I have 3 big problems with what is talked about in the article (fantastic, in the true meaning of the word) and the comments in this thread. This will be a very long post which I am breaking up into more than one post. If you don't want to read it don't.
2) Cord cutting, while it is starting to happen, has been exaggerated as to its near term effects on sports, and pretty much everything else, too. There are several reasons for this:
I. To a great extent, cord cutting is a generational thing. It will be, has been, adopted largely by younger people. A lot of this adoption has been driven by movie viewers and features not available on the cord/satellite systems. In other words, a lot of the "internet" based providers have built their growth not on challenging the current content providers, but by providing new or different content.
ii. The third party content providers (ESPN, Showtime, Broadcast Networks, etc.) have solutions of their own, too, and the discussion of them should be separated from those who deliver content (cable and satellite). 3rd party providers can continue to control content by buying EXCLUSIVE rights to that content. RAYCOM was recently shut out of ACC content (after decades) by the ACC contract with ESPN. The BTN and SECNET are examples where the conferences sell as much of their content as they can to the 3rd parties or networks and keep the rights to the rest for themselves. Currently, no one, cord or not, can broadcast any ACC sporting event without buying it from ESPN.
iii. The current cord/satellite providers have defensive measures of their own. As mentioned above, they can also buy exclusive rights to sporting events from conferences, and they can partner with conferences to produce and provide content from their conference networks (BIGFox & SEC/ESPN). A good example of this is what cable providers are doing with baseball, where each team has the rights to its own games. If you are not aware of it, 2 years ago, Time-Warner Cable paid the Dodgers 8+ Billion (with a B) dollars for the exclusive rights to their broadcasts for 25 years. No one, cord or not, can broadcast Dodger games (with the exception of the MLB contract with Fox) without buying the games from TWC. Other cable providers, mostly COMCAST, have done the same thing with other teams.
iv. Unbundling needs to be included in this conversation as well. The biggest effect of cord cutting is supposed to be unbundling, where you can buy just the content you want. The examples are usually all the unwatched channels from your cable system, or 5 ESPN channels when you only watch one. The truth is all those unwatched channels are just fluff on your channel guide. They don't cost your cable provider very much, and if they were unbundled, it would either result in the loss of all that content (to everyone), or it would be bundled for $5 or $10 per month. As far as getting rid of extra ESPN channels, ESPN is unlikely to let that happen. Like Showtime and HBO, you will either get all the channels or none. Same thing is likely to happen with the networks. You get all of what CBS produces or you get none, etc. The net result is that because content providers (whose costs will not go down) control their content, can create their own bundles, and set their own prices, the prices of popular content will increase to offset the likely small loss in the number of buyers.
v. Another argument in the article is that each school owns its own content and will choose to be their own producer and seller of that content, the result being major changes in conferences, etc. The facts are that this has already happened, but the schools are too smart to become content producers and marketers themselves. Where does this fit into their mission as an academic institution? In most cases they have turned this process over to their CONFERENCES, who are better equipped to perform these functions, and have much better marketing leverage by BUNDLING the content of all their members. The major exception is Texas, (and ND for FB) but even in those cases they contracted with third parties for the production and marketing of their content. The result is that instead of being a catalyst for the demise or major restructuring of conferences, it is just the opposite, a strong cohesive force to hold the conferences together and provide the substantial financial benefit of their content to the schools without the schools getting into that business.
