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Message: [QUOTE="pj, post: 653751, member: 2524"] Basketball isn't that valuable under current arrangements. But: - Basketball is extremely valuable to networks. ESPN was built on basketball. Basketball is extremely valuable to the BTN. It is especially valuable for penetrating the northeast, eg NYC. Other conferences don't value basketball because they don't have a network. The B1G will value it more than any other conference. It's likely the BTN becomes a larger share of B1G revenue in the next conference. - We know the D4 breakaway is in the works. Once D4 forms for football, they will break away in basketball. At that point, basketball revenue is no longer split 330 ways and becomes split 64 ways, it is much larger per school. It becomes of the same order as football. It becomes extremely valuable for your conference to have a top basketball brand and to get a larger share of the tourney/playoff shares, which goes with success. Commissioners like Delany are planning ahead and they want to put the pieces in place for their conference to dominate in the new D4 environment. So the money is going to shift from something like 3:1 football:basketball currently (not 10:1; the ACC $20 mn/yr is probably about $7 mn basketball and $13 mn football, and that's not counting ACC NCAA tourney revenue; ACC is basketball is far more valuable than new Big East/C7 basketball which got $3 mn/year, so the $7 mn could be an underestimate) to 2:1 or 1:1. And it will shift the most for the B1G. Delany knows this. And that is why UConn can be passed over multiple times by the ACC and be a top target of the B1G. But I do agree with one thing: UConn's situation would be far better if our football program were stronger. A lot of people do place a lot of weight on football. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach