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CU At The Game Podcast – Fall Camp Unit-by-Unit Preview: Defense / Plus: “Black Friday” and the Demise of the Pac-12
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For this special episode, I am joined by Brad Geiger and Neil Langland, and we divide the podcast into two segments.
First, we take a look at “Black Friday” – August 4, 2023 – when the Pac-12, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist. There were plenty of actors who played a role in the demise of the conference, but it wasn’t until the media deal offered to the schools was found wanting that the 108-year old conference fell apart. Who bears the brunt of the blame for the mass exodus, and who were the winners and the losers when the dust settled?
We then move back to talking about actual football. CU’s Fall Camp is underway, and we take a unit-by-unit look at the Buff defense, rating each unit as to whether it rates as being in the top half of the Pac-12 … or the bottom half.
So … Is there enough heft in CU’s interior defensive line to keep opposing offenses from running straight at the Buff defense? … Is there enough speed and talent at the edge to wreak some havoc on opposing quarterbacks? … Are CU star cornerbacks ready for prime time, or are they still a few games – or even a full season – away from being dominant? … Is this the best back end CU’s defense has had since 2016? …
… Let’s find out …
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Most recent CU at the Game Podcast episodes …
- Spring Game Recap / Prime Cuts: Making Sense of CU’s Drastic Roster Overhaul
- Completing the Roster: Which gaps need to be filled with the few remaining scholarships?
- Mailbag Edition: Entering the First Summer of the Coach Prime Era
- CU at the Crossroads: Media Revenue Contracts and Future Conference Membership at Stake
- The Yea or Nay Episode: Just How Will CU’s 2023 Season Play Out?
- The Potluck Podcast: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
- Fall Camp Unit-by-Unit Preview: Offense
- Special Episode: CU’s Bold Move to Return to the Big 12, and How Colorado is Reshaping the Future of Two Power Five Conferences
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Below is Episode 17 of Season 4 for the CU at the Game Podcast. You can listen to the podcast simply by clicking on the play button below, or listen to it at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio … or wherever you find your podcasts!
2 Replies to “CUATG Podcast: “Black Friday” / Plus: Fall Camp Preview – Defense”
I just got this summary from a buddy, a fellow Buff, and dude who’s been involved in sports media marketing for 30yrs. Not sure where he got it, he sent it to a CU text group we have, just as a text. Kinda shows what we already know. The Pac 12 saga will be an MBA course in mismanagement. Enjoy:
ESPN, Fox and CBS all put in last-minute bids for packages of Pac-12 games. But the bids all came in way lower than the conference wanted. How low? Commissioner George Kliavkoff only presented the conference’s presidents with Apple TV’s bid last week.
Fox’s bid was for a package of just 13 football games, for which it said it would pay around $35-$40 million per year. Fox’s bid, essentially, was for what it considered part of the conference’s “B” package.
ESPN had offered a significant package to the conference more than a year ago — one that the conference’s university presidents rejected. ESPN ended up cutting a deal with the Big 12, and while it remained involved with the Pac-12, it only put in a small bid for Pac-12 rights within the past few weeks.
CBS also engaged with the Pac-12 over the past couple of weeks, but it only put forward a bid for a handful of basketball games — around five in total. Sources had expected ESPN and Amazon to share the Pac-12’s “A” package. But as it turned out, Amazon never submitted a bid. Neither did NBC.
The delay from last year, when ESPN, Fox and CBS were willing to do a deal, to last week, when all three put forth small bids, was devastating to the Pac-12. A changing media landscape — with shrinking subscriber numbers and employee layoffs — caused the networks to be much more disciplined in where to spend their money than they have in the past.
Similarly, Wall Street hit the streamers hard as shares fell once bankers started prioritizing profits over subscriber growth and caused deep-pocketed companies like Amazon and Apple to also become more disciplined in how much they spend on sports rights.
There’s also been a lot of speculation over Fox’s role in convincing Oregon and Washington to reject the proposed Apple deal and move over to the Big Ten. Fox was instrumental in orchestrating UCLA and USC’s move from the Pac-12, and there’s been a lot of speculation that it was the driving force behind this move, too.
Fox was involved, of course. But my sources tell me that Fox was much more reactive with Oregon and Washington. Once the schools saw the Apple bid, they reached out to the Big Ten about switching conferences. That’s when the Big Ten called Fox to see if its main network partner would help fund part of the move.
Fox holds the current Pac-12 rights through ’24, which accounts for about 22 football games per year. Having Oregon and Washington move to the Big Ten would help the network fill at least some of the Pac-12 schedule that it will be losing after 2024.
Go Buffs
I wanted the PAC10 to survive, but when we found out there was no TV pie left for them and after seeing all of the TV time slots were gone, it became apparent that the PAC12 lost to the Big12; flat out they were out maneuvered by them, and the writing was on the wall. After watching Klatt’s TV pie video I realized just how crappy and weak the PAC12 conference would have become with no TV deal, but a streaming deal would have even less national exposure than the “PAC12 After Dark” did and the PAC12 Network just isn’t anywhere close to the subscriptions and eyeballs as the B1G’s or the SEC’s Networks.
How would that have effected recruiting? The PAC10 wouldn’t have been a Power Conference much longer and the teams that made the jump to a power conference are better off.
Oregon, UW & Utah may have had an easier path to the CFP, but how long would that have lasted? After this year with the PAC12 TV deal ending and with the LA schools gone, how much longer does the PAC10 get P5 opportunities in the CFP?