FOX's entry into the picture...

[businesslawyer]

SNY is already streamed on NBC sports app for anyone within the SNY footprint. This will never happen.

You are correct. Fox is tied into YES. The problem is that YES doesn't need UConn to provide penetration for its baseball games into Connecticut the way that SNY did/does. Our games were more valuable to SNY than they would be to YES (or MSG for that matter).

 

[Drew]

SNY is already streamed on NBC sports app for anyone within the SNY footprint. This will never happen.

Well then. That question is answered.

 

[Vowelguy]

If UConn can't make that pledge I don't see the Big East in the Huskies' future.

If UConn is interested in the BE and the BE believes UConn would add value, why should the BE care what the reasons are?
And even if they did care, the leverage a conference has is the exit fee. As long as both sides agree to that, then LT plans seem irrelevant (and unenforceable).

 

[Iconoclast]

No comment.

Sounds like you heard something at the Car Wash didn't you

 

[UConnDan97]

Fox has no interest in our football. If they did we’d be in the Big 10.

That's not true.

They may indeed have interest in our football. The only thing we can definitively say is that they didn't have interest in our football at Big12 prices. They can get our football now for a considerably lower price...

 

[businesslawyer]

That's not true.

They may indeed have interest in our football. The only thing we can definitively say is that they didn't have interest in our football at Big12 prices. They can get our football now for a considerably lower price...

If we had a deal with Fox, it would have been announced when the NBE story leaked. And if Fox had interest in a football deal with us, it would have been determined alongside Fox telling the NBE (yes, please, we'd like us UConn basketball).

 

[UConnDan97]

If we had a deal with Fox, it would have been announced when the NBE story leaked. And if Fox had interest in a football deal with us, it would have been determined alongside Fox telling the NBE (yes, please, we'd like us UConn basketball).

You mistake my use of the word "interest" with the words "tv deal."

A tv deal requires known scheduled programming of a known scheduled game plan, regardless of lack of conference affiliation (see espn / byu).

Interest as i'm referring to it may be, "we're willing to listen to your final plan, whether in a conference for select games or out of a conference for all home games. And we'll pay you a low ball fee for it"...

 

[BlueDogs]

So pissed, they deserve the long term failure that’s coming. Quick sugar high for the basketball drones followed by a slow decline into irrelevance. No right thinking person comes to this decision now with what could be achieved over the next few years, unless they have an axe to grind. Look no further than the Ethics Board and their insane witch hunt to get a taste of the real politics behind the scenes.

 

[ScottVib]

You are correct. Fox is tied into YES. The problem is that YES doesn't need UConn to provide penetration for its baseball games into Connecticut the way that SNY did/does. Our games were more valuable to SNY than they would be to YES (or MSG for that matter).

I don't think this is correct. YES was one of the FOX regional networks initially acquired by Disney in the merger that had to be divested. The Yankees purchased the network back (with Amazon and Sinclair partnering).

 

[Ozone21]

I think YES Network broadcast on Fox Sports Go for two more years

 

[ZooCougar]

So it only makes sense that FOX might offer UConn a soft landing for football to incentivize the move. But without something signed what would a deal like this really be worth?

I suspect this is just more bad planning on UConn’s part.

 

[Pudge]

What’s then obvious ...

There are important discrete TV components not yet identified. We are thinking Women’s Basketball. I guess we all assume Geno has another few decades; but he has a bunch more. And Football ...

Wonder what that young Ebersol is doing these days.

 

[UConnNick]

Well, let's see what is announced. I don't like the move if we are giving up on the possibility of P5. I don't see it that way but I have no special insight. I assume the view is that we need to be a blue blood, top 10 basketball school to keep our leverage with the P5 and the chances are better in the Big East than AAC.

If we join the NBE you can kiss our P5 chances goodbye. We will never get a P5 invite from a BB only conference. BB means nothing in CR.

As stupid as our administration is and has been over the past 10 years or so, even they have to be aware of this fact.

 

[metsfan2323]

If we join the NBE you can kiss our P5 chances goodbye.

I know that is the narrative but that does not mean it is true. We have proven ourselves football capable and we have the facilities.
The P5 knows what we have to offer and that doesn't change just because football has no conference affiliation.

If basketball becomes a powerhouse again we will be in the picture if and when expansion comes.

Getting into the club is probably more about politics and TV sets than it is about last years football record and rankings.

 

[Point6]

If we join the NBE you can kiss our P5 chances goodbye. We will never get a P5 invite from a BB only conference. BB means nothing in CR.

As stupid as our administration is and has been over the past 10 years or so, even they have to be aware of this fact.

I hear you but I don't see it that way. The NBE with us in it will have the strongest argument to keep a seat with the P5 at the BB table if there is ever a P5 split. I don't think the AAC is ever getting a seat at any table, BB or FB - it would cost the P5 too much to share FB money/access with the whole AAC. If the P5 doesn't want to include the NBE in any future split, it will raid it to weaken the NBE's position and take us away from a competitor (w/ FB, even bad FB, we will be the only possible target).

Alternatively, the P5 will include the NBE in any future split for BB and we will be an independent FB school with P5 ties. I assume the worst from the P5 which means they will try to isolate the AAC in years to come by creating barriers to scheduling AAC teams. If that happens, going independent may keep us on the better side of the P5 scheduling fence, given we would not be viewed as competition as an independent -- and hopefully maintaining favorable schedule preference with the B1G and maybe others, even if not in the P5.

My view is we have to be really really good at something to have any hope/leverage. I prefer our chances in MBB (and of course WBB hopefully stays great) in the NBE. Either way, I think our chances are very low so if we have to be somewhere, this to me is our best move.

 

[UConnNick]

I hear you but I don't see it that way. The NBE with us in it will have the strongest argument to keep a seat with the P5 at the BB table if there is ever a P5 split. I don't think the AAC is ever getting a seat at any table, BB or FB - it would cost the P5 too much to share FB money/access with the whole AAC. If the P5 doesn't want to include the NBE in any future split, it will raid it to weaken the NBE's position and take us away from a competitor (w/ FB, even bad FB, we will be the only possible target).

Alternatively, the P5 will include the NBE in any future split for BB and we will be an independent FB school with P5 ties. I assume the worst from the P5 which means they will try to isolate the AAC in years to come by creating barriers to scheduling AAC teams. If that happens, going independent may keep us on the better side of the P5 scheduling fence, given we would not be viewed as competition as an independent -- and hopefully maintaining favorable schedule preference with the B1G and maybe others, even if not in the P5.

My view is we have to be really really good at something to have any hope/leverage. I prefer our chances in MBB (and of course WBB hopefully stays great) in the NBE. Either way, I think our chances are very low so if we have to be somewhere, this to me is our best move.

Basketball means nothing. The idea that P5 leagues will take BB only schools with them if they split off and form their own association is ludicrous. They will only take schools from leagues with football. Whether there's any chance they take the AAC is slim at best, but they could be forced to if any antitrust litigation is threatened. Basketball only schools, no matter how successful, will be left behind.

UConn isn't likely to even have a football program for much longer.

 

[Jarhead_1775]

Sounds like you heard something at the Car Wash didn't you

Oh, you're new here. You'll learn quickly to ignore literally everything that comes out of his mouth.

 

[Point6]

Basketball means nothing. The idea that P5 leagues will take BB only schools with them if they split off and form their own association is ludicrous. They will only take schools from leagues with football. Whether there's any chance they take the AAC is slim at best, but they could be forced to if any antitrust litigation is threatened. Basketball only schools, no matter how successful, will be left behind.

UConn isn't likely to even have a football program for much longer.

 

[Point6]

I definitely might be wrong but I'm not wrong yet. We are all rooting for the best result against steep odds. Sounds like we are in NBE now in any event, which most on this board said would never happen.