04-02-2009, 01:21 PM
Troubled Waters: Misunderstanding agreement costly to Sun Belt teams
Commissioner's bowl agreement had no teeth from beginning
Bob Heist • bheist@theadvertiser.com • December 21, 2008
Was it Colonel Mustard with the wrench in the ballroom?
How about Miss Scarlet with the revolver in the library?
Or could it have been Professor Plum with the lead pipe in the conservatory?
Wouldn't it be nice if a board game - in this case Clue - could solve the great whodunnit facing the Sun Belt Conference and its football programs.
A record 34-game bowl season kicked off this weekend, and by the time it's over, two Sun Belt teams will have participated: champion Troy tonight in the New Orleans Bowl and Florida Atlantic on Friday in Detroit at the Motor City Bowl.
That's great. It's a nice reward for the youngest Division I-A conference in the country.
But there's just this little problem that two more Sun Belt teams were expected to be playing - UL and Arkansas State.
So again, whodunnit?
"The issue isn't with us," Independence Bowl executive director Missy Setters said. "We followed the agreement. If a seven-win (Sun Belt) team was available, we'd have taken them - we had to take them.
"But a six-win team was different. It's in the agreement that a six-win team would be 'made available' to the poll of other available 6-6 teams. From there our (selection) committee considered all the options and decided on a team outside the Sun Belt Conference (Northern Illinois)."
"I'm sure," Setters added, "the (Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg) bowls followed a similar procedure."
And that in a nutshell is why UL and ASU are home for the holidays - they finished bowl eligible but with the dreaded 6-6 record. And it didn't matter that Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters had an "agreement" that made league teams the contingency for the Independence, Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg bowl games if the SEC, Big East and Big 12 came up short of fulfilling their contractual tie-ins.
"It's been kind of confusing for all of us," UL director of athletics David Walker said.
So how did we get here?
THE AGREEMENT
The first mistake by the Sun Belt was not insisting on a binding contract when a deal in July was consummated and announced at the league's media days.
Instead, the document used was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which can be defined as an agreement between parties that indicates an intended common line of action, but doesn't hold a legal commitment.
In other words, Waters, on behalf of the conference, entered into a gentleman's agreement with the Independence, Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg bowls. Nothing more, nothing less.
"If I had to do it again, we'd have paid lawyers to put it into contract form from a MoU," Waters said. "But nobody raised an issue, and it was never raised by the bowls until Notre Dame and N.C. State were 6-6 and available. It is what it is."
What's interesting is that apparently no conference school is in possession of the MoU. Walker, for one, said UL officials have never seen it. In fact, Sun Belt Associate Commissioner for Communications John McElwain said it would not be released, either.
McElwain's response came when he was directed by Sun Belt Conference executive committee president Frank T. Brogan - the president of Florida Atlantic - to make a statement. Brogan did not return a phone call looking for comment on the MoU that was signed.
"I thought I knew the intention when we did this," Waters said. "Legal counsel even went back to look at the notes from the MoU that was signed. They saw the intention but didn't think the language was there to protect us."
"It would be interesting to see the exact wording in the agreement," Walker said. "But in the end, we're all accountable for not asking the approriate questions as to what could happen."
THE NCAA FACTOR
The value of the failed MoU, according to Waters, is that this year a Sun Belt team with a winning record would be protected from bowl game exclusion, which happened to an 8-4 Troy team in 2007.
The problem is an agreement for that wasn't necessary. The NCAA had already addressed the issue, guaranteeing all teams with winning records first choice, when contracted conference slots couldn't be filled, over bowl-eligible 6-6 teams.
All the MoU did was specify the bowl a 7-5 Sun Belt team would go to, if openings existed, over all other available at-large teams with winning records.
Those were the terms the bowl games operated under, which made the agreement toothless.
Waters himself helped perpetuate the Sun Belt's misunderstanding of the agreement in an email response to a BlueRaiderZone.com (the scout.com website for Middle Tennessee) member a week or so before bowl selections were announced:
"If an opening exists (we anticipate an opening in PapaJohns and Independence, but not St. Pete) a Sun Belt team with a winning record (7-5 or better) trumps all teams regardless of records. If all teams with winning records are obligated and an opening still exists a Sun Belt bowl eligible team (6-6) trumps all other bowl eligible teams.
"This allows Sun Belt teams to stay regional and try to build our fan base. Bowls want teams that travel, we need to prove we can travel and the best way to do that is stay regional."
"We played this past year under a misconception," Arkansas State head coach Steve Roberts said.
THE ESPN EFFECT
One of the major players in the scenario that unfolded was ESPN Regional Television, Inc., which owns and operates the Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg bowls as a subsidiary of parent company ESPN.
In July, Pete Derzis, Senior Vice President & General Manager for ERT, said, "This agreement protects the future success of our events ... We are taking this step to be able to present college football fans with two quality teams for our postseason bowl games."
Those two quality 6-6 teams ended up being Memphis (St. Petersburg) and N.C. State (Papajohns.com). Notre Dame, which joined N.C. State as the most attractive options from the poll of 6-6 teams, ended up in the Hawaii Bowl - another ESPN Regional Television property.
Obviously, ESPN feels the Sun Belt Conference doesn't own the stroke of an independent power like Notre Dame or the ACC and Conference USA as a regional attraction. So when a 7-5 record was factored out for UL and Arkansas State, the door to be excluded among the poll of 6-6 teams was open.
"We value our relationship with the Sun Belt and believe the contingency plan we jointly developed with the league was in everyone's best interest," said Jenny Zimmerman of ESPN Communications. "The driving factor (of the MoU) was the regionality opportunity for a backup position. According to the NCAA, the contingency contract was valid for teams with seven wins or more."
THE I-BOWL STANCE
A lot of venom has been spewed north from Lafayette since the folks in Shreveport with the Independence Bowl selected Northern Illinois over the Cajuns.
But in the end, the I-Bowl - just like St. Petersburg and Papajohns.com - had the right to do so because the MoU negotiated by Waters did not legally obligate it to the Sun Belt contingency teams.
Better yet, the I-Bowl had the backing of the NCAA.
"The intent of the language in bylaw 30.9.2.1 is to ensure that a primary (or secondary) agreement does not prevent a team with a winning record from being selected in favor of a 6-6 team," said Christopher Radford, the NCAA's Assistant Director of Public and Media Relations.
"However, when only 6-6 teams remain in the at-large pool, it is the responsibility of the bowl and conference, respectively, to determine (when writing/signing the contract) how binding their agreement will be."
The onus of that understanding - or lack thereof - would appear to fall directly in the lap of Waters, though the Sun Belt league office maintains the bowl games did not hold up their end of the bargain.
"We know what was agreed to," McElwain said.
There was also political maneuvering among state legislators that the I-Bowl - which receives more than $350,000 from the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism - was out of line for snubbing UL and making the game an in-state affair between the Cajuns and Louisiana Tech.
Setters disagreed.
"What's getting lost is Louisiana Tech is a school from Louisiana, too," she said. "We made a commitment to the state by picking Tech. We also feel, due to funding that is certainly related to tourism, that we want to get people in here to see what Louisiana has to offer - especially the northeast corner of the state.
"This goes well beyond a financial commitment (to another school in the state). This is three hours on ESPN and the exposure that's involved with that. Chicago (the home region of Northern Illinois) is a very large market to promote ourselves in and I think that was a factor considered by our selection committee."
NOW WHAT?
If Waters' understanding of the contingency agreement from the summer had played out, four Sun Belt teams would be playing this bowl season. Instead it's two and what was lost to the conference was between $1.3 to $2.1 million - a combination of two payouts from the Independence ($1.1 million), St. Petersburg ($1 million) and Papajohns.com ($300,000) bowls.
That's a steep price tag. But what may be even more costly is the lost exposure and respect the league could have garnered with solid performances on national television.
It's as if the conference took one step forward with a bowl outside the MoU - the Motor City Bowl - taking a 6-6 Florida Atlantic team, but two steps back when the three bowls involved with the agreement turned their backs on UL and Arkansas State.
"We always try to make things a learning process," Waters said. "Certainly we had some heartbreak last year when Troy was left at home with a winning record and that issue was corrected.
"This year, hopefully we build on this. We believed the agreement covered 6-6 ... now, hopefully, the standard is we don't get to 6-6 but winning (records). We want our teams to win enough to get to the BCS.
"We've learned every win is important, obviously."
Commissioner's bowl agreement had no teeth from beginning
Bob Heist • bheist@theadvertiser.com • December 21, 2008
Was it Colonel Mustard with the wrench in the ballroom?
How about Miss Scarlet with the revolver in the library?
Or could it have been Professor Plum with the lead pipe in the conservatory?
Wouldn't it be nice if a board game - in this case Clue - could solve the great whodunnit facing the Sun Belt Conference and its football programs.
A record 34-game bowl season kicked off this weekend, and by the time it's over, two Sun Belt teams will have participated: champion Troy tonight in the New Orleans Bowl and Florida Atlantic on Friday in Detroit at the Motor City Bowl.
That's great. It's a nice reward for the youngest Division I-A conference in the country.
But there's just this little problem that two more Sun Belt teams were expected to be playing - UL and Arkansas State.
So again, whodunnit?
"The issue isn't with us," Independence Bowl executive director Missy Setters said. "We followed the agreement. If a seven-win (Sun Belt) team was available, we'd have taken them - we had to take them.
"But a six-win team was different. It's in the agreement that a six-win team would be 'made available' to the poll of other available 6-6 teams. From there our (selection) committee considered all the options and decided on a team outside the Sun Belt Conference (Northern Illinois)."
"I'm sure," Setters added, "the (Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg) bowls followed a similar procedure."
And that in a nutshell is why UL and ASU are home for the holidays - they finished bowl eligible but with the dreaded 6-6 record. And it didn't matter that Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters had an "agreement" that made league teams the contingency for the Independence, Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg bowl games if the SEC, Big East and Big 12 came up short of fulfilling their contractual tie-ins.
"It's been kind of confusing for all of us," UL director of athletics David Walker said.
So how did we get here?
THE AGREEMENT
The first mistake by the Sun Belt was not insisting on a binding contract when a deal in July was consummated and announced at the league's media days.
Instead, the document used was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which can be defined as an agreement between parties that indicates an intended common line of action, but doesn't hold a legal commitment.
In other words, Waters, on behalf of the conference, entered into a gentleman's agreement with the Independence, Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg bowls. Nothing more, nothing less.
"If I had to do it again, we'd have paid lawyers to put it into contract form from a MoU," Waters said. "But nobody raised an issue, and it was never raised by the bowls until Notre Dame and N.C. State were 6-6 and available. It is what it is."
What's interesting is that apparently no conference school is in possession of the MoU. Walker, for one, said UL officials have never seen it. In fact, Sun Belt Associate Commissioner for Communications John McElwain said it would not be released, either.
McElwain's response came when he was directed by Sun Belt Conference executive committee president Frank T. Brogan - the president of Florida Atlantic - to make a statement. Brogan did not return a phone call looking for comment on the MoU that was signed.
"I thought I knew the intention when we did this," Waters said. "Legal counsel even went back to look at the notes from the MoU that was signed. They saw the intention but didn't think the language was there to protect us."
"It would be interesting to see the exact wording in the agreement," Walker said. "But in the end, we're all accountable for not asking the approriate questions as to what could happen."
THE NCAA FACTOR
The value of the failed MoU, according to Waters, is that this year a Sun Belt team with a winning record would be protected from bowl game exclusion, which happened to an 8-4 Troy team in 2007.
The problem is an agreement for that wasn't necessary. The NCAA had already addressed the issue, guaranteeing all teams with winning records first choice, when contracted conference slots couldn't be filled, over bowl-eligible 6-6 teams.
All the MoU did was specify the bowl a 7-5 Sun Belt team would go to, if openings existed, over all other available at-large teams with winning records.
Those were the terms the bowl games operated under, which made the agreement toothless.
Waters himself helped perpetuate the Sun Belt's misunderstanding of the agreement in an email response to a BlueRaiderZone.com (the scout.com website for Middle Tennessee) member a week or so before bowl selections were announced:
"If an opening exists (we anticipate an opening in PapaJohns and Independence, but not St. Pete) a Sun Belt team with a winning record (7-5 or better) trumps all teams regardless of records. If all teams with winning records are obligated and an opening still exists a Sun Belt bowl eligible team (6-6) trumps all other bowl eligible teams.
"This allows Sun Belt teams to stay regional and try to build our fan base. Bowls want teams that travel, we need to prove we can travel and the best way to do that is stay regional."
"We played this past year under a misconception," Arkansas State head coach Steve Roberts said.
THE ESPN EFFECT
One of the major players in the scenario that unfolded was ESPN Regional Television, Inc., which owns and operates the Papajohns.com and St. Petersburg bowls as a subsidiary of parent company ESPN.
In July, Pete Derzis, Senior Vice President & General Manager for ERT, said, "This agreement protects the future success of our events ... We are taking this step to be able to present college football fans with two quality teams for our postseason bowl games."
Those two quality 6-6 teams ended up being Memphis (St. Petersburg) and N.C. State (Papajohns.com). Notre Dame, which joined N.C. State as the most attractive options from the poll of 6-6 teams, ended up in the Hawaii Bowl - another ESPN Regional Television property.
Obviously, ESPN feels the Sun Belt Conference doesn't own the stroke of an independent power like Notre Dame or the ACC and Conference USA as a regional attraction. So when a 7-5 record was factored out for UL and Arkansas State, the door to be excluded among the poll of 6-6 teams was open.
"We value our relationship with the Sun Belt and believe the contingency plan we jointly developed with the league was in everyone's best interest," said Jenny Zimmerman of ESPN Communications. "The driving factor (of the MoU) was the regionality opportunity for a backup position. According to the NCAA, the contingency contract was valid for teams with seven wins or more."
THE I-BOWL STANCE
A lot of venom has been spewed north from Lafayette since the folks in Shreveport with the Independence Bowl selected Northern Illinois over the Cajuns.
But in the end, the I-Bowl - just like St. Petersburg and Papajohns.com - had the right to do so because the MoU negotiated by Waters did not legally obligate it to the Sun Belt contingency teams.
Better yet, the I-Bowl had the backing of the NCAA.
"The intent of the language in bylaw 30.9.2.1 is to ensure that a primary (or secondary) agreement does not prevent a team with a winning record from being selected in favor of a 6-6 team," said Christopher Radford, the NCAA's Assistant Director of Public and Media Relations.
"However, when only 6-6 teams remain in the at-large pool, it is the responsibility of the bowl and conference, respectively, to determine (when writing/signing the contract) how binding their agreement will be."
The onus of that understanding - or lack thereof - would appear to fall directly in the lap of Waters, though the Sun Belt league office maintains the bowl games did not hold up their end of the bargain.
"We know what was agreed to," McElwain said.
There was also political maneuvering among state legislators that the I-Bowl - which receives more than $350,000 from the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism - was out of line for snubbing UL and making the game an in-state affair between the Cajuns and Louisiana Tech.
Setters disagreed.
"What's getting lost is Louisiana Tech is a school from Louisiana, too," she said. "We made a commitment to the state by picking Tech. We also feel, due to funding that is certainly related to tourism, that we want to get people in here to see what Louisiana has to offer - especially the northeast corner of the state.
"This goes well beyond a financial commitment (to another school in the state). This is three hours on ESPN and the exposure that's involved with that. Chicago (the home region of Northern Illinois) is a very large market to promote ourselves in and I think that was a factor considered by our selection committee."
NOW WHAT?
If Waters' understanding of the contingency agreement from the summer had played out, four Sun Belt teams would be playing this bowl season. Instead it's two and what was lost to the conference was between $1.3 to $2.1 million - a combination of two payouts from the Independence ($1.1 million), St. Petersburg ($1 million) and Papajohns.com ($300,000) bowls.
That's a steep price tag. But what may be even more costly is the lost exposure and respect the league could have garnered with solid performances on national television.
It's as if the conference took one step forward with a bowl outside the MoU - the Motor City Bowl - taking a 6-6 Florida Atlantic team, but two steps back when the three bowls involved with the agreement turned their backs on UL and Arkansas State.
"We always try to make things a learning process," Waters said. "Certainly we had some heartbreak last year when Troy was left at home with a winning record and that issue was corrected.
"This year, hopefully we build on this. We believed the agreement covered 6-6 ... now, hopefully, the standard is we don't get to 6-6 but winning (records). We want our teams to win enough to get to the BCS.
"We've learned every win is important, obviously."