$7 billion dollars and Fox won’t produce football in 4K this Fall
August 21st, 2022 at 12:09 PM ^
I have been asking the question as to what the Big10 is going to do with $7 billion.
Seems to me that there are 3 parties of interest: The players, the fans, and the administrators (University presidents, AD, coaches and their ever enlarging bureaucracy)
The players are not seeing any of that money.
Fans? Ticket prices won't come down despite shrinking crowds and alternate revenue streams.
That leaves us a the university bureaucracy with more money for all of these hangers on. Raise for Warde? Why not. Jimmy need some more coin? Of course. Dave Revsine? I'm sure he will get some of the 7 bill too.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:13 PM ^
Ok, who pissed in your cereal bowl this morning?
August 21st, 2022 at 12:17 PM ^
Warren said that paying players was on the table.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:38 PM ^
It was definitely help prop up many (if not all) of our non-revenue/non-profit generating sports programs. So there's that!
August 21st, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^
You do realize it costs a few bucks to field a team and upkeep facilities and pay people to work at these places and coach teams and pay insurance? Not saying they aren’t making money but people act like all the money just goes into their pockets
August 21st, 2022 at 2:08 PM ^
They afforded everything perfectly fine on the previous deal, though I heard rutgers had to take on a lot of debt to join the conference. So now there's a ton more money but literally nothing to spend it on. I figured it would just go into the endowments and non football sports.
August 21st, 2022 at 2:32 PM ^
Did they afford it before? Most athletic programs actually operate at a loss. Big names like Michigan and OSU are usually fine, but mid-low tier P5 schools still need big contracts like this to avoid taking in money from the school itself in order to continue operations.
According to the NCAA, among the 65 P5 schools in Division I, only 25 recorded a positive net generated revenue in 2019. The 40 schools that operated at a net loss, lost about $16 million each on average.
August 21st, 2022 at 3:35 PM ^
Careful believing these numbers, as an accountant I can tell you can make them say what you want. Just need to change the input valuations These universities wouldn't all be joining D1 ball if there wasn't some upside.
Granted, universities have an endless supply of potential money on the student level via fees.
August 21st, 2022 at 3:45 PM ^
Those numbers aren't much different over time. More than a quarter-century ago only about 20 athletics departments in the nation actually made money. That reality continues.
August 21st, 2022 at 4:28 PM ^
There’s quite a bit of upside in having D1 sports that doesn’t show in the athletic department revenue. Having D1 Sports leads to increased exposure, meaning an increase applicants and donations made to the school. That’s more money for the school, due to the athletic department but not directly generated by the athletic department so it doesn’t show in their budget.
While yes, there is some flexibility in these numbers, they’re not fudging with the numbers to show a $10-$20 million dollar loss. Most of the fudging actually comes from the schools who ARE making money and their need to be as close to breaking even as possible, considering they’re not “supposed” to make a profit.
August 21st, 2022 at 5:39 PM ^
I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard it's common to count every scholarship as out of state, rather than the actual value. I haven't a clue what OOS tuition is at... say, Kent State, but 85 times that, is a LOT of money right there. Then do that for all your other athletes and that's a big expense bogey to overcome.
August 21st, 2022 at 6:19 PM ^
The purpose of doing that would be to reach $0 at the end of the year. Not $16 million in the hole. So it’s likely that a school like Michigan or Texas is doing this because they’re bringing in so much more money than they’re spending, but highly unlikely someone like Kansas State does it. There’s just nothing in it for the school to claim such a loss that isn’t actually there, so there’s no reason to fudge the numbers to show it.
August 21st, 2022 at 6:46 PM ^
Uh. Unless they want data to justify raising ticket prices, and concession prices, and advertising fees.
August 21st, 2022 at 7:40 PM ^
Uh except the schools that are doing it aren’t in a position to try pulling that on their fans. They can’t get butts in seats as it is.
August 22nd, 2022 at 3:42 PM ^
Ever hear of inflation?
August 21st, 2022 at 2:49 PM ^
I mean, isn't that the American dream? Capitalism is what brought us NIL. I find it amusing that the original post is complaining about 4K. I would rather my gas be cheaper, or I didn't pay as much for eggs nowadays, but to each his own
August 21st, 2022 at 9:20 PM ^
It doesn’t take anywhere near the money the big ten schools will have in their budget as a result of this deal though. G5 schools operate with an order of magnitude less revenue, do they have only a tenth of the necessary expenses? Of course not. Big ten schools are looking for new ways to spend all this money. Facilities upgrades knocked out a lot of it, but those are winding down. The administration head count has grown like crazy and commanding higher salaries for diminishing responsibilities. As mentioned earlier, the fans are going to feel the impact of this deal through additional costs for viewing the broadcasts and perpetually increasing ticket prices. This trajectory is unsustainable without also increasing the customer base, and they’re going to risk losing some of that base without giving some incentive to keep paying more.
August 21st, 2022 at 1:03 PM ^
Jimmy gave 2,000,000 in coin back to Athletic Department employees last year.
August 21st, 2022 at 4:22 PM ^
The university will continue to do what it's been doing for years- they will raise expenses to roughly match profits. I believe practice has been to leave a $200k profit or so. So the question is basically where will the AD dig up new expenses- presumably on more staff positions and salaries, probably on some new buildings, who knows where else they spend the money but they'll find a way to essentially spend it all
August 21st, 2022 at 7:12 PM ^
Seems to me that there are 3 parties of interest: The players, the fans, and the administrators
(Aside from the broadcast entities who need to see a return on their $7 billion plus production costs, expenses, and opportunity costs) there is at least one more party of interest on the university sides: the interests of the players of the revenue sports are not necessarily aligned with (and may in some manner be opposed to) the programs and athletes of women's and non-revenue sports.
But, yeah, the fans' interests lag behind the others by a wide margin, at least until they have a negative effect on the interests of the other parties you mentioned.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:11 PM ^
Don't have a 4K TV, I couldn't care less.
August 21st, 2022 at 3:37 PM ^
I have a 4K TV and couldn't care less.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:14 PM ^
The players in the Big10 should pick one week this year and delay kickoffs for 10-15 minutes to send a message.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^
there are lots of reasons the players might do that. “fox not televising games in 4k” is not one of them.
August 21st, 2022 at 2:40 PM ^
Sorry, I was referring to players seeing some of the money.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:21 PM ^
No thanks. The networks would just fill that time with extra commercials.
August 21st, 2022 at 2:35 PM ^
Why would the players give two shits about and protest over whether or not their games were broadcast in 4K?
August 21st, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^
You know they are paying the $7 billion right? Don’t blame networks either. The cable companies can’t do live 4K. Heck, xfinity is still broadcasting mainly 720p
August 21st, 2022 at 12:22 PM ^
Good point the cable companies (which are horrible monopolies of course) also continue to feed us low-res TV. But there are sources for 4k games if the networks would make them available, YouTubeTV carries them for example. Honestly it feels like we need regulators to force telecoms to stop holding us back here.
August 21st, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
How are cable companies monopolies...there are many options.
August 21st, 2022 at 2:09 PM ^
A lot of homes only have one option, especially if you live in an apartment building.
August 21st, 2022 at 2:55 PM ^
True, but you can still use Comcast, Spectrum, CCI, etc as a simple pipe and then subscribe to anything like Hulu, YTTV, etc for the actual content/games. The "monopoly", if it exists is only in the pipe. Satellite and over the air, excluded, of course.
August 22nd, 2022 at 4:21 PM ^
A lot of homes are in rural areas - like the thumb - that don't have cable. Doesn't mean DirecTV and Dish are monopolies. For the record, I'm not a fan of any of the big providers
August 21st, 2022 at 2:35 PM ^
There are many options overall, but in many cases only one or two of those options is available in an particular area.
So not necessarily a monopoly in the traditional sense, but essentially a monopoly in practice.
August 21st, 2022 at 2:46 PM ^
Bro...most people can only subscribe to Comcast or Charter. Very few have the choice to subscribe to either a Fiber to the Home provider or Cable provider...thank god that is changing now that AT&T jettisoned their stupid media empire (Randall Stephenson might have been onee the worst CEO's for a public company (that didn't go to jail), ever) and Verizon Fios is expanding (slowly) again.
Starlink has an irrelevant footprint and high latency which is unsuitable for video streaming. Don't get me started on Musk (charaltan that managed to hire some good Cal Tech engineers, although the stock is the product, not the cars)
August 21st, 2022 at 12:23 PM ^
Sorry, I don’t buy it. When the content deals start getting smaller in size, then you might have an argument. If Fox has $7 billion or can raise financing for $7 billion, they can put some change away to upgrade their production workflows to 4k. Their existing equipment for HD has been amortized to zero FOR YEARS at this point.
You are correct in that viewership is down, and yet those that remain are demanding higher quality, paying more than ever in carriage fees, and are getting a substandard image product (vs other options in 2022) . Do they hate their viewers this much or do they just see as cows to be milked? (probably both)
saying that 4k didn’t move the needle is laughable - it’s less than 1% of the content that has been aired. 4K and engaging video content is the cost of doing business in 2022, I don’t care if it doesn’t move the needle in ratings for the same team in the same time slot vs 4k. The “tooling” for the regular HD workflows has been paid for, time to move to a new platform.
I work in automotive manufacturing for a US OEM that made a $8 billion NA profit for the first half of 22 so I’m well aware of amortization costs over production lifecycles.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^
Is there a significant cost for them to produce games in 4k? If not, then why the hell don't they do it?
If it is costly, it's probably just not worth it for them. They care about making money, not producing the best viewing experience. It's not like Michigan fans are going to boycott watching any of the games because they're not in 4k. And while some other CFB fans might flip on a game just to watch in 4k, I imagine most of them are just looking for the best matchup.
I think the way to fix this is what you suggested in a previous thread (I think it was you). People need to put pressure on the B1G ADs to make this a part of any future rights contracts.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:24 PM ^
Tooling has been paid for a LONG TIME for the regular HD workflows. They are just lazy at this point
August 21st, 2022 at 12:20 PM ^
This is pathetic. Football in 4k is a revelation, and the Big Ten should have insisted on progress here in these contracts. Football used to be a selling point for TVs, but not anymore .. 4k has been around forever and it's still like this. Even the Super Bowl was not available in 4k.
If you haven't watched a football game in 4k, you don't know what you're missing, and they are counting on that. But you're missing a lot. Networks think they're saving money but it's very short-sighted. Everyone with a modern TV enjoys the 4k broadcasts more, and long-term that's good for business and growing the game.
Thanks for posting about it, networks deserve more criticism for this.
Edit: I actually thought though that Fox did have 4k broadcasts? The only 4k U-M games I've seen were on Fox last year, on YouTubeTV.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:32 PM ^
Fox in years past has posted their 4K schedule in June/July prior to the season (I think they have two 4K production trucks so it’s not exactly a logistics issue mystery where they’ll be if it’s decided) and this year they haven’t said anything about the 4k schedule and we’re six days from the CFB kickoff. They aren’t doing it until they say otherwise. Absolutely pathetic, we’re regressing in 4k content available at this point
August 21st, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^
"If you haven't watched a football game in 4k, you don't know what you're missing"
I've never watched a football game or anything else in 4K, so I have no clue what I'm missing. Can you describe the difference?
August 21st, 2022 at 2:15 PM ^
It keeps the image from appearing low res on oversized tvs. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference on 55 inch TV between 4k and 1080p
August 21st, 2022 at 2:56 PM ^
Ehhh...watch a Fox 4K broadcast (which is upscaled 1080p) and an ESPN 4K game of the week broadcast. You can tell the difference. Anyone who has seen both can affirm this as well. The ESPN 4k broadcast is incredible.
August 21st, 2022 at 3:06 PM ^
Depending on the size TV you have and how close you sit to it.
I will agree that a very large TV with high res is great to watch, but it's totally unnecessary.
August 21st, 2022 at 3:45 PM ^
Yep, I just want to see the games, and in HD, which wasn't even standard 5 years ago. 4K is a lot lower on my give a shit list than.. for instance... playing a real non-con slate.
August 21st, 2022 at 4:22 PM ^
The fox 4K broadcasts I watched were not upscaled. They were incredible.
I don’t do it often since I have to stream it and can’t easily flip channels. But I’ve never seen a game look so good.
Fox noon broadcasts ads the best-looking sporting events every week. They do a really good job. (Helps also that in my cable system they get a bit more bandwidth for the OTA channels).
August 21st, 2022 at 3:40 PM ^
Watching a game in true 4K instead of 720P feels like going from VHS to DVD. It is amazing. The networks are counting on consumers being ignorant and not demanding it. The govt might need to get involved to force 4K OTA transmission like it did to force the transition from analog to digital OTA transmission in 2009.
August 21st, 2022 at 12:26 PM ^
I'll watch in 480 or whatever the old resolution is; just gimme football
Does 4k require new and expensive equipment?
August 21st, 2022 at 12:29 PM ^
No, you can get Roku 4k stick for like $30 and 4K TVs have been on sale < $800 for at least five years now
August 21st, 2022 at 1:13 PM ^
Old car took a shit a week ago, paying for a new car now... don't have 800 bucks just laying around for a new TV, wouldn'tbuy one either way anyway. And don't even get me started on the joke that is streaming. Never in my life have I had an actual reliable internet connection that didn't have lag issues or whatever techies call it now. Can't stand watching the TV version of a scratched CD skipping. Drives me fucking nuts. Regular "old" high definition suits me just fine. I'm glad I don't have to pay for a 4k package.
We have two amazon firesticks and I ALWAYS use one for the game I want to watch the least. I watch 4 games at once and the other 3 are on Directv and that is plenty good enough.