Dallas News pros and cons of B12 expansion candidates

[UT4Big12]

Honestly, besides getting an invite to the Big 12, the best thing that could happen to UConn is nothing happening. If the AAC stays intact for the time being it would not be the end of the world for us. Money would suck and become an issue but we would still be stuck with Cincy and whoever else the other school may have been that was added.

I can't see why the Big 12 would expand if there isn't a network being started. Like you said UT, the money is being split 10 ways and there isn't any hint that the money would be upped if they did add any schools.

So I hope that if they expand UConn is added. However, I'd not be totally crushed if the Big 12 decides to do nothing and stay at 10.

The conference commissioner was once asked if he could give a hint on what the conference would be looking for in an expansion scenario. He commented, "if you want to get an idea, just look at the current make up of the conference". As I have stated before, a lot of the Big 12 schools are land grant public research universities. Aside from its 3 BCS appearances, WVU is a land grant school and that was looked on favorably by the conference. Could the same happen with UConn if the conference decides to expand? The other thing I have noticed, the Big 12 is all about bringing in brand name/flagship schools with very good academics, so that may also be a hint as well. I am not saying that UConn will happen, but those have been my observations over the years.

 

[Hoophound]

The ACC network issue is simple. The ACC sold their 2nd their rights to Raycom; so ESPN who produces the programming isn't going to buy to back from Raycom then pay the ACC schools to put it on a network.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2013/05/20/Media/ACC-net.aspx

I understand that but if keeping that arrangement kills the conference then that arrangement won't be good for anyone. In order to maintain status quo, all parties may need to reevaluate the agreements in order to maximize value and avoid disaster. If exposure in two huge markets creates value, it should create value for Raycom too.

 

[FDNY99]

I understand that but if keeping that arrangement kills the conference then that arrangement won't be good for anyone. In order to maintain status quo, all parties may need to reevaluate the agreements in order to maximize value and avoid disaster. If exposure in two huge markets creates value, it should create value for Raycom too.

The ACC needs ESPN to do a network. ESPN won't do it if they will lose $$...simple as that. It's up to John Swafford to negotiate a deal with Raycom to get the ACC 2nd tier rights back. And oh yeah by the way..his son is employed by Raycom.

 

[MattMang23]

The ACC needs ESPN to do a network. ESPN won't do it if they will lose $$...simple as that. It's up to John Swafford to negotiate a deal with Raycom to get the ACC 2nd tier rights back. And oh yeah by the way..his son is employed by Raycom.

That doesn't matter so much as what type of position his son has there. If he's a big shot, there could be an issue if daddy doesn't do his job and worries about his kid's job instead. If he's a standard paper pusher, he can be a standard paper pusher in the ACC office after daddy hires him when Raycom goes under once they lose the ACC.

 

[jostar1]

The other thing that complicates the situation is the fact that Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor have separate Tier 3 media deals with Fox. West Virginia, Kansas and Kansas State have monetized their Tier 3 rights in other ways. They would all have to wait until their contracts expire before a conference network could even be discussed or realized.

UConn President Susan Herbst:

"Three years ago, you could never have predicted what is going on now. A major thing is there is so much going on now in the cable industry. That will have some fundamental change in what gets televised by whom and with what kind of contract. Everybody's got lawyers looking at [contractual] re-openers [based on previously agreed upon provisions] and all kind of things. That, 'Well, it's OK for now, but eventually the Power Five will make everybody else irrelevant because of the money' — the whole money part and the structural nature of the media landscape is under so much change."

http://www.courant.com/sports/college/hc-jacobs-column-susan-herbst-0115-20160114-story.html

 

[jostar1]

ESPN and Fox have given no indication the Big 12 contracts would be renegotiated if more schools are brought in. Therein lies the problem. That would mean the current members would have to agree to take a loss in revenue for the remainder of the contract period in order to subsidize the new members.

There is no loss of money from the TV contract if the Big 12 adds two schools. This was first revealed in a story by Dennis Dodd story published 5/30/2012:

"The new Big 12 TV deal is expected to be announced any day, perhaps here this week as a celebration of the league's new-found strength. Within that deal is a clause that will give any new expansion candidates the same money as the current members (estimated to be at least $20 million per year).

One industry source said that number applies whether the Big 12 invites, "Appalachian State or Florida State." And according to another industry source, ESPN wouldn't stand in the way of Big 12 expansion even after negotiating a new deal with the ACC."

Boren revealed that back in June.

Here are some of the tweets from that time:

Chuck Carlton ‏@ChuckCarltonDMN · 11m11 minutes ago
Boren says Big 12 would not have to cut TV $$$ pie into smaller pieces with expansion, which qualifies as news.

Chuck Carlton ‏@ChuckCarltonDMN · 37m37 minutes ago
Bowlsby confirms pro rata clause in TV contracts would match shares if league expands. But revenue from NCAA, CFP would be split more ways.

Stewart Mandel ‏@slmandel · 1h1 hour ago
As others have noted, significant revelation today about the Big 12's TV deal. If everyone's share is guaranteed, expansion far more viable

Stewart Mandel ‏@slmandel · 1h1 hour ago
I think the Big 12 has been using the "smaller pie" excuse to avoid saying, we don't think any of the schools out there are good enough.

Dan Wolken ‏@DanWolken · 2h2 hours ago
I can't tell you today whether Big 12 is expanding. But after today and revelation about TV deal, I will never trust what they say.

Landthieves ‏@LandThieves · 2h2 hours ago
Boren pretty much nuked everyone's notions of the tv deal. Straight up, that info was never coming out.

Dan Wolken ‏@DanWolken · 2h2 hours ago
@LandThieves It is a huge revelation. If I wasn't on vacation I'd have written about it

Landthieves ‏@LandThieves · 2h2 hours ago
@DanWolken 5 years of "added value" speeches going in a 3 minute interview after a BOR meeting. incredible

Dan Wolken ‏@DanWolken · 2h2 hours ago
@LandThieves It really is. I mean, that's a major detail people from the league basically lied about publicly every time they opened mouth

 

[ZOOCONN]

The fact that TCU rapidly improved in football at the perfect time and quickly landed on its feet during the CR shuffle tells me how reactionary the decision makers are and doesn't give me good intuition about the future of B12 expansion for us. Everyone is so football crazy that a non-existent athletic program like Boise State outside of a couple good years on the smurf blue turf gimmick is even being discussed tells me we are duck*ed.

When B12 expansion talks from Boren's hints began this year we were a major talking point, but now that the "analysts" and Internet blog "talking heads" have picked up the story as of late the tides seem to have shifted. Everyone sees bashing UConn football as an easy, pseudo-intelligent point to make in their forcibly written articles on the issue they know nothing about, I just fear that this bogus perception doesn't taint the minds of the B12's decision makers.

you couldn't possibly be more off base here if you were intentionally trying to be ignorant. Boise state all time is 417-158, and the "couple of seasons" your referring to since the 99-2000 season they are 186- 33 (we have had the same amount of losses since in the last 4yrs...) in that same time span they have been 12-5 in bowl games with wins over Lville, Utah, Washington, ASU, Arizona, TCU2x oh and Oklahoma ( we didn't have the same outcome...) and those 5 losses came by an average of 5 points to 3 top 20 teams, 2 of which were in the top ten. when it comes to BSU football I would be willing to bet more than a few people here would kill to have those kind of stats over that same time. say what you want about the rest of the athletic department but when it comes to gimmicky boise state football we wish we could be them.

oh and the irony of this statement "pseudo-intelligent point to make in their forcibly written articles on the issue they know nothing about" is almost too much.

 

[mavblues]

I just have just one comment on TCU.
Prior to its Big 12 invitation, TCU had more success as an athletic program than Texas A&M had as a Big 12 member. Remember, TCU was on its way to joining the Big East (which at that time was an AQ conference). ESPN saw TCU as an excellent replacement for Texas A&M without causing the conference to lose any revenue. The situation was basically a very good athletic program replacing one that was leaving.

As for what UConn or any of the other expansion candidates bring, that has been the on-going debate on Big 12 message boards. Fans of AAC schools seem to have no problem chiming in to defend their school. They have no problem claiming their school would be the best fit for the conference.

Our current 13 year, $2.6 billion contracts with ABC/ESPN and Fox are for a 10 school league. Those contracts are set to expire in 2024-2025.
With NCAA deregulation of CCG rules, the Big 12 can now have a conference championship game if it chooses to do so.

ESPN and Fox have given no indication the Big 12 contracts would be renegotiated if more schools are brought in. Therein lies the problem. That would mean the current members would have to agree to take a loss in revenue for the remainder of the contract period in order to subsidize the new members.

The discussion of having a Big 12 Conference network is just that at this point. Texas has given no indication that it is willing to give up its $300 million/20 year deal with ESPN and ESPN has already gone on record in saying that it has a special partnership with Texas and it doesn't see that changing. The Longhorn Network is expected to turn a profit this year.
The other thing that complicates the situation is the fact that Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor have separate Tier 3 media deals with Fox. West Virginia, Kansas and Kansas State have monetized their Tier 3 rights in other ways. They would all have to wait until their contracts expire before a conference network could even be discussed or realized.

By the way, it is not likely the Big 12 would go beyond 12 if the administrators do decide to expand.

Just FYI, Boren has already stated that the TV contract increase proportionately if 2 more teams are added (but not 4 teams - that would require a renegotiation). An increase for 2 teams is already built in.

There would be a slight haircut splitting any CCG game $$ 12 ways instead of 10.

Edit: damn you Jostar!! Beat me to the punch yet again. (J/k, good job - you even included tweets!)

 

[Athlete94]

There's no point in even debating with you. RU is a dumpster fire. The only reason you're in the B10 is because of cable boxes and your AAU affiliation. Literally nothing to do with athletics. Not saying you don't have a good school but there's no point in comparing our athletic programs. We are a top-rate atheltic program, you're a dumpster fire with a geographical advantage. Awesome job.

Well said, Comparing RU to UCONN is like comparing Hilary Clinton to Jennifer Anniston

 

[HuskyHawk]

you couldn't possibly be more off base here if you were intentionally trying to be ignorant. Boise state all time is 417-158, and the "couple of seasons" your referring to since the 99-2000 season they are 186- 33 (we have had the same amount of losses since in the last 4yrs...) in that same time span they have been 12-5 in bowl games with wins over Lville, Utah, Washington, ASU, Arizona, TCU2x oh and Oklahoma ( we didn't have the same outcome...) and those 5 losses came by an average of 5 points to 3 top 20 teams, 2 of which were in the top ten. when it comes to BSU football I would be willing to bet more than a few people here would kill to have those kind of stats over that same time. say what you want about the rest of the athletic department but when it comes to gimmicky boise state football we wish we could be them.

oh and the irony of this statement "pseudo-intelligent point to make in their forcibly written articles on the issue they know nothing about" is almost too much.

That's fine. Burt Reynolds had a really good prison team in The Longest Yard, but they won't get into the Big XII either. Academics and prestige matter. David Boren in particular wants to elevate the Big XII academically. Yes, there are market considerations that also make BSU irrelevant, but mostly, it's that it was a community college when I graduated from UConn.

 

[Adios]

You are not wrong on UConn football if you're using the term "much history in football" as a synonym for "a long history in 1A football."...

We have been playing the sport as long as anyone. We were Division 1 for many, many years before it split into two divisions. We went 1AA at that time. We made the decision to upgrade in the 90s and officially joined the Big East in 2004. In that BCS league, our overall D1A record was about 20 games over .500 at something like 65-45 from the time we upgraded through the end of Randy Edsall's tenure as coach, which was capped off with an appearance in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl.

We took a hit for a few years because our dumb former AD hired a retread coach, Paul Pasqualoni, and since PP took over, our record has been like 20-40, dropping us to an overall D1A record of exactly .500, 86-86. We don't have the lengthy history to just make the last five years look like a little blip on the radar. Instead, because we are still in relative D1A infancy, our poor seasons the last few years are being viewed as our norm, or what can be expected of us. They are not. For twice as long, and in a BCS league, we had a .600 winning percentage. That's our norm. We are still digging our way out now, but our new coach, Bob Diaco, got us back to bowling this past season and we plan to stay there.

We are not a football lightweight. We won the Big East twice in nine seasons before it broke up, (twice more than Rutgers who had a 15 year head start) appearing in five bowls in that span, including every year from 2007-2010. We averaged 8 wins a year in that span. We have been to the BCS (Hi again, Rutgers). We have some of the best facilities in the country and we dump plenty of money into the team, considering we have a P5 operating budget while collecting G5 checks. Also, if we joined the XII today, we would have more alumni in the NFL than any school in the league not named UT or OU. We are committed. The XII has nothing to worry about with UConn football.

I am not our resident football historian, though. That would be @Butch and I will let him give you more if he would like.

Our traditonal rivals were the Ivies (especially Yale), the Little Ivies (especially Wesleyan) and New England state schools (especially UMass and URI). The two oldest fields in football are at Wesleyan and Williams. The Ivies have the oldest stadiums. We've played on those fields and in those stadiums. What "lack of history"? What other FBS program can claim that besides probably UMass and some Big Ten schools? I know some Big Ten schools can relate to us in playing Ivies and Little Ivies before the Big Ten overtook the Ivies in football.

The Big 12 has to decide whether to expand east or west.

 

[Nostical]

The Big 12 has to decide whether to expand East or West.

Could be East --and--West

 

[Adios]

Could be East --and--West

Then it'll look like the AAC Deluxe.

 

[MattMang23]

Then it'll look like the AAC Deluxe.

Whatever makes them money...

 

[NickyNewark]

Well said, Comparing RU to UCONN is like comparing Hilary Clinton to Jennifer Anniston

Exactly......but in reverse...

 

[HuskyBandDad]

Could be East --and--West

Very simple
East - Uconn
West- Who Cares University