Thoughts on the BYU, Cash and Religion

[Lawboy]

Whether BYU-TV is public or not is not the issue. The issue is that BYU already has its own network and delivery capacity to broadcast its game. Selling ad spots during BYU games would be easy after that. BYU can do something that few other universities in the nation can, and that needs to be used to our advantage.

Obviously, BYU would lose some revenue from not allowing beer commercials, which tend to dominate sports coverage, but I suspect beer vendors would not really want to advertise to BYU fans anyway. But the other potential is there. BYU can do it.

[allcoug]

First of all, BYU doesn't make any of their revenue or expenses public, so I wouldn't believe the numbers you quoted. Maybe a third party merchandiser has publicized those numbers for themselves, but they sure don't include what BYU sells directly. And the Mormon thing, if you spend anytime outside the state of Utah you will realize that in general most everyone really respects the Mormon culture. But once you get past the niceties you realize that the general perception is that we are are very strange culture and have weird beliefs. I have lived in the south and in California for significant periods of time, and that's just the fact. There is no way on God's green earth that we would EVER get an invite from the PAC 10. An the Big 12 will only come calling when they realize the money we can bring to their conference is just too much to pass up.

And I don't agree that I am over inflating the TV value of BYU. We currently get 1.5 million from the MWC. That makes the total value of the MWC TV agreement with the current nine teams roughly 13.5m, not including what the conference keeps for itself. There is no doubt that the significant majority of the contract agreement is a result of BYU being a part of the MWC. If BYU had its own revenue stream on BYUTV I would bet they could easily get 8 to 10m for themselves. That's not a stretch and my guess is that it would only increase over time. But we haven't done it because we have believed that we were in a team effort to make the MWC a BCS contender. That's not going to happen. We can't control getting an invite to the Big 12 (which we would jump at) but we can control the TV revenue. And like it or not, that has become the main driver for college football today. The last couple of weeks has proved this to be the case.

[stuckinbig10country]

BYU would not get 8 to 10 million from BYUTV. That's just a pipe dream.

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[Lawboy]

BYU would not get 8 to 10 million from BYUTV. That's just a pipe dream.

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If you were able to broadcast a few football games and several hoops games a year, it is possible. Especially if both programs are winning. Maybe not $8M, but I would think $4M is possible, and that is a huge improvement.

[allcoug]

BYU would not get 8 to 10 million from BYUTV. That's just a pipe dream.

Kind of like "There is no way Texas can get nearly 25m from the Big 12 TV contract and there own network"

I realize the numbers are a guess, but there is no question that BYU could double, triple even quadruple the 1.5m they currently get from The Mountain. It's no pipe dream and BYU knows it. And if Utah leaves it will be easier for BYU to take advantage of TV revenue streams.

[blue42]

This whole BYU needs to have it's own network absolutely won't work. I know BYU TV is out there but remember this is a station that needs to be picked up by cable and satellite providers which needs to get a cut in order for them to carry BYU TV. We can't even get the MTN on any significant numbers of tv's with an entire conference how can only having BYU make that a better deal for the cable and satellite providers?

I know there are 5-6 million mormons in N America but as pointed out earlier all of those, believe it or not, may not be BYU sports fans. In addition to that it has to have a financial benefit to the cable companies and in reality if every mormon household did tune in for each game that would represent about 0.02% of the entire US population, a very unimpressive tv share and not quite the numbers to warrant putting them on their schedule.

This is also the main reason BYU could never go independent and survive financially.

[allcoug]

No one expects every Mormon home to tune into a BYU football game. But we need to put the numbers in perspective. Notre Dame, the king of the college football TV contract gets about 3.7 million viewers per game:

NBC garnered a 16 percent increase in its average viewership for its Notre Dame coverage, pulling in 3.7 million viewers up from 3.2 million per game in 2008.

It's not unreasonable to believe that if BYU only got a fraction of this amount we would see a significant increase in revenue. Again, you can't forget that the Mountain is currently paying out 13.5 million to all the teams in the conference. And if you don't think BYU accounts for a half of this, even without a quality TV station, then our head is in the sand. No doubt the administration at BYU knows this and without Utah to offend they just might make some moves.

[Lawboy]

This whole BYU needs to have it's own network absolutely won't work. I know BYU TV is out there but remember this is a station that needs to be picked up by cable and satellite providers which needs to get a cut in order for them to carry BYU TV. We can't even get the MTN on any significant numbers of tv's with an entire conference how can only having BYU make that a better deal for the cable and satellite providers?

BYU-TV is already on both Direct TV and Dish Network, and also carried locally by many cable providers in Utah, Nevada, Arizona and in SoCal. This is not even an issue. And it is expanding its reach. Look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYU_Television

[allcoug]

Also, don't forget that TV isn't just, you know, TV. The ability to control revenue for Internet streaming would be another market for BYU fans throughout the world. This is a huge potential for the unique nature of BYU's fan base.

[stuckinbig10country]

I think that a deal for all home games with versus is a better option than BYU-TV. Versus wants to make a big splash in college sports (all sports really), they are losing all the Pac-10 and Big XII games they were picking up. It seems like something they would want.

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