Just finished this. It's a season in Business Wars by Wondery. Worth a listen.
Here are my thoughts on it:
1. The series really focuses on the Big Ten and the Pac-12. The SEC just kind of chimes in from time to time.
2. They really gave Texas a pass on the Big 12 nearly dissolving in 2010 and kind of pins it on Texas A&M.
3. Larry Scott really put the Pac-12 in a bind with some of the decisions and expenditures he made. He spent millions on a network that they couldn't get onto a national distributor without slashing their carrier fees on the regional cable outlets.
4. They portray George Kliavkoff as being held down by the university presidents. I think it's meant to take some of the pressure off of him, but it made me feel like George Kliavkoff may have been the most impotent and ineffective "leader" in college football. He was basically just a yes man for the college presidents and couldn't convince them to take the deals in front of them.
5. The Pac-12 had the ACC problem first, signing a very long term deal that was the richest in college sports at the time, only to see every other Power 5 surpass that multiple times over and its members stuck and unhappy.
6. Fox Sports really kicked off the bidding wars for conference football rights. ESPN basically lowballed the Big Ten thinking they had no other options, but the Big Ten went to Fox, who opened up the checkbook for their first selections of games and a partnership for the Big Ten network.
7. They really skipped over the era where the BCS was on Fox, which was kind of a weird time because the Fox network didn't really have a college football presence outside that. It was only on their regional networks like "Fox Sports South", etc.
8. The post show interview included John Canzano, which was a weird choice since he was wrong about every single step of the Pac-12's implosion. I chuckled when they called him a "trusted voice".
Here are my thoughts on it:
1. The series really focuses on the Big Ten and the Pac-12. The SEC just kind of chimes in from time to time.
2. They really gave Texas a pass on the Big 12 nearly dissolving in 2010 and kind of pins it on Texas A&M.
3. Larry Scott really put the Pac-12 in a bind with some of the decisions and expenditures he made. He spent millions on a network that they couldn't get onto a national distributor without slashing their carrier fees on the regional cable outlets.
4. They portray George Kliavkoff as being held down by the university presidents. I think it's meant to take some of the pressure off of him, but it made me feel like George Kliavkoff may have been the most impotent and ineffective "leader" in college football. He was basically just a yes man for the college presidents and couldn't convince them to take the deals in front of them.
5. The Pac-12 had the ACC problem first, signing a very long term deal that was the richest in college sports at the time, only to see every other Power 5 surpass that multiple times over and its members stuck and unhappy.
6. Fox Sports really kicked off the bidding wars for conference football rights. ESPN basically lowballed the Big Ten thinking they had no other options, but the Big Ten went to Fox, who opened up the checkbook for their first selections of games and a partnership for the Big Ten network.
7. They really skipped over the era where the BCS was on Fox, which was kind of a weird time because the Fox network didn't really have a college football presence outside that. It was only on their regional networks like "Fox Sports South", etc.
8. The post show interview included John Canzano, which was a weird choice since he was wrong about every single step of the Pac-12's implosion. I chuckled when they called him a "trusted voice".
