ESPN matches NBC offer

[Jarhead_1775]

http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2013/02/21/Big-East.aspx?

 

[HooperScooper]

One day there will be a case study written on how not to screw up a broadcast rights deal. The Big East royally screwed the pooch on this one. If they just accepted ESPN's deal last year everyone is much happier and the Big East doesn't fall apart. What a freaking disaster this is.

 

[CL82]

One day there will be a case study written on how not to screw up a broadcast rights deal. The Big East royally screwed the pooch on this one. If they just accepted ESPN's deal last year everyone is much happier and the Big East doesn't fall apart. What a freaking disaster this is.

 

[HooperScooper]

That's a B.S. excuse. Lame. In business you make good decisions and bad decisions. Of course everything is easier to evaluate in hindsight. But investors in stocks don't have that advantage. You either made money and made good decisions or you lost money and made bad decisions. You can't tell your investors "hindsight is 20-20" when you tell them you lost them money. Instead you get fired.

A GM of a sports team makes decisions on players and free agents. When they don't pan out you can't tell your owner "hindsight is 20-20". You get fired for making bad decisions. The Big East presidents gambled they could get more money. They were wrong. They went from making $17 million per school to making $2 million instead. That's a terribly bad business decision. "Hindsight is 20-20" is a losers excuse.

 

[Scot-e]

Not to mention that ESPN can suck it. I am still not sure if they did not have something to do with something. Just don't like them much these days. Except the dookie-(yes I said it) Jay B is solid.

 

[CL82]

That's a B.S. excuse. Lame. In business you make good decisions and bad decisions. Of course everything is easier to evaluate in hindsight. But investors in stocks don't have that advantage. You either made money and made good decisions or you lost money and made bad decisions. You can't tell your investors "hindsight is 20-20" when you tell them you lost them money. Instead you get fired.

A GM of a sports team makes decisions on players and free agents. When they don't pan out you can't tell your owner "hindsight is 20-20". You get fired for making bad decisions. The Big East presidents gambled they could get more money. They were wrong. They went from making $17 million ( I think it was $13M, last by a fair amount among the Big 6 conferences) per school to making $2 million instead. That's a terribly bad business decision. "Hindsight is 20-20" is a losers excuse.

Take it easy Hooper. I didn't mean this as a shot at you, well, not you solely.

In business you make decisions based upon the facts as they exist at the time of decision. You don't get the benefit of outcomes. You don't get do-overs because the facts changed. Attempting to test the open market was the wrong decision, unquestionably, but that was far from clear at the time. Tough to predict that the same school that lead the charge to reject the offer, Pitt, would then use that decision as its alleged basis for leaving. In any event, I'm not sure that BE taking that deal changes much. Do you believe any of Pitt, Cuse, WV or Rutgers stays? I don't. Even at $13m they are making more money, have better bowls and better opponents, and have more prestige in their new conferences. Now you can make the case that the existing BE schools would be better off, but I'm not so sure that ESPN contract would be valid after all the changes, either via renogation clause (change of x# of members) or through some notion that the BE wasn't delivering what it promised.

There are a lot of things that the BE brass should have foreseen. There are plenty of places that they can criticized. I'm just not sure that this decision, wrong as it was, was obvious at the time.

Regarding hindsight being 20/20 being a loser's excuse, well there are a million experts who will tell you what should have been done after the fact. My experience is that they are invisible, or hedge, when decisions are actually being made.

Life moves in one direction - forward.

 

[ZenConn]

They were wrong. They went from making $17 million per school to making $2 million instead. That's a terribly bad business decision. "Hindsight is 20-20" is a losers excuse.

Bad business decision, yes. And it sucks bigtime.

The losers here just left and the ones left standing are the ones who couldn't leave.

I can't imagine any of the presidents getting fired anytime soon either. This is the NCAA, not the real world. Unfortunately, the victims are the ones that make it happen - the fans, players and coaches.

 

[Fishy]

Why would the presidents get fired?

The presidents of UConn, USF and Cincy all advocated taking the ESPN offer.

The ones who eventually left - and who benefitted from the destruction of the Big East - were the ones who fought against it. (Rutgers, Pitt, Notre Dame and Georgetown.)

 

[champs99and04]

Why would the presidents get fired?

The presidents of UConn, USF and Cincy all advocated taking the ESPN offer.

The ones who eventually left - and who benefitted from the destruction of the Big East - were the ones who fought against it. (Rutgers, Pitt, Notre Dame and Georgetown.)

Georgetown benefitted from the destruction of the Big East??

 

[Scot-e]

Yes- they are evil so anything bad they benefit from. PE-TOOWEY!!! I spit on them.

 

[Fishy]

Georgetown benefitted from the destruction of the Big East??

Obviously not - I forgot that we have to cut the food up small here.

G'town was part of the charge to decline the contract, but...they're coming out of this a lot better than we are. They're in a better hoop conference and the money they're getting from Fox is a) not that far off of what they would have gotten from the ESPN offer and b) more than they're getting now.

 

[arnie3]

Why would the presidents get fired?

The presidents of UConn, USF and Cincy all advocated taking the ESPN offer.

The ones who eventually left - and who benefitted from the destruction of the Big East - were the ones who fought against it. (Rutgers, Pitt, Notre Dame and Georgetown.)

And that in a nutshell is what drives me bonkers!