Further info on ESPN media deal to cover the MVC

[tornado]

got to take reports of "losing money" with a grain of salt..
Gatehouse Media gets reported as "losing money" every quarter for years yet they still expand, buy up more businesses, and sell millions of newspapers.

[Vent]

Even when Bradley was playing well in the mid-2000s, local TV broadcasts did not make money. WEEK was doing at a push, and sometimes at a loss the last 2 seasons they televised Bradley basketball. The ratings would regularly be a 1 or - (which means something less than 1). Selling spots for $200 a piece was challenging when a typical prime time rating point sold for between $75-$100 a point. On top of that, you had to pre-empt regularly scheduled prime time programming which always honked off a certain percentage of local viewership. If it were a money-making proposition, I guarantee you that HOI, WEEK, WMBD, or WYZZ would be regularly broadcasting games. The on-line digital platform is definitely the way to go.

You have made an excellent and well informed post. It's next to impossible for a local television station to sell advertising for a Bradley basketball game.
Compounding the problem of advertising sales is the fact, if you buy time as an advertiser, and the game is bad, you've wasted your money as viewers can easily change channels to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, CBS SPORTNET, NBC SPORTSNET, FOX1, FOX SPORTS MIDWEST, COMCAST SPORTSNET CHICAGO, etc. and etc. As a potential advertiser, the chances of the viewer seeing your add is vastly reduced. As an advertiser, you can spend that same money in a cable package with much better results and it will be shown on a multitude of stations that include those other than just sports. It's a no brainer.

[tornado]

As recently as 3-4 years ago there were local stations willing to do a deal to broadcast numerous BU games, but our "people" would not accept the terms - and it was more than a money issue - placing demands & terms that even included choosing the personnel that the stations would hire. "We" shot ourselves in the foot.

First & foremost Bradley needs to "position themselves" so the product is marketable and desirable...that's been the biggest part of the problem the past 4-5 years..
I hate to use the "F-word" but as that Tuesday luncheon with over 1200 proves - the market is STILL loyal and still there - but if you treat them badly and offer a terrible product then let's stop beating around the bush and pointing fingers at WEEK, the fans, and advertisers.

[Old Coach]

As recently as 3-4 years ago there were local stations willing to do a deal to broadcast numerous BU games, but our "people" would not accept the terms - and it was more than a money issue - placing demands & terms that even included choosing the personnel that the stations would hire. "We" shot ourselves in the foot.

First & foremost Bradley needs to "position themselves" so the product is marketable and desirable...that's been the biggest part of the problem the past 4-5 years..
I hate to use the "F-word" but as that Tuesday luncheon with over 1200 proves - the market is STILL loyal and still there - but if you treat them badly and offer a terrible product then let's stop beating around the bush and pointing fingers at WEEK, the fans, and advertisers.

Who is pointing fingers at WEEK? I suggested that they made a good business decision when they quit doing Bradley games. That model didn't work any longer. The audience just wasn't there to justify what a :30 spot had to be sold for.

[tornado]

does anyone know...
the new ESPN3 agreement - does it place prohibitions on the individual MVC teams from contracting to televise their games locally?
I linked to that article about the MAC-ESPN3 deal and it implied there would be a certain exclusivity and that separate local TV deals might be impossible
If not, then we should still pursue additional deals as a lot of BU fans & potential fans & ticket-buyers live in the surrounding cities & not all would have easy access to ESPN3

FoxSports has done a decent job with weekend MVC game telecasts and non-prime tourney games and is readily available to every cable viewer in the midwest.
I have had Chicago-area friends & family mention that they enjoyed catching a game when it was on.
And folks in Chicago or St. Louis - if flipping thru the channels - might watch the Valley game but how many would go sign in to ESPN3 and seek out an MVC game?

[tornado]

Here's the first schedule (August & September) of Bradley athletic events that will be broadcast on ESPN3

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=210230904&KEY=&DB_OEM_ID=3400&DB_LANG=C&IN_SUBSCRIBER_CONTENT=

Bradley Athletics ESPN3 August-September 2015 Broadcast Schedule
(subject to approval by ESPN)

Date Sport Opponent Time (CT) WatchESPN Link
Aug. 30 Soccer Houston Baptist 7:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 4 Soccer DePaul 7:00 p.m. TBD
-OR- Volleyball Weber State 7:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 5 Volleyball UMass-Lowell 11:00 a.m. TBD
Volleyball Manhattan 6:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 6 Soccer Milwaukee 1:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 18 Volleyball Southeast Missouri State 7:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 19 Volleyball UTEP 11:00 a.m. TBD
Volleyball DePaul 6:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 24 Volleyball Loyola Chicago 6:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 25 Soccer Loyola Chicago 7:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 27 Soccer Air Force 3:00 p.m. TBD
Sept. 29 Volleyball Northern Iowa 5:00 p.m. TBD

[Braves2006]

Does anyone know.. Will ESPNU still do the Valley game of the week on Sunday afternoons?

[Vent]

Who is pointing fingers at WEEK? I suggested that they made a good business decision when they quit doing Bradley games. That model didn't work any longer. The audience just wasn't there to justify what a :30 spot had to be sold for.

You are 100% correct. Whether people like it or not, times have changed. If the local stations could make money televising BU games, believe me, they would. They are in business to make money. Sports on cable t.v. has changed everything. You use to see Illinois games on local stations. Now they're all on the Big Ten Network or a national channel. It's just the way things are now.

[Da Coach]

While you point to the evolving broadcast technology as part of the blame for the lack of TV games, you completely ignore other changes. Every one of the other Peoria TV network stations owns additional local broadcast stations they could broadcast the games over, and that would not pre-empt any highly rated programming and would allow costs to be kept low and make it profitable. I have talked to a past executive of a local TV station who broadcast past Bradley games and he believes it could be done profitably. But one key factor that they need is advance time to make the arrangements, and especially to sell advertising. Remote broadcasting equipment gets way more expensive when it has to be arranged on short notice, and advertising always brings in more money when it can be sold well ahead of the event and the event can be promoted well.
Unfortunately, in recent years, no decision about televising MVC games was made until quite late in the season, in some cases, well into January. That was a significant factor in the local TV stations refusing to bid for games.

[Old Coach]

It's been a long time since Frank Bussone was in the TV business.

If Bradley wants to buy airtime to broadcast games on secondary channels, the space is certainly available; but there is no way TV stations are going to try to sell advertising for Bradley basketball. The ratings just don't work out anymore.

Call Mark DeSantis and ask him.

[tornado]

TV people are notorious for bad decisions, tho...pouring money into the most horribly unpopular programming while cancelling shows that are all time favorites and last forever in reruns or on another channel

and I read over & over here and elsewhere...
"it can't be done"
".. local TV broadcasts did not make money"
"that's the old way of thinking.."
"TV broadcasts are terribly produced SD nightmares."
"To think that if it were on local TV they would provide a big viewing audience isn't realistic."
"They were already losing money"
"It's next to impossible for a local television station to sell advertising.."
"viewers can easily change channels"
"It's been a long time since Frank B ...was in the TV business. .. just don't work out anymore."


well - this is the SAME losing, failure based, "we are going a different direction even it we were successful in the past" - way of thinking.
Isn't that exactly what nearly sent Bradley back to Division III with our past AD's & Prez' moves that were 100% exactly the opposite of what the fanbase & donors wanted.
Now a whole NEW group of better & wiser people are scrambling like heck to un-do the horrible failures of the recent past.

As Da Coach will soon confirm - as recently as 5-6 years ago Bradley had dozens of games on TV and was doing fine, the stations were happy, and the guys who knew what they were doing, like Frank, Ken, and others were told to take a hike because the elites up on the Hilltop claimed they knew better.
Well their way of knowing better amounted to scr**ing around until December every year - nixing perfectly good TV deals & opportunities just because it wasn't to their liking then scrambling like crazy to put together a bad package. Then those bad packages are what people look at now and say - well, we can't do it this way any more because everyone's losing money!!
I don't teach my kids to look for excuses NOT to do something and to plan on failure every where you go - but that's what the media deals and even the events/ITOO/and late spring desperation-recruiting we've seen the last four years amount to. I am proud of the fans who stood up, wrote letters to the Board, and demanded action to stop the freefall and disasters caused by the past admin & AD - we are on the right track now but I see our terrible position to strike a TV deal as a nearly impossible yet still fixable problem inherited by Chris Reynolds. After FIVE years of Dr. Cross repeating the same mantra of excuses about all the deep problems handed to him that he inherited - even tho as we have proved, he inherited full arenas, record revenue & donations, and gobs of other positives - now, for the first time, I actually believe it!

[Da Coach]

I am not sure what Frank has to do with this discussion, but Bussone was still broadcasting Bradley basketball as recently 4 or 5 years ago, when Bradley still had more than 20 of their games on TV, and both Bradley and the broadcasters were still making money doing the games. The main thing that has changed in these last 5 years has been the personnel at Bradley who have decided to do things vastly differently. I would suggest you talk to Ken Kavanagh and see how he managed to get 25 Bradley games a year on local TV, and not have to pirate the opponent's low-quality TV broadcast, do it on their own with a much more professional and quality production, and still make money doing it.

Bradley has made some big mistakes in the way they have attempted to market their games, and have turned off all the local TV broadcasters.
You should ask Mark DeSantis what happened when WEEK last negotiated for the TV rights just a few years ago. WEEK (as well as other stations) gave Bradley a deadline they needed a response from Bradley in order to do the games properly and sell the advertising. I am sure the WEEK people, as well as those at WMBD and WTVP and Comcast, can tell you what kind of response they got.

Now we are down to only a couple local TV broadcasts a year, when just a few years ago we had more than 25.

Looks like the patented excuse cycle is starting up all over again. You are free to keep believing that the blame for all of Bradley's failures these past 5 years lies with a bunch of phony excuses that we have heard from our former AD and management people. I am not buying it. It seemed we always heard some phony excuses to blame for the years of poor scheduling, decline in ticket sales, record numbers of losses, decline in revenues, poor recruiting, inability to get good dates with the Civic Center, playing games in the tiny campus arena, inability to get students involved, shrinkage of the Braves Scholarship Society, shrinkage of the Braves Club, decline in advertisers, and disappearance of all the popular preseason events and postseason fan events, and many other things that have gone wrong, including the virtual disappearance of local TV games,.

I have confidence the people now in charge will spend more of their time and energy fixing the problems, rather than creating a department of excuse-making.

[tornado]

BTW - Indiana State sits in a metro area that's only about 1/4 the size that Bradley sits in...
..and yet most of their games were televised to their local audience, many on tiny WTWO-TV, their local NBC affiliate.
They must be either geniuses to make it work or ignoramuses for doing something impossibly unprofitable.
http://www.gosycamores.com/ViewArtic...CLID=205564229 - just sayin'

[Da Coach]

I believe most MVC teams have a better TV deal with more games on local TV than Bradley did the last couple years. Maybe it is just pure coincidence?

[Old Coach]

I guess I don't understand what you're getting at. The inability to garner ratings points didn't have anything to do with the people involved, or the product. Bradley was playing winning basketball when WEEK last broadcast their full package in 2005-2006.