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Post by rgeorge on Sept 5, 2023 8:40:45 GMT -8
Wow, everyone wants to take a pot shot at collusion. Take your turns with the bats, boys! I'll play along. The collusion would exist between ESPN and Fox in attempting to freeze out a potential new market player in Apple, and to divide the market share in an unofficially agreed upon method. Regardless of whether CBS or NBC are there, ESPN and Fox are the vast majority rights holders in the market and have the means to substantially shape the market at their market rates. The question would become whether there was any evidence of collusion, because tacit collusion would be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to get across the goal line. You're just trying to validate that the big market players had some sort of market division agreement. Could it be Apple suing? Sure, but Apple has other remedies that only occur when you have dozens of billions of dollars sitting around. If Apple, let's say, did sue and collusion was proved, the damages for OSU would be that had they not intervened to break apart the PAC, OSU would have stood to make a theoretically larger media deal (I say theoretically because we don't know what the new one will offer). Now before everyone screams, "They wouldn't be stupid enough to have documents showing collusion!" let me just say it obviously has happened before, and yes even with vast corporate legal teams (I mean, Apple itself was found guilt of collusion in a case against Amazon), and yes, I realize it's a long shot. Hence why I'm not saying blow the whole wad on legal fees. A pretty simple AB... fastball right down the middle... crushed. No one froze out Apple. Apple was turned down, or deal broken up by Pac12 not being aligned. They made an offer, teams decided it wasn't for them and took another offer. It is an open market and essentially the "offers" although funded by media companies were from conferences. And, Apple is still free to join the club and could do so anytime. Apple has far more financial resources than either of the "colluding" parties to be frozen out of almost any market they want to enter. |
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Post by wilkyisdashiznit on Sept 5, 2023 16:53:24 GMT -8
Wow, everyone wants to take a pot shot at collusion. Take your turns with the bats, boys! I'll play along. The collusion would exist between ESPN and Fox in attempting to freeze out a potential new market player in Apple, and to divide the market share in an unofficially agreed upon method. Regardless of whether CBS or NBC are there, ESPN and Fox are the vast majority rights holders in the market and have the means to substantially shape the market at their market rates. The question would become whether there was any evidence of collusion, because tacit collusion would be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to get across the goal line. You're just trying to validate that the big market players had some sort of market division agreement. Could it be Apple suing? Sure, but Apple has other remedies that only occur when you have dozens of billions of dollars sitting around. If Apple, let's say, did sue and collusion was proved, the damages for OSU would be that had they not intervened to break apart the PAC, OSU would have stood to make a theoretically larger media deal (I say theoretically because we don't know what the new one will offer). Now before everyone screams, "They wouldn't be stupid enough to have documents showing collusion!" let me just say it obviously has happened before, and yes even with vast corporate legal teams (I mean, Apple itself was found guilt of collusion in a case against Amazon), and yes, I realize it's a long shot. Hence why I'm not saying blow the whole wad on legal fees. The issue with all of that is that Apple offered $25 million. The five teams that left after that all quickly secured contracts for $30+ million. That argument is a loser. If Apple did not want to get "frozen out of the market," it had to know that it had to at least meet the earlier $30 million offer or the $30 million offer that the other teams received. Apple trying to lowball the Pac-9 at the end was the final nail in the coffin for the current Pac-2 situation. After that, it was all over but the crying. |
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Post by avidbeaver on Sept 5, 2023 17:06:13 GMT -8
Wow, everyone wants to take a pot shot at collusion. Take your turns with the bats, boys! I'll play along. The collusion would exist between ESPN and Fox in attempting to freeze out a potential new market player in Apple, and to divide the market share in an unofficially agreed upon method. Regardless of whether CBS or NBC are there, ESPN and Fox are the vast majority rights holders in the market and have the means to substantially shape the market at their market rates. The question would become whether there was any evidence of collusion, because tacit collusion would be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to get across the goal line. You're just trying to validate that the big market players had some sort of market division agreement. Could it be Apple suing? Sure, but Apple has other remedies that only occur when you have dozens of billions of dollars sitting around. If Apple, let's say, did sue and collusion was proved, the damages for OSU would be that had they not intervened to break apart the PAC, OSU would have stood to make a theoretically larger media deal (I say theoretically because we don't know what the new one will offer). Now before everyone screams, "They wouldn't be stupid enough to have documents showing collusion!" let me just say it obviously has happened before, and yes even with vast corporate legal teams (I mean, Apple itself was found guilt of collusion in a case against Amazon), and yes, I realize it's a long shot. Hence why I'm not saying blow the whole wad on legal fees. The issue with all of that is that Apple offered $25 million. The five teams that left after that all quickly secured contracts for $30+ million. That argument is a loser. If Apple did not want to get "frozen out of the market," it had to know that it had to at least meet the earlier $30 million offer or the $30 million offer that the other teams received. Apple trying to lowball the Pac-9 at the end was the final nail in the coffin for the current Pac-2 situation. After that, it was all over but the crying. I think that 25 million would have easily got to 30 million with the incentives offered by Apple. How much higher who knows. We will ever know because two schools got cold feet. |
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Post by wilkyisdashiznit on Sept 5, 2023 17:12:16 GMT -8
The issue with all of that is that Apple offered $25 million. The five teams that left after that all quickly secured contracts for $30+ million. That argument is a loser. If Apple did not want to get "frozen out of the market," it had to know that it had to at least meet the earlier $30 million offer or the $30 million offer that the other teams received. Apple trying to lowball the Pac-9 at the end was the final nail in the coffin for the current Pac-2 situation. After that, it was all over but the crying. I think that 25 million would have easily got to 30 million with the incentives offered by Apple. How much higher who knows. We will ever know because two schools got cold feet. Washington saw that bottom-line $25 million number and bolted. Two in the bush might be better than one in the hand, but usually.......... Bad leadership caused UCLA and USC to bolt. And worse leadership caused us to back our way into a bad Apple deal. |
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Post by rgeorge on Sept 5, 2023 17:20:06 GMT -8
I think that 25 million would have easily got to 30 million with the incentives offered by Apple. How much higher who knows. We will ever know because two schools got cold feet. Washington saw that bottom-line $25 million number and bolted. Two in the bush might be better than one in the hand, but usually.......... Bad leadership caused UCLA and USC to bolt. And worse leadership caused us to back our way into a bad Apple deal. From what & how I read the UW remarks it was more about arrogance than money. The statements I vaguely remember centered around it being beneath UW to "sell" subscriptions and that the B10 media partner fit their "profile". I may be off base but I thought there was also some arrogant comment about a lemonade stand or ?? The Apple deal was presented as $31+ million per team was almost a no brainer level to reach. Plus they offered a 2 or 3 year out clause if the deal didn't meet expectations. To me, UW specifically played along with no intention of ever agreeing to an Apple deal. They were dealing behind the scenes the entire time. |
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Post by drunkandstoopidbeav on Sept 5, 2023 17:27:41 GMT -8
I think that 25 million would have easily got to 30 million with the incentives offered by Apple. How much higher who knows. We will ever know because two schools got cold feet. Washington saw that bottom-line $25 million number and bolted. Two in the bush might be better than one in the hand, but usually.......... Bad leadership caused UCLA and USC to bolt. And worse leadership caused us to back our way into a bad Apple deal. Apple probably should have gone to 30/32 and raised the number of subs to hit the 50/50 split. Woulda,coulda,shoulda... and Hindsight is the best insight to foresight. |
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Post by RenoBeaver on Sept 5, 2023 23:59:48 GMT -8
Wow, everyone wants to take a pot shot at collusion. Take your turns with the bats, boys! I'll play along. The collusion would exist between ESPN and Fox in attempting to freeze out a potential new market player in Apple, and to divide the market share in an unofficially agreed upon method. Regardless of whether CBS or NBC are there, ESPN and Fox are the vast majority rights holders in the market and have the means to substantially shape the market at their market rates. The question would become whether there was any evidence of collusion, because tacit collusion would be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to get across the goal line. You're just trying to validate that the big market players had some sort of market division agreement. Could it be Apple suing? Sure, but Apple has other remedies that only occur when you have dozens of billions of dollars sitting around. If Apple, let's say, did sue and collusion was proved, the damages for OSU would be that had they not intervened to break apart the PAC, OSU would have stood to make a theoretically larger media deal (I say theoretically because we don't know what the new one will offer). Now before everyone screams, "They wouldn't be stupid enough to have documents showing collusion!" let me just say it obviously has happened before, and yes even with vast corporate legal teams (I mean, Apple itself was found guilt of collusion in a case against Amazon), and yes, I realize it's a long shot. Hence why I'm not saying blow the whole wad on legal fees. The issue with all of that is that Apple offered $25 million. The five teams that left after that all quickly secured contracts for $30+ million. That argument is a loser. If Apple did not want to get "frozen out of the market," it had to know that it had to at least meet the earlier $30 million offer or the $30 million offer that the other teams received. Apple trying to lowball the Pac-9 at the end was the final nail in the coffin for the current Pac-2 situation. After that, it was all over but the crying. I have no idea where this goes but it does seem Apple wants in. Would Apple truly consider buying out ESPN? Build from bottom up? Whatever that may be, I hope OSU/WSU + Luck are keeping that dialogue going |
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