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The truth about the Grant of Rights Amendment

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GladeCane said:
Are there any performance aspects to the contract, that the ACC or an individual school, could make a plausible case that ESPN has not lived up to?
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As for the TV deal, I have not seen that contract yet. Based on my past experience with the NASCAR television deal(s), I would not suspect that there is anything that ESPN could do that would result in a breach. Usually, the "blame" is on the content provider (ACC and its teams) if the product is sub-par.

If we could show that there was a pattern of ESPN awarding preferential timeslots to schools from other conferences, maybe you could make something of it. However, I think that ESPN might have voluminous ratings and research data that could possibly explain such a pattern (assuming it existed), so this would differ from, say, the adidas contract dispute(s), which requires both parties to work together to sell branded merchandise.

It's not (strictly speaking) ESPN's job to make the ACC schools more money. ESPN contracted for a set dollar amount, and they seem to be paying us the promised money (even though it's below what other conferences make). So the ESPN argument is "hey, we agreed on a price, if you don't like it, why are you blaming us?" It's actually the ACC's job to make the ACC schools more money, whether they do it with multiple broadcasters (the Big 10's approach most recently) or through its own network.

Where my BIGGEST problem arises, and I've always complained about this, is when the ACC (TV) or UM (adidas) enter into contracts that are MUCH longer than they need to be, since those loooooong-*** contracts have locked us out of economic and market adjustments that have been prevalent over the last decade or two.

I have NO ******* CLUE why ESPN insisted on the ACC having a TWENTY-YEAR Grant of Rights in order to do the ACCN. We already had 11 years when we signed the deal in 2016 (the GOR already existed through 2027). Nobody has yet explained to me why those extra 9 years were so magical, as it doesn't take long for a conference network to become profitable IF IT STARTS OUT WITH HIGH CARRIAGE RATES AND COVERAGE on the various cable systems. Sure, you have some startup costs for studios and personnel, but COME ON.

I haven't seen the ACC's TV contract, and there are some key bits I'd like to read over, but I can reasonably guess that we have no grounds for getting out of the TV deal based on bad faith or breach. TV deals have been around for decades.

Grants of Rights on the other hand? Yeah, that stuff is new and weird, is based on fear/risk-avoidance, and has rarely, if ever, been litigated to the level that many ACC schools are now currently considering.

I know a lot of people didn't read the Harvard JESL law review article (TLDR!), but it's fantastic and boils down to GORs being "triple dog dare" levels of bluffing.
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
As for the TV deal, I have not seen that contract yet. Based on my past experience with the NASCAR television deal(s), I would not suspect that there is anything that ESPN could do that would result in a breach. Usually, the "blame" is on the content provider (ACC and its teams) if the product is sub-par.

If we could show that there was a pattern of ESPN awarding preferential timeslots to schools from other conferences, maybe you could make something of it. However, I think that ESPN might have voluminous ratings and research data that could possibly explain such a pattern (assuming it existed), so this would differ from, say, the adidas contract dispute(s), which requires both parties to work together to sell branded merchandise.

I'll conclude with this. It's not (strictly speaking) ESPN's job to make the ACC schools more money. ESPN contracted for a set dollar amount, and they seem to be paying us the promised money (even though it's below what other conferences make). So the ESPN argument is "hey, we agreed on a price, if you don't like it, why are you blaming us?" It's actually the ACC's job to make the ACC schools more money, whether they do it with multiple broadcasters (the Big 10's approach most recently) or through its own network.

Where my BIGGEST problem arises, and I've always complained about this, is when the ACC (TV) or UM (adidas) enter into contracts that are MUCH longer than they need to be, since those loooooong-*** contracts have locked us out of economic and market adjustments that have been prevalent over the last decade or two.

I have NO ******* CLUE why ESPN insisted on the ACC having a TWENTY-YEAR Grant of Rights in order to do the ACCN. We already had 11 years when we signed the deal in 2016 (the GOR already existed through 2027). Nobody has yet explained to me why those extra 9 years were so magical, as it doesn't take long for a conference network to become profitable IF IT STARTS OUT WITH HIGH CARRIAGE RATES AND COVERAGE on the various cable systems. Sure, you have some startup costs for studios and personnel, but COME ON.

I haven't seen the ACC's TV contract, and there are some key bits I'd like to read over, but I can reasonably guess that we have no grounds for getting out of the TV deal based on bad faith or breach. TV deals have been around for decades.

Grants of Rights on the other hand? Yeah, that stuff is new and weird, is based on fear/risk-avoidance, and has rarely, if ever, been litigated to the level that many ACC schools are now currently considering.

I know a lot of people didn't read the Harvard JESL law review article (TLDR!), but it's fantastic and boils down to GORs being "triple dog dare" levels of bluffing.
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ESPN is becomming more and more irrelevant, time to launch lawsuits and come to a negotiated settlement. I'm sure Disney would like to make a deal to avoid costly litigation.
 
I have NO ******* CLUE why ESPN insisted on the ACC having a TWENTY-YEAR Grant of Rights in order to do the ACCN.
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If you've negotiated a deal that you think is a very favorable price given future market expectations wouldn't you want to lock the pieces in place for as long as possible? ESPN probably knew the inevitable outcome of conference realignment and wanted to ensure they have as much power as possible when that time came. For them, with all the power, if they wanted to restructure the landscape they could. So "locking in" schools only benefits them because they can dissolve it if they wanted.

If you're ESPN, and you know for a fact the market is going to grow, you would lock someone in a deal into perpetuity if you could. And the ACC likely thought they would not come out on top when poaching began. So they both agreed. And as an entity, what the ACC did was clearly the right move. It's keeping the conference alive longer than it would have otherwise. From an individual school perspective it was horrible.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I understand the issues. But it's a low-cost idea for a startup that doesn't require whoring the conference out to ESPN for 20 years.

Big 10 struggled to get carriage in the early years. But once they did...that mother****ing channel makes money hand-over-fist.

Again, anything is possible. There's at least one Bally channel on nearly every cable network in America. I realize you might have to cobble something together, which is why I referred to BANDWIDTH and not just one channel, like Channel 1307.

There are 19 Bally Sports Channels, and several of them overlap. For instance, you do NOT need to purchase both (old) Sports Channel Florida and Sunshine Network. And with all the MLB content starting to revert, you are not bound by old contracts.
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Big Ten Network is also half owned by Fox, which helped with distribution.
Pac-12 went at it alone, which is why they had distribution problems.
Bally Sports has even worse distribution problems. Those declining subscriber numbers, alongside the debt Sinclair incurred (and saddled on the spun off company) with acquiring them, is why they're sitting in bankruptcy right now.
ESPN & Fox might be facing the same issue in 5-10 years, unless a new sustainable subscriber model emerges.
 
hurricaneman said:
If you've negotiated a deal that you think is a very favorable price given future market expectations wouldn't you want to lock the pieces in place for as long as possible? ESPN probably knew the inevitable outcome of conference realignment and wanted to ensure they have as much power as possible when that time came. For them, with all the power, if they wanted to restructure the landscape they could. So "locking in" schools only benefits them because they can dissolve it if they wanted.

If you're ESPN, and you know for a fact the market is going to grow, you would lock someone in a deal into perpetuity if you could. And the ACC likely thought they would not come out on top when poaching began. So they both agreed. And as an entity, what the ACC did was clearly the right move. It's keeping the conference alive longer than it would have otherwise. From an individual school perspective it was horrible.
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Any decent AD would have balked at the length of the deal. This tells me that there were a lot of sub par ADs in the ACC back then.
 
hurricaneman said:
If you've negotiated a deal that you think is a very favorable price given future market expectations wouldn't you want to lock the pieces in place for as long as possible? ESPN probably knew the inevitable outcome of conference realignment and wanted to ensure they have as much power as possible when that time came. For them, with all the power, if they wanted to restructure the landscape they could. So "locking in" schools only benefits them because they can dissolve it if they wanted.

If you're ESPN, and you know for a fact the market is going to grow, you would lock someone in a deal into perpetuity if you could. And the ACC likely thought they would not come out on top when poaching began. So they both agreed. And as an entity, what the ACC did was clearly the right move. It's keeping the conference alive longer than it would have otherwise. From an individual school perspective it was horrible.
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Fair point, I could have worded things better. I really have no idea why the ACC "agreed to" ESPN's terms.

But you're right, if ESPN has a contract for $1/gallon gas and 10-cent first-class US postage stamps, they're gonna want to keep that as long as possible.
 
PhenomCane said:
Big Ten Network is also half owned by Fox, which helped with distribution.
Pac-12 went at it alone, which is why they had distribution problems.
Bally Sports has even worse distribution problems. Those declining subscriber numbers, alongside the debt Sinclair incurred (and saddled on the spun off company) with acquiring them, is why they're sitting in bankruptcy right now.
ESPN & Fox might be facing the same issue in 5-10 years, unless a new sustainable subscriber model emerges.
Click to expand...


All fair points.

Still, the first battle is ACTUALLY getting on the air. It's one of the primary reasons why the ACC was so desperate to sacrifice its freedom for 20 years. We can all worry about carriage issues later.

Yes, the entire landscape is undergoing change. Maybe "what we know today" will no longer be true in the future. But, historically, OWNING YOUR OWN CONTENT has generally proven to be a smart business move.

**** ESPN.
 
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Any decent AD would have balked at the length of the deal. This tells me that there were a lot of sub par ADs in the ACC back then.
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The question comes down to what other options the schools had. If ESPN was the only major offer then they can dictate whatever they want.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
As for the TV deal, I have not seen that contract yet. Based on my past experience with the NASCAR television deal(s), I would not suspect that there is anything that ESPN could do that would result in a breach. Usually, the "blame" is on the content provider (ACC and its teams) if the product is sub-par.

If we could show that there was a pattern of ESPN awarding preferential timeslots to schools from other conferences, maybe you could make something of it. However, I think that ESPN might have voluminous ratings and research data that could possibly explain such a pattern (assuming it existed), so this would differ from, say, the adidas contract dispute(s), which requires both parties to work together to sell branded merchandise.

It's not (strictly speaking) ESPN's job to make the ACC schools more money. ESPN contracted for a set dollar amount, and they seem to be paying us the promised money (even though it's below what other conferences make). So the ESPN argument is "hey, we agreed on a price, if you don't like it, why are you blaming us?" It's actually the ACC's job to make the ACC schools more money, whether they do it with multiple broadcasters (the Big 10's approach most recently) or through its own network.

Where my BIGGEST problem arises, and I've always complained about this, is when the ACC (TV) or UM (adidas) enter into contracts that are MUCH longer than they need to be, since those loooooong-*** contracts have locked us out of economic and market adjustments that have been prevalent over the last decade or two.

I have NO ******* CLUE why ESPN insisted on the ACC having a TWENTY-YEAR Grant of Rights in order to do the ACCN. We already had 11 years when we signed the deal in 2016 (the GOR already existed through 2027). Nobody has yet explained to me why those extra 9 years were so magical, as it doesn't take long for a conference network to become profitable IF IT STARTS OUT WITH HIGH CARRIAGE RATES AND COVERAGE on the various cable systems. Sure, you have some startup costs for studios and personnel, but COME ON.

I haven't seen the ACC's TV contract, and there are some key bits I'd like to read over, but I can reasonably guess that we have no grounds for getting out of the TV deal based on bad faith or breach. TV deals have been around for decades.

Grants of Rights on the other hand? Yeah, that stuff is new and weird, is based on fear/risk-avoidance, and has rarely, if ever, been litigated to the level that many ACC schools are now currently considering.

I know a lot of people didn't read the Harvard JESL law review article (TLDR!), but it's fantastic and boils down to GORs being "triple dog dare" levels of bluffing.
Click to expand...
The Harvard review article certainly pointed to the LACK OF CONSIDERATION = no contract as being a potentially valid finding. That's where the "triple dog dare" facet comes in. Another aspect is that the ACCN isn't making a ton of money for Disney / ESPN and it might make economic sense in the end for them to let the conference fold, shut down the ACCN, pick up 2-4 programs in the SEC and work with the B10 in programming some exciting OOC games as well.
 
hurricaneman said:
The question comes down to what other options the schools had. If ESPN was the only major offer then they can dictate whatever they want.
Click to expand...

Swofford severely reduced the number of options the ACC had by tethering the 2010 TV deal to maintaining a relationship with Raycom Sports. A deal that won't fully expire until 2027.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
As for the TV deal, I have not seen that contract yet. Based on my past experience with the NASCAR television deal(s), I would not suspect that there is anything that ESPN could do that would result in a breach. Usually, the "blame" is on the content provider (ACC and its teams) if the product is sub-par.

If we could show that there was a pattern of ESPN awarding preferential timeslots to schools from other conferences, maybe you could make something of it. However, I think that ESPN might have voluminous ratings and research data that could possibly explain such a pattern (assuming it existed), so this would differ from, say, the adidas contract dispute(s), which requires both parties to work together to sell branded merchandise.

It's not (strictly speaking) ESPN's job to make the ACC schools more money. ESPN contracted for a set dollar amount, and they seem to be paying us the promised money (even though it's below what other conferences make). So the ESPN argument is "hey, we agreed on a price, if you don't like it, why are you blaming us?" It's actually the ACC's job to make the ACC schools more money, whether they do it with multiple broadcasters (the Big 10's approach most recently) or through its own network.

Where my BIGGEST problem arises, and I've always complained about this, is when the ACC (TV) or UM (adidas) enter into contracts that are MUCH longer than they need to be, since those loooooong-*** contracts have locked us out of economic and market adjustments that have been prevalent over the last decade or two.

I have NO ******* CLUE why ESPN insisted on the ACC having a TWENTY-YEAR Grant of Rights in order to do the ACCN. We already had 11 years when we signed the deal in 2016 (the GOR already existed through 2027). Nobody has yet explained to me why those extra 9 years were so magical, as it doesn't take long for a conference network to become profitable IF IT STARTS OUT WITH HIGH CARRIAGE RATES AND COVERAGE on the various cable systems. Sure, you have some startup costs for studios and personnel, but COME ON.

I haven't seen the ACC's TV contract, and there are some key bits I'd like to read over, but I can reasonably guess that we have no grounds for getting out of the TV deal based on bad faith or breach. TV deals have been around for decades.

Grants of Rights on the other hand? Yeah, that stuff is new and weird, is based on fear/risk-avoidance, and has rarely, if ever, been litigated to the level that many ACC schools are now currently considering.

I know a lot of people didn't read the Harvard JESL law review article (TLDR!), but it's fantastic and boils down to GORs being "triple dog dare" levels of bluffing.
Click to expand...

Do you have said law review article available? It would be interesting for a bunch of folks to read it and discuss…

Or people would think we were extremely odd… yet here we are
 
Rickd said:
The Harvard review article certainly pointed to the LACK OF CONSIDERATION = no contract as being a potentially valid finding. That's where the "triple dog dare" facet comes in. Another aspect is that the ACCN isn't making a ton of money for Disney / ESPN and it might make economic sense in the end for them to let the conference fold, shut down the ACCN, pick up 2-4 programs in the SEC and work with the B10 in programming some exciting OOC games as well.
Click to expand...


And pay the "other 7 or 8 ACC teams" EVEN LESS MONEY...

:ROFLMAO:


ESPN trying to scurr the ACC:

1689021989066.png
 
PhenomCane said:
Swofford severely reduced the number of options the ACC had by tethering the 2010 TV deal to maintaining a relationship with Raycom Sports. A deal that won't fully expire until 2027.
Click to expand...


Where have I heard that year before...

1689022063406.png
 
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Angry Ibis said:
Do you have said law review article available? It would be interesting for a bunch of folks to read it and discuss…

Or people would think we were extremely odd… yet here we are
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Shockingly, @calinative umstudent made a good post back at Post #50 of this thread, and provided the link.

I want to give him credit when he does something right, it's so rare.
 
Angry Ibis said:
Excellent. Thanks!

And for our California friend for being right less often than a broken watch…
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Warning you now, it's lengthy...

(that should be the first thing I say at the beginning of all my posts...and romantic conversations...)

The article is about 60 pages, but it's "law review 60 pages", which means there's a lot of footnotes that you don't have to read the first time around.
 
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