Dave23

I know it's been discussed here before but as more details have come in should Oregon become an independent? To start off I'm a big fan of the PAC 12 and would love to see it stay together and prosper. That being said if poor media deals or if teams moving to the Big 12 would Oregon be better off going their own way? Oregon's brand is huge and according to recent studies it has the seventh largest fan base in college football. Notre Dame has successfully been independent and has built the second largest fan base while maintaining the power to make their own schedule and media deals. If the Duck could retain a lot of their rivalry games with Washington, Oregon State, Stanford plus add some of the other big programs to the mix such as Texas, Oklahoma, or one of the traitor LA schools. Could they still bring in $50 million media deal and not joint the Big 10 thus eliminating flying halfway across the country every other weekend. I feel like I would prefer this over joining the Big, 10 but would it work?

Things are looking up! It was great to see the team work against USC. I think as this team starts pounding the ball inside, to one of the three 7 footers, they are going to be more consistent. Early in the year they relied too much on perimeter play and three-point shots without moving the ball. The guards are getting more open three-point looks and clear driving lanes due to defenses having to collapse on the bigs. This is how basketball should be played, not individual flash and dance. It's February for ducks basketball, pretty much every year the team starts to look really good. If they have a nice run to end the season with a good showing in the PAC tournament they should be in the big dance.

Add in all the other PAC 12 fans and you have 10s of millions of underserved fans. To bad the LA schools left before the PAC figured out that it wise to tap into your full potential viewership. know they tried but follow thru by Larry was horrible. Long live the PAC!

Yes you can get it on Dish anywhere but not on cable, who I also get my internet from. That's an extra $100 a month minimum, I could get sling or fubu for $70 or I could watch it on Prime which I already have and cost $11.59 a month. So far Amazon has not charged extra for sports, but that will probably change. What I don't want to pay for is the 240 channels I will never watch.

I think a short-term answer would be to license the PAC 12 Networks to Amazon and give the rest to ESPN. Ideally the à la carte option would be awesome. Oregon could retaining the licensing rights providing local markets with liver tv on ABC, NBC, or CBS and stream to the rest of the world. Production would be the difficult part, maybe the PAC 12 Network could turn into subcontractors and provide camera crews and announcers. This would let the schools reap the maximum benefits for their brands and cut out the middle man.

The main problem is if you don't live on the west coast you can't get the PAC 12 Network on cable. High speed internet, capable of streaming 3 programs at once, is a fact of life for most people now days. I couldn't get by without it between my business and my kids I'm paying for it one way or another. What I don't pay for is the $100+ a month for cable. All my subscription and cable internet are still under $100. I live in a town with less that 1k of people and there's at least 7 Ducks fans that would love to watch the PAC but currently can't. Opening up viewership to the millions of alum that no longer live on the west coast will makeup for the few disgruntled west coasters that don't want to sign up for Amazon Prime.

I'm in my '40s and have kids that don't even know what satellite or basic cable is. I can't think of one of my friends that has cable. The regional sports Network model is extremely dated and has cost the PAC 12 2 teams and a lot of money.

Not being on the west coast I find this extremely frustrating as well. To me the only answer to this is streaming as I don't see ESPN picking up and airing all PAC 12 games.

I watch games on the ESPN app and click into games that I was not intended to watch all the time. In the app you can see the score and if it's close I check it out.

When the NFL network came out it was free the first year then they charged for it the second year. I'm sure they had a big drop off because I remember having to go to a bar to watch the game. The NFL network had one game a week and if you didn't have a cable sports package your didn't get it. Remember it was the only NFL game not on a major network broadcasted for free, so I see your point. The more game that are on one streaming service the more attractive it becomes to subscribe.

I think some on-campus nail and hair salons along with luxury spas should to do the trick.

Ware played 0 minutes tonight. Hope he figures out out, he could really help this team down the stretch.

I wouldn't like to see him at Stanford but offense line coach is what he is qualified for.

I have to totally agree, he's developing into a sold player that's really starting to contribute. Payton, Brooks, Duarte, and Boucher got so much better over their years at Oregon. Had King, Brown, Bol and Wooten stayed another year or two they would have been more prepared for the NBA. I'm really hoping NIL money will help with this problem. A lot of these kids get caught up with the people around them telling them their NBA ready and they should get payed as soon as possible. Just maybe a little money will settle them down and they can see the long play.

Good point, this could also work in reverse. What if a recruit goes to a school for girl then breaks up with or finds their independence from mom after a year of college. This could lead to recruits coming to their dream school later in their career.

That's would be optimal, currently the only one I know that provides that is ESPN. Not my favorite choice but they have the platform to do it, getting them to pay up will not be easy. It would be an interesting deal if each team got payed a base wage plus % of the viewership of each game. The individual teams should be allowed to capitalize on their brands and what they brings to viewership numbers.

Oregon average 2.21 million views a game and their media market is only 1.1 million take that versus USC 2.07 million views per game in a 17.6 million media market. According to traditional media Oregon is worth far less than USC because they have more potential viewers. In this day and age this is a very archaic valuation of potential revenue and why I'm a supporter of signing media deal with a streaming service. Internet companies use views as their metric to indicate value not addressable media market. If you have a 1 million followers on Instagram and you live in north pole your worth more than someone with 500 thousand followers in LA This leads me to believe Oregon is far more valuable than 30 million a year valuation that it currently has. Regional TV is only important when it comes to the news, as apparently every single person in the Oregon media market plus 1.1 million watch every week. Here's to hoping the PAC 12 can make a media deal that gives Oregon what they're worth or they'll have no choice but to leave.

I would think having a veteran center to help run the offense would be vastly more important than having him at the guard position. Just my two cents.

Really hope we get him as he would be a nightmare for opposing defenses to cover.

This team really depends on Richardson for their leadership and when he's not on the team is flat. With a team that changes so much years to year having that core guy that has been with the team is super important. Most of the past "it" guys came to Oregon out of highschool and where developed into l leaders that could hold the team together when the going got tuff. Really hoping Jackson Shelstad will be that guy going forward.

Well said and I agree 100%, being a big fish in a little pond, even if it's for less money, is better than being a small fish in a big pond.

With the ESPN app you can change games just like your can on cable SEC, ACC, and BIG 12 Networks are all accessible along with ABC and all the ESPN's. On my TV which is relatively new I can switch back and forth between apps fairly quick. I absolutely love the fact that if there was a really good game during the Oregon game that I can watch it on demand later that day, for me that's more convenient than trying to watch three games at one time. As far as viewership is concerned Amazon prime has 150 million subscribers in the US and 200 million worldwide. Compared that to TV subscribers of 66 million. I'm not exactly sure how much it cost to have cable with recording capability and all the channels nowadays but when I last had it was around $130 and that did not include the pac-12 network or ESPN Plus. Currently ESPN Plus and Amazon prime cost me about $25 a month if the pac-12 and Fox were available in a subscription format that'd be reasonable to guess that they'd be 10 to 15 bucks a month per putting my total subscriptions up to $50 a month. This price point makes it much more approachable for young people and lower income families of which many recruits come from. It's been stated on this forum many times about how NFL scouts and national pundits don't watch PAC 12 games because of how late they are played which is solely due to networks wanting to fill time slots. PAC 12 has so much to gain from playing games at a normal time of day for the rest of the country which will never happen under the networks. I get the wanting to be able to channel surf but ultimately I want to see the PAC 12 survive and flourish which will not happen with the current Network contracts. If they wanted to guarantee games being played at a normal time of the day that would be great but I don't see that happening. Being on the East Coast either you have to staying up till 2:00am or record the game to watch the late pac-12 game. How many parents on the East Coast are letting their kids stay up till 2:00 a.m. to watch the PAC? Recruiting will get much better and the PAC 12 can become relevant again.

Ultimately I'm frustrated how hard it is to watch an Oregon game if you don't live on the west coast. Granted if Oregon's doing well they get a lot more prime spots, but in the not so good years you don't even get to watch them play. I'm not a huge fan of Amazon but when it comes down to it their almost unlimited resources and cloud computing capabilities opens up Oregon football to the world not just the west coast of the United States. This would be no experiment as the writing's on the wall it's going that way for better or worst. Oregon has the most to gain from the PAC 12 remaining intact and the only way that happens is with more money bei6 brought in from media contracts. Being a big fish and a small pond is not a bad thing just look at what Clemson's done. If the streaming route doesn't work out for the PAC 12, then Oregon would still be the number one prospect for moving into one of the super conferences as they have the best brand and viewership in the conference. Keep the PAC alive!

I would have to respectfully disagree with this premise as currently if you live outside the west coast the exposer to recruits is hampered by major networks more than helping. A game on a major network that starts a 10pm eastern time doesn't help as much as a game that streams at 5pm. Highschool kids in this day and age don't have cable they stream everything. Often I find my self surfing thru game on the ESPN app watch many games that would never be on the major networks, especially if they are ranked. The other major benefit to streaming is the on demand aspect that makes it so if I want or miss the game I can watch the game the next day or the next year. Recruits that want to know how they're position is being used could watch every game played. Highschool kids and cord cutting adults are now used to being able to watch everything at their convenience. The reason college football is now worth so much money is due to every power 5 conference game, except the PAC 12, being available nation wide. The PAC 12 is being left behind because of the horrible management of the PAC 12 Network.

That would be amazing but the only way I see that happening is if they go the streaming route. Oregon will lose out on that time slot to half the B1G who have bigger media markets. Maybe they would work it like the NFL and do the regional coverage thing that I can't stand. I don't watch the NFL because the only games available are the Broncos and Seahawks in my market. The only way to ensure national coverage for Oregon is through streaming as you can have unlimited channels and broadcast every single college game to the nation. Outside of Oregon it is very difficult to get Oregon games on cable, even harder in a year when they aren't doing very good. The ESPN+ model would work best, I can watch games on ESPN, ESPN 2 or ESPNU and then there's a bunch more game not aired on cable that are available, it's pretty unlimited. If Amazon was to get the rights to PAC 12 games then license those to local broadcast stations we could have the best of both worlds. The PAC 12 will die without national coverage and they will have a way better b chance of going to the playoffs in the PAC.