Talk about the status of UConn. In five years, do you think they’ll be a part of the conference?
“I think so and I hope so. Realignment, I’m not going to make any predictions because two years ago, you might have made a prediction that was wrong. Yet, the situation was unsettled then and it’s a lot more settled now. As you know, not much happened this past fall.
We think that, ultimately, these conferences seem stable now. You look at the Big 12 and they only have 10 teams, but they’re very happy with the round robin and they like it very much. They seem to want to stay the same. Right now, there just doesn’t seem to be anything going on. Now, that could change.
Conferences have gotten bigger. They have to consolidate. I’m not quite sure you’re going to see any move towards 16-team conferences. Some people honestly believe—and who knows, you could be wrong tomorrow—that this could be five or 10 years before there’s really any further shifts because you’ve got long-term TV deals in place. It’s now sort of settled out in what the conferences did in realignment.
I think, in our conference, our goal is to build it and to make sure we become one of the others and that people perceive us the same year. We have that opportunity...because out (TV deal) only goes out six years.
We knew that a year and a half ago no one knew what we were. No one knew what we had. No one knew how the new schools would relate to each other. They didn’t know how cohesive we’d be. They didn’t know if we’d be able to get the kinds of deals in place that we needed.
Consequently, we decided a short-term deal would be better. We went to the networks to do a four or five or six-year deal. We ended up doing a six-year deal. That gives us a chance to renegotiate and say, ‘Look, let’s go out and do something longer and rewrite some of the initial years now that we’ve obviously proven our value.
There are other things we can do as a conference to enhance our TV value. We’re working on them now. There are other things we’re doing online. That’s a new world. We’re not ignoring that. We’ve got a digital network and we’re providing a lot of value to ESPN 3, but we prefer most of our games to be on regular TV and they will be now.
Again, as you look at conference realignment and the landscape, it’s quieted down. We fully expect the schools in the conference to remain in the conference and, by the way, they’ve bought in very well. We’ve had some schools, as you know, talk a lot about possible going to other conferences. They have really bought in. Jeff can tell you. They’ve been partners. UConn has been terrific and we’ve got a group of schools coming in and they’re thrilled to be here.
We’ve got a lot of schools that would like to join us. We really do. We like 12 when Navy joins next year. We don’t have any reason to think about expanding at this point unless there are some schools that approach us and bring great value. There are a few out there, but not many.”
http://eastcarolina.scout.com/story/1414510-mike-aresco-pc-quotes-part-two?s=47
“I think so and I hope so. Realignment, I’m not going to make any predictions because two years ago, you might have made a prediction that was wrong. Yet, the situation was unsettled then and it’s a lot more settled now. As you know, not much happened this past fall.
We think that, ultimately, these conferences seem stable now. You look at the Big 12 and they only have 10 teams, but they’re very happy with the round robin and they like it very much. They seem to want to stay the same. Right now, there just doesn’t seem to be anything going on. Now, that could change.
Conferences have gotten bigger. They have to consolidate. I’m not quite sure you’re going to see any move towards 16-team conferences. Some people honestly believe—and who knows, you could be wrong tomorrow—that this could be five or 10 years before there’s really any further shifts because you’ve got long-term TV deals in place. It’s now sort of settled out in what the conferences did in realignment.
I think, in our conference, our goal is to build it and to make sure we become one of the others and that people perceive us the same year. We have that opportunity...because out (TV deal) only goes out six years.
We knew that a year and a half ago no one knew what we were. No one knew what we had. No one knew how the new schools would relate to each other. They didn’t know how cohesive we’d be. They didn’t know if we’d be able to get the kinds of deals in place that we needed.
Consequently, we decided a short-term deal would be better. We went to the networks to do a four or five or six-year deal. We ended up doing a six-year deal. That gives us a chance to renegotiate and say, ‘Look, let’s go out and do something longer and rewrite some of the initial years now that we’ve obviously proven our value.
There are other things we can do as a conference to enhance our TV value. We’re working on them now. There are other things we’re doing online. That’s a new world. We’re not ignoring that. We’ve got a digital network and we’re providing a lot of value to ESPN 3, but we prefer most of our games to be on regular TV and they will be now.
Again, as you look at conference realignment and the landscape, it’s quieted down. We fully expect the schools in the conference to remain in the conference and, by the way, they’ve bought in very well. We’ve had some schools, as you know, talk a lot about possible going to other conferences. They have really bought in. Jeff can tell you. They’ve been partners. UConn has been terrific and we’ve got a group of schools coming in and they’re thrilled to be here.
We’ve got a lot of schools that would like to join us. We really do. We like 12 when Navy joins next year. We don’t have any reason to think about expanding at this point unless there are some schools that approach us and bring great value. There are a few out there, but not many.”
http://eastcarolina.scout.com/story/1414510-mike-aresco-pc-quotes-part-two?s=47
