Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Morning Six Pack: August 7, 2012

imageTake some of that wort, blend in some cream and add it to your coffee as you enjoy these six college football stories from around the country.

Kirby Smart thankful for stability as he heads into 5th season as Alabama's defensive coordinator

He is the longest tenured defensive coordinator in the SEC and has been around longer than most of the league's head coaches.

Hoke gives no timeline for suspended RB Toussaint's return

Michigan started preseason practice without suspended players Fitz Toussaint and Frank Clark, and coach Brady Hoke gave no hint of when either will return.

Trojans RB Redd practices, starts 'new chapter'

Former Penn State running back Silas Redd practiced with the USC Trojans on Monday for the first time after announcing plans to transfer to the school last week.

Urban Meyer says Ohio State won't settle for average

Urban Meyer spent Monday's first full team practice not watching what players did so much as taking a peek inside their facemasks.

Ok, that’s creepy.

MRI reveals torn ACL in right knee for Oklahoma lineman Evans

An MRI on Monday revealed that Oklahoma starting offensive guard Tyler Evans tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee at the start of camp, yet another blow to a Sooners squad that was already going to be without five other players for the upcoming season.

Quotable:

So what comes next? In this most recent round of deals, network executives wisely bought rights to a wide variety of distribution methods. They know fans now expect the ability to watch games on televisions, gaming systems, smart phones and tablets, and they have locked up rights that allow them to offer games everywhere. ESPN has been at the forefront of the TV Everywhere movement, beginning with ESPN3.com and continuing with the WatchESPN app for smartphones and tablets. Turner and CBS, meanwhile, made the NCAA basketball tournament completely portable this year. As the hit-or-miss streaming on NBC's website has shown during the Olympics, the rest of the industry is chasing college sports up the curve. "It's the most important thing," ESPN's Magnus said. "The reason we're able to do deals of that length with college conferences is that they're willing to sell us the rights to exploit the content across all technologies whether we know of them now or whether they come halfway through the term."

Money and technology remain the wild cards. The NFL rakes in such huge sums because it is a single seller. It is the only entity selling elite professional football. There are five sellers (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) of elite college football. That holds prices down somewhat. Will those leagues someday merge and sell their media rights as a single entity for an even more astronomical sum? They did it as the BCS for postseason games, and they'll do it again with the playoff. If they ever chose to pool regular-season rights, they'd be the CFA all over again. The Pac-12's Scott sees significant barriers to that, but with college sports still undervalued relative to their earning potential, anything is possible. "It would be no small undertaking," Scott said. "But I've said for some time that I do see -- over time -- you'll see further consolidation of conferences or more consolidation for how rights are sold. As there is more sophistication in the college space, you realize that value for schools is left on the table because of fragmentation. I think markets tend to correct."

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