WV made alot of money last season.




TV drives college football, basketball

Exposure key to MSN’s current efforts in television

By Bob Hertzel
Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN — To the surprise of no one, television has become the single most important driving force within the college football and basketball industries, and don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s a sport and not an industry on the Division 1 level.

It had tremendous power through the broadcast networks before ESPN came along, but the cable sports network let a revolution that took sports out of the stadium and brought it into the living room.

West Virginia has benefited from it in both sports.

Football, of course, remains at the top of the heap. WVU earned nearly $3 million in football television money through the Big East revenue sharing plan, including $880,445 in appearance fees, according to Mike Parsons, deputy athletic director who handles the broadcasting for the athletic department.

But the Golden Age of Television really begins in basketball.

When Parsons arrived in 1979, WVU was producing four or five games a year on its own.

“That was a big undertaking at the time,” Parsons said. “Television was much more difficult to do than it is today. You had the big ol’ cameras on the sidelines. And it was done by phone lines, not satellites. It was just a lot of different things.”

The school, a member of the Eastern Eight, which did not have a strong TV contract, began increasing the number of games until it reached 13 or 14 independently done games.

“We were doing these statewide games,” Parsons recalled. “But we also could put them in other places. We had them on in Arizona, for example, because they had a statewide network and were dying for programming.

“We even did a game for ESPN. We televised it, and ESPN carried it live. This was like back in the 1980s, and they were looking for any programming they could get. You’d never see that today.”

That all changed when WVU joined the Big East, which had long-standing, strong TV relationships with ESPN and CBS.

“That’s when the Mountaineer Sports Network (MSN) got out of the production of men’s basketball games,” Parsons said.

In essence, what really happened was that WVU turned its television rights over to the conference in football and basketball.

West Virginia can negotiate time and date for games not being broadcast nationally, but really has little control.

ESPN grew as no one could imagine, becoming multiple networks such as ESPN2 and ESPN U.

“They own games, produce games, even own and broadcast bowl games,” Parsons said.

The basic productions are done through ESPN Regional, which sometimes is referred to as ESPN Plus and is based in Charlotte. Rather than national broadcasts, these games are sold through syndication, which is why you might see WVU play on a station in Clarksburg or Fox Sports-Pittsburgh, even though it is an ESPN production.

“Say we are playing Syracuse,” Parsons explained. “They’ll put that on in West Virginia and Syracuse and on whatever regional network is looking for programming.”

The pay for appearing on ESPN Regional broadcasts? Not much.

“You don’t get anything more than a token to the home team for ESPN Regional, just for the inconvenience,” said Parsons.

So where does the money come from?

It’s a complicated procedure, according to Parsons.

“In football, the eight athletic directors sit down and allocate an appearance fee. If you go to a BCS bowl, you’ll get this amount of money. It was $2.4 million this year for the Fiesta Bowl, and you have to take your expenses out of that,” Parsons explained.

“Then, if you appear in a national TV game during the season, you get a certain amount of money. WVU and Pitt last year each got $135,000 for that game,” Parsons continued.

The Big East does not get revenue from all national games.

“We’re playing at Colorado this year,” Parsons said. “The Big East does not get any money for that. It’s the same with Auburn coming here. The SEC doesn’t get any money from that.”

At the end of the year, the Big East takes all the TV money it has earned — pays for bowl appearances and regular-season TV games — and the rest is split among the eight schools.

Basketball is not much different, although the Big East has 16 schools splitting the pot, including Notre Dame.

“If you are on ESPN or CBS, you get an appearance fee,” Parsons said. “If you are on regional, you get nothing.”

With the NCAA Tournament, which is the ultimate windfall from TV for college basketball, revenues are complicated to figure but quite lucrative. West Virginia received a check $2,946,000 as its proceeds from all sports other than football and “easily 90 percent or more” of that amount is attributable to the WVU run to the Sweet 16 this year, according to WVU’s associate athletic director/finance Russ Sharp.

The money that comes from the NCAA Tournament is based on accumulated units over six years, accumulated by the conference.

The units are based on numbers of games played in the tournament by conference teams, meaning if the Big East sends six teams to the NCAA Tournament one year and they play 12 games, they get 12 units. If the conference plays 72 NCAA Tournament games over six years, that’s an average of 12 units a year and a check is sent to the conference based on that.

Sharp said that the Big East received a $16 million check and gave out a base distribution from that of $820,000 to its 16 teams. Schools also get a participation fee of $125,000 per game and have their expenses paid by the NCAA, although the true expenses often exceed the NCAA reimbursement.

WVU has also recently gotten back into the production business, MSN doing selected women’s basketball games on public television.

While this doesn’t give the school much in the way of revenue, it does give the women’s program exposure that it needs if it is to grow.

MSN does produce a couple of feature shows, “Mountaineer Madness” in football and “Mountaineer Jammin’” in basketball.

“We found this shocking. On the football show, the ratings show 50 percent of the audience on that weekly show is female, and we love that,” Parsons said. “It allows us to build a whole other audience that is going to buy merchandise and come to games. Do you think in this day and age the female spouse doesn’t have a say in whether you come to a game or not?”

MSN also has replaced its late-night replay of games not shown live on TV with a show called “Mountaineer Replay,” which is just like the old Notre Dame replays done in the days of Lindsay Nelson.

“To be honest, it doesn’t have great viewership, but it’s a hard-core football fans opportunity to watch the game in one hour,” Parsons said. “And it has great recruiting exposure for us. When we are just getting regional exposure, parents can pick it up or watch it off satellite.

“It’s not a big profit type thing. It’s more exposure and for the hard-core fans.”

cuseroc Wrote:WV made alot of money last season.




TV drives college football, basketball

Exposure key to MSN’s current efforts in television

By Bob Hertzel
Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN — To the surprise of no one, television has become the single most important driving force within the college football and basketball industries, and don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s a sport and not an industry on the Division 1 level.

...

West Virginia can negotiate time and date for games not being broadcast nationally, but really has little control.

ESPN grew as no one could imagine, becoming multiple networks such as ESPN2 and ESPN U.

“They own games, produce games, even own and broadcast bowl games,” Parsons said.

The basic productions are done through ESPN Regional, which sometimes is referred to as ESPN Plus and is based in Charlotte. Rather than national broadcasts, these games are sold through syndication, which is why you might see WVU play on a station in Clarksburg or Fox Sports-Pittsburgh, even though it is an ESPN production.

“Say we are playing Syracuse,” Parsons explained. “They’ll put that on in West Virginia and Syracuse and on whatever regional network is looking for programming.”

The pay for appearing on ESPN Regional broadcasts? Not much.

“You don’t get anything more than a token to the home team for ESPN Regional, just for the inconvenience,” said Parsons.

So where does the money come from?

It’s a complicated procedure, according to Parsons.

“In football, the eight athletic directors sit down and allocate an appearance fee. If you go to a BCS bowl, you’ll get this amount of money. It was $2.4 million this year for the Fiesta Bowl, and you have to take your expenses out of that,” Parsons explained.

“Then, if you appear in a national TV game during the season, you get a certain amount of money. WVU and Pitt last year each got $135,000 for that game,” Parsons continued.

The Big East does not get revenue from all national games.

“We’re playing at Colorado this year,” Parsons said. “The Big East does not get any money for that. It’s the same with Auburn coming here. The SEC doesn’t get any money from that.”

At the end of the year, the Big East takes all the TV money it has earned — pays for bowl appearances and regular-season TV games — and the rest is split among the eight schools.

Basketball is not much different, although the Big East has 16 schools splitting the pot, including Notre Dame.

“If you are on ESPN or CBS, you get an appearance fee,” Parsons said. “If you are on regional, you get nothing.”

For those of you wondering why a conference would want to start its own network, the above illustrates why.

The Big East "Regional Network" reaches over 25 million TVHHs and involves over 30 different stations/networks. Those stations/networks pay ESPN a rights fee to show those regional games and those stations/networks charge advertisers dollars to run adds during those games. Meanwhile, in football, the Big East home team gets a token payment while in basketball they get nothing.

Most of the other super-conferences have a separate 'regional' deal that gets them some additional monies. For the ACC it is Raycom, for the Big 12 and Pac-10 I believe it is FOX Sportsnet (Matt, probably knows for sure). For the Big Ten and soon the SEC (which was JP Sports which was purchased by Lincoln-Financial and then Raycom) it will be their own conference network.

But for the Big East, it is all ESPN - which is why the current TV contracts need serious upgrading next time around if the league decides to stay with this set-up.

As the article also rightly points out, at one time, colleges ran their own production of games. So TV production is not new to these universities and most still do it. I am quite sure most college athletic sites have a place where you pay to view home games on the web. So the costs of TV productions is really not much of an issue when it comes to developing a conference network. Colleges are doing it now, already.

Just food for thought.

Cheers,
Neil

omnicarrier Wrote:For those of you wondering why a conference would want to start its own network, the above illustrates why.

The Big East "Regional Network" reaches over 25 million TVHHs and involves over 30 different stations/networks. Those stations/networks pay ESPN a rights fee to show those regional games and those stations/networks charge advertisers dollars to run adds during those games. Meanwhile, in football, the Big East home team gets a token payment while in basketball they get nothing.

Most of the other super-conferences have a separate 'regional' deal that gets them some additional monies. For the ACC it is Raycom, for the Big 12 and Pac-10 I believe it is FOX Sportsnet (Matt, probably knows for sure). For the Big Ten and soon the SEC (which was JP Sports which was purchased by Lincoln-Financial and then Raycom) it will be their own conference network.

But for the Big East, it is all ESPN - which is why the current TV contracts need serious upgrading next time around if the league decides to stay with this set-up.

As the article also rightly points out, at one time, colleges ran their own production of games. So TV production is not new to these universities and most still do it. I am quite sure most college athletic sites have a place where you pay to view home games on the web. So the costs of TV productions is really not much of an issue when it comes to developing a conference network. Colleges are doing it now, already.

Just food for thought.

Cheers,
Neil

The SEC and ACC likely follow a model close to the Big East today. The ACC does have their entire rights for basketball games owned by Raycom, who them recoups money by selling off games to ABC/ESPN, CBS and FSN.

The Big 12 doesn't do regional telecasts anymore in football (basketball it still does via ESPN+). FSN used to syndicate football games, but once C-USA left FSN, FSN used that early afternoon window for those Big 12 games. Anything that isn't televised by ABC/ESPN, FSN or Versus goes to PPV.

For the PAC-10, after ABC/ESPN, FSN and Versus select their football games, those games revert back to the schools. If they want to televise a game, they must televise it in a window where there isn't a national PAC-10 game already and the schools involved can coordinate production and rights fees appropriately. Nine of the ten PAC-10 schools run though FSN or a Comcast affiliated FSN for local productions (Oregon does not and has a contract with ESPN+). PAC-10 basketball runs about the same. After FSN takes their 55 national games (some of which are sold to ABC and CBS), schools are then free to schedule around the national window on Thursdays and Saturdays to get their games televised locally.

mattsarz Wrote:The SEC and ACC likely follow a model close to the Big East today. The ACC does have their entire rights for basketball games owned by Raycom, who them recoups money by selling off games to ABC/ESPN, CBS and FSN.

The Big 12 doesn't do regional telecasts anymore in football (basketball it still does via ESPN+). FSN used to syndicate football games, but once C-USA left FSN, FSN used that early afternoon window for those Big 12 games. Anything that isn't televised by ABC/ESPN, FSN or Versus goes to PPV.

For the PAC-10, after ABC/ESPN, FSN and Versus select their football games, those games revert back to the schools. If they want to televise a game, they must televise it in a window where there isn't a national PAC-10 game already and the schools involved can coordinate production and rights fees appropriately. Nine of the ten PAC-10 schools run though FSN or a Comcast affiliated FSN for local productions (Oregon does not and has a contract with ESPN+). PAC-10 basketball runs about the same. After FSN takes their 55 national games (some of which are sold to ABC and CBS), schools are then free to schedule around the national window on Thursdays and Saturdays to get their games televised locally.

Thanks for the additional info, Matt. Could you further elaborate on your first statement that the SEC and ACC follow a model close to the Big East? Were you perhaps referring to a game distributional model, rather than a financial one?

My post was directed more toward the financial models being different. Both the SEC and ACC currently have a regional deal separate from CBS /ESPN (in the SEC's case) and ABC/ESPN (in the ACC's case) with Raycom and receive additional football TV monies anywhere between $5-7 million as a result of this separate regional contract.

The Big East, for both football has everything with ABC/ESPN and for basketball with CBS/ESPN and receives only a token amount in football for all of their regional games from ESPN and nothing in terms of basketball. In other words they are basically not getting paid for the product being shown on 30+ stations/networks in the region where the games theoretically would mostly be in demand. I find this very short-sighted, but perhaps it is just me.

Cheers,
Neil

cuseroc Wrote:Sharp said that the Big East received a $16 million check and gave out a base distribution from that of $820,000 to its 16 teams. Schools also get a participation fee of $125,000 per game and have their expenses paid by the NCAA, although the true expenses often exceed the NCAA reimbursement.

I thought this little tidbit was interesting. I wasn't sure if the BE distributed the tourney credit money from the NCAA equally or not.

Hoquista Wrote:

cuseroc Wrote:Sharp said that the Big East received a $16 million check and gave out a base distribution from that of $820,000 to its 16 teams. Schools also get a participation fee of $125,000 per game and have their expenses paid by the NCAA, although the true expenses often exceed the NCAA reimbursement.

I thought this little tidbit was interesting. I wasn't sure if the BE distributed the tourney credit money from the NCAA equally or not.

The Big East and the Big 12 remain the only two BCS conferences that do not distribute revenue on a nearly equal basis. And for the Big 12, it is only the TV money that is not distributed roughly evenly. For the Big East, it is everything. IMHO, it is one of the major reasons why both conferences are the most vulnerable to implode, but the Big East even moreso.

This economic model, more than the "unity in goals" motto championed by those who favor a split, is the single most divisive item in the conference. The reason why it is divisive is because it basically says that each university does not trust the rest of their partners to put forth their best efforts in achieving the best possible result in football and/or basketball.

It's strange when you think about it, because with the new Big East, no conference has more balance in both sports. If they decide to stick together or even if they split, this model should be re-evaluated.

Cheers,
Neil

omnicarrier Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

cuseroc Wrote:Sharp said that the Big East received a $16 million check and gave out a base distribution from that of $820,000 to its 16 teams. Schools also get a participation fee of $125,000 per game and have their expenses paid by the NCAA, although the true expenses often exceed the NCAA reimbursement.

I thought this little tidbit was interesting. I wasn't sure if the BE distributed the tourney credit money from the NCAA equally or not.

The Big East and the Big 12 remain the only two BCS conferences that do not distribute revenue on a nearly equal basis. And for the Big 12, it is only the TV money that is not distributed roughly evenly. For the Big East, it is everything. IMHO, it is one of the major reasons why both conferences are the most vulnerable to implode, but the Big East even moreso.

This economic model, more than the "unity in goals" motto championed by those who favor a split, is the single most divisive item in the conference. The reason why it is divisive is because it basically says that each university does not trust the rest of their partners to put forth their best efforts in achieving the best possible result in football and/or basketball.

It's strange when you think about it, because with the new Big East, no conference has more balance in both sports. If they decide to stick together or even if they split, this model should be re-evaluated.

Cheers,
Neil

This is an excellent point and brings up the largest issue for the Big East long-term. As long as the revenue split is unequal, the notion of "conference unity" is really a facade and nothing more than PR talk. This isn't just applicable to college sports - the NFL is by far the strongest pro sports league yet it has the most egalitarian revenue split out of everyone.

omnicarrier Wrote:Thanks for the additional info, Matt. Could you further elaborate on your first statement that the SEC and ACC follow a model close to the Big East? Were you perhaps referring to a game distributional model, rather than a financial one?

My post was directed more toward the financial models being different. Both the SEC and ACC currently have a regional deal separate from CBS /ESPN (in the SEC's case) and ABC/ESPN (in the ACC's case) with Raycom and receive additional football TV monies anywhere between $5-7 million as a result of this separate regional contract.

The Big East, for both football has everything with ABC/ESPN and for basketball with CBS/ESPN and receives only a token amount in football for all of their regional games from ESPN and nothing in terms of basketball. In other words they are basically not getting paid for the product being shown on 30+ stations/networks in the region where the games theoretically would mostly be in demand. I find this very short-sighted, but perhaps it is just me.

Cheers,
Neil

I was referring to both in that Raycom provides a token amount to both conferences. I think those 13/14 games per conference that Raycom pays for costs them ~$1 million per conference per year.

I also thought that the SEC was not an equal revenue distributor when it came to TV revenues. I thought that those who appeared on TV more got greater percentages of the revenues. Think that was the incentive for teams to improve (get better, get more TV appearances, get more TV $$$). On the flip side, I think the SEC does have some caps on the number of games you can appear on CBS and maybe ESPN too. They also had a general rule to follow that each team was supposed to appear on Raycom once each year, but that hasn't happened lately (2006: No S. Carolina, 2007: No LSU).

Frank the Tank Wrote:

omnicarrier Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

cuseroc Wrote:Sharp said that the Big East received a $16 million check and gave out a base distribution from that of $820,000 to its 16 teams. Schools also get a participation fee of $125,000 per game and have their expenses paid by the NCAA, although the true expenses often exceed the NCAA reimbursement.

I thought this little tidbit was interesting. I wasn't sure if the BE distributed the tourney credit money from the NCAA equally or not.

The Big East and the Big 12 remain the only two BCS conferences that do not distribute revenue on a nearly equal basis. And for the Big 12, it is only the TV money that is not distributed roughly evenly. For the Big East, it is everything. IMHO, it is one of the major reasons why both conferences are the most vulnerable to implode, but the Big East even moreso.

This economic model, more than the "unity in goals" motto championed by those who favor a split, is the single most divisive item in the conference. The reason why it is divisive is because it basically says that each university does not trust the rest of their partners to put forth their best efforts in achieving the best possible result in football and/or basketball.

It's strange when you think about it, because with the new Big East, no conference has more balance in both sports. If they decide to stick together or even if they split, this model should be re-evaluated.

Cheers,
Neil

This is an excellent point and brings up the largest issue for the Big East long-term. As long as the revenue split is unequal, the notion of "conference unity" is really a facade and nothing more than PR talk. This isn't just applicable to college sports - the NFL is by far the strongest pro sports league yet it has the most egalitarian revenue split out of everyone.

Gentlemen,
Perhaps it's the capitalist in me but I believe the most successful should get a bigger piece of the conference pay-out pie. I believe the Big East is top to bottom more successful because we don't have a Baylor, Vandy or Duke receiving the same pay-outs as the top teams in their respective conferences.
Equal revenue sharing goes along with youth leagues that don't keep score and schools that don't give grades. I'm sorry but not everyone can be a winner. The winner should be compensated for being the best. Where's the incentive to improve if you get the same pay-out as the best team in the conference?
CJ

CardinalJim Wrote:Gentlemen,
Perhaps it's the capitalist in me but I believe the most successful should get a bigger piece of the conference pay-out pie. I believe the Big East is top to bottom more successful because we don't have a Baylor, Vandy or Duke receiving the same pay-outs as the top teams in their respective conferences.
Equal revenue sharing goes along with youth leagues that don't keep score and schools that don't give grades. I'm sorry but not everyone can be a winner. The winner should be compensated for being the best. Where's the incentive to improve if you get the same pay-out as the best team in the conference?
CJ

Its a fair point too. I think it works in the Big Ten because they are united on the field and off the field as academic institutions. Don't know about the PAC-10, but I think they have limits on ABC appearances to keep some schools like USC from grabbing all the appearance cash.

As for the Big 12, 50% of the TV money is equally divided and 50% is based on TV appearances. Baylor and Iowa St. still get less, but its not as wide a disparity as if it was 100% based on TV appearances.

One interesting thing about how the Big 12 divides money is that a team hosting a non-conference game on ABC or FSN gets essentially a double share (ie. $520K for a non-conference home game on ABC, $260K for a conference home game, $300K for OOC home on FSN vs. $150K). Sometimes those matchups are junk matchups, so TV picks the "name" school for those games. So Nebraska can pick up a nice chunk of change for playing Nevada on ABC or Texas playing N. Texas on FSN.

Since it doesn't happen anymore, I'd be interested to see how a conference would handle a team getting a TV ban like Washington or Houston had back in the day..

CardinalJim Wrote:Gentlemen,
Perhaps it's the capitalist in me but I believe the most successful should get a bigger piece of the conference pay-out pie. I believe the Big East is top to bottom more successful because we don't have a Baylor, Vandy or Duke receiving the same pay-outs as the top teams in their respective conferences.
Equal revenue sharing goes along with youth leagues that don't keep score and schools that don't give grades. I'm sorry but not everyone can be a winner. The winner should be compensated for being the best. Where's the incentive to improve if you get the same pay-out as the best team in the conference?
CJ

I was going to post the same thing. Good post.

Youth leagues that don’t keep score and everyone wins reminds me of a story. One time I was watching my 5-year-old nephew’s little league game, and my sister asks me if I wanted to coach first base. I said “sure.” I quickly figured out that these guys weren’t the best throwers/catchers. So, every time one of them hit the ball off the tee, I sent them around to second base automatically, knowing there was zero chance of making an out. The other team’s coach got pissed, and my sister quickly gave me the hook

Sorry for the hijack. Carry on.

mattsarz Wrote:

omnicarrier Wrote:Thanks for the additional info, Matt. Could you further elaborate on your first statement that the SEC and ACC follow a model close to the Big East? Were you perhaps referring to a game distributional model, rather than a financial one?

My post was directed more toward the financial models being different. Both the SEC and ACC currently have a regional deal separate from CBS /ESPN (in the SEC's case) and ABC/ESPN (in the ACC's case) with Raycom and receive additional football TV monies anywhere between $5-7 million as a result of this separate regional contract.

The Big East, for both football has everything with ABC/ESPN and for basketball with CBS/ESPN and receives only a token amount in football for all of their regional games from ESPN and nothing in terms of basketball. In other words they are basically not getting paid for the product being shown on 30+ stations/networks in the region where the games theoretically would mostly be in demand. I find this very short-sighted, but perhaps it is just me.

Cheers,
Neil

I was referring to both in that Raycom provides a token amount to both conferences. I think those 13/14 games per conference that Raycom pays for costs them ~$1 million per conference per year.

The approximate $1 million looks to be correct for the SEC. There 2006 tax statement simply has $51 million for football TV contracts and has no "Other Football Money" category like the ACC - see below. The CBS contract is supposedly $47 million, so I could easily see ESPN and Raycom splitting the remaining $4 million, 3 and 1. Of course, this contract was negotiated prior to the most recent ACC contract.

Could not find anywhere how many games Raycom has the actual rights to.

I believe the ABC/ESPN contract with the ACC requires that two contests each week are to be set aside for Raycom, so that would mean that Raycom is paying for the rights to between 26-28 games. You would know better than me how many are actually shown a week, but it looks like they get the rights to two a week.

Here is the significant part of an article that addresses this:

ABC and ESPN recently signed a seven-year football television contract, worth about $260 million, with the ACC. Under that deal, ABC and ESPN leave open two ACC games each weekend to be syndicated regionally by Raycom and Jefferson-Pilot, which have a separate deal with the league.

And, unless I am misreading the 2006 tax statements from the ACC, the other football money (which I assume is Raycom, since the bowl monies and the championship game were listed separately) was listed as $7,315,388. Their ABC/ESPN one was listed as $35,750,500. The VT site claims the actual TV monies for ACC football (ABC/ESPN/Raycom) is $42 million a year. They claimed this by siting the fact that the 260 million divided by 7 is just over $37 million and that the Raycom/JP Sports they heard was $5 million a year.

Now perhaps that "other football money" includes things other than the Raycom deal and perhaps the VT poster on their board had no idea what he was talking about, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least that once the ACC saw that the new deal was going to have them below projected figures that they strong-armed Raycom into paying more for the football regional than it was worth in order to reach projected figures so they could trumpet expansion as a success.

Cheers,
Neil

CardinalJim Wrote:

Frank the Tank Wrote:

omnicarrier Wrote:The Big East and the Big 12 remain the only two BCS conferences that do not distribute revenue on a nearly equal basis. And for the Big 12, it is only the TV money that is not distributed roughly evenly. For the Big East, it is everything. IMHO, it is one of the major reasons why both conferences are the most vulnerable to implode, but the Big East even moreso.

This economic model, more than the "unity in goals" motto championed by those who favor a split, is the single most divisive item in the conference. The reason why it is divisive is because it basically says that each university does not trust the rest of their partners to put forth their best efforts in achieving the best possible result in football and/or basketball.

It's strange when you think about it, because with the new Big East, no conference has more balance in both sports. If they decide to stick together or even if they split, this model should be re-evaluated.

Cheers,
Neil

This is an excellent point and brings up the largest issue for the Big East long-term. As long as the revenue split is unequal, the notion of "conference unity" is really a facade and nothing more than PR talk. This isn't just applicable to college sports - the NFL is by far the strongest pro sports league yet it has the most egalitarian revenue split out of everyone.

Gentlemen,
Perhaps it's the capitalist in me but I believe the most successful should get a bigger piece of the conference pay-out pie. I believe the Big East is top to bottom more successful because we don't have a Baylor, Vandy or Duke receiving the same pay-outs as the top teams in their respective conferences.
Equal revenue sharing goes along with youth leagues that don't keep score and schools that don't give grades. I'm sorry but not everyone can be a winner. The winner should be compensated for being the best. Where's the incentive to improve if you get the same pay-out as the best team in the conference?
CJ

As a capitalist, I understand your point. But for some reason, when it comes to college athletics, it doesn't seem to work that way. The Big East, until the recent expansion, has always had a great disparity between the haves and the have nots and it never seemed to motivate the have nots in football or the have nots in basketball to improve.

What appears to have motivated the have nots in football to improve was Temple being voted out in 2001. What seems to have motivated the have nots in basketball to improve is the fact that the football schools (i.e, Syracuse and Connecticut) almost bailed on them.

Getting 'lesser' shares didn't seem to motivate them, not even when some of these teams at one time were the ones getting the higher shares.

It's bizarre, I know. But that's the way it seems to work. And one can see at work in other conferences such as the Big Ten, the ACC, the SEC, and the Pac-10.

Cheers,
Neil

mattsarz Wrote:I also thought that the SEC was not an equal revenue distributor when it came to TV revenues. I thought that those who appeared on TV more got greater percentages of the revenues. Think that was the incentive for teams to improve (get better, get more TV appearances, get more TV $$$). On the flip side, I think the SEC does have some caps on the number of games you can appear on CBS and maybe ESPN too. They also had a general rule to follow that each team was supposed to appear on Raycom once each year, but that hasn't happened lately (2006: No S. Carolina, 2007: No LSU).

Here's the breakdown per the 2006 tax statement:

LSU $10,714,082
South Carolina $10,431,122
Florida $10,327,492
Alabama $10,300,697
Tennessee $10,232,897
Georgia $10,216,567
Kentucky $10,191,107
Arkansas $10,146,562
Auburn $9,986,567
Mississippi $9,886,122
Vanderbilt $9,828,622
Mississippi State $9,766,122

Total $122,027,959

Average $10,168,997

I think it's fairly even, taking into account travel expenses to bowls and NCAA tourney.

Cheers,
Neil