(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a three-part series on St. Bonaventure’s Dick Joyce Sports Symposium, held Thursday afternoon at the Quick Center for the Arts/Rigas Family Theater. The following two segments will be next Tuesday and Thursday.)

ST. BONAVENTURE — Every time Bona’s Jandoli School of Journalism hosts its Dick Joyce Sports Symposium, the subject is compelling.

And so it was yesterday in a session entitled Fast and Furious: The Evolving Business of Sports Media.

The panel was moderated by former Bona basketball star Donna Ditota, now an award-winning sports writer for the Syracuse Media Group.

Her sources were three SBU alums: Chris LaPlaca, ESPN Senior VP of Corporate Communications; Eric Fisher, U.S. Editor of Sports Business, Brian Matthews, NFL Senior Vice President of Media Sales and the final panelist was St. Bonaventure’s new athletic director, Joe Manhertz, whose perspective was a bit ddifferent.

The first subject was “Cutting the Cord,” the number of people leaving cable television for streaming services.

Here are there individual responses:

LaPLACA: “Northstar is essentially going Fanstar … you’ve got to go find them where they are … you guys are in charge now, I don’t know whether you know that. The notion of fans being in charge began a long time ago … actually when ESPN launched in 1979, sports were available all the time, not just on weekends.

“So that phenomenon has only accelerated over 42 years and, actually, the last three years, it’s been on steroids because technology makes the little screen (phones) now the biggest screen in terms of where the business is going crazy. (But ‘cutting the cord’) it’s slowing down, in fact, it used to be like (Triple Crown winner) Secretariat going past the field by 30 lengths (past cable) and now it’s kind of slowed down a little bit even though streaming and digital/social is a really big deal.

“Basically, what we’re doing is creating content that’s native to each of those platforms and building a mass audience … we’ve got the largest scale in each of those platforms and now we’re trying to figure out a way to monetize it.

“From a rights-holders perspective, any time the NFL opens its mouth, the first thing they say is ‘reach,’ and from a sales perspective reach is very important (and) people who own the rights want to reach as many people as possible, wherever those people are.”

FISHER: “About 7-8 years ago, the number of traditional TV households was just over 100 million and we’re in the low 70 million now and there are various reports on where the floor is going to end on that … we’re heard some things that it will be as low as 50 million though I think Chris’ comment is well-talen that it might not be that bad per se. “Everything’s in transition and people get TV in a lot of different ways and what networks like ESPN has done, NBC Universal , Paramount same sort of thing … but while we’re in this transition phase and their consumer operations are not yet profitable and dealing with a lot of start-up costs the strategy is kind of to ride the waves and see where the trends go and in the meantime lock down as much content for as long as possible. “When you look at what (ESPN) has done the last few years, basically nailing down everything that’s humanly possible. So from a rights standpoint they’re very well set up for the next decade and as everything shakes out, they’re going to have the Tier 1 content and it will be on different platforms and different presentations. Certain things on (ESPN)+, on ABC … NBC Universal, Paramount and Fox doing the same sort of thing. “Where we’ll be in five years, nobody knows but companies like (ESPN) made a smart bet because what we’ve learned, particularly in these last two years, is that sports was already the strongest content across all American media, but they’re lapping the field now in where sports is going and that gap is only growing.”

MATTHEWS: “It’s the most exciting time in the history of sports if you’re a fan. The NFL, in particular, always sees broadcast and cable television as the easiest way to reach the largest amount of people. If you look at the last rounds of broadcast deals, that was true, it was mainly traditional media companies that secured the rights.

“However, we were definitely dipping our toe in the water as Amazon came onboard for a full-season package next season), which hadn’t happened before. It’s an exciting time for fans because basically you can watch these games any way you want … if the 50-inch screen in your living room is the most viable, exciting and comfortable way, done, the games are going to be there. The NFL made games free on mobile devices a couple of years ago, so if you’re on the go, as I am, I can watch those games on my device.

“What you’re going to see is these digital-first companies such as Amazon adding alternate ways to consume a game. We saw a game last year where Amazon had a tricast, as a third partner for Thursday Night Football, but they were doing a different audio version — female-only announcers during the game. Two of our best examples this year of engaging fans were the Manning cast (Peyton and Eli) that ESPN worked on … another way to watch a game that really hadn’t been done before. And when we think about fan engagement and growing new audiences, if anybody noticed what Nickelodeon did with a couple of games this year and one last year. My kids were watching when (Chiefs tight end Travis) Kelce catches a touchdown pass and gets slimed in the end zone … a really cool, different way of engaging younger fans.

For all the talk of cord-cutting, which is certainly a major topic, I think it’s an exciting time of finding new ways on consuming content and its up to the networks and leagues to find alternative ways. It’s an exciting time, not a scary time.

MANHERTZ: “Think back to all the conference networks — the Longhorn Network and how important it was — now it’s not necessarily important (with TV saturation).

“My concern is a little bit different, it’s great for alumni to watch games from dar-away places but we still want to make sure we fill the Reilly Center … the arena we’re in. “Sometimes it’s just easier to stay home and watch a game. As we think about it with the A-10 with a couple of different partners but at the end of the day we’d like to have one( network) … is it ESPN this time, CBS, USA, which one is it. Every conference right now is trying to make sure they have a (television) platform.”

(Tuesday, sports betting)

(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)