From McMurphy's latest column at http://www.cbssports.com/columns/story/18985030

I will speculate that the initials of McMurphy's "league source" are M.T.

Quote:"At that point when the Big East was intact, the only school the Big East could have legitimately added that made sense was UCF," an industry source said. "Maryland and Boston College? They wouldn't even return the Big East's calls. But the Big East couldn't add UCF because [South Florida president] Judy Genshaft kept shooting down UCF."

Genshaft's continuing insistence to block UCF from the league was a huge contributing factor which ultimately led to the league's current instability, a league source said. That's because in April of 2011, with TCU on board, Marinatto and the league negotiated a nine-year deal worth $1.4 billion for its new media rights deal. Marinatto recommended to his presidents that they accept the offer and they promptly voted against it.

"I think that was the stupidest decision ever made [to turn it down] in college athletics," a league source said. "To have the equity of ESPN as your brand and the stability that would have gone with it."

Ouch.

So if they listened to Marinatto they would not be in this position and yet he takes the fall? Nice.

That is definitely coming from Tranghese. (sp?)

That deal was weak and everybody in the conference at the time new it the moment the PAC deal came out. That is why both All-Sports and Basketball schools both voted to reject it by a 12-4 margin.

MT just doesn't want to see the guy he groomed and handed the reigns over to go down in flames because it makes him look bad too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1Qd_FNgfM

Quote:Marinatto and the league negotiated a nine-year deal worth $1.4 billion for its new media rights deal.

That works out to more than $155 million per year.

If those are the correct numbers, that would have been more than the ACC is getting. If the reason for turning it down was that they thought the 2010 version of the BE could get more, I question that.

Syracuse was very pissed that the deal got turned down.

(05-07-2012 07:15 PM)War Torn Ruston Wrote:  So if they listened to Marinatto they would not be in this position and yet he takes the fall? Nice.

Wrong. The TV deal for the BE would have done nothing to prevent the instability. It still would have made the BE the weakest conference in terms of TV money.

(05-07-2012 07:45 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(05-07-2012 07:15 PM)War Torn Ruston Wrote:  So if they listened to Marinatto they would not be in this position and yet he takes the fall? Nice.

Wrong. The TV deal for the BE would have done nothing to prevent the instability. It still would have made the BE the weakest conference in terms of TV money.

Actually- it would have been right in line with the ACC at that point.

I do think given with what happened with Big 12, TCU would have been gone. Nothing really against Big East, just that would have been home for TCU.

(05-07-2012 07:27 PM)Borncoog74 Wrote:  That is definitely coming from Tranghese. (sp?)

That deal was weak and everybody in the conference at the time new it the moment the PAC deal came out. That is why both All-Sports and Basketball schools both voted to reject it by a 12-4 margin.

MT just doesn't want to see the guy he groomed and handed the reigns over to go down in flames because it makes him look bad too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1Qd_FNgfM

1.4 billion over 9 years = 155.55 million per year average. Wasn't the setup at that time going to be 9 football + 8 non-football schools? If the rumored split of 75% to football schools and 25% to non-football were true, that would come out to about 13 to 14 mil for football schools and 3.5 to 4.9 mil for non-football, depending on how you calculate it.

Wasn't that offer also to start the next year? If the old contract expired 2 years earlier, that's very significant too. This was at the same time as the PAC-10 agreement which is why they didn't want to go for it, but in reality it probably was exactly why they should have. Know guaranteeing those same conditions continuing.

(05-07-2012 08:07 PM)Playoffs Now Wrote:  

(05-07-2012 07:27 PM)Borncoog74 Wrote:  That is definitely coming from Tranghese. (sp?)

That deal was weak and everybody in the conference at the time new it the moment the PAC deal came out. That is why both All-Sports and Basketball schools both voted to reject it by a 12-4 margin.

MT just doesn't want to see the guy he groomed and handed the reigns over to go down in flames because it makes him look bad too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1Qd_FNgfM

1.4 billion over 9 years = 155.55 million per year average. Wasn't the setup at that time going to be 9 football + 8 non-football schools? If the rumored split of 75% to football schools and 25% to non-football were true, that would come out to about 13 to 14 mil for football schools and 3.5 to 4.9 mil for non-football, depending on how you calculate it.

The deal included UCF as #10. This was leaked on a UCF pay board way back then.

I'm pretty sure there were two votes. The first vote was 12-4 in favor of negotiating based on the ESPN proposal. Georgetown, Seton Hall, Rutgers and Notre Dame voted no. (I think a couple of other schools were very skeptical, but wanted to continue negotiating.) The second vote, after the PAC contract, was unanimous in rejecting the ESPN offer.

(05-07-2012 07:47 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(05-07-2012 07:45 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(05-07-2012 07:15 PM)War Torn Ruston Wrote:  So if they listened to Marinatto they would not be in this position and yet he takes the fall? Nice.

Wrong. The TV deal for the BE would have done nothing to prevent the instability. It still would have made the BE the weakest conference in terms of TV money.

Actually- it would have been right in line with the ACC at that point.

I do think given with what happened with Big 12, TCU would have been gone. Nothing really against Big East, just that would have been home for TCU.

It still would have made it the lowest paid conference. Add on top of that the internal strife on the direction the BE was going in for the long term strategy was lacking. For the money to have been enough to prevent any defections, it would have had to have been better than what half of the conferences were getting IMO. As a conference, the BE is a riskier collection that the other 5 "BCS" conferences. As a result, a higher rate of return is needed in order to bear the added risk. University presidents crave stability - at least that's my opinion on what I think they would crave - plus academic prestige, brand recognition, etc. Simply put, there was not much of anything that could keep the BE in tact if other BCS conferences invited BE member schools to join.

(05-07-2012 07:42 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

Quote:Marinatto and the league negotiated a nine-year deal worth $1.4 billion for its new media rights deal.

That works out to more than $155 million per year.

If those are the correct numbers, that would have been more than the ACC is getting. If the reason for turning it down was that they thought the 2010 version of the BE could get more, I question that.

The big East had 17 members so the net would have been around $11 million to the football schools based on the numbers at the time and estimates it was only slightly tilted to fb. I don't recall it being quite $155. 9X7 and 17X4 would be $131 million which comes to about $1.2 billion.