(01-23-2020 02:48 PM)CoastalJuan Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 12:57 PM)B easy Wrote:  Without looking into the details it appears that this suit lacks ripeness to even be heard by the court since there is no damage to compensate for at this time.

In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripeness

False. The suit also says that the MW denied Boise's right to refuse the FOX deal in December of 2019. That would be a past event that they are requesting relief. Additionally, the suite alleges that the MW membership also took a vote (past tense) which passed, compelling an end date to the for the Boise special deal in 2026 (a vote to unilaterally end the Boise special deal is expressly prohibited in the Boise term sheet).

He's absolutely correct on your last part. No real action has happened yet so they have no grounds for a suit on what may or may not happen in 6 years.

Boise seems to be claiming they can veto, not only their home game deal, but also their road game deal and that they never approved either or that they did approve them but didn't know material facts. From the press releases, it appears they did approve both. And common sense says they don't have veto power on the road game part. So probably the only issue is whether "material" facts were withheld from them.

Seems like they are blowing a lot of hot air and made this unneccesarily public. Basically threatening the other MWC presidents was a really bad move when you have to "live" with them.

The suit alleges that Boise voted against the (December 2019) TV deal, and their re-entry agreement says that they have to bless the separate marketing of their football games. Seems simple enough. The MWC will either have to start shopping media all over again (because the agreement could technically be voided), kick Boise some extra love, or let Boise walk...and still have to shop their media rights all over again.

My gut says the conference kicks them a little more on their guaranteed payment to shut this down. Just a guess.

I haven't read the re-entry deal, just snippets from what people have posted here. But where does it say it has veto power over sale of its road games? It never owned the rights to its road games. There's nothing simple about claiming to have rights over the property (home games) of other schools.

(01-23-2020 02:48 PM)CoastalJuan Wrote:  The suit alleges that Boise voted against the (December 2019) TV deal, and their re-entry agreement says that they have to bless the separate marketing of their football games. Seems simple enough. The MWC will either have to start shopping media all over again (because the agreement could technically be voided), kick Boise some extra love, or let Boise walk...and still have to shop their media rights all over again.

My gut says the conference kicks them a little more on their guaranteed payment to shut this down. Just a guess.

That's why I said the key issue is whether the MW has a piece of paper with Boise's agreement to the new deal. If they can produce that, they win, if they can't, then they will have to mollify Boise otherwise there is no deal.

Like you, I expect that in the next few weeks an agreement will be hammered out behind closed doors. I'd say 85% chance that happens, 15% chance it doesn't and they actually do go to court, possibly with Boise seeking to leave the conference and avoid paying exit fees, etc. A bloody mess.

(01-23-2020 03:05 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:48 PM)CoastalJuan Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 12:57 PM)B easy Wrote:  Without looking into the details it appears that this suit lacks ripeness to even be heard by the court since there is no damage to compensate for at this time.

In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripeness

False. The suit also says that the MW denied Boise's right to refuse the FOX deal in December of 2019. That would be a past event that they are requesting relief. Additionally, the suite alleges that the MW membership also took a vote (past tense) which passed, compelling an end date to the for the Boise special deal in 2026 (a vote to unilaterally end the Boise special deal is expressly prohibited in the Boise term sheet).

He's absolutely correct on your last part. No real action has happened yet so they have no grounds for a suit on what may or may not happen in 6 years.

Boise seems to be claiming they can veto, not only their home game deal, but also their road game deal and that they never approved either or that they did approve them but didn't know material facts. From the press releases, it appears they did approve both. And common sense says they don't have veto power on the road game part. So probably the only issue is whether "material" facts were withheld from them.

Seems like they are blowing a lot of hot air and made this unneccesarily public. Basically threatening the other MWC presidents was a really bad move when you have to "live" with them.

The suit alleges that Boise voted against the (December 2019) TV deal, and their re-entry agreement says that they have to bless the separate marketing of their football games. Seems simple enough. The MWC will either have to start shopping media all over again (because the agreement could technically be voided), kick Boise some extra love, or let Boise walk...and still have to shop their media rights all over again.

My gut says the conference kicks them a little more on their guaranteed payment to shut this down. Just a guess.

I haven't read the re-entry deal, just snippets from what people have posted here. But where does it say it has veto power over sale of its road games? It never owned the rights to its road games. There's nothing simple about claiming to have rights over the property (home games) of other schools.

I obviously haven't seen the new media contract, but it's been reported that CBS and Fox split the inventory evenly, with Boise's home games on Fox. It's possible that two separate contracts were drawn up with Fox. If, however, Boise games were separately negotiated but not separately contracted (i.e. there is a single contract with Fox that includes both Boise home games and about half of the entire MWC inventory), it seems like the entire contract with Fox would be null and void if it's determined that there was a breach of the re-entry agreement.

1 thing to just note....

The AAC schedule with specific dates has not been released for 20 season....

Temple joined the Big East back in 2012 on March 7. So that's 44 days from now.... Just for a time frame.

At this point I’d like to see the MWC vote to expel Boise just to rid themselves of the drama.

(01-23-2020 03:28 PM)stever20 Wrote:  1 thing to just note....

The AAC schedule with specific dates has not been released for 20 season....

Temple joined the Big East back in 2012 on March 7. So that's 44 days from now.... Just for a time frame.

Well its the week of the NCAA convention, so people can meet easily....

Reminds me how BSU was trying to say how the bonus applied to all games and not only MW controlled games this first year of the term sheet. BSU lost that argument because it would wipe out the ESPN $$ and dip into the CBS payout.

Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

It would appear that Boise State needs the Mountain West almost as much as the MWC needs Boise State. They need to find a compromise. In another thread, before this suit was filed, I suggested one, which I have tweaked here. It's complicated, but I'm not sure there is a simple solution here.

With ESPN's help and encouragement, Boise and SDSU both go independent for football, and negotiate a Notre Dame type deal with the MWC in which both agree to play five MWC opponents a year in exchange for being allowed to keep their other sports in the league.

Those two then join forces with BYU to jointly negotiate a conference-like TV contract with ESPN at roughly $10 million a year each. ESPN gives the MWC a deal for $30 million or so a year. I'm assuming here that the MWC's deal with CBS/Fox is no longer valid, and they are unwilling to match ESPN's offer.

Boise, SDSU and BYU all agree to play every year at Hawaii, thus giving them each the right to play a Week Zero game. They use this opportunity to sign a deal with the PAC whereby each gets two games with a PAC opponent each year - one home and one away, one of them in Week Zero. Now the MWC and PAC have a lock on Week Zero eyeballs.

And the trio has 9 games scheduled every year due to the Hawaii Rule - 5 vs MWC (including Hawaii), 2 vs PAC and 2 vs each other, with four games still available for quality opponents or buy games.

The MWC still gets the home games against the trio to sweeten their TV package. That's a lot of negotiating, but at least there's something in it for everybody.

(01-23-2020 05:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

That would be a purely monetary calculation.

As far as reputation, though: Even if the MWC without Boise State had twice as much TV money per school as the MAC, that would not necessarily mean that sports media and fans view MWC football as better than MAC football.

(01-23-2020 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 12:57 PM)B easy Wrote:  Without looking into the details it appears that this suit lacks ripeness to even be heard by the court since there is no damage to compensate for at this time.

In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripeness

False. The suit also says that the MW denied Boise's right to refuse the FOX deal in December of 2019. That would be a past event that they are requesting relief. Additionally, the suite alleges that the MW membership also took a vote (past tense) which passed, compelling an end date to the for the Boise special deal in 2026 (a vote to unilaterally end the Boise special deal is expressly prohibited in the Boise term sheet).

He's absolutely correct on your last part. No real action has happened yet so they have no grounds for a suit on what may or may not happen in 6 years.

Boise seems to be claiming they can veto, not only their home game deal, but also their road game deal and that they never approved either or that they did approve them but didn't know material facts. From the press releases, it appears they did approve both. And common sense says they don't have veto power on the road game part. So probably the only issue is whether "material" facts were withheld from them.

Seems like they are blowing a lot of hot air and made this unneccesarily public. Basically threatening the other MWC presidents was a really bad move when you have to "live" with them.

Here is quote from BSU rep about the new TV deal.

”ESPN has been a great partner of Boise State – and the Mountain West – for a long time, and we had some hesitation about moving away from that relationship. However, the terms and value offered to the Mountain West by FOX were better. We feel that our new partner is committed to helping Boise State continue to grow our brand and raise our institutional profile across the nation.”

https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/natio...0be77.html

(01-22-2020 03:12 PM)f1do Wrote:  Craig Thompson and the MWCs shadiness is going to bite them in the butt on this one. Allegedly he met with BSU and gave the impression that BSU would not only get to keep their bonus, but would get a proportional increase with the new deal. Then does a complete 180...

Boise State alleges that:
- The Re-Entry Agreement as amended...is a valid and enforceable contract that does not contain a set term limit.
- The Re-Entry Agreement expressly requires that the television rights to Boise State's home football games are to be sold as a separate package and, more importantly, that "Boise State and [the] MWC must mutually agree to whom such Boise State home football game rights are licensed and to the material terms of such license. . . ." (Ex. I, fl 3 .)
- The MWC materially breached the Re-Entry Agreement when it entered into the CBS/Fox agreement, which encompassed the television rights to Boise State's home football games, without Boise State's fully informed consent to its material terms.
- Although the MWC is still paying the $1.8 million bonus explicitly required by this contract, it inexplicably and improperly elected to cease such payments in six years. By electing to do so, again without Boise State's consent, and despite the fact the Re-Entry Agreement as amended by the Re-Entry Agreement Amendment does not have a termination date, the MWC anticipatorily repudiated one of the material obligations it owes to Boise State under that contract.

BYU knows these kind of dealings all too well (rebroadcast and 3rd tier TV rights for BYU games which were not picked up by TV partners)...which contributed to their departure from the conference.

Lets be real, BYU left because Utah went to the Pac-12.

(01-23-2020 06:18 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 12:57 PM)B easy Wrote:  Without looking into the details it appears that this suit lacks ripeness to even be heard by the court since there is no damage to compensate for at this time.

In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripeness

False. The suit also says that the MW denied Boise's right to refuse the FOX deal in December of 2019. That would be a past event that they are requesting relief. Additionally, the suite alleges that the MW membership also took a vote (past tense) which passed, compelling an end date to the for the Boise special deal in 2026 (a vote to unilaterally end the Boise special deal is expressly prohibited in the Boise term sheet).

He's absolutely correct on your last part. No real action has happened yet so they have no grounds for a suit on what may or may not happen in 6 years.

Boise seems to be claiming they can veto, not only their home game deal, but also their road game deal and that they never approved either or that they did approve them but didn't know material facts. From the press releases, it appears they did approve both. And common sense says they don't have veto power on the road game part. So probably the only issue is whether "material" facts were withheld from them.

Seems like they are blowing a lot of hot air and made this unneccesarily public. Basically threatening the other MWC presidents was a really bad move when you have to "live" with them.

Here is quote from BSU rep about the new TV deal.

”ESPN has been a great partner of Boise State – and the Mountain West – for a long time, and we had some hesitation about moving away from that relationship. However, the terms and value offered to the Mountain West by FOX were better. We feel that our new partner is committed to helping Boise State continue to grow our brand and raise our institutional profile across the nation.”

https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/natio...0be77.html

That statement, describing FOX as their "new partner" seems to imply that Boise did agree to the TV deal that was negotiated on their behalf by the MWC.

If so, they really don't have any grounds for their complaint, as the MWC vote to end paying them the bonus in 2025 seems irrelevant until the MWC actually misses a payment.

(01-23-2020 05:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

That calculation does not take into account how much ESPN values now losing all of Boise's content. Do they value it enough to increase the AAC's contract with them in the league enough to make it make financial sense? ESPN has shown in the past they are plenty comfortable stealing properties from leagues they are losing and shifting them to leagues they own, so this would be right in line with the ESPN playbook. The question is do they care about losing all of Boise's games that much?

(01-24-2020 10:56 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 05:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

That calculation does not take into account how much ESPN values now losing all of Boise's content. Do they value it enough to increase the AAC's contract with them in the league enough to make it make financial sense? ESPN has shown in the past they are plenty comfortable stealing properties from leagues they are losing and shifting them to leagues they own, so this would be right in line with the ESPN playbook. The question is do they care about losing all of Boise's games that much?

Or the other thing would be to not reduce the AAC contract at all with UConn leaving....

I could see ESPN paying what they were going to pay with Boise in place of UConn. Probably would require the AAC to get a basketball replacement for UConn(like VCU).

(01-24-2020 11:01 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 10:56 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 05:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

That calculation does not take into account how much ESPN values now losing all of Boise's content. Do they value it enough to increase the AAC's contract with them in the league enough to make it make financial sense? ESPN has shown in the past they are plenty comfortable stealing properties from leagues they are losing and shifting them to leagues they own, so this would be right in line with the ESPN playbook. The question is do they care about losing all of Boise's games that much?

Or the other thing would be to not reduce the AAC contract at all with UConn leaving....

I could see ESPN paying what they were going to pay with Boise in place of UConn. Probably would require the AAC to get a basketball replacement for UConn(like VCU).

I don't think leaving it as is would be enough to get Boise to move. A FB only share for Boise of the current deal would probably be pretty similar to what they will be getting from the MWC in their new TV deal with the bonus.

(01-24-2020 11:15 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 11:01 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 10:56 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 05:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

That calculation does not take into account how much ESPN values now losing all of Boise's content. Do they value it enough to increase the AAC's contract with them in the league enough to make it make financial sense? ESPN has shown in the past they are plenty comfortable stealing properties from leagues they are losing and shifting them to leagues they own, so this would be right in line with the ESPN playbook. The question is do they care about losing all of Boise's games that much?

Or the other thing would be to not reduce the AAC contract at all with UConn leaving....

I could see ESPN paying what they were going to pay with Boise in place of UConn. Probably would require the AAC to get a basketball replacement for UConn(like VCU).

I don't think leaving it as is would be enough to get Boise to move. A FB only share for Boise of the current deal would probably be pretty similar to what they will be getting from the MWC in their new TV deal with the bonus.

I don't see ESPN upping the new AAC contract on a per-school basis any to get Boise. Yes, ESPN likes to poach properties, but they also like to do so at a low-ball price.

As for Boise, a solid $7m a year might be enough to get them to move, because at this point I don't think the issue with the MW is strictly about money, there is also now an animosity/disrespect factor at play. IOW's, egos are involved and that can trump money. Plus, I don't think the MW money was going to be as good for them anyway even with their bonus.

There are a lot of moving parts here and it is possible that Boise ends up in the AAC. I am just not sure the AAC should want Boise even if they want to come. Boise brings a lot of baggage and is a very poor geographical and even cultural fit, even for a conference that is scattered on both counts.

(01-24-2020 10:56 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 05:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back when Boise State was Big East bound, their president who is no poker face, had told numerous people within the intercollegiate athletics community that Boise State had to make $4 million more in Big East than MWC for the deal to make financial sense.

My sense of the situation is MWC has done the math and has concluded Boise State cannot leave MWC and be in a better economic situation unless they get a P5. Maybe the math sort of works out if WCC would invite them but WCC showed no such inclination last time and they were going to subsidize Big West to take them.

I think MWC's membership has concluded that they end up no worse off if Boise State leaves as long as the Broncos are getting favored nation status, they were probably within a few dollars (in athletic budget terms) of exactly the same place in a contract without Boise State vs a contract with Boise State that gives the Broncos extra money. Therefore they are more than willing to put the Broncos on notice that they need to leave or accept being equal partners.

That calculation does not take into account how much ESPN values now losing all of Boise's content. Do they value it enough to increase the AAC's contract with them in the league enough to make it make financial sense? ESPN has shown in the past they are plenty comfortable stealing properties from leagues they are losing and shifting them to leagues they own, so this would be right in line with the ESPN playbook. The question is do they care about losing all of Boise's games that much?

Doubt it if ArkStfan is correct. The MW special deal will pay Boise about 5.8 million. An AAC “football only” deal will pay Boise 4.9 million with a full share of media income from the WWC/BigSky/Big West to add to it, I don’t think the media deal for any of those Olympic sports entities is significant.

In short, the AAC would have to get a raise of about a million and Boise would have to join as a full all-sports member to generate the 4 million dollar differential ArkStfan described as necessary to make the deal work. That would require ESPN paying the AAC UConns full share and an additional 12 million to get the Boise content. Seems unlikely...unless the AAC is willing to carve out some sort of special deal for Boise....which seems like a bad idea based on the MW experience.

(01-23-2020 07:13 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 06:18 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 12:57 PM)B easy Wrote:  Without looking into the details it appears that this suit lacks ripeness to even be heard by the court since there is no damage to compensate for at this time.

In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripeness

False. The suit also says that the MW denied Boise's right to refuse the FOX deal in December of 2019. That would be a past event that they are requesting relief. Additionally, the suite alleges that the MW membership also took a vote (past tense) which passed, compelling an end date to the for the Boise special deal in 2026 (a vote to unilaterally end the Boise special deal is expressly prohibited in the Boise term sheet).

He's absolutely correct on your last part. No real action has happened yet so they have no grounds for a suit on what may or may not happen in 6 years.

Boise seems to be claiming they can veto, not only their home game deal, but also their road game deal and that they never approved either or that they did approve them but didn't know material facts. From the press releases, it appears they did approve both. And common sense says they don't have veto power on the road game part. So probably the only issue is whether "material" facts were withheld from them.

Seems like they are blowing a lot of hot air and made this unneccesarily public. Basically threatening the other MWC presidents was a really bad move when you have to "live" with them.

Here is quote from BSU rep about the new TV deal.

”ESPN has been a great partner of Boise State – and the Mountain West – for a long time, and we had some hesitation about moving away from that relationship. However, the terms and value offered to the Mountain West by FOX were better. We feel that our new partner is committed to helping Boise State continue to grow our brand and raise our institutional profile across the nation.”

https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/natio...0be77.html

That statement, describing FOX as their "new partner" seems to imply that Boise did agree to the TV deal that was negotiated on their behalf by the MWC.

If so, they really don't have any grounds for their complaint, as the MWC vote to end paying them the bonus in 2025 seems irrelevant until the MWC actually misses a payment.

For all we know that quote was created by a low level athletic department communications official when the expectation was that the MW would forward over the relevant info on the deal and, if it contained what they were being told, Boise would then sign off. They never sent the info—or they did—-and the deal didn’t match the promises.

Here is what I think is really going on. Boise never accepted the deal. The law suit spells out the particulars and you can see the Boise strategy if you read between the lines. The Boise strategy was to delay acceptance, using their contract veto power as a lever to force the MW to bump up their bonus to reflect the proportional increase in the new deal. When the MW accepted the deal without Boise consent, they took away Boise’s leverage—but in doing so—violated the Boise term sheet agreement.

Unless the MW can produce a signature showing that Boise signed off on the deal, then the MW clearly violated the agreement and will lose in court. Thus, this will be settled with the MW issuing a statement that the Boise bonus is increasing to “X” (that’s negotiable and will likely be less than the proportional increase Boise wants) and that the “Boise bonus” is a permanent fixture in the leagues media structure which can only be altered or eliminated by mutual agreement of both parties. Boise will probably make moving noises right up to the time that the bluff turns real—-which is the exact moment the MW will fold and give Boise most all of what they want. That’s been the pattern in the past.

I think the end result is Boise doesn’t move, but sets up a landscape in which it’s possible for the AAC to pick off an unhappy eastern member of the MW as an all sports addition (or possibly AF as a football only)l. I don’t think the math works for Boise. It does for certain other members.

(01-24-2020 11:34 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 07:13 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 06:18 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 02:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  False. The suit also says that the MW denied Boise's right to refuse the FOX deal in December of 2019. That would be a past event that they are requesting relief. Additionally, the suite alleges that the MW membership also took a vote (past tense) which passed, compelling an end date to the for the Boise special deal in 2026 (a vote to unilaterally end the Boise special deal is expressly prohibited in the Boise term sheet).

He's absolutely correct on your last part. No real action has happened yet so they have no grounds for a suit on what may or may not happen in 6 years.

Boise seems to be claiming they can veto, not only their home game deal, but also their road game deal and that they never approved either or that they did approve them but didn't know material facts. From the press releases, it appears they did approve both. And common sense says they don't have veto power on the road game part. So probably the only issue is whether "material" facts were withheld from them.

Seems like they are blowing a lot of hot air and made this unneccesarily public. Basically threatening the other MWC presidents was a really bad move when you have to "live" with them.

Here is quote from BSU rep about the new TV deal.

”ESPN has been a great partner of Boise State – and the Mountain West – for a long time, and we had some hesitation about moving away from that relationship. However, the terms and value offered to the Mountain West by FOX were better. We feel that our new partner is committed to helping Boise State continue to grow our brand and raise our institutional profile across the nation.”

https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/natio...0be77.html

That statement, describing FOX as their "new partner" seems to imply that Boise did agree to the TV deal that was negotiated on their behalf by the MWC.

If so, they really don't have any grounds for their complaint, as the MWC vote to end paying them the bonus in 2025 seems irrelevant until the MWC actually misses a payment.

For all we know that quote was created by a low level athletic department communications official when the expectation was that the MW would forward over the relevant info on the deal and, if it contained what they were being told, Boise would then sign off. They never sent the info—or they did—-and the deal didn’t match the promises.

Here is what I think is really going on. Boise never accepted the deal. The law suit spells out the particulars and you can see the Boise strategy if you read between the lines. The Boise strategy was to delay acceptance, using their contract veto power as a lever to force the MW to bump up their bonus to reflect the proportional increase in the new deal. When the MW accepted the deal without Boise consent, they took away Boise’s leverage—but in doing so—violated the Boise term sheet agreement.

Unless the MW can produce a signature showing that Boise signed off on the deal, then the MW clearly violated the agreement and will lose in court. Thus, this will be settled with the MW issuing a statement that the Boise bonus is increasing to “X” (that’s negotiable and will likely be less than the proportional increase Boise wants) and that the “Boise bonus” is a permanent fixture in the leagues media structure which can only be altered or eliminated by mutual agreement of both parties. Boise will probably make moving noises right up to the time that the bluff turns real—-which is the exact moment the MW will fold and give Boise most all of what they want. That’s been the pattern in the past.

I think the end result is Boise doesn’t move, but sets up a landscape in which it’s possible for the AAC to pick off an unhappy eastern member of the MW as an all sports addition (or possibly AF as a football only)l. I don’t think the math works for Boise. It does for certain other members.

Yes, as I said far back in the thread, the onus is on the MW to produce evidence that Boise signed off on their segment of the deal.

But I suspect they have that evidence. The MW commissioner doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who wouldn't know something basic like Boise having to agree to their portion of the deal, and wouldn't make a statement announcing the deal unless the deal really was done in all respects. I suspect Boise screwed up and agreed to the deal without having made sure they were getting a bigger bonus. The complaint is about trying to undo that mistake and get the bigger bonus. IMO that's why there is fuzzy language in the complaint about Boise not being given all the specifics and MW officials not following through on alleged pledges to get the Board to agree to a bonus increase. That strikes me as Boise trying to say there was bad faith on the part of the MW and therefore the deal is invalid.

One thing that makes me think that is that Boise's ire wasn't triggered until the MW commissioner made that statement about ending the $1.8m bonus in 2026. IIRC Boise publicly objected to that, not the real issue, the enhanced bonus. I bet they were stewing over not getting a bigger bonus to begin with, but they were going to eat that, but this public announcement about ending it entirely was too much for their ego. That's when they replied. All the public talk was about ending the $1.8m in 2026 - and that is purely ego related, as it has zero to do with dollars now or even the next five years. The real issue that is in play now is the Boise desire for a boost to their bonus.

That said, like you, I think what is most likely to happen is that a deal is being hammered out, probably as we speak, and that deal will come to fruition, with Boise remaining in the MW but also getting a boost on that $1.8m bonus.

But I am not sure that will happen. It's possible that an impasse could be reached, there does seem to be some evidence that the other MW members are fed up with escalating Boise demands, and the public nature of the spat has now created a "loss of face" situation for both sides, which tends to harden everyone's position. Kind of like how AAC officials bristled at the notion of UConn keeping their football in the AAC after announcing they were leaving for the Big East.

If that happens then it could get very messy and who knows what the result will be and where Boise will end up.

We shall see.