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Why There Needs to Be More, not Less, Consolidation in Video Streaming

Dirk Auer —  12 October 2021
Still from Squid Game, Netflix and Siren Pictures Inc., 2021

Recent commentary on the proposed merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery, as well as Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, often has included the suggestion that the online content-creation and video-streaming markets are excessively consolidated, or that they will become so absent regulatory intervention. For example, in a recent letter to the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ), the American Antitrust Institute and Public Knowledge opine that:

Slow and inadequate oversight risks the streaming market going the same route as cable—where consumers have little power, few options, and where consolidation and concentration reign supreme. A number of threats to competition are clear, as discussed in this section, including: (1) market power issues surrounding content and (2) the role of platforms in “gatekeeping” to limit competition.

But the AAI/PK assessment overlooks key facts about the video-streaming industry, some of which suggest that, if anything, these markets currently suffer from too much fragmentation.

The problem is well-known: any individual video-streaming service will offer only a fraction of the content that viewers want, but budget constraints limit the number of services that a household can afford to subscribe to. It may be counterintuitive, but consolidation in the market for video-streaming can solve both problems at once.

One subscription is not enough

Surveys find that U.S. households currently maintain, on average, four video-streaming subscriptions. This explains why even critics concede that a plethora of streaming services compete for consumer eyeballs. For instance, the AAI and PK point out that:

Today, every major media company realizes the value of streaming and a bevy of services have sprung up to offer different catalogues of content.

These companies have challenged the market leader, Netflix and include: Prime Video (2006), Hulu (2007), Paramount+ (2014), ESPN+ (2018), Disney+ (2019), Apple TV+ (2019), HBO Max (2020), Peacock (2020), and Discovery+ (2021).

With content scattered across several platforms, multiple subscriptions are the only way for households to access all (or most) of the programs they desire. Indeed, other than price, library sizes and the availability of exclusive content are reportedly the main drivers of consumer purchase decisions.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with the current equilibrium in which consumers multi-home across multiple platforms. One potential explanation is demand for high-quality exclusive content, which requires tremendous investment to develop and promote. Production costs for TV series routinely run in the tens of millions of dollars per episode (see here and here). Economic theory predicts these relationship-specific investments made by both producers and distributors will cause producers to opt for exclusive distribution or vertical integration. The most sought-after content is thus exclusive to each platform. In other words, exclusivity is likely the price that users must pay to ensure that high-quality entertainment continues to be produced.

But while this paradigm has many strengths, the ensuing fragmentation can be detrimental to consumers, as this may lead to double marginalization or mundane issues like subscription fatigue. Consolidation can be a solution to both.

Substitutes, complements, or unrelated?

As Hal Varian explains in his seminal book, the relationship between two goods can range among three extremes: perfect substitutes (i.e., two goods are perfectly interchangeable); perfect complements (i.e., there is no value to owning one good without the other); or goods that exist in independent markets (i.e., the price of one good does not affect demand for the other).

These distinctions are critical when it comes to market concentration. All else equal—which is obviously not the case in reality—increased concentration leads to lower prices for complements, and higher prices for substitutes. Finally, if demand for two goods is unrelated, then bringing them under common ownership should not affect their price.

To at least some extent, streaming services should be seen as complements rather than substitutes—or, at least, as services with unrelated demand. If they were perfect substitutes, consumers would be indifferent between two Netflix subscriptions or one Netflix plan and one Amazon Prime plan. That is obviously not the case. Nor are they perfect complements, which would mean that Netflix is worthless without Amazon Prime, Disney+, and other services.

However, there is reason to believe there exists some complementarity between streaming services, or at least that demand for them is independent. Most consumers subscribe to multiple services, and almost no one subscribes to the same service twice:

SOURCE: Finance Buzz

This assertion is also supported by the ubiquitous bundling of subscriptions in the cable distribution industry, which also has recently been seen in video-streaming markets. For example, in the United States, Disney+ can be purchased in a bundle with Hulu and ESPN+.

The key question is: is each service more valuable, less valuable, or as valuable in isolation than they are when bundled? If households place some additional value on having a complete video offering (one that includes child entertainment, sports, more mature content, etc.), and if they value the convenience of accessing more of their content via a single app, then we can infer these services are to some extent complementary.

Finally, it is worth noting that any complementarity between these services would be largely endogenous. If the industry suddenly switched to a paradigm of non-exclusive content—as is broadly the case for audio streaming—the above analysis would be altered (though, as explained above, such a move would likely be detrimental to users). Streaming services would become substitutes if they offered identical catalogues.

In short, the extent to which streaming services are complements ultimately boils down to an empirical question that may fluctuate with industry practices. As things stand, there is reason to believe that these services feature some complementarities, or at least that demand for them is independent. In turn, this suggests that further consolidation within the industry would not lead to price increases and may even reduce them.

Consolidation can enable price discrimination

It is well-established that bundling entertainment goods can enable firms to better engage in price discrimination, often increasing output and reducing deadweight loss in the process.

Take George Stigler’s famous explanation for the practice of “block booking,” in which movie studios sold multiple films to independent movie theatres as a unit. Stigler assumes the underlying goods are neither substitutes nor complements:

Stigler, George J. (1963) “United States v. Loew’s Inc.: A Note on Block-Booking,” Supreme Court Review: Vol. 1963 : No. 1 , Article 2.

The upshot is that, when consumer tastes for content are idiosyncratic—as is almost certainly the case for movies and television series, movies—it can counterintuitively make sense to sell differing content as a bundle. In doing so, the distributor avoids pricing consumers out of the content upon which they place a lower value. Moreover, this solution is more efficient than price discriminating on an unbundled basis, as doing so would require far more information on the seller’s part and would be vulnerable to arbitrage.

In short, bundling enables each consumer to access a much wider variety of content. This, in turn, provides a powerful rationale for mergers in the video-streaming space—particularly where they can bring together varied content libraries. Put differently, it cuts in favor of more, not less, concentration in video-streaming markets (at least, up to a certain point).

Finally, a wide array of scale-related economies further support the case for concentration in video-streaming markets. These include potential economies of scale, network effects, and reduced transaction costs.

The simplest of these ideas is that the cost of video streaming may decrease at the margin (i.e., serving each marginal viewer might be cheaper than the previous one). In other words, mergers of video-streaming services mayenable platforms to operate at a more efficient scale. There has notably been some discussion of whether Netflix benefits from scale economies of this sort. But this is, of course, ultimately an empirical question. As I have written with Geoffrey Manne, we should not assume that this is the case for all digital platforms, or that these increasing returns are present at all ranges of output.

Likewise, the fact that content can earn greater revenues by reaching a wider audience (or a greater number of small niches) may increase a producer’s incentive to create high-quality content. For example, Netflix’s recent hit series Squid Game reportedly cost $16.8 million to produce a total of nine episodes. This is significant for a Korean-language thriller. These expenditures were likely only possible because of Netflix’s vast network of viewers. Video-streaming mergers can jump-start these effects by bringing previously fragmented audiences onto a single platform.

Finally, operating at a larger scale may enable firms and consumers to economize on various transaction and search costs. For instance, consumers don’t need to manage several subscriptions, and searching for content is easier within a single ecosystem.

Conclusion

In short, critics could hardly be more wrong in assuming that consolidation in the video-streaming industry will necessarily harm consumers. To the contrary, these mergers should be presumptively welcomed because, to a first approximation, they are likely to engender lower prices and reduce deadweight loss.

Critics routinely draw parallels between video streaming and the consolidation that previously moved through the cable industry. They suggest these events as evidence that consolidation was (and still is) inefficient and exploitative of consumers. As AAI and PK frame it:

Moreover, given the broader competition challenges that reside in those markets, and the lessons learned from a failure to ensure competition in the traditional MVPD markets, enforcers should be particularly vigilant.

But while it might not have been ideal for all consumers, the comparatively laissez-faire approach to competition in the cable industry arguably facilitated the United States’ emergence as a global leader for TV programming. We are now witnessing what appears to be a similar trend in the online video-streaming market.

This is mostly a good thing. While a single streaming service might not be the optimal industry configuration from a welfare standpoint, it would be equally misguided to assume that fragmentation necessarily benefits consumers. In fact, as argued throughout this piece, there are important reasons to believe that the status quo—with at least 10 significant players—is too fragmented and that consumers would benefit from additional consolidation.

In Amazon, Antitrust & Competition, Apple, Economic Theory, Justice Department, Platforms, Price Discrimination, Telecommunications, Truth on the Market , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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A preliminary assessment of the relative antitrust risk of a Comcast vs Disney purchase of 21st Century Fox assets

Geoffrey Manne —  23 May 2018

As has been rumored in the press for a few weeks, today Comcast announced it is considering making a renewed bid for a large chunk of Twenty-First Century Fox’s (Fox) assets. Fox is in the process of a significant reorganization, entailing primarily the sale of its international and non-television assets. Fox itself will continue, but with a focus on its US television business.

In December of last year, Fox agreed to sell these assets to Disney, in the process rejecting a bid from Comcast. Comcast’s initial bid was some 16% higher than Disney’s, although there were other differences in the proposed deals, as well.

In April of this year, Disney and Fox filed a proxy statement with the SEC explaining the basis for the board’s decision, including predominantly the assertion that the Comcast bid (NB: Comcast is identified as “Party B” in that document) presented greater regulatory (antitrust) risk.

As noted, today Comcast announced it is in “advanced stages” of preparing another unsolicited bid. This time,

Any offer for Fox would be all-cash and at a premium to the value of the current all-share offer from Disney. The structure and terms of any offer by Comcast, including with respect to both the spin-off of “New Fox” and the regulatory risk provisions and the related termination fee, would be at least as favorable to Fox shareholders as the Disney offer.

Because, as we now know (since the April proxy filing), Fox’s board rejected Comcast’s earlier offer largely on the basis of the board’s assessment of the antitrust risk it presented, and because that risk assessment (and the difference between an all-cash and all-share offer) would now be the primary distinguishing feature between Comcast’s and Disney’s bids, it is worth evaluating that conclusion as Fox and its shareholders consider Comcast’s new bid.

In short: There is no basis for ascribing a greater antitrust risk to Comcast’s purchase of Fox’s assets than to Disney’s.

Summary of the Proposed Deal

Post-merger, Fox will continue to own Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Sports, Fox Television Stations Group, and sports cable networks FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes, and Big Ten Network.

The deal would transfer to Comcast (or Disney) the following:

  • Primarily, international assets, including Fox International (cable channels in Latin America, the EU, and Asia), Star India (the largest cable and broadcast network in India), and Fox’s 39% interest in Sky (Europe’s largest pay TV service).
  • Fox’s film properties, including 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, and Fox Animation. These would bring along with them studios in Sydney and Los Angeles, but would not include the Fox Los Angeles backlot. Like the rest of the US film industry, the majority of Fox’s film revenue is earned overseas.
  • FX cable channels, National Geographic cable channels (of which Fox currently owns 75%), and twenty-two regional sports networks (RSNs). In terms of relative demand for the two cable networks, FX is a popular basic cable channel, but fairly far down the list of most-watched channels, while National Geographic doesn’t even crack the top 50. Among the RSNs, only one geographic overlap exists with Comcast’s current RSNs, and most of the Fox RSNs (at least 14 of the 22) are not in areas where Comcast has a substantial service presence.
  • The deal would also entail a shift in the companies’ ownership interests in Hulu. Hulu is currently owned in equal 30% shares by Disney, Comcast, and Fox, with the remaining, non-voting 10% owned by Time Warner. Either Comcast or Disney would hold a controlling 60% share of Hulu following the deal with Fox.

Analysis of the Antitrust Risk of a Comcast/Fox Merger

According to the joint proxy statement, Fox’s board discounted Comcast’s original $34.36/share offer — but not the $28.00/share offer from Disney — because of “the level of regulatory issues posed and the proposed risk allocation arrangements.” Significantly on this basis, the Fox board determined Disney’s offer to be superior.

The claim that a merger with Comcast poses sufficiently greater antitrust risk than a purchase by Disney to warrant its rejection out of hand is unsupportable, however. From an antitrust perspective, it is even plausible that a Comcast acquisition of the Fox assets would be on more-solid ground than would be a Disney acquisition.

Vertical Mergers Generally Present Less Antitrust Risk

A merger between Comcast and Fox would be predominantly vertical, while a merger between Disney and Fox, in contrast, would be primarily horizontal. Generally speaking, it is easier to get antitrust approval for vertical mergers than it is for horizontal mergers. As Bruce Hoffman, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, noted earlier this year:

[V]ertical merger enforcement is still a small part of our merger workload….

There is a strong theoretical basis for horizontal enforcement because economic models predict at least nominal potential for anticompetitive effects due to elimination of horizontal competition between substitutes.

Where horizontal mergers reduce competition on their face — though that reduction could be minimal or more than offset by benefits — vertical mergers do not…. [T]here are plenty of theories of anticompetitive harm from vertical mergers. But the problem is that those theories don’t generally predict harm from vertical mergers; they simply show that harm is possible under certain conditions.

On its face, and consistent with the last quarter century of merger enforcement by the DOJ and FTC, the Comcast acquisition would be less likely to trigger antitrust scrutiny, and the Disney acquisition raises more straightforward antitrust issues.

This is true even in light of the fact that the DOJ decided to challenge the AT&T-Time Warner (AT&T/TWX) merger.

The AT&T/TWX merger is a single data point in a long history of successful vertical mergers that attracted little scrutiny, and no litigation, by antitrust enforcers (although several have been approved subject to consent orders).

Just because the DOJ challenged that one merger does not mean that antitrust enforcers generally, nor even the DOJ in particular, have suddenly become more hostile to vertical mergers.

Of particular importance to the conclusion that the AT&T/TWX merger challenge is of minimal relevance to predicting the DOJ’s reception in this case, the theory of harm argued by the DOJ in that case is far from well-accepted, while the potential theory that could underpin a challenge to a Disney/Fox merger is. As Bruce Hoffman further remarks:

I am skeptical of arguments that vertical mergers cause harm due to an increased bargaining skill; this is likely not an anticompetitive effect because it does not flow from a reduction in competition. I would contrast that to the elimination of competition in a horizontal merger that leads to an increase in bargaining leverage that could raise price or reduce output.

The Relatively Lower Risk of a Vertical Merger Challenge Hasn’t Changed Following the DOJ’s AT&T/Time Warner Challenge

Judge Leon is expected to rule on the AT&T/TWX merger in a matter of weeks. The theory underpinning the DOJ’s challenge is problematic (to say the least), and the case it presented was decidedly weak. But no litigated legal outcome is ever certain, and the court could, of course, rule against the merger nevertheless.

Yet even if the court does rule against the AT&T/TWX merger, this hardly suggests that a Comcast/Fox deal would create a greater antitrust risk than would a Disney/Fox merger.

A single successful challenge to a vertical merger — what would be, in fact, the first successful vertical merger challenge in four decades — doesn’t mean that the courts are becoming hostile to vertical mergers any more than the DOJ’s challenge means that vertical mergers suddenly entail heightened enforcement risk. Rather, it would simply mean that that, given the specific facts of the case, the DOJ was able to make out its prima facie case, and that the defendants were unable to rebut it.  

A ruling for the DOJ in the AT&T/TWX merger challenge would be rooted in a highly fact-specific analysis that could have no direct bearing on future cases.

In the AT&T/TWX case, the court’s decision will turn on its assessment of the DOJ’s argument that the merged firm could raise subscriber prices by a few pennies per subscriber. But as AT&T’s attorney aptly pointed out at trial (echoing the testimony of AT&T’s economist, Dennis Carlton):

The government’s modeled price increase is so negligible that, given the inherent uncertainty in that predictive exercise, it is not meaningfully distinguishable from zero.

Even minor deviations from the facts or the assumptions used in the AT&T/TWX case could completely upend the analysis — and there are important differences between the AT&T/TWX merger and a Comcast/Fox merger. True, both would be largely vertical mergers that would bring together programming and distribution assets in the home video market. But the foreclosure effects touted by the DOJ in the AT&T/TWX merger are seemingly either substantially smaller or entirely non-existent in the proposed Comcast/Fox merger.

Most importantly, the content at issue in AT&T/TWX is at least arguably (and, in fact, argued by the DOJ) “must have” programming — Time Warner’s premium HBO channels and its CNN news programming, in particular, were central to the DOJ’s foreclosure argument. By contrast, the programming that Comcast would pick up as a result of the proposed merger with Fox — FX (a popular, but non-essential, basic cable channel) and National Geographic channels (which attract a tiny fraction of cable viewing) — would be extremely unlikely to merit that designation.

Moreover, the DOJ made much of the fact that AT&T, through DirectTV, has a national distribution footprint. As a result, its analysis was dependent upon the company’s potential ability to attract new subscribers decamping from competing providers from whom it withholds access to Time Warner content in every market in the country. Comcast, on the other hand, provides cable service in only about 35% of the country. This significantly limits its ability to credibly threaten competitors because its ability to recoup lost licensing fees by picking up new subscribers is so much more limited.

And while some RSNs may offer some highly prized live sports programming, the mismatch between Comcast’s footprint and the FOX RSNs (only about 8 of the 22 Fox RSNs are in Comcast service areas) severely limits any ability or incentive the company would have to leverage that content for higher fees. Again, to the extent that RSN programming is not “must-have,” and to the extent there is not overlap between the RSN’s geographic area and Comcast’s service area, the situation is manifestly not the same as the one at issue in the AT&T/TWX merger.

In sum, a ruling in favor of the DOJ in the AT&T/TWX case would be far from decisive in predicting how the agency and the courts would assess any potential concerns arising from Comcast’s ownership of Fox’s assets.

A Comcast/Fox Deal May Entail Lower Antitrust Risk than a Disney/Fox Merger

As discussed below, concerns about antitrust enforcement risk from a Comcast/Fox merger are likely overstated. Perhaps more importantly, however, to the extent these concerns are legitimate, they apply at least as much to a Disney/Fox merger. There is, at minimum, no basis for assuming a Comcast deal would present any greater regulatory risk.

The Antitrust Risk of a Comcast/Fox Merger Is Likely Overstated

The primary theory upon which antitrust enforcers could conceivably base a Comcast/Fox merger challenge would be a vertical foreclosure theory. Importantly, such a challenge would have to be based on the incremental effect of adding the Fox assets to Comcast, and not on the basis of its existing assets. Thus, for example, antitrust enforcers would not be able to base a merger challenge on the possibility that Comcast could leverage NBC content it currently owns to extract higher fees from competitors. Rather, only if the combination of NBC programming with additional content from Fox could create a new antitrust risk would a case be tenable.

Enforcers would be unlikely to view the addition of FX and National Geographic to the portfolio of programming content Comcast currently owns as sufficient to raise concerns that the merger would give Comcast anticompetitive bargaining power or the ability to foreclose access to its content.

Although even less likely, enforcers could be concerned with the (horizontal) addition of 20th Century Fox filmed entertainment to Universal’s existing film production and distribution. But the theatrical film market is undeniably competitive, with the largest studio by revenue (Disney) last year holding only 22% of the market. The combination of 20th Century Fox with Universal would still result in a market share only around 25% based on 2017 revenues (and, depending on the year, not even result in the industry’s largest share).

There is also little reason to think that a Comcast controlling interest in Hulu would attract problematic antitrust attention. Comcast has already demonstrated an interest in diversifying its revenue across cable subscriptions and licensing, broadband subscriptions, and licensing to OVDs, as evidenced by its recent deal to offer Netflix as part of its Xfinity packages. Hulu likely presents just one more avenue for pursuing this same diversification strategy. And Universal has a history (see, e.g., this, this, and this) of very broad licensing across cable providers, cable networks, OVDs, and the like.

In the case of Hulu, moreover, the fact that Comcast is vertically integrated in broadband as well as cable service likely reduces the anticompetitive risk because more-attractive OVD content has the potential to increase demand for Comcast’s broadband service. Broadband offers larger margins (and is growing more rapidly) than cable, and it’s quite possible that any loss in Comcast’s cable subscriber revenue from Hulu’s success would be more than offset by gains in its content licensing and broadband subscription revenue. The same, of course, goes for Comcast’s incentives to license content to OVD competitors like Netflix: Comcast plausibly gains broadband subscription revenue from heightened consumer demand for Netflix, and this at least partially offsets any possible harm to Hulu from Netflix’s success.

At the same time, especially relative to Netflix’s vast library of original programming (an expected $8 billion worth in 2018 alone) and content licensed from other sources, the additional content Comcast would gain from a merger with Fox is not likely to appreciably increase its bargaining leverage or its ability to foreclose Netflix’s access to its content.     

Finally, Comcast’s ownership of Fox’s RSNs could, as noted, raise antitrust enforcers’ eyebrows. Enforcers could be concerned that Comcast would condition competitors’ access to RSN programming on higher licensing fees or prioritization of its NBC Sports channels.

While this is indeed a potential risk, it is hardly a foregone conclusion that it would draw an enforcement action. Among other things, NBC is far from the market leader, and improving its competitive position relative to ESPN could be viewed as a benefit of the deal. In any case, potential problems arising from ownership of the RSNs could easily be dealt with through divestiture or behavioral conditions; they are extremely unlikely to lead to an outright merger challenge.

The Antitrust Risk of a Disney Deal May Be Greater than Expected

While a Comcast/Fox deal doesn’t entail no antitrust enforcement risk, it certainly doesn’t entail sufficient risk to deem the deal dead on arrival. Moreover, it may entail less antitrust enforcement risk than would a Disney/Fox tie-up.

Yet, curiously, the joint proxy statement doesn’t mention any antitrust risk from the Disney deal at all and seems to suggest that the Fox board applied no risk discount in evaluating Disney’s bid.

Disney — already the market leader in the filmed entertainment industry — would acquire an even larger share of box office proceeds (and associated licensing revenues) through acquisition of Fox’s film properties. Perhaps even more important, the deal would bring the movie rights to almost all of the Marvel Universe within Disney’s ambit.

While, as suggested above, even that combination probably wouldn’t trigger any sort of market power presumption, it would certainly create an entity with a larger share of the market and stronger control of the industry’s most valuable franchises than would a Comcast/Fox deal.

Another relatively larger complication for a Disney/Fox merger arises from the prospect of combining Fox’s RSNs with ESPN. Whatever ability or incentive either company would have to engage in anticompetitive conduct surrounding sports programming, that risk would seem to be more significant for undisputed market leader, Disney. At the same time, although still powerful, demand for ESPN on cable has been flagging. Disney could well see the ability to bundle ESPN with regional sports content as a way to prop up subscription revenues for ESPN — a practice, in fact, that it has employed successfully in the past.   

Finally, it must be noted that licensing of consumer products is an even bigger driver of revenue from filmed entertainment than is theatrical release. No other company comes close to Disney in this space.

Disney is the world’s largest licensor, earning almost $57 billion in 2016 from licensing properties like Star Wars and Marvel Comics. Universal is in a distant 7th place, with 2016 licensing revenue of about $6 billion. Adding Fox’s (admittedly relatively small) licensing business would enhance Disney’s substantial lead (even the number two global licensor, Meredith, earned less than half of Disney’s licensing revenue in 2016). Again, this is unlikely to be a significant concern for antitrust enforcers, but it is notable that, to the extent it might be an issue, it is one that applies to Disney and not Comcast.

Conclusion

Although I hope to address these issues in greater detail in the future, for now the preliminary assessment is clear: There is no legitimate basis for ascribing a greater antitrust risk to a Comcast/Fox deal than to a Disney/Fox deal.

In Antitrust & Competition, Antitrust Division, Broadband, European Union, International, Justice Department, Merger Guidelines, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopolization, Telecommunications, Tying, Vertical Restraints , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Abandon Title II, Return to Antitrust

Thom Lambert —  13 December 2017

Just in time for tomorrow’s FCC vote on repeal of its order classifying Internet Service Providers as common carriers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has published my op-ed entitled The FCC Should Abandon Title II and Return to Antitrust.

Here’s the full text:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon vote on whether to repeal an Obama-era rule classifying Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as “common carriers.” That rule was put in place to achieve net neutrality, an attractive-sounding goal that many Americans—millennials especially—reflexively support.

In Missouri, voices as diverse as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Joplin Globe, and the Archdiocese of St. Louis have opposed repeal of the Obama-era rule.

Unfortunately, few people who express support for net neutrality understand all it entails. Even fewer recognize the significant dangers of pursuing net neutrality using the means the Obama-era FCC selected. All many know is that they like neutrality generally and that smart-sounding celebrities like John Oliver support the Obama-era rule. They really need to know more.

First, it’s important to understand what a policy of net neutrality entails. In essence, it prevents ISPs from providing faster or better transmission of some Internet content, even where the favored content provider is willing to pay for prioritization.

That sounds benign—laudable, even—until one considers all that such a policy prevents. Under strict net neutrality, an ISP couldn’t prioritize content transmission in which congestion delays ruin the user experience (say, an Internet videoconference between a telemedicine system operated by the University of Missouri hospital and a rural resident of Dent County) over transmissions in which delays are less detrimental (say, downloads from a photo-sharing site).
Strict net neutrality would also preclude a mobile broadband provider from exempting popular content providers from data caps. Indeed, T-Mobile was hauled before the FCC to justify its popular “Binge On” service, which offered cost-conscious subscribers unlimited access to Netflix, ESPN, and HBO.

The fact is, ISPs have an incentive to manage their traffic in whatever way most pleases subscribers. The vast majority of Americans have a choice of ISPs, so managing content in any manner that adversely affects the consumer experience would hurt business. ISPs are also motivated to design subscription packages that consumers most desire. They shouldn’t have to seek government approval of innovative offerings.

For evidence that competition protects consumers from harmful instances of non-neutral network management, consider the record. The commercial Internet was born, thrived, and became the brightest spot in the American economy without formal net neutrality rules. History provides little reason to believe that the parade of horribles net neutrality advocates imagine will ever materialize.

Indeed, in seeking to justify its net neutrality policies, the Obama era FCC could come up with only four instances of harmful non-neutral network management over the entire history of the commercial Internet. That should come as no surprise. Background antitrust rules, in place long before the Internet was born, forbid the speculative harms net neutrality advocates envision.

Even if net neutrality regulation were desirable as a policy matter, the means by which the FCC secured it was entirely inappropriate. Before it adopted the current approach, which reclassified ISPs as common carriers subject to Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, the FCC was crafting a narrower approach using authority granted by the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

It abruptly changed course after President Obama, reeling from a shellacking in the 2014 midterm elections, sought to shore up his base by posting a video calling for “the strongest possible rules” on net neutrality, including Title II reclassification. Prodded by the President, the supposedly independent commissioners abandoned their consensus that Title II was too extreme and voted along party lines to treat the Internet as a utility.

Title II reclassification has resulted in the sort of “Mother, may I?” regulatory approach that impedes innovation and investment. In the first half of 2015, as the Commission was formulating its new Title II approach, spending by ISPs on capital equipment fell by an average of 8%. That was only the third time in the history of the commercial Internet that infrastructure investment fell from the previous year. The other two times were in 2001, following the dot.com bust, and 2009, after the 2008 financial crash and ensuing recession. For those remote communities in Missouri still looking for broadband to reach their doorsteps, government policies need to incentivize more investment, not restrict it.

To enhance innovation and encourage broadband deployment, the FCC should reverse its damaging Title II order and leave concerns about non-neutral network management to antitrust law. It was doing just fine.

In Broadband, Federal Communications Commission, Net Neutrality, Telecommunications , , ,
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IMG-Learfield: An antitrust reality check on two-sided market mergers

Eric Fruits & Geoffrey Manne —  6 October 2017

Yesterday Learfield and IMG College inked their recently announced merger. Since the negotiations were made public several weeks ago, the deal has garnered some wild speculation and potentially negative attention. Now that the merger has been announced, it’s bound to attract even more attention and conjecture.

On the field of competition, however, the market realities that support the merger’s approval are compelling. And, more importantly, the features of this merger provide critical lessons on market definition, barriers to entry, and other aspects of antitrust law related to two-sided and advertising markets that can be applied to numerous matters vexing competition commentators.

First, some background

Learfield and IMG specialize in managing multimedia rights (MMRs) for intercollegiate sports. They are, in effect, classic advertising intermediaries, facilitating the monetization by colleges of radio broadcast advertising and billboard, program, and scoreboard space during games (among other things), and the purchase by advertisers of access to these valuable outlets.

Although these transactions can certainly be (and very often are) entered into by colleges and advertisers directly, firms like Learfield and IMG allow colleges to outsource the process — as one firm’s tag line puts it, “We Work | You Play.” Most important, by bringing multiple schools’ MMRs under one roof, these firms can reduce the transaction costs borne by advertisers in accessing multiple outlets as part of a broad-based marketing plan.

Media rights and branding are a notable source of revenue for collegiate athletic departments: on average, they account for about 3% of these revenues. While they tend to pale in comparison to TV rights, ticket sales, and fundraising, for major programs, MMRs may be the next most important revenue source after these.

Many collegiate programs retain some or all of their multimedia rights and use in-house resources to market them. In some cases schools license MMRs through their athletic conference. In other cases, schools ink deals to outsource their MMRs to third parties, such as Learfield, IMG, JMI Sports, Outfront Media, and Fox Sports, among several others. A few schools even use professional sports teams to manage their MMRs (the owner of the Red Sox manages Boston College’s MMRs, for example).

Schools switch among MMR managers with some regularity, and, in most cases apparently, not among the merging parties. Michigan State, for example, was well known for handling its MMRs in-house. But in 2016 the school entered into a 15-year deal with Fox Sports, estimated at minimum guaranteed $150 million. In 2014 Arizona State terminated its MMR deal with IMG and took it MMRs in-house. Then, in 2016, the Sun Devils entered into a first-of-its-kind arrangement with the Pac 12 in which the school manages and sells its own marketing and media rights while the conference handles core business functions for the sales and marketing team (like payroll, accounting, human resources, and employee benefits). The most successful new entrant on the block, JMI Sports, won Kentucky, Clemson, and the University of Pennsylvania from Learfield or IMG. Outfront Media was spun off from CBS in 2014 and has become one of the strongest MMR intermediary competitors, handling some of the biggest names in college sports, including LSU, Maryland, and Virginia. All told, eight recent national Division I champions are served by MMR managers other than IMG and Learfield.

The supposed problem

As noted above, the most obvious pro-competitive benefit of the merger is in the reduction in transaction costs for firms looking to advertise in multiple markets. But, in order to confer that benefit (which, of course, also benefits the schools, whose marketing properties become easier to access), that also means a dreaded increase in size, measured by number of schools’ MMRs managed. So is this cause for concern?

Jason Belzer, a professor at Rutgers University and founder of sports consulting firm, GAME, Inc., has said that the merger will create a juggernaut — yes, “a massive inexorable force… that crushes whatever is in its path” — that is likely to invite antitrust scrutiny. The New York Times opines that the deal will allow Learfield to “tighten its grip — for nearly total control — on this niche but robust market,” “surely” attracting antitrust scrutiny. But these assessments seem dramatically overblown, and insufficiently grounded in the dynamics of the market.

Belzer’s concerns seem to be merely the size of the merging parties — again, measured by the number of schools’ rights they manage — and speculation that the merger would bring to an end “any” opportunity for entry by a “major” competitor. These are misguided concerns.

To begin, the focus on the potential entry of a “major” competitor is an odd standard that ignores the actual and potential entry of many smaller competitors that are able to win some of the most prestigious and biggest schools. In fact, many in the industry argue — rightly — that there are few economies of scale for colleges. Most of these firms’ employees are dedicated to a particular school and those costs must be incurred for each school, no matter the number, and borne by new entrants and incumbents alike. That means a small firm can profitably compete in the same market as larger firms — even “juggernauts.” Indeed, every college that brings MMR management in-house is, in fact, an entrant — and there are some big schools in big conferences that manage their MMRs in-house.

The demonstrated entry of new competitors and the transitions of schools from one provider to another or to in-house MMR management indicate that no competitor has any measurable market power that can disadvantage schools or advertisers.

Indeed, from the perspective of the school, the true relevant market is no broader than each school’s own rights. Even after the merger there will be at least five significant firms competing for those rights, not to mention each school’s conference, new entrants, and the school itself.

The two-sided market that isn’t really two-sided

Standard antitrust analysis, of course, focuses on consumer benefits: Will the merger make consumers better off (or no worse off)? But too often casual antitrust analysis of two-sided markets trips up on identifying just who the consumer is — and what the relevant market is. For a shopping mall, is the consumer the retailer or the shopper? For newspapers and search engines, is the customer the advertiser or the reader? For intercollegiate sports multimedia rights licensing, is the consumer the college or the advertiser?

Media coverage of the anticipated IMG/Learfield merger largely ignores advertisers as consumers and focuses almost exclusively on the the schools’ relationship with intermediaries — as purchasers of marketing services, rather than sellers of advertising space.

Although it’s difficult to identify the source of this odd bias, it seems to be based on the notion that, while corporations like Coca-Cola and General Motors have some sort of countervailing market power against marketing intermediaries, universities don’t. With advertisers out of the picture, media coverage suggests that, somehow, schools may be worse off if the merger were to proceed. But missing from this assessment are two crucial facts that undermine the story: First, schools actually have enormous market power; and, second, schools compete in the business of MMR management.

This second factor suggests, in fact, that sometimes there may be nothing special about two-sided markets sufficient to give rise to a unique style of antitrust analysis.

Much of the antitrust confusion seems to be based on confusion over the behavior of two-sided markets. A two-sided market is one in which two sets of actors interact through an intermediary or platform, which, in turn, facilitates the transactions, often enabling transactions to take place that otherwise would be too expensive absent the platform. A shopping mall is a two-sided market where shoppers can find their preferred stores. Stores would operate without the platform, but perhaps not as many, and not as efficiently. Newspapers, search engines, and other online platforms are two-sided markets that bring together advertisers and eyeballs that might not otherwise find each other absent the platform. And a collegiate multimedia rights management firms is a two-sided market where colleges that want to sell advertising space get together with firms that want to advertise their goods and services.

Yet there is nothing particularly “transformative” about the outsourcing of MMR management. Credit cards, for example are qualitatively different than in-store credit operations. They are two-sided platforms that substitute for in-house operations — but they also create an entirely new product and product market. MMR marketing firms do lower some transaction costs and reduce risk for collegiate sports marketing, but the product is not substantially changed — in fact, schools must have the knowledge and personnel to assess and enter into the initial sale of MMRs to an intermediary and, because of ongoing revenue-sharing and coordination with the intermediary, must devote ongoing resources even after the initial sale.

But will a merged entity have “too much” power? Imagine if a single firm owned the MMRs for nearly all intercollegiate competitors. How would it be able to exercise its supposed market power? Because each deal is negotiated separately, and, other than some mundane, fixed back-office expenses, the costs of rights management must be incurred whether a firm negotiates one deal or 100, there are no substantial economies of scale in the purchasing of MMRs. As a result, the existence of deals with other schools won’t automatically translate into better deals with subsequent schools.

Now, imagine if one school retained its own MMRs, but decided it might want to license them to an intermediary. Does it face anticompetitive market conditions if there is only a single provider of such services? To begin with, there is never only a single provider, as each school can provide the services in-house. This is not even the traditional monopoly constraint of simply “not buying,” which makes up the textbook “deadweight loss” from monopoly: In this case “not buying” does not mean going without; it simply means providing for oneself.

More importantly, because the school has a monopoly on access to its own marketing rights (to say nothing of access to its own physical facilities) unless and until it licenses them, its own bargaining power is largely independent of an intermediary’s access to other schools’ rights. If it were otherwise, each school would face anticompetitive market conditions simply by virtue of other schools’ owning their own rights!

It is possible that a larger, older firm will have more expertise and will be better able to negotiate deals with other schools — i.e., it will reap the benefits of learning by doing. But the returns to learning by doing derive from the ability to offer higher-quality/lower-cost services over time — which are a source of economic benefit, not cost. At the same time, the bulk of the benefits of experience may be gained over time with even a single set of MMRs, given the ever-varying range of circumstances even a single school will create: There may be little additional benefit (and, to be sure, there is additional cost) from managing multiple schools’ MMRs. And whatever benefits specialized firms offer, they also come with agency costs, and an intermediary’s specialized knowledge about marketing MMRs may or may not outweigh a school’s own specialized knowledge about the nuances of its particular circumstances. Moreover, because of knowledge spillovers and employee turnover this marketing expertise is actually widely distributed; not surprisingly, JMI Sports’ MMR unit, one of the most recent and successful entrants into the business was started by a former employee of IMG. Several other firms started out the same way.

The right way to begin thinking about the issue is this: Imagine if MMR intermediaries didn’t exist — what would happen? In this case, the answer is readily apparent because, for a significant number of schools (about 37% of Division I schools, in fact) MMR licensing is handled in-house, without the use of intermediaries. These schools do, in fact, attract advertisers, and there is little indication that they earn less net profit for going it alone. Schools with larger audiences, better targeted to certain advertisers’ products, command higher prices. Each school enjoys an effective monopoly over advertising channels around its own games, and each has bargaining power derived from its particular attractiveness to particular advertisers.

In effect, each school faces a number of possible options for MMR monetization — most notably a) up-front contracting to an intermediary, which then absorbs the risk, expense, and possible up-side of ongoing licensing to advertisers, or b) direct, ongoing licensing to advertisers. The presence of the intermediary doesn’t appreciably change the market, nor the relative bargaining power of sellers (schools) and buyers (advertisers) of advertising space any more than the presence of temp firms transforms the fundamental relationship between employers and potential part-time employees.

In making their decisions, schools always have the option of taking their MMR management in-house. In facing competing bids from firms such as IMG or Learfield, from their own conferences, or from professional sports teams, the opening bid, in a sense, comes from the school itself. Even the biggest intermediary in the industry must offer the school a deal that is at least as good as managing the MMRs in-house.

The true relevant market: Advertising

According to economist Andy Schwarz, if the relevant market is “college-based marketing services to Power 5 schools, the antitrust authorities may have more concerns than if it’s marketing services in sports.” But this entirely misses the real market exchange here. Sure, marketing services are purchased by schools, but their value to the schools is independent of the number of other schools an intermediary also markets.

Advertisers always have the option of deploying their ad dollars elsewhere. If Coca-Cola wants to advertise on Auburn’s stadium video board, it’s because Auburn’s video board is a profitable outlet for advertising, not because the Auburn ads are bundled with advertising at dozens of other schools (although that bundling may reduce the total cost of advertising on Auburn’s scoreboard as well as other outlets). Similarly, Auburn is seeking the highest bidder for space on its video board. It does not matter to Auburn that the University of Georgia is using the same intermediary to sell ads on its stadium video board.

The willingness of purchasers — say, Coca-Cola or Toyota — to pay for collegiate multimedia advertising is a function of the school that licenses it (net transaction costs) — and MMR agents like IMG and Learfield commit substantial guaranteed sums and a share of any additional profits for the rights to sell that advertising: For example, IMG recently agreed to pay $150 million over 10 years to renew its MMR contract at UCLA. But this is the value of a particular, niche form of advertising, determined within the context of the broader advertising market. How much pricing power over scoreboard advertising does any university, or even any group of universities under the umbrella of an intermediary have, in a world in which Coke and Toyota can advertise virtually anywhere — including during commercial breaks in televised intercollegiate games, which are licensed separately from the MMRs licensed by companies like IMG and Learfield?

There is, in other words, a hard ceiling on what intermediaries can charge schools for MMR marketing services: The schools’ own cost of operating a comparable program in-house.

To be sure, for advertisers, large MMR marketing firms lower the transaction costs of buying advertising space across a range of schools, presumably increasing demand for intercollegiate sports advertising and sponsorship. But sponsors and advertisers have a wide range of options for spending their marketing dollars. Intercollegiate sports MMRs are a small slice of the sports advertising market, which, in turn, is a small slice of the total advertising market. Even if one were to incorrectly describe the combined entity as a “juggernaut” in intercollegiate sports, the MMR rights it sells would still be a flyspeck in the broader market of multimedia advertising.

According to one calculation (by MoffettNathanson), total ad spending in the U.S. was about $191 billion in 2016 (Pew Research Center estimates total ad revenue at $240 billion) and the global advertising market was estimated to be worth about $493 billion. The intercollegiate MMR segment represents a minuscule fraction of that. According to Jason Belzer, “[a]t the time of its sale to WME in 2013, IMG College’s yearly revenue was nearly $500 million….” Another source puts it at $375 million. Either way, it’s a fraction of one percent of the total market, and even combined with Learfield it will remain a minuscule fraction. Even if one were to define a far narrower sports sponsorship market, which a Price Waterhouse estimate puts at around $16 billion, the combined companies would still have a tiny market share.

As sellers of MMRs, colleges are competing with each other, professional sports such as the NFL and NBA, and with non-sports marketing opportunities. And it’s a huge and competitive market.

Barriers to entry

While capital requirements and the presence of long-term contracts may present challenges to potential entrants into the business of marketing MMRs, these potential entrants face virtually no barriers that are not, or have not been, faced by incumbent providers. In this context, one should keep in mind two factors. First, barriers to entry are properly defined as costs incurred by new entrants that are not incurred by incumbents (no matter what Joe Bain says; Stigler always wins this dispute…). Every firm must bear the cost of negotiating and managing each schools’ MMRs, and, as noted, these costs don’t vary significantly with the number of schools being managed. And every entrant needs approximately the same capital and human resources per similarly sized school as every incumbent. Thus, in this context, neither the need for capital nor dedicated employees is properly construed as a barrier to entry.

Second, as the DOJ and FTC acknowledge in the Horizontal Merger Guidelines, any merger can be lawful under the antitrust laws, no matter its market share, where there are no significant barriers to entry:

The prospect of entry into the relevant market will alleviate concerns about adverse competitive effects… if entry into the market is so easy that the merged firm and its remaining rivals in the market, either unilaterally or collectively, could not profitably raise price or otherwise reduce competition compared to the level that would prevail in the absence of the merger.

As noted, there are low economies of scale in the business, with most of the economies occurring in the relatively small “back office” work of payroll, accounting, human resources, and employee benefits. Since the 2000s, the entry of several significant competitors — many entering with only one or two schools or specializing in smaller or niche markets — strongly suggests that there are no economically important barriers to entry. And these firms have entered and succeeded with a wide range of business models and firm sizes:

  • JMI Sports — a “rising boutique firm” — hired Tom Stultz, the former senior vice president and managing director of IMG’s MMR business, in 2012. JMI won its first (and thus, at the time, only) MMR bid in 2014 at the University of Kentucky, besting IMG to win the deal.
  • Peak Sports MGMT, founded in 2012, is a small-scale MMR firm that focuses on lesser Division I and II schools in Texas and the Midwest. It manages just seven small properties, including Southland Conference schools like the University of Central Arkansas and Southeastern Louisiana University.
  • Fox Sports entered the business in 2008 with a deal with the University of Florida. It now handles MMRs for schools like Georgetown, Auburn, and Villanova. Fox’s entry suggests that other media companies — like ESPN — that may already own TV broadcast rights are also potential entrants.
  • In 2014 the sports advertising firm, Van Wagner, hired three former Nelligan employees to make a play for the college sports space. In 2015 the company won its first MMR bid at Florida International University, reportedly against seven other participants. It now handles more than a dozen schools including Georgia State (which it won from IMG), Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, Stony Brook, and Santa Clara.
  • In 2001 Fenway Sports Group, parent company of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club, entered into an MMR agreement with Boston College. And earlier this year the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team began handling multimedia marketing for the University of South Florida.

Potential new entrants abound. Most obviously, sports networks like ESPN could readily follow Fox Sports’ lead and advertising firms could follow Van Wagner’s. These companies have existing relationships and expertise that position them for easy entry into the MMR business. Moreover, there are already several companies that handle the trademark licensing for schools, any of which could move into the MMR management business, as well; both IMG and Learfield already handle licensing for a number of schools. Most notably, Fermata Partners, founded in 2012 by former IMG employees and acquired in 2015 by CAA Sports (a division of Creative Artists Agency), has trademark licensing agreements with Georgia, Kentucky, Miami, Notre Dame, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It could easily expand into selling MMR rights for these and other schools. Other licensing firms like Exemplar (which handles licensing at Columbia) and 289c (which handles licensing at Texas and Ohio State) could also easily expand into MMR.

Given the relatively trivial economies of scale, the minimum viable scale for a new entrant appears to be approximately one school — a size that each school’s in-house operations, of course, automatically meets. Moreover, the Peak Sports, Fenway, and Tampa Bay Lightning examples suggest that there may be particular benefits to local, regional, or category specialization, suggesting that innovative, new entry is not only possible, but even likely, as the business continues to evolve.

Conclusion

A merger between IMG and Learfield should not raise any antitrust issues. College sports is a small slice of the total advertising market. Even a so-called “juggernaut” in college sports multimedia rights is a small bit in the broader market of multimedia marketing.

The demonstrated entry of new competitors and the transitions of schools from one provider to another or to bringing MMR management in-house, indicates that no competitor has any measurable market power that can disadvantage schools or advertisers.

The term “juggernaut” entered the English language because of misinterpretation and exaggeration of actual events. Fears of the IMG/Learfield merger crushing competition is similarly based on a misinterpretation of two-sided markets and misunderstanding of the reality of the of the market for college multimedia rights management. Importantly, the case is also a cautionary tale for those who would identify narrow, contract-, channel-, or platform-specific relevant markets in circumstances where a range of intermediaries and direct relationships can compete to offer the same service as those being scrutinized. Antitrust advocates have a long and inglorious history of defining markets by channels of distribution or other convenient, yet often economically inappropriate, combinations of firms or products. Yet the presence of marketing or other intermediaries does not automatically transform a basic, commercial relationship into a novel, two-sided market necessitating narrow market definitions and creative economics.

In Antitrust & Competition, Barriers to Entry, Credit Cards, Financial Regulation, Justice Department, Market Definition, Merger Guidelines, Mergers & Acquisitions, Platforms , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The Washington Post columnists on the Supercommittee

Hal Singer —  22 November 2011

My apologies to TOTM readers for taking last week off. A firm retreat in Phoenix followed by a hearing in Oklahoma City really puts a crimp on one’s fun time. In the meantime, the BCS announced that it is considering eliminating the automatic-qualification offers to BCS conference champions. The ACC and Big East must not be pleased. Proof that what gets written on this blog has a significant (and positive) impact on the world around us.

Joking aside, in Washington this week, the Supercommittee designed to solve the nation’s budget crisis is dominating the headlines. One wonders whether Washington Post writers who follow economic affairs coordinate their opinions. Within a day of the Supercommittee’s announced failure, at least three prominent columnists have reached the identical opinion regarding who is to blame for the Supercommittee’s failure: President Obama. Today, Michael Gerson writes “The supercommittee failed primarily because President Obama gave a shrug.” In another column, Ezra Klein writes “There’s not much we can do, they [the Obama administration] say, in a world where congressional Republicans won’t agree to a reasonable deal. In most cases, that’s true. In this case, it’s really not.” Klein questions why Obama never embraced the Bipartisan Fiscal Commission report (aka the “Bowles-Simpson report”). Finally, in yesterday’s Post, Robert Samuelson writes “The reason we cannot have a large budget deal is that Americans haven’t been prepared for one. The president hasn’t educated them, and so they can’t support what they don’t understand.” Samuelson explains that if we don’t address these entitlement programs, their costs will nearly double as a share of national income, which will displace spending in other areas or necessitate further tax increases or both.

If these opinions flowed exclusively from right-of-center columnists, then they could be discounted as political posturing. While Gerson was the lead speech writer for George W. Bush, Klein and Samuelson are hardly batting from the right. Will a “consensus” emerge among the center-left that Obama is to blame for the budget crisis, and will it propel Obama to confront the entitlement morass? Or do the political benefits of shirking the entitlement debate outweigh the costs? The lasting power of entitlements stems from the self-reinforcing dependency among the beneficiaries (who come to depend on the program) and the members of the political party protecting the program (who come to depend on the built-in constituency for votes). It would require tremendous leadership and courage for Obama to transcend politics as usual, and to save us from a Greek-like financial calamity. If he is not up for this task, look for the Republican presidential candidates to make Obama’s leadership issue number one in the 2012 election.

P.S. It’s probably best not to bring up budget deficits or Greek-like crises during the Thanksgiving meal. Better for your family to digest the food thoroughly before falling asleep on the couch. When in doubt, talk sports. Here’s a good conversation starter: When was the last time we cared about the Detroit Lions this late into the season?

In Truth on the Market ,
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The Efficiency of Cable Bundling

Thom Lambert —  10 July 2011

As I noted in a post last month, the Ninth Circuit recently threw out an antitrust challenge to cable operators’ refusal to provide cable channels on an a la carte, rather than bundled, basis.  (Josh also had some insightful comments on the Ninth Circuit’s Brantley decision.)  In my post, I promised that I would later explain how channel bundling, which permits cable operators to price discriminate and extract greater consumer surplus, may nonetheless benefit consumers by expanding output.  Having just finished incorporating a number of helpful comments Herbert Hovenkamp gave me on a forthcoming tying/bundling article (more about that later!), now seems like a swell time to return to the topic of cable bundling.

 To begin, consider how the refusal to provide cable channels except in bundled “tiers” can expand an operator’s profits and reduce short-term consumer surplus.  As George Stigler famously observed in connection with the Supreme Court’s Loew’s decision (which addressed movie studios’ “block-booking” of feature films), a seller of multiple products for which demand is not positively correlated may find its ability to raise prices constrained by the willingness-to-pay (“reservation price”) of more price-sensitive (“higher elasticity”) consumers and may evade that constraint by selling its products on a bundled basis. 

 Suppose, for example, that a cable operator has two channels – ESPN and the Family Channel – and two customers – a bachelor and a married father of four.  The bachelor, who has more disposable income than the family guy, mainly watches sports but occasionally catches a flick on the Family Channel.  The father and his family, by contrast, watch more Family Channel programming than ESPN.  Bachelor values ESPN at $45/month and the Family Channel at $20/month.  Family Guy values the Family Channel at $35/month and ESPN at $25/month.  For simplicity’s sake, assume the cable operator’s marginal cost of providing each channel is zero.

 Under these assumptions, the cable operator would earn profits of $90/month by providing the channels a la carte.  It would charge $25/month for ESPN and $20/month for the Family Channel (in each case, the reservation price of the high-elasticity consumer), and would sell two subscriptions to each channel.  Total consumer surplus, then, would be $35:  Family Guy would enjoy surplus of $15 on the Family Channel and no surplus on ESPN; Bachelor would enjoy surplus of $20 on ESPN and none on the Family Channel.

 By selling the channels on a bundled basis exclusively, the cable operator could enhance its profits by 33%, to $120/month.  It could do so by charging $60 for the ESPN/Family Channel package (this reflects the high-elasticity consumer’s reservation price for the bundle) and selling two packages.  Total consumer surplus, though, would fall to $5:  Bachelor would pay $60 to get $65 of subjective value, and Family Guy, required to pay his full reservation price for the package, would enjoy no surplus.

 So how could this sort of surplus-extractive policy ever benefit consumers?  By expanding overall market output.  Allow me to explain. Continue Reading…

In Antitrust & Competition, Supreme Court, Truth on the Market, Tying ,
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Optimal Sanctions for NFL Hits

Josh Wright —  19 October 2010

In response to a week with what the NFL perceives to be a large number of tackles causing injury, the league is ready to announce a new policy in which players will be suspended for certain hits the league deems to dangerous or too likely to cause injury.  This is a change from the NFL’s former policy in which the default rule was to impose a fine on players.

In particular, during games this week there were three hits that drew the attention of the league.   As this ESPN story describes the plays in question:

  • The Eagles’ DeSean Jackson and the Falcons’ Dunta Robinson were knocked out of their game after a frightening collision in which Robinson launched himself head first to make a tackle. Both sustained concussions.
  • Ravens tight end Todd Heap took a vicious hit from Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather that Heap called “one of those hits that shouldn’t happen.”
  • The Steelers’ James Harrison sidelined two Browns players with head injuries after jarring hits. An NFL spokesman said one of the tackles, on Joshua Cribbs, was legal. The Browns were more upset about Harrison’s hit on Mohamed Massaquoi, which the league is reviewing.

On Tuesday morning, an NFL VP of Football Operations announced the likely change in policy:

We’ve got to get the message to players that these devastating hits and head shots will be met with a very necessary higher standard of accountability. We have to dispel the notion that you get one free pass in these egregious or flagrant shots.

The article also notes that while there have been suspensions for hits deemed “egregious” or “flagrant” in the past, the default rule has been fines or ejections.  Hold aside the interesting questions about what is causing the increase in these types of hits (during the Monday Night Football broadcast, Hall of Fame QB Steve Young hypothesized that the problem was incompetent quarterbacking and WR play in the form of failing to distinguish man from zone defenses, leading to more frequent situations in which wide receivers are catching the ball in vulnerable positions).  Also holding aside the appropriateness of the NFL policy for a moment, which strikes me at first blush as an overreaction to the events of a single week and inextricably intertwined with the larger and much more complicated issue of concussions in football, the announced policy change in presents some interesting economic issues concerning optimal sanctions.

Continue Reading…

In Antitrust & Competition, Error Costs ,
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Insurance markets in everything …

Josh Wright —  30 August 2010

As the guys at MR would say…(ESPN).   Hair insurance edition: 

Just call Troy Polamalu the man with the million dollar hair.  The long, flowing black hair that tumbles out of Polamalu’s helmet and down his back — it’s nearly three feet long — has been insured for $1 million by Head and Shoulders, the shampoo brand that is endorsed by the Pittsburgh Steelers safety.  The insurance was obtained through Lloyd’s of London, which did not reveal what must be done to Polamalu’s hair for anyone to collect on the policy.  Polamalu’s hair has been targeted by an opposing NFL player at least once — the Chiefs‘ Larry Johnson tackled Polamalu by the hair during a 49-yard interception return in a 2006 game.  Polamalu, a five-time Pro Bowl player, wears his hair long as a tribute to his Samoan heritage.

There’s a photo of the offending Larry Johnson tackle on the right.

This commercial is funny.

And most importantly: Go Steelers!

In Truth on the Market ,
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What’s the Optimal Level of Sports Rivalry?

Josh Wright —  21 July 2010

Michael Jordan says he would have never called Larry Bird or Magic Johnson to join forces because “honestly, I was trying to beat those guys.”  Jordan catches himself, notes its a different era now, and concludes about the LeBron-Wade-Bosh cooperation that he “can’t say that’s a bad thing.”   Dan Shaugnessy (ESPN) recounts how Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson refused to talk to non-Cardinals teammates during all-star games.  There is Reggie Miller and the Knicks.  The intense rivalry between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier is legendary.   Ray Lewis and anyone.  Shaugnessy suggests that the decline in intense rivalry is a bad thing for sports.  I tend to agree.

Here’s Bill Simmons again on the LeBron decision:

I think it’s a cop-out. Any super-competitive person would rather beat Dwyane Wade than play with him. Don’t you want to find the Ali to your Frazier and have that rival pull the greatness out of you? That’s why I’m holding out hope that LeBron signs with New York or Chicago (or stays in Cleveland), because he’d be saying, “Fine. Kobe, Dwight and Melo all have their teams. Wade and Bosh have their team. The Celtics are still there. Durant’s team is coming. I’m gonna go out and build MY team, and I’m kicking all their asses.” That’s what Jordan would have done. Hell, that’s what Kobe would have done.In May, after the Cavs were ousted in the conference semifinals, I wrote that LeBron was facing one of the greatest sports decisions ever: “winning (Chicago), loyalty (Cleveland) or a chance at immortality (New York).”

The quotes I’ve seen from Jordan, Barkley and others suggest that this just isn’t something that they would have thought of doing.  Sports culture has changed.  But is that a good thing or a bad one?  The optimal level of rivalry isn’t zero.  As Shaugnessy points out, there are significant benefits to rivalry from the perspective of the consumer in terms of creating more heated team rivalries, more intense individual rivalries, both of which can lead to great sports moments.  But this sort of intense inter-player rivalry (hatred seems to strong) is apparently declining across many sports with obvious changes in the sports culture, including, but not limited to, compensation and age.  But the optimal level cannot be infinite either.  There are some costs to increasing this sort of rivalry at the margin.  Some are obvious.  It could lead, at least in this case, to a narrowing of the distribution of talent across the league.  I don’t see why this would be a good thing on average.  But fans obviously will enjoy watching the Miami Heat show, whatever happens.  That counts for something I guess.

I can’t help but think these developments are bad for sports fans.   Is there a more optimistic story about the decline of real, intense rivalry in sports that I’m missing?  Enough has been said about whether LeBron’s “decision” and how he did it.  I’m not talking about that.  As a sports fan, I think I’m worse off for a sports world where this sort of coordination is the norm.  Should I?  Do you?

In Truth on the Market ,
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Predicting LeBron

Josh Wright —  8 July 2010

Intrade says the Heat:

Bill Simmons column is a must read:

If LeBron picks anyone other than the Cavaliers, it will be the cruelest television moment since David Chase ended “The Sopranos” by making everyone think they lost power. Cleveland fans will never forgive LeBron, nor should they. He knows better than anyone what kind of sports anguish they have suffered over the years. Losing LeBron on a contrived one-hour show would be worse than Byner’s fumble, Jose Mesa, the Game 5 meltdown against Boston, The Drive, The Shot and everything else. At least those stomach-punch moments weren’t preordained, unless you believe God hates Cleveland (entirely possible, by the way). This stomach-punch moment? Calculated. By a local kid they loved, defended and revered.It would be unforgivable. Repeat: unforgivable. …

Picking anyone other than Cleveland on this show would be the meanest thing any athlete has ever done to a city.

Yep.

In Truth on the Market ,
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The efficient level of torture

Todd Henderson —  5 March 2010

Every morning on my 1-mile drive to work, I pass two signs expressing outrage about torture – one is a hand-made yard sign, the other an ominous black banner hanging from a church window: “torture is wrong.” (Yes, punctuation by e.e. cummings it seems.) Is it? I’m not sure.

The optimal amount of torture is certainly not zero. Only a zealot would claim otherwise. The simple law-school hypothetical of the ticking time bomb shows the absurdity of the claim: if a nuclear bomb were known to be about to go off in Chicago, and if waterboarding were known to be an effective method of extracting information, and if there were no other way of getting the information (three big “ifs,” I admit, but don’t fight the hypothetical), everyone making the decision at the time would torture. Everyone would prefer to scare someone (not even seriously hurt them) to save millions. So we might quibble with the “ifs,” but this isn’t denying torture as a matter of first principles, rather based on details that are quite contestable. For instance, several high-level intelligence figures here and in other countries claim demonstrable success using these techniques. The debate is described here.

Although not zero, the optimal amount of torture may be small, even extremely small. Torture is thus like killing. Everyone agrees the optimal amount of killing other humans is not zero. I can kill an intruder who enters my house and threatens me; the police can kill under limited circumstances; the state (or at least some states) can kill heinous criminals; and the federal government can kill pretty much at will, sometimes massively and indiscriminately (e.g., the firebombing of Dresden), to protect us from perceived threats. While individuals may differ about the wisdom, efficacy, or legality of some of these, only the most idiosyncratic of us would consistently reject any killing of any kind, especially when the connection with human flourishing is established.

To this point about large-scale violence being perpetrated in our name, I find it odd there are no signs on my way to work reading: “Predator attacks are wrong,” or “cluster bombs are wrong,” or any of the other, far more lethal things we do are wrong.  One might say that torture is worse than killing because the latter is often done in “the heat of battle” or when there are no alternative choices because of an imminent threat. There are two problems with this line of reasoning. First, there are millions and millions of graves filled with the bodies of those killed in cold deliberation and where the threats were hardly obvious. Was the murder of tens of thousands of German civilians necessary to impede the Reich’s war production efforts? Perhaps. But, perhaps not. Isn’t it odd to say that we can’t slap a terrorist in the hope of intimidating him into confession but we can kill that same person (plus his entire family) if we use a Predator drone to attack his house in Waziristan? Ah, you might argue, if he is free, he is a bigger threat than when in custody. This is the second problem with this argument. Lawyers call this fallacy the act omission distinction. Is the act of setting a bomb (when free in Waziristan) really more threatening than the omission of telling us where a bomb is set (when held in Bagram Air Base)?

A counter argument to this analogy between killing and torture is that the greater does not always include the lesser – the fact that we can kill does not mean we can do things less than killing. Take the example of animals. Killing animals is socially acceptable – about 9 billion were slaughtered last year in the US for our enjoyment. But torturing animals is generally not socially acceptable. Professional football player Michael Vick served nearly two years in federal prison for his involvement in dog fighting. Why is this? Why doesn’t the right to kill include the right to torture?

To get at this, it is important to remember we do torture animals. We use animals not only when we kill them “humanely,” whatever that means, but we also use them when they are subjected to treatment that is akin to torture. A college friend of mine experiments on pigs with the hope of developing more efficacious heart surgery techniques – the pigs are made sick, subjected to numerous painful surgeries, and then killed. Another friend does research on the brains of chimps – again, these chimps are not happy about this. Why is this form of torture OK (I understand to some it is not), and yet the use of dogs for entertainment (put aside dog racing, if you can) is not?  It must have something to do with the end results. My friends are trying to save human lives and they are acting as compassionately as they can in dealing with the animals on which they experiment. Michael Vick, on the other hand, wanted a cheap thrill and acted like an animal himself. In other words, we punish not because of the impact on the animal, but because of a cost-benefit analysis of the impact and a view about what the conduct tells us about the perpetrator. If your goal is one that is important and the costs are minimized, torture is OK.

This distinction lets us draw a sensible line in the current debate about torture. What rogue soldiers did at Abu Grahib looks like it was not part of a plan, not well designed, not managed, not intended to resolve an imminent threat, and more revealing about the nature of the people doing the torture. In short, the perpetrators look more like Michael Vick than my medical researcher friends. The case of the waterboarding of high-level al Qaeda operatives, in contrast, looks more like the latter. Sure it makes us uncomfortable to think about our government doing this, but doesn’t it make us uncomfortable to think about the pigs and the chimps, not to mention the children incinerated in Dresden? Our top intelligence officials believe “coercive interrogation methods,” gave us “deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” Why don’t we believe them?

Perhaps we do. My hope is that the compromise we’ve reached is to publicly condemn torture but to privately signal that in extreme cases we will forgive those who do it. This is probably the best legal regime to handle something like this. The banning of torture is good PR, but more importantly, it puts the onus on potential torturers to make sure that when they do torture, it is for the extreme, ticking-time-bomb case. In other words, the legal uncertainty about torture means we will have less of it. If we believe the optimal amount of torture is less than the amount before the ban, this should be expected to lower it. But, the use of pardons after torture is revealed should provide sufficient protection for those who are certain under the circumstances that torture is the right decision. Of course, for this to work well – to generate the efficient level of torture, if you will – the public needs to have the debate in a sensible way. All the hand wringing and political posturing is not helping, since it likely gives our intelligence officials less comfort about whether a pardon would be forthcoming, even in extreme cases. Better we face the cold, hard realities of the world with a pragmatic view, than to simply condemn something because it gives us the willies. Killing animals or children gives me the willies too, but sometimes, tragically, it must be done.

In Truth on the Market ,
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TOTM Welcomes New Permanent Blogger J.W. Verret

Josh Wright —  19 October 2009

TOTM is very pleased to announce a new permanent member, J.W. Verret (George Mason).  J.W. has been blogging at Volokh Conspiracy recently, but he’s been a guest over at The Conglomerate, and the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog.  Quite frankly, it would be difficult to miss him if you’ve been following the recent events in the world of financial regulation.  Professor Verret has been talking about financial regulation and corporate law every where from The NewsHour with Jim Lehrey, to CNN Money, ESPN.com, The American Lawyer, Forbes, and of course, testimony before various House and Senate Committees regarding the Obama Administration’s 2009 financial regulatory reform proposals.

J.W. received his JD and MA in Public Policy from Harvard Law School (where he was an Olin Fellow under Lucian Bebchuk) and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, respectively, in 2006.  Professor Verret then served as a law clerk for Vice-Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Prior to joining the faculty at Mason Law, Professor Verret was an associate in the SEC Enforcement Defense Practice Group at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on corporate law topics, including a recent paper, Delaware’s Guidance, co-written with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court. His academic work has been featured in the Yale Journal on Regulation, The Business Lawyer, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Virginia Law and Business Review. Professor Verret was recently selected by the Northwestern Law School Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth for a 2009-2010 Searle-Kaufmann Research Fellowship.

J.W. will be finishing up his stint as a visitor at Volokh this week, but we’re happy to give him a permanent blogging home here at TOTM thereafter.

In Announcements, Corporate & Securities Law, Financial Regulation, Regulation, Regulatory Reform , ,
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