OK, well I'll try to make this as pertinent to the topic as I can.
A few weeks ago, Greg tweeted at me in response to a comment I made regarding the new Big Ten rights agreement. I pointed out that despite the naysayers suggesting the Big Ten's $40-50 million revenue estimates were a pipe dream, it turns out they are getting just that. The Dude said there was no way they would get close to that, and the estimates as of 2017 are about $40 million with BTN revenue continuing to climb the next five years. Greg then tweeted that even Northwestern would be getting more TV/rights money than West Virginia.
Suddenly, Chris emailed me yesterday saying he got wind from someone that Greg had made these comments and he pointed out it was untrue because it doesn't take into account WVU's IMG money. He had my email because we had communicated a few times, but who knows why now he suddenly got wind of these tweets. I said I wasn't really a part of the WVU revenue conversation so I didn't have much of an opinion, but I pointed out that a cursory glance at the USA Today finances database showed WVU as having less rights/licensing revenue than every Big Ten public institution except for Rutgers, who is still getting only a partial share in conference payouts.
This was not popular and did not sit well with him. He mentioned the USA Today data was not accurate because IMG revenue was listed for WVU in "other" revenue. Funny enough, the "other" revenue consisted only of $5 million and even adding the "other" revenue to rights/licensing, the point was still accurate that they made less in rights/licensing than every other Big Ten public school except Rutgers. Still, for some reason, he kept arguing it and told me I should look at the EADA database (which is completely separate).
I informed him that the annual disclosures made to USA Today were line item and I even provided the USA Today definition of their rights/licensing revenue, which included TV, Radio, Internet, e-commerce, marketing, sponsorship, royalties, trademarks, etc. Basically every licensing fee you can imagine was listed under their definition. He still refused to believe me. I pointed out that five years ago, I literally did a three month study on finances and performed open records requests on every single FBS institution to get bowl finances, and had hours and hours of email and phone conversations about this. I knew for a fact that USA Today's data was based on line item information (as submitted in their annual NCAA report) that was grouped into categories. He responded with a picture of sport-by-sport revenue data by West Virginia that was submitted to the NCAA as proof I was wrong (even though he conflated the EADA data with the NCAA annual revenue report). He told me I was "dense."
I figured out the problem eventually. He's confusing the NCAA reporting of "other" revenue, which includes line items of broadcasting revenue and royalties, sponsorship and licensing as sub-items, and because it's categorized as "other" revenue in the NCAA report, he assumes therefore the USA Today database also i including that revenue as "other." What he refuses to understand is that when the USA Today gathers this data, they specifically take those licensing/rights line items and group them with conference media payouts to put together a big category that can be compared across institutions on an apples-to-apples basis.
Honestly it's a silly debate. I don't even care if West Virginia makes more or less than those schools. It wasn't my debate to begin with. I was just pointing out a simple fact because I believe he was mistaken about it. Knowing USA Today's methodology and the way reports are submitted to the NCAA (because I did a three month project on the whole thing), I tried explaining that Greg's basis was correct. In any event, I'm still being told how 'wrong' I am. I should give back the money I earned on the freelance story. I must have done it incorrectly.