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Familiar faces that resided on your television screen for years, talent like Ed Werder, Trent Dilfer and Andy Katz, all received pink slips from ESPN last week.

The most common explanation for why ESPN laid off as many as 100 employees, many of them well-respected in the journalism industry, is "cord-cutting" has taken a machete to ESPN's subscriber numbers, and most importantly, its profits.



Cord-cutting isn't a new concept -- the trend of consumers dropping their cable packages has been happening for years -- but Wednesday represented a watershed moment as a sports media behemoth had to shed talented, popular journalists to keep up with the changing times.



As subscriber numbers precipitously dropped in recent years, the television rights deals it signed at the peak of its power look more and more like albatrosses. ESPN will spend $8.1 billion on programming costs in 2017, according to SNL Kagan, yet has lost more than 10 million subscribers since 2013. A lot of that loss has been attributed to non-sports fans dropping cable or choosing lighter bundles that don't contain the sports channel. But given that cable subscribers pay more than $7 a month for ESPN alone, whether they watch the network or not, that's a loss of more than $1 billion annually in subscription fees.





At some point that could force the market to correct itself and the money that grew and grew for each media rights deal could finally come back down to earth. That would have far-reaching implications across sports including potentially in college football. Television money, particularly from ESPN, has dramatically changed the college football landscape over the last decade. It was the engine behind conference realignment, exploding coaching salaries and ostentatious facilities upgrades. It is the defining reason the gulf between the Power 5 and Group of Five keeps growing wider.



The major question is what happens when ESPN and other TV networks decide they don't want to keep upping the ante each time a rights deal comes up for renewal?



Just look to Conference USA for how that could play out.



No conference has been impacted worse by the ramifications of television money than Conference USA over the last 15 years. In 2005, Louisville, Marquette, Cincinnati and Texas Christian were all members of the conference only to leave for greener pastures in the Big East. That process happened again and again as bigger conferences looked to bolster their attractiveness for TV money by plundering CUSA. UAB and Southern Miss are the last of the founding members still in a conference that now features schools like Texas at El Paso and Texas at San Antonio.



When CUSA's TV rights deal expired in 2016, the market had dried up. It wasn't as attractive as it had once been despite adding several schools in large TV markets and television networks weren't as needy for inventory. Only a few years after aggressively trying to add live sports TV rights for its fledgling FS1, FOX didn't even bother trying to re-up with Conference USA. While other conferences saw their rights deals skyrocket in previous years, CUSA received millions less. Its schools went from making $1.1 million annually from TV money to a meager $200,000.



Conference USA commissioner Judy MacLeod says cord-cutting absolutely played a role in the smaller deal.



"When we were out, there was so much uncertainty in the market, and it impacted it a lot," MacLeod said. "I'm still not sure everybody knows what exactly their plans are, but they have an idea where they are going. Some of our partners like Bein have done a great job digitally. It's definitely a different world out there."



CUSA has cobbled together deals with multiple companies including ESPN, CBS Sports Network and now-defunct American Sports Network. The conference has been proactive in working with digital companies like Campus Insiders as it fights for exposure in addition to revenue, but it's been a work in progress. CUSA signed short-term deals so that it will hit the market again next spring, but there's little reason for confidence that the conference will be able to command significantly, let alone any, more money in a new deal.



The loss of significant revenue as costs continue to rise through cost of attendance and other measures has made it difficult for CUSA schools to be competitive nationally. Consider this: Nine SEC assistants made more in 2016 than Rice's David Bailiff, the conference's highest-paid coach, who made $903,000. Even MacLeod admitted the loss of revenue was a concern, saying "one of our major roles is to find as much funding as you can, and there's never enough."



Could cord-cutting and other issues eventually negatively impact the more powerful Power 5 conferences? In theory, absolutely.



If ESPN continues to lose subscribers at its current rate, it might have no choice but to pass on expensive college rights given its billions of dollars of overhead for NFL and NBA media rights. The company has already made small cost-saving measures like last week's layoffs, but if it wants to save significant money, it'll have to reevaluate its right-securing process. Live sports television has long been considered the antidote to cord-cutting, but any time even a non-sports fan drops cable, ESPN feels it.



If ESPN isn't as interested or as aggressive as it has been, it lowers the demand and likely reduces the cost of the rights. That'll mean less TV money for university athletic departments to bankroll new facilities, $5 million coaching salaries and other major rising expenses. It should come as no surprise that 13 of the 20 highest-paid football coaches reside in the SEC and Big Ten, the two conferences that receive by far the most TV money.



That would likely be years off, though, as the next Power 5 conference to hit the market again, the Big Ten, won't do so until 2022-23. The SEC (2033-34) and the ACC (2035-36) are locked into deals for nearly two more decades. Even if it wanted to, ESPN can't get out of those long-term contracts.



The Big Ten should be an interesting bellwether for an evolving market. When it agreed to a deal in 2016, media observers believed ESPN might not bid on the rights given its shrinking distribution. ESPN ultimately decided to pay an average of $190 million annually but for a lesser package after reportedly bidding low on the initial package that went to FOX. Given the way the industry has changed so quickly, ESPN could be in a significantly different place, for better or worse, when the Big Ten's rights come up for bidding again.



Adam Gajo, the sports business analyst for SNL Kagan, doesn't expect demand to crater, though.



"Growth may slow a bit, depending on a number of factors, but the values will continue to grow, especially for top tier programming like the Power 5 conference rights," Gajo said. "As the rights continue to increase, they may continue to be shared by multiple networks."

Each Power 5 conference could be impacted by the trends differently. The Pac-12, which has retained ownership in its conference network, could be well-positioned if over-the-top platforms like Sling TV keep growing. The Pac-12 has had major problems with distribution, leading athletic directors to grumble about less revenue compared to other conferences, but the Pac-12 isn't as tied to the cable subscription model as many of its peers. Still, the demand for the Pac-12 channels in an a la carte model would likely be significantly less -- meaning it'd have to charge less -- than its Power 5 conference peers.



The ACC, teamed with ESPN, is slated to get its linear network in 2019 though there are questions about whether that will come to fruition given the current landscape. The conference has publicly been optimistic about its upcoming network, but there are those in the industry who believe it may have waited too long to launch. No one expects there to be as much demand for an ACC Network as there was for the SEC Network when it launched in 2014. ESPN could decide there isn't enough demand to create an ACC Network channel which would limit revenue growth for the conference's schools. A more optimistic outlook is the ACC Network could take a spot on ESPN's lineup currently held by ESPNU, ESPNClassic or ESPNNews.



If not the Big Ten, the SEC could be in the most stable position. It is already generating huge money from TV -- the league listed $420 million in revenue from TV, radio rights in its 2016 filings -- and can always bank on a large, passionate fanbase wanting its product. The league's deal with CBS runs out after the 2023 season and the SEC should certainly be able to get more than $55 million annually for its weekly game of the week.

The downside for the SEC is that it doesn't own a stake in its network -- ESPN maintains 100 percent ownership -- and instead agreed to split revenue at a rate believed to be less than 50-50 for the conference and its members. The SEC is the Power 5 conference most tied to ESPN given it leveraged ESPN's distribution model for massive early success rather than maintain ownership but that is still far more beneficial than detrimental at this point. The SEC Network is the strongest of the three conference networks -- its average subscriber cost is more than three times the Pac-12's -- and as long as it keeps showing football games, that doesn't figure to change.

"Even in the midst of cord-cutting, we've seen progression in revenue," said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. "I think there's actually more good news there than there is anything that's problematic for us."

Another important factor to consider is that as the market evolves, new potential distributors will pop up. Twitter and Amazon have both shown an interest in live sports programming, signing deals to stream some of NFL's Thursday Night Football package. It's certainly conceivable that a digital operation like Amazon or YouTube could make a play for college sports rights if ESPN and other traditional companies shy away. Thus far only smaller conferences like CUSA have opted for non-traditional partnerships, largely out of necessity, though if the money and platform is good enough, eventually bigger conferences could be enticed.





The passion for college sports, and subsequent strong viewership, will always make it attractive to rights-holders. It's properties like college football that earn companies significant money through both subscription and advertising revenue. Even if ESPN, FS1 and other companies continue to see significant subscriber losses, the market for college media rights isn't going to suddenly evaporate.



"One theory out there is there is a sports bubble that is about to burst for properties, but I don't see that as being the case," said Dan Shevchik, vice president of Sports Media Advisors. "Maybe there is greater margin pressure for people who distribute the content."

A financial doomsday isn't likely for college football's premier conferences though they could be dinged. If anything, it'll be a course correction as media companies try to be more financially prudent when securing rights.

But the trends negatively impacting ESPN and other media behemoths could one day trickle down to your favorite college football team.

Just ask any fan of a Conference USA school.

AL.com reporter Drew Champlin contributed to this story.