(08-10-2016 07:04 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 08:13 PM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  Right now, many top schools have been happy with the money coming in from TV. They have been making far more money than they were before. But, the question becomes, how long are they willing to share equally? Will Texas, Ohio State, or Alabama decide that since they are bringing more money into the conference, they should receive more of the money?

It may not be something that appears on the surface. It may just start out as extra travel money for conference championship games and bowl games that just happens to be multi-millions. It may be "TV appearance compensation" money that just happens to go to the biggest and most popular programs. It may be money given to the big teams as an incentive to extend grants of rights.

The conferences report average distribution amounts, and total distribution amounts. They don't always report per-team amounts and seem to want to give the impression of equality. Is is really equal sharing? If it is, how long do schools like USC stand it before insisting they get paid the same as other big schools, as the Pac 12 network hasn't delivered the goods.

I think the pendulum has swung in the direction of equal sharing, and may well swing back into the direction of paying more for big teams as they are bringing more money in. I can't see such schools acting against their financial interests forever, and I wonder how much unequal sharing is currently happening.

Go Cougs!!!!!!!

Won't matter for you guys as BYU will never be in a conference again.
Cheers!

This post is a little off-topic. Unequal revenue sharing could change the complexion of realignment if, for example, the big 12 offers Texas and Oklahoma double shares to keep them in the conference.

But, for the record, we are in the WCC for most sports, and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for a number of others. If BYU were to re-start wrestling, it is likely we would be in the Big 12 for that sport, even if we were not in for football.

One of our connected fans has heard this about Big 12 revenue sharing for the new members:

"The new Big 12 teams will come in at a reduced revenue share, as expected. But maximizing that share will be solely based on performance, not years of membership. I had not heard this until today. So, if a university's football team wins their division, then that would immediately escalate their revenue share. If a university's basketball team makes the NCAA tournament, that would immediately escalate their revenue share. I don't know the specifics of what accomplishments earn what percentage. But theoretically, if a school's teams languish after they move, they would remain at the reduced revenue until performances improve. Of course, the initial reduced revenue amount would still be more than we're making in the American. But I found the model interesting, and I believe, different from when TCU and West Virginia were added."

(08-11-2016 09:41 AM)Eagle78 Wrote:  

(08-11-2016 08:24 AM)FrancisDrake Wrote:  The money will become an issue if/when the courts decide that players are allowed to be payed without restriction. The schools truly driving the revenue will want and need more of it to bid on athletes. In this scenario Texas, FSU, USC, OSU will no longer tolerate the Wake Forest, BCs, Oregon Sts, etc riding their coattails and siphoning their revenues. The top three dozen schools or so would decide if a pro model is where they wish to compete and they'll create their own semi-pro national league.

Good. They will then pay federal and state income taxes just like all of the other professional teams do. Let's see how this goes over with these programs when a huge chunk of their revenues will go to pay the tax man.

Going to a "pro model" for the very top schools would be a disaster, IMO. One of the strong points of CFB is the diversity of schools, the "David vs. Goliath" match ups, etc. Boston College has played and beaten Texas, FSU, and USC. That's what makes CFB great. Why on earth would the average FB fan watch a "pro league" when they can easily watch professionals of much higher calibre - you know, the NFL?

Oh, and don't kid yourself. One objective in establishing the current revenue system - especially in a conference network model - comes from having some member schools in large wealthy markets. FB is one thing, but ask an advertiser whether they would prefer to have their products advertised in a market like Boston (where BC gets very respectable ratings in the 8th largest and one of the wealthiest markets in the country) or, say, Tallahassee.

The Goliaths don't care about David. If they did there would be a legitimate playoff already. Instead we have had the BCS and now a CFP system that restricts access and buoys particular conferences regardless of achievement. The era of diversity in college sports is dead and gone. Age old rivalries severed in the name of expansion. Conferences are spread across thousands of miles and their fan-bases have little in common. The Goliaths don't need Boston or Orlando, they pull national audiences.

A league of top 32 brands would take the lions share of funding away from CFB. I'm not saying that is what will happen, but it could. There are power conferences and then there are power programs, with the right motivation, dog will eat dog.

Not in the Big Ten. Never will happen.

Obviously the situation with pro-rated shares for new members is only temporary. They all know they're building up to equal shares.


The Big Ten is an egalitarian society. Purdue and Northwestern deserve -- and get -- the exact same as Michigan and Ohio State. That's the way it is and the way it always will be.

The end.

(08-12-2016 09:41 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Not in the Big Ten. Never will happen.

Obviously the situation with pro-rated shares for new members is only temporary. They all know they're building up to equal shares.


The Big Ten is an egalitarian society. Purdue and Northwestern deserve -- and get -- the exact same as Michigan and Ohio State. That's the way it is and the way it always will be.

The end.

I'll save your second part (Purdue and Northwestern "deserving" the same payout as Michigan and Ohio State) for a different post. But I would like to address the first part, as I think that may be more shaky and more susceptible to manipulation.

First, look at the Big 10 football championship game. There may well be people on this board who have all the information, and if so, please chime in. Here are some facts that I see in regard to the Big 10 championship game:

1. It takes money to transport 85 football players to a game + Staff
2. The coaches probably have a bonus for making the title game
3. The Big 10 makes a bunch of money off the game, in the tens of millions
4. Universities in the championship game will lose money unless there is some funding to pay for their expenses.
   

Let's take round numbers, and assume that it costs a university $1M to travel on relatively short notice to the championship game. How much do they get for going? Here are some options:

• $0
• $0.5 M
• $1 M (cost parity)
• $2M (a little extra)
• $10M (a big reward)
  

If the Big 10 practices "straight equal sharing," then the right amount should be $0 - the conference sponsors the game, so every conference member shares. If the conference only supports "bare bones, players eat Raman" costs, the half-million answer may be correct, but you have already violated the principle of equal sharing. Reasonable sharing may would indicate that the teams that make the championship have a decent budget to travel and not stay in Motel 6, so the $1M dollar figure is reasonable to give to the participants. However, Ohio State and Michigan could argue that since they are bigger schools with higher paid coaches and more people to bring, the "compensation" should be bumped to $2M. Now, we have left the realm of pure compensation and equal revenue sharing, and the bigger schools are getting more of it. Finally, we come to the $10M figure. The teams argue that since they are the ones playing in a game that makes ~4 times that, the teams playing should get half the revenue from the game. The principle of "equal sharing" is thus destroyed, but their is a larger issue of fair compensation that comes into play for those teams participating.

The example I used was the Big 10 championship game. However, the same reasoning can be applied (and probably is) to bowl games, football games televised over the air, the basketball tournament, and the big dance. The conference could break out the "$10M" in the example as "compensation," then split the rest of the conference money evenly and say "everyone gets the same amount" and in some ways do so in good conscience.

I don't know the inner workings of the big 10, so I don't know how they figure "compensation" into the equation. But, I could definitely see Michigan and Ohio State wanting to bump that compensation from $0 or $1M to the $10M figure, and I'm not sure that Purdue or Northwestern would have a good argument for why that shouldn't happen when the remaining money is "shared equally."

(08-11-2016 08:24 AM)FrancisDrake Wrote:  The money will become an issue if/when the courts decide that players are allowed to be payed without restriction. The schools truly driving the revenue will want and need more of it to bid on athletes. In this scenario Texas, FSU, USC, OSU will no longer tolerate the Wake Forest, BCs, Oregon Sts, etc riding their coattails and siphoning their revenues. The top three dozen schools or so would decide if a pro model is where they wish to compete and they'll create their own semi-pro national league.

I doubt that would happen since the actual pro leagues even have salary caps, with one having max salaries. So even if/when paying players happens, a cap can easily be set across the board.

I don't think performance payouts are the same as unequal revenue sharing. To me unequal revenue sharing is like you used to see in the big 12 and big east many moons ago, where the number of tv appearances affected a portion of pay. Similar to the MWC now. Paying slightly more to the teams who earned money via extra games (NCAA unit, CCG's, bowl money, etc), is if anything helping offset the extra expenses for the extra games. For example the conferences who split bowl money equally: the teams that don't go actully makes the most money. But if you split tv money, sponsorships, and other league generated revenue any way other than equally, that is unequal revenue sharing.

I thought we were talking about money received by the conference for the primary rights to broadcast games on TV. That is, unequivocally, shared equally.


If we're going to argue over supplementing travel budgets for conference champion game participants, then sorry - you lose me there.

Read some of the responses above. They were talking about total revenues etc, and calling it unequal revenue sharing

(08-12-2016 10:18 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  First, look at the Big 10 football championship game. There may well be people on this board who have all the information, and if so, please chime in. Here are some facts that I see in regard to the Big 10 championship game:

1. It takes money to transport 85 football players to a game + Staff
2. The coaches probably have a bonus for making the title game
3. The Big 10 makes a bunch of money off the game, in the tens of millions
4. Universities in the championship game will lose money unless there is some funding to pay for their expenses.
   

Let's take round numbers, and assume that it costs a university $1M to travel on relatively short notice to the championship game. How much do they get for going?

Now, let's look at the Big Ten members. There are the schools that can just write a $1m check to go to the championship game, and the schools that have to think about spending $1m.

The schools that have to think about it are schools that would be getting more than a $1m boost in their season ticket sales if they go.

Indeed, the schools that don't get a substantial financial boost from going to the CCG are, in effect, getting their current hefty season ticket revenue maintained by going to the CCG.

So for the Big Ten, the idea of "help to go to the CCG" is not really an issue. The trip is essentially self-funding.

For the MAC, the conference benefits enough from a school making a NY6 Access Bowl, in terms of both profile and CFP distribution, and the process of going to a NY6 bowl is expensive enough for a MAC school ... more expensive than for a Big Ten school, because of the size of the ticket distribution and the revenue that each can expect to make from that distribution ... that it makes sense for the conference to use the windfall to first help out the participant with its costs, and only include the balance left over in the conference distribution.

For the Big Ten, the athletic department budgets are bigger, the costs of going to a NY6 bowl are substantially smaller, the CFP revenue is more in the form of a given, contracted amount, and the financial benefits of the Big Ten conference distribution on an even basis are plenty to allow any given Big Ten school to cover that cost out of the regular distribution. Putting it all into a single pot and distributing it evenly works fine ... there is no need to work out any formula for determining what the differential costs and benefits are for various schools representing the Big Ten in various post-season events.

(08-07-2016 02:56 AM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Northwestern was a founding member of the B1G in 1896. You think after 120yrs of not pulling their weight the other schools are suddenly going to start punishing NW financially? no way.

Northwestern played the patsy role. It deserved an Oscar during the 1970's.