Horns247 Board

This is a case of the beatings continuing until the morale improves. Adding 3 and then 4 games to a channel no one can watch is similar to simply not showing them. The idea that fans are so stupid that they're going to keep blaming the carriers and not the network and the program tells you how disconnected the administration is to reality. People are going to complain to the carriers ahead of game 1, bitch at UT and ESPN for game 2, and yawn during game 3 and watch other games. 2013 will be worse. They need to get a satellite deal done. They're actively working to destroy one of the greatest brands in sports if they add 3rd and 4th games.

Adding 3 and then 4 games is the best way to ensure that the LHN will not retain its status as a channel no one can watch. Another smart move. When Alexander the Great decided to continue his campaign instead of accepting half of Persia, one of his war weary generals, who happened to be named CTJ, said if I were Alexander, I would would accept that offer. To which Alexander replied, and if I were CTJ so would I.

Good dose of personal irony for me in you quoting Alexander the Great. Did you know he ruled the known world by 18? That is a hell of a thing for anyone else to live up to, even when life expectancy inflation is factored in.

You're clearly thinking like the administration, but I don't think you've read up lately or thought much about how prisoners' dilemmas work. Nor has the admin. They think the dominant strategy is to take more and more product off of the mainstream. If that causes carriers to then show it, they win. If that causes more fans to show up to games when they can't see it, they tie. The idea, I guess, is that if they capitulate on something, they're upside is net negative from not having done the deal at all, or that the carriers still don't cave.

In truth, I am not sure there is a dominant strategy. They can't accurately peg the fanbase loyalty, as it hasn't been tested through non-viewership since the age of CFB tv ubiquity. There might be a nonlinear impact for them in there somewhere if they just go away for a third of each season. Potential new or die hard fans might turn elsewhere and never look back.

The administration seems to think that Texas sports is an inelastic good for them. That is a dangerous bet with something so fickle as fandom.

The problem with prisoners' dillemmas is that only those with a vested interest in the outcome but no stakes on the line (cops) win. In this instance, that is every athletic program in college sports playing second fiddle to Texas, or more or less all of them. I am simply rooting for a carrier to pick things up soon. Then all of this goes away.

Your mind, it operates on a low plane.

The brand is not at risk. There will be no shortage of angry short-sighted fans to be sure, but that is just part of the game. At this point it is ESPN that bears the risk and that controls the negotiations. That is a good thing. The value in the contract lies in the deals that are cut in the next few years. Proning oneself and hoping that a satellite carrier will pick up the LHN is a strategy, but not a winning one.

No. Btw your sig is still incorrect.

Dodds said he’s prepared for mass outrage if it isn’t picked up in time for the football season. “But the pain will be worth the gain,” Dodds said.

He obviously doesn't feel our pain as much as we don't feel his gain.

The brand will not be at risk because Wyoming, New Mexico, and Iowa state will not be available to the mainstream public. And Deloss knows this. John Q Texas fan will gripe a little but as long as ou, west Virginia, TCU, okie state, and Texas tech are on tv they will be satisfied in the end. And said fan will continue to fill up the athletic department coffers buying Texas merchandise.

As much as folks around here like to think they matter, in the grand scheme of things, there aren't enough people who care to rock the boat, in neither Belmont nor the offices of Twc, DirectTV, or Dish.

Let me get this straight:

Alexander = Dodds? ESPN?
Army = fans?
Opposing forces = cable companies?

The army revolted about 3 years later when Alexander decided to keep going into the Indian subcontinent, Alexander went back to one of the Persian capitals, became a fat drunk, and died a year later, and the empire immediately fell apart.

I don't know, but it seems that kind of historical precedent doesn't seem to bode well for any of us. Essentially you are telling us that Dodds and ESPN execs are sacrificing fans so they can go out drunker than they might have before.

Oh, well. I guess I did wish them all that kind of new year once, didn't I? At the time I didn't reflect on how I might have been drawing on historical precedent.

http://texas.247sports.com/Board/21/Wishing-a-very-f-bomb-new-year-to-LHN-ESPN-and-IMG-6514058/1

Dude, hope is not a strategy and I wasn't advocating one. All we have is hope and what you're espousing is false hope.

"oh, the brand is not at risk. (whistling ... Graveyards).

You don't know shit about brands if you think Texas can be on a third less than regional and national competitors for both football and basketball and not be putting the brand at risk. That is not playing the long game and not understanding the ame they're in. These are bureaucrats who have won due to timing. If you think Dodds and Plnosky have some kind of magical grip on something as ethereal as an emerging brand, you are truly hopeless. The irony is you're attempting to talk about not being shortsighted.

That's all you have to come back with? Surely you have another poor historical analogy to throw out.

Tell us how Dodds should charge the line like General Pickett to break the cable carriers stronghold.

Fortunately greater minds than yours are guiding this ship. All will be well, and I'll enjoy reading your increasingly shrill posts in the next few years. Keep hope alive!!