*** The next article first appeared late final week within the Hotline e-newsletter. Please take into account signing up — it’s free and publishes every Tuesday and Friday.
Right here on the Hotline, now we have been following the cash because the days of the Pac-10 and warning of an enormous income shortfall relative to the SEC and Massive Ten for nearly as lengthy — even within the face of alternate narratives put forth by the previous commissioner.
Nevertheless it’s at all times invaluable to listen to different opinions, so we’d like to supply one.
An skilled opinion, in truth.
Navigate is a Chicago-based market analysis firm that crunches knowledge for groups and leagues at each the skilled and school ranges.
Their analytics specialists lately revealed estimates of future revenues for every Energy 5 convention by means of the last decade. The modeling took under consideration the scorching marketplace for sports activities media rights and the presumed growth of the Faculty Soccer Playoff.
Navigate’s conclusions paint a grim image for Pac-12 income relative to the SEC and Massive Ten. We gained’t publish all the info right here — for that, you'll be able to bounce immediately to the corporate’s website.
As an alternative, let’s choose estimates from two years.
— First, projected distributions per college in 2025:
Massive Ten: $75.2 million
SEC: $74.9 million
Massive 12: $44.3 million
Pac-12: $42.6 million
ACC: $39.6 million
— Subsequent, projected distributions per college in 2029:
SEC: $117.8 million
Massive Ten: $101.1 million
Pac-12: $62.8 million
ACC: $61.5 million
Massive 12: $57.5 million
By the tip of the last decade, Navigate initiatives that Pac-12 athletic departments will obtain roughly half the annual income of their friends within the SEC and 60 p.c of these within the Massive Ten.
Naturally, Navigate made a sequence of assumptions with its modeling, together with this:
“The 12-team CFP payout mannequin is adjusted to reward efficiency greater than CFP has traditionally finished. This might remodel the CFP payout to be extra aligned with the NCAA Basketball Match mannequin.”
(As a result of the SEC and Massive Ten have despatched extra groups to the playoff than the Pac-12 so far, the Navigate mannequin tilts that future income stream of their favor.)
The Hotline is barely extra bullish on the Pac-12 within the upcoming media rights negotiations than many business observers.
That stated, there isn't a situation during which the convention comes near matching the SEC and Massive Ten income from their media companions.
These leagues have extra soccer manufacturers, extra passionate followers, bigger alumni bases and higher time zones — all of the substances that drive TV scores, which, in flip, drive media contracts — than the Pac-12.
And that income hole, each present and future, has been obvious to us for near a decade.
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