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<blockquote data-quote="topdecktiger" data-source="post: 129536155" data-attributes="member: 1459051">Well, I've tried to answer this multiple times. The biggest thing is, ESPN got read the riot act from Disney last year about expenses. So ESPN isn't going to greenlight anything until they are about as sure as possible that it won't lose money.To that point, it will ultimately come down to carriage. Of the four networks launched so far (BTN, SECN, PacN, LHN) only the SECN was profitable right off the bat. The other three took at least a couple of years to turn a profit. That's because it took them some time to get enough carriage to be profitable. I posted the link in another thread where Georgia Tech's president said that ESPN wanted to assure carriage before launching the network. That could mean the ACC simply can't get enough carriage. Or, it could mean that ESPN simply wants to negotiate carriage deals first, before actually forming the network, and therefore not have to go through the &quot;growing pains&quot; for the first few years. That's not an unreasonable course of action.One other issue could be the syndication contracts. There are several years left on them, so ESPN might prefer to wait until they expire or become reduced.That said, it still may not be that the ACC gets a network. It may turn out that it won't get enough subscribers. My only issue is that you assume that since it doesn't have one now, that this means there won't be enough subscribers. That's not a reasonable assumption, given the issues I listed above, and that 2017 had always been the target date from the beginning.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="topdecktiger, post: 129536155, member: 1459051"] Well, I've tried to answer this multiple times. The biggest thing is, ESPN got read the riot act from Disney last year about expenses. So ESPN isn't going to greenlight anything until they are about as sure as possible that it won't lose money. To that point, it will ultimately come down to carriage. Of the four networks launched so far (BTN, SECN, PacN, LHN) only the SECN was profitable right off the bat. The other three took at least a couple of years to turn a profit. That's because it took them some time to get enough carriage to be profitable. I posted the link in another thread where Georgia Tech's president said that ESPN wanted to assure carriage before launching the network. That could mean the ACC simply can't get enough carriage. Or, it could mean that ESPN simply wants to negotiate carriage deals first, before actually forming the network, and therefore not have to go through the "growing pains" for the first few years. That's not an unreasonable course of action. One other issue could be the syndication contracts. There are several years left on them, so ESPN might prefer to wait until they expire or become reduced. That said, it still may not be that the ACC gets a network. It may turn out that it won't get enough subscribers. My only issue is that you assume that since it doesn't have one now, that this means there won't be enough subscribers. That's not a reasonable assumption, given the issues I listed above, and that 2017 had always been the target date from the beginning. [/QUOTE]

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