02-10-2014, 10:01 PM
Just a little more clarification as to Maryland's deal with the B1G as compared to Nebraska.
There is lots of info for Big 12 folks as well.
The whole article is interesting but I've pulled an excerpt regarding Maryland since they are in court with the ACC currently.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20140209/NE...the-corner
There is lots of info for Big 12 folks as well.
The whole article is interesting but I've pulled an excerpt regarding Maryland since they are in court with the ACC currently.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20140209/NE...the-corner
Quote:Terrapins' sweet deal evens out over time
Did the University of Maryland get a better deal from the Big Ten than Nebraska?
There seems little doubt Maryland will be receiving more money than NU, from the very start of its league entry this fall. But Big Ten officials maintain that the underlying principles of the two deals are the same.
In December 2012, the Big Ten announced Maryland and Rutgers as the league's 13th and 14th members.
Neither has much football history to speak of, each with a single conference championship over the past 25 years. However, the Big Ten hopes the schools will help the Big Ten Network make inroads into the lucrative New York and Baltimore-Washington TV markets — a significant expansion of the network's reach.
But to get Maryland, the Big Ten had to pay a price — apparently many millions more in league payouts than Nebraska is being paid.
Sports Illustrated and the Washington Post both report Maryland negotiated a front-loaded deal, with league money it would have received far in the future moved into the pact's first six years. The school will reportedly receive $32 million next year and $43 million by 2017.
It appears the school also had considerable leverage — arguably much more than Nebraska had two years earlier.
Maryland already was getting a reported $20 million a year from the Atlantic Coast Conference and had no reason to take less. It also couldn't afford to take less, as its strapped athletic department recently had to cut seven sports.
And Maryland faces a steep $52 million penalty for leaving the ACC, an issue that's currently in court. If the Big Ten really wanted Maryland, it was going to have to overcome that hurdle.
But Brad Traviolia, the Big Ten's deputy commissioner, said the Big Ten essentially followed the same template in its deals with Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland.
The Big Ten used the same six-year phase-in term. And all the deals attempt to hold schools harmless — that is, ensure that schools do not lose money compared with what they were receiving from their old leagues.
Because the schools were coming from different leagues, with varying levels of conference revenue, that required different hold harmless payments. It took only $14 million two years ago to hold Nebraska harmless when it left the Big 12.
Traviolia would not confirm that Maryland's deal was front-loaded. But he said he believed all three schools are treated equally over the long run.
It appears that even with the big penalty Maryland could face, the Big Ten's higher payouts over time compared with the ACC's turned the move into a financial winner for the school.
Less is known about Rutgers' deal. But its previous conference, the Big East, was self-destructing into a basketball-only league and reportedly paid the school less than $10 million. If the Big Ten indeed followed the same principles, Rutgers' phase-in payments would be smaller than Nebraska's.
In the end, NU Chancellor Harvey Perlman said he voted in favor of both Maryland's and Rutgers' entry into the Big Ten — doing so with full knowledge of the terms.
Said Perlman: “I have no concern that Nebraska was treated unfairly relative to Rutgers, relative to Maryland, or relative to where we would have been had we not gone into the league.''