On the Pac-12 Networks and the Elephant in the Room
Posted by Andrew Murawa on January 29th, 2015Listen. Can we talk about the Pac-12 Networks? Now you, dear reader, like me, you love the Pac-12 Networks. You may have had another cable or satellite TV provider before the networks were announced and may have even been relatively pleased with the service they provided. But when push came to shove and these networks were live and showing exclusive Pac-12 football and basketball games, you went out of your way to dump your old provider and find a new one that offered you this network instead. There was no way in hell you were going to go through a season missing games simply because DirecTV or whoever your provider was couldn’t come to an agreement with the conference on carrying its programming. So you’ve been enjoying the hell out of it for the past three seasons, watching all the games you want to see from your favorite conference, including most recently, last week’s Arizona vs. Utah top-10 clash and last Saturday’s triple-header of conference games. So, for you and for me and other like-minded fans of the conference, this development has been nothing but good.
For Die-Hards, The Pac-12 Networks Have Been A Positive Development
The problem is that we’re not everybody. The most recent numbers I cared to look for showed DirecTV with 20.231 million subscribers in the United States at the end of the second quarter in 2014. As you may well know, DirecTV does not carry the Pac-12 Networks. Both sides carried on negotiations about the possibility of a deal, but many years later, there’s no sign of ever getting anywhere. And there are other cable providers with similar stances, which is why you get criticism of the conference when big games – like that Arizona/Utah game – are shown only on the Pac-12 Networks. Our own Shane Connolly fired a shot across the bow when he noted on the RTC Podcast last week that he was happy that the second Utah/Arizona match-up (on February 28) will be shown on a “real channel” (namely ESPN). Ouch. And, you know what? Those criticisms are fair. In this day and age of media saturation, not having access to a channel and its games is unacceptable.
Worse yet, there is the natural comparison with other power conferences that have their own networks. The Big Ten Network is seemingly ubiquitous, and has been since it was announced about a decade ago, now available in 90 million homes. The SEC Network – owned and pushed to subscribers by ESPN – is already available in 90 million homes despite being less than a year old. By comparison, the Pac-12 Networks are in the neighborhood of 52 million homes. Why? Must be some unreasonable negotiations on the Pac-12 front, right? Well, according to all reports, the Pac-12 has offered and continues to offer DirecTV the same deal that it has offered companies like Dish, Comcast, Cox and Time Warner, but those negotiations have gotten nowhere.
So it must be that the Big Ten and SEC Networks have better programming, right? It is true that, for instance, on the football front, most of the best games of the year were already available on non-Pac-12 networks like ESPN, ABC and Fox. The fact is that those other networks have the option to pick up the conference’s best games as part of their contracts, leaving the Pac-12 Networks with the dregs of the schedule – non-conference games against bad teams and in-conference games between bad teams. In basketball season, the selection is usually a little better based on the sheer number of games and the preordained schedule, but then again as we learned during conference realignment, college basketball doesn’t really matter. Plus, the Big Ten is in much the same boat as the Pac-12 here, susceptible to games being poached by the big networks. The SEC Network has a little bit of an advantage in that ESPN has an interest in making sure it gets its share of good games, but by and large the quality of programming is not the main differentiating feature.
It’s a Real Shame that Much of the Country Couldn’t See This Game (USA Today Images)
In the end, it comes down to this fact: Big Ten and SEC fans are numerous enough and rabid enough that DirecTV doesn’t want to risk their ire by refusing to carry their network. With the Pac-12 – a conference where the vast majority of the schools are situated around major metropolitan areas with professional sports teams and tons of other options for entertainment – fans aren’t demanding this network in large enough numbers. I dropped DirecTV without a second thought when it didn’t have a deal in place for the first football weekend back in 2012, and I let them know the exact reason why I did so. Many of my friends and acquaintances, who are at least nominally fans of the Pac-12, did not. Until and unless large numbers of people across the West drop DirecTV and demand that the Pac-12 Networks are part of its package before even entertaining a notion of returning, there will be no deal made between the two entities. And, at this point, with no ongoing negotiations with DirecTV in place, that appears rather unlikely.
So, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, the ball is in your court. In no way would I suggest that concessions be made to DirecTV, but at the same time, you need to realize that there are DirecTV subscribers who are perfectly happy with their service even without the Pac-12 Networks ever showing up on their programming guide. You therefore need to make the decision now. Do you give up any hope of ever earning those fans as regular viewers of your programming; or do you offer alternate means to reach out to those fans? I’m not going to pretend I’ve read over the contracts with television providers – or that I would understand half of what I read even if I did – but there has got to be a way to provide access to those fans to your games and your content online. Sure, there’s a good chance that if those people aren’t willing to give up DirecTV in order get access to the Pac-12 Networks that they may not be willing to spring $10/month or whatever it costs for online access. But one way or another, in order to take the next step and reach more households and establish more brand loyalty and keep up with Joneses and cement the worth of this programming that this network provides, the Pac-12 needs to find a way around the DirecTV behemoth that’s parked in the middle of the room.
Andrew Murawa Likes Basketball.
