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Message: [QUOTE="Storrs South, post: 3547082, member: 7275"] That's right. And there are a couple common problems with comparing the deals. None of us have the actual contract agreements so we do not exactly know everything involved with the deals in terms of what is and isn't covered, scheduling, etc. so we can't fully appreciate what each contract is giving to the school. But assuming we considered that all things equal: [LIST] [*]the AAC deal is heavily backloaded. That $7 million figure you have seen flying around is not even achieved by the contract for another 4-5 years. It starts from what I've read at around $5-$5.5 million in 2020 [*]Then the fact that the AAC deal has zero room for growth since it is locked in for 12 years. By the time AAC teams are getting $7million annually for TV, UConn will already be on a new TV deal for football and negotiating a new one for basketball. If you're in the airline industry that consistency in gas prices locked in is nice for business. I don't think the same goes for conference TV rights, especially before we could see a real explosion in value in the mid-2020s. [*]the two contracts are giving something different to the schools: one is throwing not all but many of the revenue sports behind a paywall. All of UConn's revenue sports are on TV. Would you rather have $5 million to be on ESPN+ or $3m to be on linear TV? The former case is great for ESPN since they are forcing many fans to subsidize the deal through ESPN+ subscriptions + a school subsidy need to produce content for ESPN. [/LIST] The more I've read about that AAC deal, the less appealing is had become from a fan perspective. From a pissing contest standpoint, it almost doesn't matter if you are talking about $7 v. $5 v. $3 million a year annually when you consider what the P5 schools are making and the budgets of the ADs. There's way more upside for UConn in the Big East because of the ability to bring back fan interest in basketball and football, but this separate from the TV deal discussion. I am confident UConn is better off in the Big East/Indy route because of the ability to fill the Rent again, and push Gampel/XL attendance to heights we have not seen since 2012. If UConn can play well in revenue sports the next 4 years, then whatever the money is for this CBS Sports Network deal is insignificant. [/QUOTE]

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