't believe that to be absolute and the UCLA addition to the B1G has proven that. By entering the B1G or SEC a team automatically gets a bump in value and their ratings will improve considerably in most circumstances. You have a great argument for Oregon and Washington to the B1G but it doesn't happen until ND decides to move which could be 10 years and it's very questionable if either of those teams can maintain their relevance in a non-power conference and half the budget to work with.
My last point (which you strongly disagree with but I think is very much worth considering) is that right now even with the new deals the B1G and SEC are grossly undervalued. The NFL if you take all their contracts is worth approximately 10 billion a year and all of their programming has pretty much been sold twice (3 billion for NFL ticket by Apple). That's 32 teams that is just football. If you combine the SEC and B1G that is soon to be 32 teams also which earn about 2 billion with the new deals which is 20% of the NFL value. What the conferences also give you that the NFL does not is thousands of hours of additional programming in other sports that is basically a free add-on. Do not underestimate how badly this additional original programming is needed by the networks to fill their schedules. If ESPN lost that programming what in the hell would they put on all their channels during basketball season? Would we be back to logging competitions? I'm not saying that college football is equal to the NFL but when you add in the additional programming it is worth at least 30 to 35% and especially if they go to just a P2 because that will draw even more eyes. Right now the market is saying that an entire conference and all their content is worth 1 NFL Monday Night game and I don't believe that is anywhere correct and that there is still fruit on the vine. The NFL is tapped out and maybe overvalued to be honest (Apple wanted them bad to grow the subscription base and just paid 3 billion for the NFL ticket) but I don't see the major conferences being close to being tapped out.
Example: If the SEC and B1G went to 100% streaming you have to think they would average 1mm subscribers per school (some schools like OU, TX, Bama, UGA, Aub, Tenn, LSU, aTm would be way over and some like Vandy would be under but even KY would be over a million for basketball alone) and if they charged $10 a month or $120 a year that would be 16,000,000 x 120 or 1.9 billion dollars a year and I think the subscriber number could be greater than 16mm. Add on advertising during live games and you have to think that would be worth another billion a year to almost 3b. I think those types of numbers and thoughts will go into the expansion thinking and it's why I think a school like Duke is in the mix because there are a million Duke basketball fans out there that would order the package.
Now the infrastructure and cost of going 100% streaming has to be considered so that drops the bottom line but I think you can easily put the near future value of these major conferences at around 1.5 to 2 billion each. Wouldn't happen the first day and it would get tremendous pushback from fans but it illustrates there is meat on the bone and that easily compensates the math for adding a Duke, UVA, VT, GT along with FSU, Clemson, Miami and UNC. In the future I think a key metric will be how many fans would be willing to spend $120 a year for a subscription (note the NFL ticket is $300 and you just get football).
