A group of us have had a behind the curtain conversation going for a few years now, and one of the others brought up some things that triggered me to note some stuff that has been on my mind. Of course, the headlines are currently athletics-related, but in some ways the conversation goes quite a bit further.
The only certainty at this point in college athletics (at least for the "revenue producing" sports) is uncertainty. Are we simply the first of many who will be shunted aside or re-classified? If so, how quickly will the dominos fall? And if this becomes a mass movement, how many eyeballs will be alienated from sports programming? The level of overall disgust among those who I know has already risen to a noticeable extent.
I've felt for a while that most schools will eventually be dependent to at least some extent on their streaming popularity and the willingness of their fans to pay to watch from home in the same way that they pay if they watch in the stadium. In our case, given that the trip to Pullman is a big deal for many, streaming is perhaps more critical than it might be for a school in an urban area. I honestly doubt that the number of Cougs willing to stream football would be less if we were G5 than P5, so the eventual outcome of that situation seems somewhat irrelevant to me, at least from a streaming perspective. For most of us it is more about watching our team. The trip to Pullman? We already know that a high profile game will draw better attendance than a low profile game. While that is true for many, many schools (both rural and urban; UCLA is a great example of an urban school whose stadium attendance varies by orders of magnitude depending upon the opponent), it is more true in Pullman, given the time & effort needed to travel. But what will our definition of a "high profile" game be in the future? If we are in a league...any league...and the game is against whom ever is near the top of that league, will we think of it as "high profile", and a good excuse to visit Pullman? I suspect the answer for most will be yes.
I also like streaming because of the ability to watch hoops, baseball, volleyball, women's hoops, etc. I watch more of that now than I watched when I was on campus, and it is worth the relatively small cost being charged in order to do that. In some ways I feel more connected to the campus today than I did 20-30 years ago, since now I get to watch events and feel more a part of what is going on than I did back then (I graduated before that time period; 30 years ago I was living a long way from WA and my media connection options were pretty limited). I can easily foresee the typical streamed game also having campus features before the game or at halftime that deal with non-sports aspects of WSU. Again, the "staying connected" theme that will add some value to what you pay for your streaming subscription.
Long story short, I think loyal fans will still watch their teams. Where the eyeballs will go away is in watching national "high profile" games. I now don't give a cr*p about a game involving, for example, Ohio State vs. Michigan or Alabama vs. Auburn. I have no respect for their conferences, so why would I be interested in wasting 3-4 hours of my life watching them? ESPN, Fox, etc., seem likely to see their viewership erode as the viewers are not only alienated, but on top of that ESPN, Fox, etc. will be perceived as a large part of the cause of the undesirable changes. And we'll still be Cougs. Current estimates worldwide is that we now have about 225,000 living alums. Add to that those who identify with us, and that is a nice little chunk of potential streaming subscriptions. Offer some value in the subscription....get the Murrow college to have students produce segments about what is happening on campus...include some snippets of the remote campuses while you are at it...and I think we'll do OK as the college athletics sands shift.
To badly paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated. I loved college sports in its older versions. I don't love it any more, but I still love WSU. And therefore, I love WSU teams. That may not make complete sense, but I find that many others have similar feelings. Probably everyone on this board has feelings for WSU. But feelings for college athletics in general? That is being ground down more and more as time passes. And since there don't appear to be any adults running the NCAA, or the major conferences, or the media networks, it is hard to see anyone reversing some of these trends. I think WSU will actually weather this particular storm better than many schools. But what it will look like in 2, 5, or 10 years? That is hard to guess with any confidence, other than erosion of overall media eyeballs.
The only certainty at this point in college athletics (at least for the "revenue producing" sports) is uncertainty. Are we simply the first of many who will be shunted aside or re-classified? If so, how quickly will the dominos fall? And if this becomes a mass movement, how many eyeballs will be alienated from sports programming? The level of overall disgust among those who I know has already risen to a noticeable extent.
I've felt for a while that most schools will eventually be dependent to at least some extent on their streaming popularity and the willingness of their fans to pay to watch from home in the same way that they pay if they watch in the stadium. In our case, given that the trip to Pullman is a big deal for many, streaming is perhaps more critical than it might be for a school in an urban area. I honestly doubt that the number of Cougs willing to stream football would be less if we were G5 than P5, so the eventual outcome of that situation seems somewhat irrelevant to me, at least from a streaming perspective. For most of us it is more about watching our team. The trip to Pullman? We already know that a high profile game will draw better attendance than a low profile game. While that is true for many, many schools (both rural and urban; UCLA is a great example of an urban school whose stadium attendance varies by orders of magnitude depending upon the opponent), it is more true in Pullman, given the time & effort needed to travel. But what will our definition of a "high profile" game be in the future? If we are in a league...any league...and the game is against whom ever is near the top of that league, will we think of it as "high profile", and a good excuse to visit Pullman? I suspect the answer for most will be yes.
I also like streaming because of the ability to watch hoops, baseball, volleyball, women's hoops, etc. I watch more of that now than I watched when I was on campus, and it is worth the relatively small cost being charged in order to do that. In some ways I feel more connected to the campus today than I did 20-30 years ago, since now I get to watch events and feel more a part of what is going on than I did back then (I graduated before that time period; 30 years ago I was living a long way from WA and my media connection options were pretty limited). I can easily foresee the typical streamed game also having campus features before the game or at halftime that deal with non-sports aspects of WSU. Again, the "staying connected" theme that will add some value to what you pay for your streaming subscription.
Long story short, I think loyal fans will still watch their teams. Where the eyeballs will go away is in watching national "high profile" games. I now don't give a cr*p about a game involving, for example, Ohio State vs. Michigan or Alabama vs. Auburn. I have no respect for their conferences, so why would I be interested in wasting 3-4 hours of my life watching them? ESPN, Fox, etc., seem likely to see their viewership erode as the viewers are not only alienated, but on top of that ESPN, Fox, etc. will be perceived as a large part of the cause of the undesirable changes. And we'll still be Cougs. Current estimates worldwide is that we now have about 225,000 living alums. Add to that those who identify with us, and that is a nice little chunk of potential streaming subscriptions. Offer some value in the subscription....get the Murrow college to have students produce segments about what is happening on campus...include some snippets of the remote campuses while you are at it...and I think we'll do OK as the college athletics sands shift.
To badly paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated. I loved college sports in its older versions. I don't love it any more, but I still love WSU. And therefore, I love WSU teams. That may not make complete sense, but I find that many others have similar feelings. Probably everyone on this board has feelings for WSU. But feelings for college athletics in general? That is being ground down more and more as time passes. And since there don't appear to be any adults running the NCAA, or the major conferences, or the media networks, it is hard to see anyone reversing some of these trends. I think WSU will actually weather this particular storm better than many schools. But what it will look like in 2, 5, or 10 years? That is hard to guess with any confidence, other than erosion of overall media eyeballs.
