Marchand/Ourand have a new podcast up.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/th...0583941564
Mostly about Nantz but a bit about Big 12 and Pac 12
Marchand doubles down on his timeline, that something with the Big 12 will be announced soon (he doesn’t seem to think it’s a question as to whether or not we will make a deal now or go to the open market). Ourand says that Pac-12 may actually be on hold until we’re done and that ESPN/Fox/Amazon may be waiting to see where the benchmark is put for us. That could be taken as bad for us if they think we will set the benchmark low.
Marchand has progressed from saying that $350-360 is the number right now to suggesting that it is likely where things are going to end up. Around $225 from ESPN and $135m from Fox.
He doesn’t say whether that includes T3 though ESPN+ could explain the difference between ESPN and Fox numbers. On the other hand Thompson said elsewhere that ESPN needs more content than Fox so he’d expect ESPN to pick up more games. He also said that Fox probably doesn’t need Big 12 basketball at all, which could also account for the difference without T3 being the explanation.
The math Ourand puts out gives the Pac-12 a significant advantage (Closer to $40m for them vs our $30m), but then the next minute he is talking about roughly equivalent offers. This makes me think I am applying too much specificity to the numbers he’s using.
Both say that nobody is probably moving between the conferences. Marchand says the exception could be if Pac-12 members are not happy with the streaming component.
Everything Marchand says about Amazon makes me wonder if they’re actually interested at all in the Pac-12. Nothing he says affirms interest except that he says Apple is out and doesn’t say that about Amazon. My guess is that his connections are with ESPN and so isn’t really privy to Amazon negotiations. He did have a chat with an Amazon person recently, but less "off the record" type stuff. I continue to believe that if Amazon wants into college football we more closely match their needs than the Pac-12 does (though I want us to focus on linear and it sounds like we are).
Ourand says the original asking from Pac-12 was $500m, which may be the “hundreds of millions apart”.