It’s official: there will be an early signing period for football. “Early” is a generous description: we’re talking about a whole six weeks before the usual February signing date. We’ve kicked this idea around for over ten years, and for whatever reason now was the time for change. What I wrote then had to do with a proposed earlier signing period in the summer or fall, but my thinking doesn’t change much with a December date.

Put it this way: why would a prospect want to sign six weeks before he’d otherwise do so? What does he gain?

A lot can happen in the December-January time frame to affect the decision. Coaching staffs change. NFL Draft decisions are made along with other roster attrition. Lower-profile or late-blooming prospects might pick up additional offers. Yes, an exception for coaching changes seems to have fairly popular support, but that’s not how the new signing period will operate at first. Once you’re signed, you’re signed.

The only reason to consider signing early is if the prospect feels his offer is in jeopardy. We know there’s a certain elite class of prospect who will have an offer for as long as the decision takes. For the Roquan Smiths of the world, this is a good position to be in. These are the kids the coaches would like to focus on with the rest of the class signed in December. For the rest, how many coaches are above using the offer as leverage to get most of the class inked in December?

We’re supposed to see the early signing period as a positive for the coaches stretched thin by herding an entire class until early February. It’s interesting to see which coaches aren’t thrilled about the idea. They oppose it for the same reason why I think it’s not a great idea for prospects: the loss of flexibility. We saw this ourselves last year with the Toneil Carter situation after Chubb and Michel decided to come back. The coaches who want to keep their options open as long as possible will now have a fair portion of their scholarships locked up well before they’d prefer.

It’s sad and cynical to see this early signing period as a game of chicken between coaches and prospects, but I guess I’ve been following recruiting too long.

Hoop Dawgs add two in spring signing period

Mark Fox wrapped up the 2017 signing class with the addition of forward Isaac Kante from New York. The 6’8″ Kante spent the past year as a postgraduate at Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut. Kante used the postgraduate year to work on his skills and increase his exposure to major programs. The plan worked: his offers included Georgetown, Kansas State, St. John’s, and of course Georgia.

Depending on the NBA Draft status of Yante Maten, Georgia could have a solid frontcourt next season. Maten is a known star. Edwards and Ogbeide improved a great deal this past year. Incoming forward Rayshaun Hammonds should be able to work into the rotation right away.

Kante is Georgia’s second signee of the spring period. Combo guard Teshaun Hightower committed earlier in the year and signed at the beginning of the signing period in April. Hightower is the lone guard in the 2017 class. He’ll have an opportunity to contribute, but much of the backcourt production will have to come from a combination of Jackson, Harris, and Crump. The team will need much more consistent production from that group to come close to replacing what J.J. Frazier brought to the team. Wings Parker, Wilridge, and Diatta will also have to step up on the perimeter.

Lady Dogs add impressive transfer

Joni Taylor has added an interesting transfer from Maryland, 6’6″ center Jenna Staiti. Staiti was the Gatorade State Player of the year for Georgia in 2016 and a national top 20 prospect who was a highlight of Maryland’s top-rated 2016 recruiting class. She was a reserve as a freshman for a loaded Maryland team and will have three years of eligibility at Georgia after sitting out this season. The transfer year could be a boon for Staiti. She’s still relatively new to competitive basketball after starting out as a nationally-ranked swimmer, and her game will benefit from the additional year of development.

It’s tempting to look two years down the road and anticipate a frontcourt that features 6’6″ Staiti, 6’5″ Bianca Blanaru, 6’3″ Malury Bates (an incoming top 100 prospect), and a senior Caliya Robinson at 6’3″. With quality options at center, I’m looking forward to Robinson improving and extending her game as forward. It’s been a while since Georgia has had that kind of depth and size up front, and post play has been a big part of the success at South Carolina and Mississippi State. Georgia is building the roster to compete at that level. The program inked a top ten class for 2017, and Staiti is essentially a 5* prospect to kick off the 2018 class.

Transfers have always been a part of college athletics, but women’s basketball has seen a surge of high-profile players on the move. Tennessee and South Carolina have been beneficiaries in the SEC. UConn is set to add a key transfer. With Staiti, Georgia will have three players on its roster who began their careers in the Pac 12, Big 10, and ACC. But while some schools have improved via transfers, others have been hit hard. North Carolina signed one of the best classes in program history in 2013. All four players were gone within two years. Diamond DeShields has found stardom at Tennessee. Allisha Gray is a national champion at South Carolina. The Tar Heels, reeling from the transfers and the uncertainty of an academic scandal, finished last season under .500. There’s a lot more to say about the positives and negatives of that transfer trend, but for now it’s a good sign that Georgia is a net destination for transfers rather than a source of them.

Last week we learned that Jacksonville’s government has been presented with a new contract that will keep the game in place through 2021. The new deal preserves the current revenue split and sweetens the pot with a shared $2.75 million of incentives over the life of the deal.

Bill King wonders what it might take to force the schools to consider a home-and-home arrangement rather than continuing at the neutral site. The first catalyst he mentions is a possible move to a 9-game SEC schedule. “If that were to happen,” King explains, “Georgia and Florida would be at a disadvantage in having one less home game in the odd-even rotation of home and away, and one less spot open for a cupcake home game.”

It’s true, and that disadvantage is already the case – when Georgia is the “home” team in Jacksonville, that’s a conference game we don’t get in Athens. We get three SEC contests at home, four true road SEC games, and Jacksonville. Georgia faces that situation every other year, but they usually pick up another cupcake game to fill out the home schedule. It was even worse in 2016 – there were just three home SEC games and not one but two neutral site games. I doubt Georgia or Florida would allow the rotation in a 9-game schedule to create a 3 home / 5 road imbalance, and the teams would have four home conference games every year while “hosting” a fifth in Jacksonville in alternating years.

King also wonders whether market forces might compel a move back to campus. As schools face increased pressure to sell season tickets as more fans watch at home, they might have to consider improving the quality of home games. It makes sense – Florida on the home schedule would definitely make a season ticket more attractive. Neither Florida nor Georgia seems to be at that point yet – we’ve seen the empty seats, but the tickets are still – for the most part – being sold.

Let’s say that season ticket sales do fall off. It would take a precipitous drop to give up the cash cow that’s the WLOCP. With ticket prices $70 and up, Georgia’s share of the gate is already more than they’d make selling out a home game at normal prices every other year. That’s even before you include 1) the incentives and bonuses built into the new contract and 2) the fact that Georgia’s take in Jacksonville is pure revenue. The schools pay nothing to host this game and forego only concessions revenue. More, let’s remember that all neutral site game revenue is on top of what we’re already paying for season tickets. Georgia gets the Hartman Fund donations, season ticket renewals, *and* any revenue from neutral site games. It would take one heck of an apocalyptic fall in season ticket sales to upset that gravy train.

Rather than encouraging games on campus, economic incentives tell us to prefer the neutral site. Successful neutral games can command premium ticket prices, cost the schools nothing in terms of operating expenses, and will almost always come with a national TV audience. There might even be untapped revenue to be had. As neutral games go, the Georgia-Florida game is still a bargain. $70 will get you in the door in Jacksonville. Last season it took at least $85 to buy a UGA-UNC ticket, and of course better seats cost more. Prices for this year’s FSU-Bama, Florida-Michigan, and even Tech-Tennessee games are comparable or even higher.

The guarantees that come with these games easily eclipse the net revenue from a home-and-home with a comparable opponent. Michigan is walking away with $6 million for their 2017 opener against Florida. Again, that’s on top of whatever Michigan is bringing in from season ticket sales and priority donations. When Jeremy Foley talks about the “unique opportunity” of Florida playing in that game, he’s not talking about a chance to spend quality time with Jerry Jones. These schools might not have the sharpest knives in the drawer running the athletic department, but even they can do the math.

I’ve said my piece about removing some of the best nonconference games from Sanford Stadium. It might seem inconsistent for me to turn my nose up at non-conference neutral site games while wanting to preserve the Jacksonville game, but that’s a hypocrisy I’m willing to live with. I enjoy it too much. Kirby Smart has made known his preference for a big neutral site game to start the season, so that ship has sailed anyway. As for Jacksonville, until Georgia begins to take a noticeable hit from its own core fans about the quality of the home schedule, there’s just too much value in the neutral venue. If that backlash doesn’t happen with the rancid 2017 and 2018 home slates, will it ever?

This is a self-centered post, so it’s worth noting first that many good journalists whose work I’ve relied on here are no longer with ESPN. The nature of journalism means that we tend to connect more with these names than we would had ESPN cut cameramen or accounting staff, but it’s an indivdually significant and life-changing moment and an opportunity for empathy anytime someone gets that news. Employees are bearing the cost of management decisions and market forces.

I was on the couch Sunday afternoon watching the home finale for Georgia softball. (Not a great season, but that’s another post.) I was watching an SEC Network-branded broadcast via the ESPN app on my Apple TV. Nearly every softball game has been available that way. Same with women’s hoops. Thanks to the SEC Network and the digital platform, just about every Georgia football and basketball game is now available nationwide when it’s not on CBS or a basic ESPN channel. Thanks to ESPN (and Apple), I now live in a world where it’s frustrating when I can’t pull up a nonconference softball game. G-Day was broadcast nationally, and there was even an alternate stream. For a spring game. It’s all available now, and it’s wonderful.

I doubt that my viewing habits are typical. I’ve never been a regular SportsCenter viewer even in the “Big Show” era, and I can count on one hand the number of hours in a month I might spend on an ESPN channel that isn’t live play-by-play. The 30-for-30 series was fantastic, but that’s about it. If there’s been an editorial shift in programming outside of live sports, I haven’t really been affected. I wasn’t watching anyway. Yes, it’s been impossible to ignore the promos and tie-ins during the games, but quibbling with sports reporters and their narratives isn’t exactly uncharted territory.

So “stick to sports” is how I’ve always approached viewing ESPN, and in that regard it’s never been better. The digital platforms are phenomenal technology. The score app is great, but the evolution of ESPN3 into WatchESPN has been as big of a turning point in how I watch sports as the original ESPN was. Further, ESPN’s presence in the market meant that any network or entity broadcasting sports – from the NCAA to Augusta National – had to provide a comparable experience, and the home sports viewer is better for it. Streams are expected now. There’s enough available now to actually affect attendance trends – why go through the expense and hassle of going to a game when you can gorge on quality HD broadcasts of your game and several others?

The selfish part of me now wonders what happens to this content. ESPN has been able to raise its carriage fees even in the face of the market trend of cord-cutting, but even they can’t avoid the consequences of a dwindling pool of subscribers. Yes, it’s possible that some households decided they could do without ESPN because of politics, and live sports is the one thing keeping many of people attached to their cable or dish subscription. But that revenue pool is still shrinking. Today it affected ESPN itself and several of its journalists. Down the road ESPN will have decisions to make about the money it spends on its content and technology platforms. It will have decisions to make about bidding for broadcast rights. Those decisions will of course trickle down to things you and I care about – college sports, the SEC, and the precious revenue stream we’ve come to count on from those broadcast rights.

I have no idea where it’s headed or whether the current level of content is sustainable. For my sake, I hope it is. I could take or leave ESPN’s journalism. There’s not much of a shortage of sports journalism, and I expect we’ll see many of these bylines reappear at other outlets soon. What is unique and more difficult to replace is access to the games. Unfortunately that’s the most expensive part of this enterprise and where both broadcaster and broadcast rights holder are likely to feel the pinch.