(11-06-2025 10:33 PM)bullet Wrote: (11-06-2025 10:04 PM)JRsec Wrote: (11-06-2025 09:18 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote: (11-06-2025 06:09 PM)JRsec Wrote: (11-06-2025 01:38 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote: That bryanw, is a very germane point worth emphasizing. It is a high probability those conference Presidents may not all be on the same page as to if and when to expand, what schools to add, and how many. The politics in this process is not to be minimized. Sankey will recommend and ESPN will have their marketing specialist present a dog and pony show. Some eastern and some western SEC schools may not see matters the same way. The major SEC football powers, and those that are less prominent, may not view expansion and certain choices the same way.
The expressed views and rumors stemming from non-elite prediction and advocacy articles, as well as podcast clownish theatrics, that the SEC has already settled on at least three schools to add, and the fourth one will be a second North Carolina school or the University of Virginia. I am skeptical that the SEC discussion/decision making processes have advanced to that point whereby something real firm already exists.
That's just absolutely 100% wrong! When somebody shows interest in joining and talks begin the first thing that happens, in order to save time and embarrassment, is Sankey would get the approval or disapproval of the interested party from his presidents. If they are 3/4ths in support an application for membership is given to them. If they fill it out and return it when the legal teams are done with mutually hammering out the details on each other's revenue, projected payouts, and numerous other matters and the applicant wants to join they submit the application. The ceremonial vote of acceptance is held after the parties seeking to join have given proper notice to their former conference. That vote will be unanimous and only abstentions are allowed otherwise. It is the practice of the SEC to have no negative votes recorded when accepting a new member. Then their entry date is set, and the date of the press release announcing the move is set sometimes in accordance with the rules of the conference they are leaving.
This process with North Carolina began in July of 2021. I strongly suspect they have a formal application ready but not submitted, have completed legal work, signed the NDAs required, and are merely waiting to determine a date to leave. They have not joined until the formal application is received and the ceremonial vote held.
So there are no holdouts on the presidents, no wishy washy regrets, no sticks in the mud or any such nonsense to be dealt with. The SEC protocol on membership, and I've had to go over this in 1991 on another site and again in 2011 here, is designed so that if an interested party is rejected there is no official notice of application to turn down and no embarrassment of colleagues in the presidency at another university.
This whole line of discussion is B.S.!
Texas and Oklahoma had completed all of it but the submission of application, notice to their conference, and the ceremonial vote. Very seldom will anyone get that far and back out.
Once we have had our unanimouos vote and dates are set the kumbaya begins.
The whole process takes about 2 years. 2021 was 4 years ago. Hence the talk about handshake deals which is the press being cute with something where the work is finished and only the announcement remains.
Protocol is for the saving of everyone's reputation and to prevent any awkward situations. And conferences adhere to these kinds of protocols. News agencies and Networks do not. But they do adhere to legal etiquette.
If there were reservations about North Carolina and whoever they wanted as a travel companion that was worked out 4 years ago.
TLDR VERSION: If they get an application, they already have enough votes to get in. If they don't get an application, they don't. And they pretend they never were interested and we let them. That way they aren't embarrassed. Once they have an application legal matters and talks are held. This takes the better part of a year, sometimes longer. When they submit the application, they are essentially telling us they are joining. Then we hold a ceremonial unanimous vote (company policy no deviations) they set the date for a presser and it's done. If they back out at the last second (meaning they don't ever submit the application) then they were never formally invited, no vote was held and we save face.
Anything else anyone has to say about how this happens that doesn't include these steps is hooey.
It’s one thing to say that we are amenable to inviting UNC. It’s quite another to say that we would allow them to pick their own travel companion, especially in light of what we’ve seen the last 4 years. Any schools that join the SEC will be bc Auburn, A&M and our 14 closest friends want them, not bc UNC told us we had to add them. Any fears that UNC could somehow threaten to take UVA and Duke and join the B1G are overblown, before they even got the threat issued Sankey would put them on call block and start calling Clemson and Miami.
Nothing in that damn post had a thing to do with what you posted. You know damn little about the process involved in joining. That whole post was about why the way it is handled means no presidents are going to pitch a hissy fit. If 3/4ths of them vote to extend an application the school receiving it already has enough support to join if they fill it out and apply. It's a great system for universities because it is set up so that those rejected are not embarrassed publicly over it and if those given an application don't fill it out, nothing official happened.
If Duke is a part of this the presidents have already passed them. Ditto for Virginia. And Ditto for UNC or any other school. What's more is that all of this has likely already happened since the conversations, initiated by North Carolina started in 2021.
The whole debate going on here is very likely after the fact, and as I said we know something has been happening since 2021 which reached a crescendo at UNC July of 2024, three years after talks started. What we don't know is when, who else, and how many. But the process is the same every single time, and the timeline usually 2 to 3 years from start to finish.
I've dealt with the same crap from newbies every time we have a realignment. Presidents don't think or act like fans. There is no drama. And in the last 3 realignments it was only an Aggie that caused any because he couldn't keep his mouth shut and it wasn't your President.
And the only passion I've experienced here is in dealing with ignorance about the process and having to read the collective nonsense that's being prattled.
We will revisit this after this round is over. The SEC is interested in the two markets. Duke was acceptable in 2011. We'll see soon enough.
The SEC's TV contract was $205 million, or $17.1 million per school in 2011. Conference networks were the latest innovation. We are in a totally different world.
Says who Bullet? The conference networks are churning out a larger than suspected % of annual revenue per school. What we have today is a combination of everything that adds revenue, branding which usually equals an ability to draw eyes nationally, especially when pitted against another brand in that sport, markets, which while no longer payout based on total population, but rather for the actual number of viewers, they do still pay the sub fees for those conference networks which for the SEC and ACC can produce another 8 to 11 million per year since they payoff every month. And there is a desire by Sankey to dominate all revenue sports. It's just a matter of time before the basketball tourney is wrested from the NCAA. National brands will continue to matter in football and the SEC is rich with them, they will matter in basketball and the SEC has 1, the ACC 3, and the Big 12 1, and the CWS and WCWS will continue to pay off whether each school represented in the field is making revenue or not. In the SEC baseball is a revenue sport and Softball is at about a 1/3r to 1/2 of the schools.
The only payout which has ceased is the network cable subscription payout for populuation of a state. That's dead. But the model paid by subscriptions which are now mostly utilized by conference networks is still functioning. Advertising rates now are paid based upon actual viewers. And in the Southeast and Southwest we have the highest % of actual viewers to total possible viewers of anyone in the country. Hence it just means more.
Who can we possibly add outside of the Big Ten's top schools which will significantly improve the SEC's payout for football? Clemson and FSU are middle of the pack in attendance and revenue generated if placed in the SEC. You use ratings and place them higher but ratings are fickel. Attendance and revenue generated are more indicative of overall health. Outside of those two and the obvious Notre Dame there aren't any. The numbers are in the top section of the SEC board for attendance, revenue, and valuation.
The SEC can add signficantly to basketball with UNC, Duke, or Kansas. Virginia is purely a market grab by taking 1 school to reach 9 million people. Syracuse is the 5th all time winningest program that is the third in the ACC.
All factors are being weighed now, from viewers to the peak # of viewers, to the average length of viewing a particular contest thanks to smart TVs. It's natural that major corporations don't want to overpay for exposure.
For the markets don't matter folks I give you the Coast to Coast market strategy of the Big Ten seeking entry into as many large DMA's as possible. Their thinking is if you are going to reach the people you need something local with which to do it.
The SEC's philosophy is if we have a higher % of viewers to population than anywhere else in the country and enough national brands in football to keep a national audience without having to have a school in every region, then all we need to do to continue to our success is to simply draw in even more of our region.
What does the SEC lack? A presence in Virginia, a presence in North Carolina, a second school with a large draw in Florida, and if we want to generate more interest to the West, Kansas for Missouri and Oklahoma and in a more limited way for Texas basketball and they would work for Arkansas and A&M basketball as well.
That's it other than Clemson as a strong regional brand in football which made inroads nationally.
Who are we debating adding, and rather fervently here, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida State, Clemson, and Kansas.
Check out Miami's numbers, and I don't mean how many viewers when they started the season highly rated. I mean revenue generation and attendance and valuations.
Outside of Notre Dame those are the schools that bring in parts of the South the SEC doesn't currently reach, has national branding in a revenue sport, or which offer football solidly enough to be middle of the SEC, which is good and not a knock.
IMO, the only time a priority matters is if the moves are to two schools, or four schools. At six schools the drama is mostly gone.
But make no mistake, we get paid to reach markets, to max out verifiable viewership,
and provide games of national interest. Markets are not dead at all, just measured in and paid for in different ways.
Note: The ACCN and SECN operate from NET profits. ESPN gets 50% of the NET profit and the two conferences get the other 50% of the NET profits. That's mixed in with the T2 and T3 contracts and so you don't always get an easy read on what the T3 amounted to.
The BTN was 49% owned by the Big Ten schools and 51% owned by FOX. But theirs's was an equity stake and they could lose money though rewards were higher. They placed PUT and sold another 10% some years back relieving some of the downward stress from cord cutting. FOX bought that 10% and now holds 59% of it.
Both are still paying off and rather nicely. The ESPN model though now seems to be the safest.
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Where is the upside to SEC expansion?
