Great ammo for UConn in forcing AAC teams to open up Tier 3 rights | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Great ammo for UConn in forcing AAC teams to open up Tier 3 rights

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CL82

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The leverage would be refusing to sign away our T3 rights. If the contract ends and we don't have a GOR, the league can't empower itself to sell our TV rights.
And how would that work exactly?

UConn: We don't want to include our T3 rights in the conference deal this year, we can get more money for them on our own.

Aresco: Well you have to.

UConn: [quietly] okay.
 

HuskyHawk

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The leverage would be refusing to sign away our T3 rights. If the contract ends and we don't have a GOR, the league can't empower itself to sell our TV rights.

Yes, but if the other members of the American vote in favor of a TV deal including T3 rights, and we are alone in opposition, our options are limited. We sign it or leave the league. Maybe this is the plan Nelson keeps mentioning, but I think that as the deal gets closer to the end, UConn will be contacting those schools who also might want to keep T3 rights, and we'll talk to other conferences too. I think our leadership is well aware of the problem.
 

ConnHuskBask

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It's clear that no other program in the AAC can sniff our Tier 3 rights.

Not that that is the end all be all, but given these conference realignment debates that wage on, the fact we would blow other programs out of the water by selling our rights as a single entity but are also dragged through the mud with the likes of UCF, Houston and Memphis is particularly painful.
 
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Hope we can try to negotiate a deal for an SNY/UConnNetwork deal for football, coaches shows, hockey etc. and Big East membership for other sports. If we can, we can promote our SNY deal offer as proof of value nationally and we can negotiate with the AAC and threaten to leave. We need a strong Plan B to confront the issue with or we've got no leverage.
 

ConnHuskBask

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Hope we can try to negotiate a deal for an SNY/UConnNetwork deal for football, coaches shows, hockey etc. and Big East membership for other sports. If we can, we can promote our SNY deal offer as proof of value nationally and we can negotiate with the AAC and threaten to leave. We need a strong Plan B to confront the issue with or we've got no leverage.

Threaten to leave and join CUSA or the MAC?

People are forgetting a very key rule here, don't threaten to leave if you have nowhere to go.
 
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Threaten to leave and join CUSA or the MAC?

People are forgetting a very key rule here, don't threaten to leave if you have nowhere to go.


Read my post again and come back and see me. The entire premise of my comment was to create an alternative for leverage and not to threaten without something to back it up. How could you miss that?
 

ConnHuskBask

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Read my post again and come back and see me. The entire premise of my comment was to create an alternative for leverage and not to threaten without something to back it up. How could you miss that?

Aside the fact that what you're proposing to set up with SNY/UConn Network and an informal agreement with the Big East being a complete fantasy, when the AAC simply says no, you want us to become a football independent and play our games televised only in the north east against who exactly?
 
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Read my post again and come back and see me. The entire premise of my comment was to create an alternative for leverage and not to threaten without something to back it up. How could you miss that?
When you want to complain and bitch you need to misinterpret or ignore the facts or what was said. How did you miss that? LOL
 
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Aside the fact that what you're proposing to set up with SNY/UConn Network and an informal agreement with the Big East being a complete fantasy, when the AAC simply says no, you want us to become a football independent and play our games televised only in the north east against who exactly?


It isn't really a fantasy at all if you believe the Big East would take us back (many do). The Big East revenue would be $5,000,000, which is $3,000,000 more than the AAC deal gives us in base pay. We'd get NCAA tourney credits through the Big East. So we really only need SNY to give us enough to offset losses from bowl revenue shares and the rest is gravy. Of course, I am assuming we have tapped all the exit fee money at this point. I think SNY could provide us a pretty lucrative deal. Oh, and again, my premise was to line this up before negotiating with the AAC.
 

ConnHuskBask

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It isn't really a fantasy at all if you believe the Big East would take us back (many do). The Big East revenue would be $5,000,000, which is $3,000,000 more than the AAC deal gives us in base pay. We'd get NCAA tourney credits through the Big East. So we really only need SNY to give us enough to offset losses from bowl revenue shares and the rest is gravy. Of course, I am assuming we have tapped all the exit fee money at this point. I think SNY could provide us a pretty lucrative deal. Oh, and again, my premise was to line this up before negotiating with the AAC.

How do you plan on recruiting in football? No league schedule, no bowl tie ins and the games mainly airing only on SNY in the Northeast?

If you want to kill the football program and just join the Big East for all sports, that's fine. It kills all hopes of P5 forever, but going independent in football kills all hope.
 

huskypantz

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And how would that work exactly?

UConn: We don't want to include our T3 rights in the conference deal this year, we can get more money for them on our own.

Aresco: Well you have to.

UConn: [quietly] okay.
If I were UConn, I'd entertain separate discussions with SNY just prior to the contract negotiation period and document the value of our T3 to the AAC. Our commissioner would not be doing due diligence if he did not request both t1-3 and t1/2 options. Our deal was a whopping freakin' 2 million. How much less are we really talking about without the T3? If it's 1 mil, I would bet that at least half of the schools could garner at least 1 mil and would be interested in the same arrangement. Just make sure they don't profit-share the T3 like the BE did.
 

CL82

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If I were UConn, I'd entertain separate discussions with SNY just prior to the contract negotiation period and document the value of our T3 to the AAC. Our commissioner would not be doing due diligence if he did not request both t1-3 and t1/2 options. Our deal was a whopping freakin' 2 million. How much less are we really talking about without the T3? If it's 1 mil, I would bet that at least half of the schools could garner at least 1 mil and would be interested in the same arrangement. Just make sure they don't profit-share the T3 like the BE did.
I guess, but here's the thing - we have no negotiating leverage neither does Aresco, unless a competitor suddenly decides that the AAC as a whole, has value. It is very difficult to maximize a deal when the other side knows that you will take whatever you are offered.
 
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How do you plan on recruiting in football? No league schedule, no bowl tie ins and the games mainly airing only on SNY in the Northeast?

If you want to kill the football program and just join the Big East for all sports, that's fine. It kills all hopes of P5 forever, but going independent in football kills all hope.


Dude, I'm just trying to find a way to have negotiating leverage. If SNY can offer something attractive enough to be worth taking a long look at, maybe the AAC will realize we need our T3 rights. I'm not proposing leaving unless something surprisingly lucrative came out of the exercise.
 

nelsonmuntz

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I guess, but here's the thing - we have no negotiating leverage and just we have no leverage, neither does Aresco unless a competitor suddenly decides that the AAC as a whole, has value. It is very difficult to maximize a deal when the other side knows that you will take whatever you are offered.

Then the logical conclusion is that the UConn athletic department is dead, right?
 
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Yes, I know. I'm just saying your point is rhetorical rather than one that would actually be put into practice and proven. And maybe that was your point -- not that UConn could force AAC to open up Tier 3 rights, but that it can make other schools look like hypocrites by claiming superior media value while insisting on riding UConn's coattails.

Yes, it is rhetorical to a certain extent, but nothing prevents Benedict from embarrassing AAC schools. Come out in the media and say it: "Since so many schools have better brands and markets than UConn, then we can all sell our tier3 rights."

This is worth it for the publicity and spectacle alone. You REALLY announce to the P5 conferences which school believes what they are selling.

It isn't worth it in the sense you piss off your conference mates, but who cares?
 
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The contract is up in 4 years. If the AAC wants to be innovative, it needs to start planning within the next year for a post-ESPN world. I have not seen boo from Aresco that anyone is thinking that way.

To be completely honest, I bet every single AAC school would be better off taking half the revenue for a national contract, leaving a lot of content for Tier 2 and 3, and then selling the remainder on their own. I bet most schools would generate 2x or better what they currently get.
If any of this is going, it's best that is not being done in the media.
 

CL82

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Then the logical conclusion is that the UConn athletic department is dead, right?
No, but not by any stretch of the imagination, well, at least not by any stretch of the imagination of the sane.
 

huskypantz

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I guess, but here's the thing - we have no negotiating leverage neither does Aresco, unless a competitor suddenly decides that the AAC as a whole, has value. It is very difficult to maximize a deal when the other side knows that you will take whatever you are offered.
We have more leverage this time around - at least we can actually refuse a deal when offered. We have to hope that NBCSN, CBSSN, FS1/2 and ESPN (or at least 3 of 4) are alive when our deal is up and that two suitors bite. I don't think that there would be an aggressive bidding campaign but it's been proven that the AAC deal was a money maker for ESPN, so there is no reason that we would not interest one of the other networks.
 

CL82

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We have more leverage this time around - at least we can actually refuse a deal when offered. We have to hope that NBCSN, CBSSN, FS1/2 and ESPN (or at least 3 of 4) are alive when our deal is up and that two suitors bite. I don't think that there would be an aggressive bidding campaign but it's been proven that the AAC deal was a money maker for ESPN, so there is no reason that we would not interest one of the other networks.

Who is we, UConn? We don't make that decision Aresco does.

Now if "we" is the AAC, I guess you are right, but I think this conference has learned that aggressive negotiation with ESPN has risks and consequences. Of the 'networks' you listed which do you know the cable channel off of the top? I'm guessing that it is only one of them. Take a look at the ratings of the best rated NBCSN, CBSSN or FS1/2 game you kind find. Compare it to the worse rated ESPN game and it wouldn't surprise me if the ESPN game was higher. These networks aren't fungible.
 
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Who is we, UConn? We don't make that decision Aresco does.

Now if "we" is the AAC, I guess you are right, but I think this conference has learned that aggressive negotiation with ESPN has risks and consequences. Of the 'networks' you listed which do you know the cable channel off of the top? I'm guessing that it is only one of them. Take a look at the ratings of the best rated NBCSN, CBSSN or FS1/2 game you kind find. Compare it to the worse rated ESPN game and it wouldn't surprise me if the ESPN game was higher. These networks aren't fungible.

If those other networks keep buying up premium content, they'll be a lot closer to ESPN in a few years. If FS1 is showing the best B12 and Big Ten games, people will know where to find it.
 

junglehusky

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If those other networks keep buying up premium content, they'll be a lot closer to ESPN in a few years. If FS1 is showing the best B12 and Big Ten games, people will know where to find it.
We'll find out when the ratings for the RRR come out this year. I think UT and OU folks will not be happy.
 

nelsonmuntz

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Who is we, UConn? We don't make that decision Aresco does.

Now if "we" is the AAC, I guess you are right, but I think this conference has learned that aggressive negotiation with ESPN has risks and consequences. Of the 'networks' you listed which do you know the cable channel off of the top? I'm guessing that it is only one of them. Take a look at the ratings of the best rated NBCSN, CBSSN or FS1/2 game you kind find. Compare it to the worse rated ESPN game and it wouldn't surprise me if the ESPN game was higher. These networks aren't fungible.

UConn will not have an athletic department if it signs with ESPN for peanuts again so it can get "exposure". Exposure doesn't pay coaches' salaries.
 

HuskyHawk

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Who is we, UConn? We don't make that decision Aresco does.

Now if "we" is the AAC, I guess you are right, but I think this conference has learned that aggressive negotiation with ESPN has risks and consequences. Of the 'networks' you listed which do you know the cable channel off of the top? I'm guessing that it is only one of them. Take a look at the ratings of the best rated NBCSN, CBSSN or FS1/2 game you kind find. Compare it to the worse rated ESPN game and it wouldn't surprise me if the ESPN game was higher. These networks aren't fungible.

FS1 is clearly trying to change that. By bidding for B1G games, they will attract an audience, and that audience will grow. You'll start seeing FS1 on in bars. The Red River game isn't about screwing OU and UT it's about propping up FS1 and expanding it as a must carry station. They are all-in on this thing, as the recent hires show.

Given what FoxNews did to CNN in ratings after starting way behind, I really wouldn't count them out yet.
 

huskypantz

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Who is we, UConn? We don't make that decision Aresco does.

Now if "we" is the AAC, I guess you are right, but I think this conference has learned that aggressive negotiation with ESPN has risks and consequences. Of the 'networks' you listed which do you know the cable channel off of the top? I'm guessing that it is only one of them. Take a look at the ratings of the best rated NBCSN, CBSSN or FS1/2 game you kind find. Compare it to the worse rated ESPN game and it wouldn't surprise me if the ESPN game was higher. These networks aren't fungible.
We as in AAC.
 

zls44

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FS1 is clearly trying to change that. By bidding for B1G games, they will attract an audience, and that audience will grow. You'll start seeing FS1 on in bars. The Red River game isn't about screwing OU and UT it's about propping up FS1 and expanding it as a must carry station. They are all-in on this thing, as the recent hires show.

Given what FoxNews did to CNN in ratings after starting way behind, I really wouldn't count them out yet.


There's about 629 reasons why the Fox News comparison is illogical for this situation.

The Shouty Network has no audience. It isn't going to grow.
 
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