The Kamikaze Kid

This right here is the make it or break it with an Apple deal. Out on some Apple subscription island by themselves sounds disastrous Leaders on the streaming front partnered with ESPN sounds best case scenario. What whacky times for PAC fans. I sure hope Uncle Phil is being consulted with. These are decisions that require some cutting edge thinking.

With the news of the Apple offer, I have a couple questions about the current situation. First, is Apple about to acquire ESPN? If so, would the New Apple Pac 12 network be bundled with ESPN+? If so, this could be a great way for the Pac to increase its presence all over the country by being associated with ESPN even without a contract with them. Also, if Apple acquires ESPN, would they cross promote the Apple Pac 12 network on ESPN? Again, this could be a major benefit to consider. If Apple does not acquire ESPN, then all of these benefits wouldn’t happen, and the deal would look much less appealing. If these issues weren’t addressed in yesterday’s meeting, they should have been because Apple’s potential acquisition of ESPN is the elephant in that room.

At this point, I just want whatever is going to happen to happen. AU Leaves, see ya. UO goes to the BIG, then away we go. Pac brings in some G5 schools, welcome aboard. Media deal is good, bad or ugly, let's just sign it and move on. The part of my brain I allocate for sports just needs to have some sports in it. If I wanted an endless stream of drama, I'd follow the Kardashians.

99% of my brain says no way but that 1% that wants a Miami game says heck yes.

To me the elephant question in the room is why not just make a national football specific league set up. Couldn't the main schools in play and the media companies just come up with divisions set up by geography like pro leagues. With a systematic view instead of the helter skelter patch work we have now, it seems everybody would come out better financially and conferences could stay intact as they've been for all other sports. If football is the driving force to all this over the top realignment it seems to me it would be best to separate it from traditional college sports.Local rivalries are the lifeblood of college football. How amped up are SUC fans going to get for the annual battles with Minnesota and Iowa? Will UCLA vs Northwestern or Purdue even move the needle for TV ratings? A Western Division of a National College Football league would keep traditional match ups intact while receiving a good revenue share of a national league. I'm so tired of wading through all of these survival scenarios that none of which sound like an ideal ending.

I hate all this realignment stuff but since we're going there, let's go there. Let's say the Pac fully craters and UO and fuskies go BIG and UU, UA and ASU go B12. That would leave OSU, WSU, Cal and Stanford. What if they brought in SD St, Fresno St, Boise St, UNLV, Nevada and maybe CSU? That would be a ten team conference that would still have three to four top 25 football teams. It wouldn't be as solid as the old Pac but it would be better than the old Mountain West. They could still get a playoff spot for a conference champion and with the heavy hitters out of the way, the road to the playoffs would be easier for these schools. The TV contract and payout would likely be much smaller but there could be an upside for the remaining schools.

Loser: Pac-12 presidents "You’ve got to wonder what the leaders of the 9 remaining Pac-12 teams are thinking right now, with the walls crumbling around them. I picture a bunch of old men in top hats and monocles and women with long cigarettes and primped hair commiserating over martinis and high test scores. Sure, Stanford is in a better position than Iowa State. But the Cyclones feel a lot more stable right now." This right here. Right now the Pac story line should be about five top 25 teams, three possible Heisman QBs, half the conference having some of the most explosive offenses in the country. All exciting stuff that could drive interest and viewership up. But instead the talk is the imminent demise of the Pac and the laughable elitism of the Pac presidents that have just taken a pie to the face by the cow pokes and farmers in the B12. I have really wanted the Pac to stay together and weather the storm with the UO leading the way. But it's becoming nearly impossible to not just shake your head and turn away and hope the Ducks land on their feet some way some how. It still might come through in the end but it's looking more like a last second hail Marry will be required than the slow steady march down field they're trying to perform.

Penn Duck, no joke. They'll pursue expansion after the media deal but there is clearly no viable media deal on the horizon or CU would not have fled. With that as a back drop, I don't see anything stopping more defections to the B12 by teams just looking to get at least 31M before the offer expires. Also hanging SD St out to dry and tripling their buyout for no reason just looks bad. Sure hope the UO has something up their sleeve because the Pac leadership sure doesn't.

Pretty much the bland drivel you'd expect. https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1684740924537233408/photo/1

If the PAC presidents continue to simply adjust each others ascots and exclaim how dashing they all look in their elite little group, then all of this is an epic waste of time for all the fans of the conference. This has been a five alarm fire since USC and UCLA left a year ago. Canzono rang the alarm years ago about lavish Larry and the looming danger ahead. All we’ve heard since then is “don’t worry, we’ve got this. We know what we’re doing.” From every president and commissioner. I’ve been a huge supporter of the PAC staying together but I see no other endgame but a fast approaching cliff. I sure hope the UO has a plan B ready to go because I have yet to see even the slightest bit of concern of danger from the rest of the conference.

When it comes to understanding sports related injuries and medical conditions, this is the man!

Bow down fuskies!

I'd say in both loses, Lanning saw his team start to panic, watched the defense crumble, couldn't get them to regain composure, then took some huge 4th down gambles to attempt to regain momentum. Some first season growing pains for a coach on the brink of an 11-1 playoff appearance. Not bad. I'm pretty sure he learned some valuable lessons, consulted with coach Smart and will be the better for it heading into season two. If the D improves like it seems it has, he grows as a coach (unlike Mario) and recruiting holds steady, I'd say the window of opportunity has already slammed shut on both the fuskies and Beavs to move ahead of the Ducks. The constant yap from the doghouse up north will just make it that much better.

According to these numbers, it looks like the only folks interested in the Ducks are a few Oregonians and a bunch of 4-5 star recruits.

SUC and fuskies sitting right where I want them in the preseason. Also expect both to sitting behind Ducks, Beavs and Utes when it's all said and done.

What if the P12 network continues production for all P12 games but is distributed under the ESPN+ streaming service? What if ESPN+ strikes a deal with Amazon or Apple for streaming distribution for win/ win arrangement with mutual cross promotion? What if all these complex arrangements are what is taking so long to iron out? In the end the PAC may just have gotten its own network 10x the distribution that it previously had while also attaching themselves to much larger brands.I could also see an arrangement like this having a low dollar front end payout like the B12 but with a potential higher payout on the backend with viewership bonuses. The perfect dream scenario may be just around the corner for OBD. Stay tuned….

It took two complete second half defensive melt downs to keep themselves from going 11-1 in Lanning's first year with mostly Mario's guys. I think 11-1 is a reasonable expectation but 10-2 would still be a good/ great year. More than the record, I'm looking for improvement on D including some disruptive havoc plays that Lanning wants to be the identity of his D. If that happens, playoffs should be within reach this year.

Sounds like fun!

Taking a big NIL deal from the home town school? $1,000,000. Prepping to be a top NFL draft pick by a defensive master mind? Priceless.

Not only are repeated negative posts an issue, so are repeated negative topics. It seems like every couple hours another B12 is gonna devour the Pac thread sprouts up with the same old stuff over and over. And once again we post repeated viewpoints on repeated topics about repeated rumors found on the interweb. I'd never want to discourage anybody from bringing up something Duck related to discuss but maybe not every article out there on the same topic needs to have it's own thread. Readers of the forum can skip past repeat topics no problem but moderators need to go over every post on every topic. Normally, I enjoy doing this as it keeps me engaged in the Duck fandom out there. But this is what repeat topics look like to me. Writer A says the B12 is going to...., According to writer B, the B12 is going to...., Writer C says it's a done deal that the B12 is going to.... You get the point. Most of these writers are just posting whatever they can to get easy clicks from frustrated fans. Rumors need no sources and can generate endless clicks with click bait headlines.

I could see the offense bringing in QB2 for a couple series in the game for a change of pace like the J14 steam roller last year. Could be a way of keeping 4-5 star back ups invested in staying with the team rather than transferring out.

I think we're seeing the final days of static contract payouts to conferences by television companies. TV is losing it's stranglehold on viewership yearly to the internet and losing it fast. Cord cutting is a real thing and this will have to be taken into account sooner or later. At some point, contracts will have to be based on true market value not just speculation based on market potential. Just looking at the Pac there is no way you can convince me that Cal with the bay area market or UCLA in Los Angeles has higher viewing numbers than UO in a mid sized college town. In fact many if not most major universities are situated in college towns. It is why the term college town exists in the first place. Most of the SEC exists in "small markets" with extremely loyal fan bases. Also, handing out money hand over fist to perpetual bottom feeders in the SEC or Big 10 doesn't make sense long term in the era of dwindling media dollars. In short, I think bloated media contracts with a lot of dead weight baked in will soon become a thing of the past. With media delivery switching towards streaming, it would make sense to reward contracts based on loyal following and support to get the most out of the money spent. In this day and age there are independent media outlets with higher youtube followers than CNN or FOX or anybody else. I am sure the same can be said for Universities with active social media presence. I can see a day soon arriving were streaming companies pay out meager lump sums to conference members but reward individual universities with compensation based on the number of views per game. If the UO for example had 50,000,000 world wide social media fans and promoted their up coming games on various social media platforms, then had around 10.000.000 viewers per game, that would be far more valuable to the streaming service than UCLA with no fans or Indiana Vs Northwestern in the Big 10. If Streamers payed out just $1 per view, that would be $10,000,000 per game based on this example. This would reward universities with active streaming presence and ignore universities with milk toast support. I think this is the direction media contracts will be headed. I don't think jumping into a conference halfway across the country will be required to be rewarded for true media value.

"DeGraaf is a big-time pickup for Washington. He’s the No.702 player and the No.34 tight end in the country for this cycle, per 247Sports Composite" Bravo Fighting Prowesses. Bravo.

What may become the game changer just may be how media contracts are designed in the future. The internet is quickly replacing cable for the viewing audience across the board. It would not surprise me if the next round of deals are primarily focused on internet viewership numbers. Net statistics are easy to track and can provide fairly accurate statistics for advertisers and media companies. If for example UO vs anybody is shown to produce 10,000,000 views per game internationally but lets say Purdue has 90% less, nobody is going to want to hand over twice as much money to the Boilermakers than the Ducks. It could be quite possible that UO could make as much if not more than UCLA and USC and never have to leave our west coast conference to do it. I agree with Dave's take on phase one. Just weather the storm short term and hold the conference together then prepare for the fast approaching future.

fuskies public reaction: Great. One is all we need! fuskies private reaction: