Wednesday brought the news that fans of the Pac-12 had been nervous about hearing for months now, and it looks like those fans were right to be nervous. The best offer the Pac-12 received came not from a linear network in need of content, but from Apple TV, a full streaming service that’s more known for Ted Lasso than anything else.
The announcement appears to have done nothing to satisfy school presidents, who did not want a streaming deal and did not want an incentive-heavy deal. And now the league could be on life support, as Arizona, Arizona State and Utah are looking at the Big 12 and Oregon and Washington are desperate to sign up with the Big Ten.
Why won’t this move work for the league? Here are a few reasons.
People Don’t Stream Games They Aren’t Invested In
If you’re like most college football fans, you want to watch three kinds of games: games where your team is playing, games that affect your team and big games involving national brands. If you’re in a window where none of the three are in play, you might watch a game involving two other teams, but only if you can find it easily on your television.
Streaming services, by definition, don’t make games easy to find. Apple will advertise the Pac-12 heavily if it gets the rights, but nobody who isn’t already watching Apple TV will see it. So the only ones streaming would be Pac-12 fans, and there just aren’t enough of them to get attention.
The Pac-12 Doesn’t Have Time to Grow With Apple
In professional sports, Major League Soccer is learning the hard way that it takes time to get an audience to migrate to streaming. But MLS has deep pockets and can afford to wait several years for subscribers to come. The Pac-12 will just fall further behind the other power conferences with this deal. Maybe it could get enough subscribers to reach the Big 12 or ACC numbers, but that’s still years of falling behind in fifth place. The math won’t work.
It Kills Recruiting
It Kills RecruitingImagine Oregon State recruiting a kid and telling his family they’ll have to watch him play on Apple, while Boise State can tell him that he’ll be on FS1 and CBS Sports. That’s a big point in Boise’s favor, because few people bother to get Apple. Kids and families want to be seen, and if they have choices, they’ll go where they can be seen.
And the Pac-12’s hot commodities know it. They aren’t sticking around to wait if they can find a lifeboat somewhere. If the Big 12 or Big Ten offers, they’re making their move.