AAC leader Mike Aresco touts new media rights deal...

[mbr33ct]

...addresses ESPN+ criticism.

From my perspective, UConn fan, this seems to say it all for me.

He said there is no room in the new agreement with ESPN to allow for regional television coverage brokered through the individual schools. As for the deal between UConn and SNY, which broadcasts Huskies women’s basketball games, Aresco said ESPN hasn’t decided whether to allow the partnership to continue.

Not exactly a warm fuzzy feeling SNY will continue broadcasting UConn's games...unless ESPN and SNY decide on a deal.

AAC leader Mike Aresco touts new media rights deal, addresses ESPN+ criticism – Bishop Courier

 

[UConnCat]

Aresco is a hero in Tulsa. Good for him.

 

[winlots]

Alright children, for this morning's lesson, lets see if anyone can think of another word that comes to your mind when you say "Aresco."
I just can't seem to come up with one.

 

[soxfan23]

This just highlights another reason why it is imperative for UConn to get out this mid major and into a power 5 conference. These are the payouts for the Power 5 schools, hard to compete when you are making at most 1/4 of what other schools are making.

SEC: $42.M to $39.9M
--Big Ten: $37.2M to $37M
--Big 12: Roughly $34.3M per school except Baylor
--Pac-12: $30.9M per school
--ACC: $30.7M to $25.3M except Notre Dame

 

[oldude]

While it would be somewhat sad if SNY no longer covers UConn WBB, so long as I can live stream all of UConn's games over WatchESPN I can live with it. However, if games are blacked out, then I have a real issue with the new deal.

 

[soxfan23]

While it would be somewhat sad if SNY no longer covers UConn WBB, so long as I can live stream all of UConn's games over WatchESPN I can live with it. However, if games are blacked out, then I have a real issue with the new deal.

They will not all be on WatchESPN, the majority will be on ESPN+ and you will have to pony up $4.99/month(rumored to be going up soon), there is no way ESPN just spent a billion dollars on rights to just give the games away free.

 

[Sifaka]

Alright children, for this morning's lesson, lets see if anyone can think of another word that comes to your mind when you say "Aresco."
I just can't seem to come up with one.

Into the wayyyyyback machine we go, all the way back to Aresco's Latin origins.


"Latin
Aresco in English
V INTRANS
become dry; dry up; wither (plants); run dry (stream/tears); languish (L+S)

Dictionary source: JM Latin-English Dictionary"

 

[psconn]

While it would be somewhat sad if SNY no longer covers UConn WBB, so long as I can live stream all of UConn's games over WatchESPN I can live with it. However, if games are blacked out, then I have a real issue with the new deal.

You will not be able to to use WatchESPN. ESPN+ is a subscriber only service. Get your wallet out!

 

[Jaybird65]

This just highlights another reason why it is imperative for UConn to get out this mid major and into a power 5 conference. These are the payouts for the Power 5 schools, hard to compete when you are making at most 1/4 of what other schools are making.

SEC: $42.M to $39.9M
--Big Ten: $37.2M to $37M
--Big 12: Roughly $34.3M per school except Baylor
--Pac-12: $30.9M per school
--ACC: $30.7M to $25.3M except Notre Dame

Unfortunately, the P5 conferences decide who gets in & when. At least health care has an annual open enrollment period.

 

[SVCBeercats]

Alright children, for this morning's lesson, lets see if anyone can think of another word that comes to your mind when you say "Aresco."
I just can't seem to come up with one.

Hmmmm ... Aresco. Aresco! Vesco? Robert Vesco!!!

 

[CL82]

Aresco is a hero in Tulsa. Good for him.

This. He is managing the needs of the group and using the UConn brand, particularly in woman's basketball, to get a deal that is better for every other school in the conference, but worse for us. The ACC gets more money and better exposure than it would normally and ESPN gets our content at fraction of the price it would if we were in a major conference. It is frustrating, but we have no where else to go.

Here's something that I think some people may have missed:

As for the logistics, the conference will hire a company to produce the football games and Olympic sports championships featured on ESPN+. Men’s and women’s basketball games, as well as regular-season Olympic sporting events, will be left up to the individual schools to produce at their cost.

“The cost is nowhere near what’s being reported,” Aresco said of claims that annual revenue payouts will be less to each school to cover the production costs. “That’s ridiculous. It’s a fraction of that.”

The schools will have to build out infrastructure to accommodate the move, but Aresco said that each member institution is prepared to do it. He said part of the revenue from the new agreement allows them to upgrade facilities like control rooms and mobile TV units.

So let me get this right Mike: you are taking away our regional coverage and forcing us to pay for producing our own basketball content? Yuck fou Mike.

 

[jimazee]

Is ESPN+ a "stand alone" subscription as long as you have Internet, or is it only available on top of others (like Roku, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Comcast etc)?

 

[CL82]

Is ESPN+ a "stand alone" subscription as long as you have Internet, or is it only available on top of others (like Roku, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Comcast etc)?

"Stand alone." It's like WatchESPN (ESPN3) only you have for it. In fact it is a tab on WatchESPN.

 

[Bama fan]

Into the wayyyyyback machine we go, all the way back to Aresco's Latin origins.


"Latin
Aresco in English
V INTRANS
become dry; dry up; wither (plants); run dry (stream/tears); languish (L+S)

Dictionary source: JM Latin-English Dictionary"

Very nice. Mihi placet Latin.

 

[CTexpatinFL]

"Stand alone." It's like WatchESPN (ESPN3) only you have for it. In fact it is a tab on WatchESPN.

View attachment 42947

Not really true, ESPN+ is a tab on your pc and laptop. If you want to watch on a tv, you need to add on Roku, or Amazon, et al.

 

[hoopsfan22]

ESPN+ is a paid service. Like Hulu or Netflix. If you want to watch UConn WCBB you will have to pay the $6/month, and I'm guessing ESPN will be a lot more aggressive than SNY about taking down content posted to youtube.

 

[psconn]

Fair to say that it is becoming harder/more expensive to watch our Huskies?

 

[Carnac]

They will not all be on WatchESPN, the majority will be on ESPN+ and you will have to pony up $4.99/month(rumored to be going up soon), there is no way ESPN just spent a billion dollars on rights to just give the games away free.

Absolutely correct!!! They've got us over a barrel and they know it!!! Take "Netflix" as an example. Just a few years ago, it cost $6.99 a month to subscribe. It just went up $2 to $12.99 this month, and I expect another increase about this same time next year.

The old law of supply and demand. The same reason Disneyland and Disney World can raise their prices through the roof, and not have it effect their bottom line. The demand has been and remains high. The increase in admission prices more than compensates for the few folks than can no longer afford to go.

 

[hoopsfan22]

Fair to say that it is becoming harder/more expensive to watch our Huskies?

Do we even know if ESPN is going to be willing to cover all the games? We know SNY had tier 3 rights and picked up every game that wasn't picked up by ESPN or CBS, but this new deal sounds a lot more restrictive.

 

[uconnfan68]

Absolutely correct!!! They've got us over a barrel and they know it!!! Take "Netflix" as an example. Just a few years ago, it cost $6.99 a month to subscribe. It just went up $2 to $12.99 this month, and I expect another increase about this same time next year.

The old law of supply and demand. The same reason Disneyland and Disney World can raise their prices through the roof, and not have it effect their bottom line. The demand has been and remains high. The increase in admission prices more than compensates for the few folks than can no longer afford to go.

There are more than a FEW folks that can’t afford to go to either place.

 

[CL82]

Do we even know if ESPN is going to be willing to cover all the games? We know SNY had tier 3 rights and picked up every game that wasn't picked up by ESPN or CBS, but this new deal sounds a lot more restrictive.

Because it costs them nothing but bandwidth.

It really comes down to a cost benefit relationship to ESPN. SNY will pay them for the live rights but ESPN+ will get the games as content after the fact. It probably wouldn't hurt for the state to send signals that it would prefer SNY to have the right to broadcast so that fans have OTA access to the games.

 

[lanieer]

SNY is not going to pay for rights. You can wave SNY and Meghan bye bye. Eric Frede already works eSPN games so he will remain.

 

[UConnNick]

This. He is managing the needs of the group and using the UConn brand, particularly in woman's basketball, to get a deal that is better for every other school in the conference, but worse for us. The ACC gets more money and better exposure than it would normally and ESPN gets our content at fraction of the price it would if we were in a major conference. It is frustrating, but we have no where else to go.

Here's something that I think some people may have missed:

As for the logistics, the conference will hire a company to produce the football games and Olympic sports championships featured on ESPN+. Men’s and women’s basketball games, as well as regular-season Olympic sporting events, will be left up to the individual schools to produce at their cost.

“The cost is nowhere near what’s being reported,” Aresco said of claims that annual revenue payouts will be less to each school to cover the production costs. “That’s ridiculous. It’s a fraction of that.”

The schools will have to build out infrastructure to accommodate the move, but Aresco said that each member institution is prepared to do it. He said part of the revenue from the new agreement allows them to upgrade facilities like control rooms and mobile TV units.

So let me get this right Mike: you are taking away our regional coverage and forcing us to pay for producing our own basketball content? Yuck fou Mike.

Aresco should be drawn and quartered. He used UCONN women's BB as a pawn to up the ante on the whole deal, figuring the fans will all subscribe to ESPN+. ESPN systematically destroyed the old Big East Conference and helped keep us out of the ACC in collusion with BS College and others, all the while extorting tax concessions from the state of CT. I won't pay those bastards a dime to watch UCONN whip up on the Tulsas, SMUs, and ECUs of the AAC.

 

[southofnorth]

Are the NCAA and ESPN purposely trying to make sports terrible and impossible to watch? One seems to pick and choose its victims for a headline and the other can’t find announcers that talk about the game while it’s happening.

I also just can’t fathom why people would sign up for ESPN+ because of the AAC.

 

[JoePgh]

SNY is not going to pay for rights. You can wave SNY and Meghan bye bye. Eric Frede already works eSPN games so he will remain.

Why do you say that? If SNY makes a rational business decision, they will pay ESPN for the broadcast rights if and only if they can get more advertising revenue for the broadcasts than the sum of their production costs plus the ESPN payment.

It’s more of a question whether ESPN will offer broadcast rights to SNY for a nonprohibitive price. They will do that if and only if what they receive from SNY will exceed the incremental monthly subscription revenue that they could get by withholding the broadcast rights.

The missing piece here is who will undertake to incur the production costs. If no one steps up to do that, then ESPN will not realize any revenue from these games. It seems that they expect UConn to pay directly for production costs. I guess that might happen (and Megan and Justine might be retained that way), but it seems more rational for SNY to do it in exchange for broadcast rights. I think that is what will ultimately happen, after a lot of negotiating brinksmanship.