(04-22-2016 03:51 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  The only thing we can really hope for is improvement among the bottom feeders of the conference. Our bad teams are really, really bad.

Pot meet kettle.

We have plenty to improve in our own house before we start throwing rocks at our conference mates.

(04-22-2016 03:58 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(04-22-2016 03:51 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  The only thing we can really hope for is improvement among the bottom feeders of the conference. Our bad teams are really, really bad.

Pot meet kettle.

We have plenty to improve in our own house before we start throwing rocks at our conference mates.

We sucked last year, but that's usually not the case. We're a bowl team. CUSA's bottom six can't say that. They're terrible every year. But yes, we need a big turnaround this season.

New deal took Rice from bad to worse.

http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/conferen...tract.html

So you have at least three problems with new deal:

A) Continue to change your game dates/times as part of deal with lower gate revenues as a result and for a reward you get the benefit of even lower TV revenues. ($500K/team according to this article). I think the ASN deal is actually zero $ payout. Just get exposure for small town teams like Marshall and USM with local TV stations.

B) New C-USA schools that got lower $ in old TV deal now get divided evenly (Charlotte, ODU) which means more mouths to feed with a lesser amount of food to share.

C) Rice has now lost all the exit fee money from the AAC schools as they were getting a disproportionate windfall share over past few years that was millions of $ given their longer history in the conference.

So you take a program that was already losing lots of $ being subsidized by University and now you are losing at least an incremental $2M/year (probably closer to $4M) as I'm not sure how the exact calculations work on exit fee $, credits for MBB tourney from schools like Memphis, etc. In % terms, this is material stuff.

To make lemonade out of this, one has to believe that JK and company are using this as the catalyst to accelerate exit conversations w/ the BoT where a couple years ago there was at least the argument that AAC/MWC not that much better (at least from TV $ and rights perspective) as TV deals were closer to same, especially when factoring in exit fees. With this new deal and just a bunch of non-aligned teams/Universities, you are on a road to nowhere in terms of: competition, $ to bottom line, local interest, hurting vs. helping Rice brand, etc., etc. Proverbial frog in a pot of water where the heat just got turned up even hotter with this new/crappy deal.

I don't have any inside info but I'd be surprised if we don't see something move on this front later this year. It has to. JK has sort of signaled it already as he has been pretty open in his public statements/podcasts/etc. without saying anything specific (as he can't) that this is a problem that needs to be solved.

You don't need to have graduated from Rice to see that the problem can't be solved by staying in C-USA with a deal like this one.

That about says it all.

(04-22-2016 07:51 PM)owl40 Wrote:  You don't need to have graduated from Rice to see that the problem can't be solved by staying in C-USA with a deal like this one.

With the Big 10's new 6-year deal, it looks like everything is up for grabs in the ~2024 time frame. All the Power 5 TV deals and Grant of Rights expire around that time. As does the current 12-year playoff contract.

I fully expect more realignment to occur around 2024 as power conferences try to position themselves as advantageously as possible before the next round of money pies are to be split.

These moves will have repercussions. There will be winners and losers at all levels.

There's a chance the Big 12 or another P5 league decides to expand with G5 schools between now and 2024, but this new Big 10 deal may have thrown a monkey wrench into those plans.

If I am right, every G5 school has about 7-9 years to build its fan base and facilities to make itself as attractive as possible before the tectonic plates start to shift.

After the dust settles, a lot of schools will have a tough decision to make on whether it makes sense to try and compete at the highest level of college football anymore.

This article speculates that the new deal could be worth as little as $1m - for the entire conference! Ugh...

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journ...ights.aspx

Conference USA, too, is expected to see its annual rights fee drop from the $7 million per year range to just around $1 million per year, sources said, as the conference replaced bigger college brands like Central Florida, Houston and Memphis with smaller ones like Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky. The deal with CBS and ESPN still has not been announced formally, but the conference says it will soon make an announcement.

Conference USA’s current deals with Fox and CBS expire in June. Fox opted not to renew.

(05-04-2016 01:54 AM)chrisc Wrote:  This article speculates that the new deal could be worth as little as $1m - for the entire conference! Ugh...

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journ...ights.aspx

Conference USA, too, is expected to see its annual rights fee drop from the $7 million per year range to just around $1 million per year, sources said, as the conference replaced bigger college brands like Central Florida, Houston and Memphis with smaller ones like Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky. The deal with CBS and ESPN still has not been announced formally, but the conference says it will soon make an announcement.

Conference USA’s current deals with Fox and CBS expire in June. Fox opted not to renew.

$71,000 should take care of 1 full scholarship. Rice University should not subsidize athletics at an increased level for 8 more years. It's time to rework the football schedule to have four road body bag games per season. There's no other viable source of revenue. TSU's men's basketball team supports their entire athletic department with its annual early season road trip.

(05-04-2016 02:38 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 01:54 AM)chrisc Wrote:  This article speculates that the new deal could be worth as little as $1m - for the entire conference! Ugh...

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journ...ights.aspx

Conference USA, too, is expected to see its annual rights fee drop from the $7 million per year range to just around $1 million per year, sources said, as the conference replaced bigger college brands like Central Florida, Houston and Memphis with smaller ones like Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky. The deal with CBS and ESPN still has not been announced formally, but the conference says it will soon make an announcement.

Conference USA’s current deals with Fox and CBS expire in June. Fox opted not to renew.

$71,000 should take care of 1 full scholarship. Rice University should not subsidize athletics at an increased level for 8 more years. It's time to rework the football schedule to have four road body bag games per season. There's no other viable source of revenue. TSU's men's basketball team supports their entire athletic department with its annual early season road trip.

Why should football bear the punishment for something that is completely out of their control? It's not the student-athletes' fault that Rice was left behind in C-USA.

Why don't we have men's golf team travel in a horse & buggy? They don't win either.

(05-04-2016 02:38 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 01:54 AM)chrisc Wrote:  http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journ...ights.aspx

Quote:Conference USA, too, is expected to see its annual rights fee drop from the $7 million per year range to just around $1 million per year, sources said ... Conference USA’s current deals with Fox and CBS expire in June. Fox opted not to renew.

$71,000 should take care of 1 full scholarship. ...

A chart that accompanied this article gave details of three expiring C-USA media deals, which had added up to $19-19.5 million/year: