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RE: Landthieves' Redhawk: OU contact hears OU & UT crunching numbers with TV consu...
(10-02-2017 04:26 PM)murrdcu Wrote: Redhawk is a poster on landthieves and has posted stuff from his Oklahoma contact. Here is what he posted 9-14-17:
Quote:For some of you with contacts at OU, and hear rumors, I wonder if you can chime in on what I heard from my used to be very connected friend, who isn't as much.
He said, right now, OU along with Texas and some market TV consultants are running the math/numbers on a number of possible scenarios and many different conference configurations for the future. The timing they are looking at is after the Big 12 current TV deal (and Grant of Rights expire).
They are really looking at what the landscape of college football, could be, or should be in the near future, considering the decline of cable as we currently know it. One thing they seem to agree on, is the Big 12 schedule for home games for OU and Texas, isn't going to work (we don't play each other at home....obviously) and that is a big issue at both schools.
Options my friend mentioned, a few schools going to the PAC, a few going to the B1G, a lot of schools going to the PAC (almost a PAC/B12 merger) & a couple going to the B1G, scheduling arraignments with the PAC, the B1G, and/or the PAC AND the B1G. OU is the point group talking to the B1G, UT is point on the PAC, but that's just a matter of relationships, not where one side is leaning.
The few goals they have seemed to identify: More games with different teams in Norman and Austin and in college football in general, regular games between OU and Nebraska hopefully that have something on the line like a division championship (Regional Rivals...real rivalries sell tickets, breaking up those hurt both sides), make the Big Ten Network, and the PAC network, desirable as over the top add on subscriptions beyond their current footprint (they might get combined)...for example if you are a college football fan in Dallas, and you have cut the cable cord, they want that guy to want to pay $X a month to add those networks either al a cart or as a package add on to say basic Sling.
College football and how people consume media is going through a major restructuring. The folks in charge are really looking at how best to stay relevant and to keep money coming in with that changing landscape. Nothing is off the table, and creative, out of the box ideas are being looked at.
The SEC has a few hardcore supporters, but seems to have hardcore "never SEC" supporters as well. What my friend was saying was the landscape of college football would/could be very different than what we know today, but the folks in the athletic department are looking west and north.
And to get the fans pissed off, he said Nebraska isn't completely satisfied with what they have in the B1G, and neither is Missouri in the SEC. This seems to have OU and UT officials a pause in just running off and joining another conference, and since we have time, to look at many different combinations, some conventional, some very not. One option is OU, KU, Missouri, and Texas joining the Big Ten. 18 teams, 3 division so of 6 was one (of many) option. (Big Ten West: Texas, OU, Missouri, KU, Nebraska, Iowa)
Quote:Since my friend's connection was in the "SEC SEC SEC" camp, here's their thinking: OU is a football power. Our athletic budget is driven by football. Football ticket sales, donations to make sure you get tickets to the big football games fuels/pays for all of OU's Athletic Department. It trickles down to academic side, with football success being a direct correlation to how easy or hard it is to raise money for academics. The better the football team is doing, the more people donate all around including academic stuff (sad but true). So they look at the SEC and see the best football factory conference, and think that it will drive the entire university including, eventually and importantly, academics. Also, they see regional schools like LSU and Arkansas.....Arkansas gives in-state tuition to kids from the Tulsa area, so the SEC flag is planted in the Tulsa area, and the SEC sphere of influence is present. You can also see college football becoming more regionalized in the south, much like NASCAR. If you want to continue to make money off of college football like OU has for decades, the SEC is the one trending the right way.
Those against the SEC seem to really see the whole conference as dirty, and so dirty that it will taint every university that is associated with it as being dirty, or at best "just a football school" which are two images OU is trying real hard to leave behind.
The upside is OU's SEC folks were responsible for getting OU to re-do L. Dale Mitchell, which was inspired by Auburn's redo of their baseball stadium. (my friend on a "business trip" was one of the OU people to tour Auburn's baseball stadium while OU was planning the remodel)
Quote:1) I wouldn't say the SEC is off the table per say, the SEC does have it's supporters, it's just not the main focus or choice at the moment at OU. My contact is with a person in the the pro-SEC group, and I think the SEC is the fall back, if all else fails option.
2) Let's just say options with the B1G and PAC are the main focus
3) I think you mistook me. OU-UT in Dallas as far as I know is still the cornerstone of OU athletics...it's just that leaves a pretty dull home schedule for OU and Texas in the Big 12, and they want to figure out how to fix the home schedules, but moving OU-Texas to home and home not being one of the options.....I mean maybe they have run the numbers, but there would be a full revolt if that game went H/H. Dallas is a tradition...so much orbits around that weekend.
Quote:What if, OU (in the Big 12, and NU in the Big Ten still) counted towards the conference or division championship? Like an NFL style where an AFC vs NFC game still counts to the conference? There are a lot of different ways to get what everyone wants (more exciting home schedules, regional rivals, exposure of schools and conference in new areas) and do it creatively without just one or two schools changing conferences like has been done to this point.
The PAC/B1G past situation is a good point....something like this has been thought about before obviously.
http://www.landthieves.com/board/showthr...ers/page13
Redhawk's sources have never panned out, at least not yet. I believe he is a sincere poster and believes what he posts to be true. And I enjoy his posts. But like so many who know a booster or trustee they get a version always tainted by that persons' leanings.
It's simply a matter of due diligence for UT and OU to evaluate their value together to any network or conference. If it were Auburn and Alabama it would be the same. I promise you that by the time OU and UT make a move, if they make a move, everyone and I mean everyone will have had talks with them. In the end this will be a business decision. The talk about who they like and don't like and who cheats and who doesn't cheat is pure malarkey! Everyone of them has cheated, and at various times expressed like or hate for other conferences. It doesn't mean a damned thing when it comes to the bottom line. And while business decisions are not totally bottom line decisions the bottom line is the main determining factor and the other factors are ancillary.
In the end it will be who pays them the most, how many of their buddies they get to keep on their schedules, and probably what sells the best to the local state legislature. That's why the SEC will always be in the running. We are the most valuable conference by 2.5 billion dollars. Our schools out earn our closest competitor (B1G) by 16 million a year per school average more. We have two of their old rivals, and I promise you if we take Tech and Okie State to get OU and UT it will be as close to a slam dunk deal as we could ever offer. At that point walking away leaves them political trouble, earns them less, matches their minor sports the least, and increases their overhead in travel more, and affords their fans less familiar faces to play.
Now smoke that over and tell me where I'm wrong?
But, if they don't move as a pair then anything is possible. It is possible that the SEC only lands 1 of them, or if we get neither we find ways to get what we want anyway.
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