Be careful, you make it sound like we are all for profit entities! Next comes paying federal income taxes.

(04-26-2011 08:23 PM)CatsClaw Wrote:  Great post cuse I agree. I know mercenaries think that schools should be available for "better offers", but this is a great chance to move ourselves up the food chain in athletics. Get a monster TV deal which is similar to the ACC's giving us a powerful protection against raids (remember, the SEC admitted that they backed off of the ACC because they couldn't afford to pluck any schools because of the new TV deal). As cuse mentions we would be making around 20 million per year per school with the potential for starting out own network. The Big East should be making sure that ESPN knows that if they want this conglomerate to stick together pay us enough money to expand the football schools to 12 and make 14 to 15 million per year, that way we can sign a binding pact with the basketball schools and everybody has the best of both worlds. ESPN has their basketball commodity and access to Houston, Orlando and whatever else, we won't have to force Nova to move up allowing us to add someone like ECU, and Notre Dame get to keep Independence and ESPN might have access to them. The pieces are already in place, we would improve football, and we have improved academics by adding another powerful academic university to go with the basketball schools, Notre Dame, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn and Cincinnati. Maybe we can out our own academic consortium going for the entire conference or hook up with an existing consortium. Win-win, and all ESPN has to do is shell out the money, and they have PLENTY of money.

First, there is nothing athletics related that is preventing this from happening. Second, the schools in the conference are too diverse for something like this to work effectively in the first place. Plenty of schools would try their best to use Pitt for research; however Pitt would most likely only be able to gain benefits from Rutgers and UCONN. Syracuse does hardly anything in research...

Syracuse doesn't research(Wow)Coming from a Pitt fan that's harsh. Your in a metropolitan yet your arena seats less than 12,000. the difference is we have over 230,000 alumni Alive. If we wanted anything it's in reach.

(04-26-2011 10:41 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(04-26-2011 08:23 PM)CatsClaw Wrote:  Great post cuse I agree. I know mercenaries think that schools should be available for "better offers", but this is a great chance to move ourselves up the food chain in athletics. Get a monster TV deal which is similar to the ACC's giving us a powerful protection against raids (remember, the SEC admitted that they backed off of the ACC because they couldn't afford to pluck any schools because of the new TV deal). As cuse mentions we would be making around 20 million per year per school with the potential for starting out own network. The Big East should be making sure that ESPN knows that if they want this conglomerate to stick together pay us enough money to expand the football schools to 12 and make 14 to 15 million per year, that way we can sign a binding pact with the basketball schools and everybody has the best of both worlds. ESPN has their basketball commodity and access to Houston, Orlando and whatever else, we won't have to force Nova to move up allowing us to add someone like ECU, and Notre Dame get to keep Independence and ESPN might have access to them. The pieces are already in place, we would improve football, and we have improved academics by adding another powerful academic university to go with the basketball schools, Notre Dame, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn and Cincinnati. Maybe we can out our own academic consortium going for the entire conference or hook up with an existing consortium. Win-win, and all ESPN has to do is shell out the money, and they have PLENTY of money.

First, there is nothing athletics related that is preventing this from happening. Second, the schools in the conference are too diverse for something like this to work effectively in the first place. Plenty of schools would try their best to use Pitt for research; however Pitt would most likely only be able to gain benefits from Rutgers and UCONN. Syracuse does hardly anything in research...

Agreed. SU doesn't do anywhere near the amount of research of Pitt, Rutgers, or Cincinnati. But to your other point...

Diversity is what the federal government is looking for in terms of research now. Building coalitions of educational institutions, private corporations, state and local governments, etc.

This is where Syracuse University leaves Pitt in the dust.

Cheers,
Neil

(04-26-2011 11:36 PM)omnicarrier Wrote:  

(04-26-2011 10:41 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(04-26-2011 08:23 PM)CatsClaw Wrote:  Great post cuse I agree. I know mercenaries think that schools should be available for "better offers", but this is a great chance to move ourselves up the food chain in athletics. Get a monster TV deal which is similar to the ACC's giving us a powerful protection against raids (remember, the SEC admitted that they backed off of the ACC because they couldn't afford to pluck any schools because of the new TV deal). As cuse mentions we would be making around 20 million per year per school with the potential for starting out own network. The Big East should be making sure that ESPN knows that if they want this conglomerate to stick together pay us enough money to expand the football schools to 12 and make 14 to 15 million per year, that way we can sign a binding pact with the basketball schools and everybody has the best of both worlds. ESPN has their basketball commodity and access to Houston, Orlando and whatever else, we won't have to force Nova to move up allowing us to add someone like ECU, and Notre Dame get to keep Independence and ESPN might have access to them. The pieces are already in place, we would improve football, and we have improved academics by adding another powerful academic university to go with the basketball schools, Notre Dame, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn and Cincinnati. Maybe we can out our own academic consortium going for the entire conference or hook up with an existing consortium. Win-win, and all ESPN has to do is shell out the money, and they have PLENTY of money.

First, there is nothing athletics related that is preventing this from happening. Second, the schools in the conference are too diverse for something like this to work effectively in the first place. Plenty of schools would try their best to use Pitt for research; however Pitt would most likely only be able to gain benefits from Rutgers and UCONN. Syracuse does hardly anything in research...

Agreed. SU doesn't do anywhere near the amount of research of Pitt, Rutgers, or Cincinnati. But to your other point...

Diversity is what the federal government is looking for in terms of research now. Building coalitions of educational institutions, private corporations, state and local governments, etc.

This is where Syracuse University leaves Pitt in the dust.

Cheers,
Neil

Based on the numbers available through the NSF, Health Institutes, etc, research did not appear to be what Syracuse was striving to do. I'm not saying that Syracuse can't build up its research presence, merely that it is not currently striving for it at this time.

I puzzled by your statement on diversity. I know that Pitt, Rutgers and UCONN strive for all sorts of partnership groups in a wide variety of research projects that go beyond schools as well. I thought that is what every school does.

(04-26-2011 11:28 PM)CuSeToWn003 Wrote:  Syracuse doesn't research(Wow)Coming from a Pitt fan that's harsh. Your in a metropolitan yet your arena seats less than 12,000. the difference is we have over 230,000 alumni Alive. If we wanted anything it's in reach.

What do BB arenas have to do with what what I posted?

(04-26-2011 08:23 PM)CatsClaw Wrote:  Great post cuse I agree. I know mercenaries think that schools should be available for "better offers", but this is a great chance to move ourselves up the food chain in athletics. Get a monster TV deal which is similar to the ACC's giving us a powerful protection against raids

It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

And who is against signing a "monster" TV deal? Everyone wants one. The trick is becoming valuable enough to warrant it.

(04-27-2011 07:33 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-26-2011 08:23 PM)CatsClaw Wrote:  Great post cuse I agree. I know mercenaries think that schools should be available for "better offers", but this is a great chance to move ourselves up the food chain in athletics. Get a monster TV deal which is similar to the ACC's giving us a powerful protection against raids

It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

It is when you're a fan of the Big East football school least likely to land in a BCS conference if massive conference expansion ever took place.

(04-26-2011 03:04 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  That is some very interesting news Matt. For those here who disagree that your school should sign such an agreement, your school may not have any choice if they want to recieve a big tv deal. The network, whoever that is, has to protect itself and likely will ad specific language to do so, that member schools will have to accept. Its not about just looking out for numero uno. If the network demands a commitment from the member schools to protect their investment, the member schools will have to acquiese.

Did ESPN/CBS demand that of the SEC? Did ESPN demand it from the ACC? If so, it seems to be a deep secret. I wonder why they didn't?

Quote:Being in the BE involves contracts that details what is expected of each program. Programs should reasonably be able to live up to those expectations. If a school leaves the BE which may cause its tv deals to be reduced

Now you've answered my question: The reason networks do NOT demand huge exit fees, is because they have an easy solution to the problem of teams exiting - they can reduce the rights fees in the TV deal accordingly.

So what's happened here is that your argument has slipped from describing why TV networks would demand large exit fees (to allegedly protect their investment), to describing why a conference would want a large exit fee (to protect the conference, the other member schools, from losses if a given school leaves).

Problem with the latter is that each of these schools wants to do what is best for itself (quite naturally!) and since they generally want to keep their options open, they won't vote for that.

Or to be more specific: the only schools with an interest in voting for a large exit fee are the "runts" of the litter, the schools that bring in less value to the conference. Because in effect, they know that their current conference payout is subsidized by the stronger members, and also because as runts, they aren't going to be head-hunted by other conferences.

E.g., in the Big East of 2004, Miami (a program in demand by another conference) subsidized schools like Uconn (Uconn admitted as much in their lawsuit, in which they said they made big investments in football facilities on the belief that a high-profile program like Miami would be in their conference bringing in the big dollars to pay for it), so Uconn favored policies that would tie Miami to the conference.

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:33 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Quote:It is when you're a fan of the Big East football school least likely to land in a BCS conference if massive conference expansion ever took place.

This makes little sense. It's in the interest of weaker schools, the ones less likely to land in other BCS conferences in the event of massive expansion/reorganization, to want huge exit fees. Because these schools contribute less to the value of the conference, and thus get more revenue from the current conference than they contribute. Since in effect they are subsidized by the stronger members, they are the ones with an interest in keeping that good (for them) deal going ...

(04-27-2011 07:55 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:33 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Quote:It is when you're a fan of the Big East football school least likely to land in a BCS conference if massive conference expansion ever took place.

This makes little sense. It's in the interest of weaker schools, the ones less likely to land in other BCS conferences in the event of massive expansion/reorganization, to want huge exit fees. Because these schools contribute less to the value of the conference, and thus get more revenue from the current conference than they contribute. Since in effect they are subsidized by the stronger members, they are the ones with an interest in keeping that good (for them) deal going ...

Ummm...yes. That's basically what I implied. CatsClaw is a Cincinnati fan. They are the Big East program least likely to end up in a stronger position if superconferences ever come about. Of course he is for higher exit fees and considers those schools "mercenaries" that may have a possibility at joining a better conference somewhere down the line.

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Isn't that the very definition of mercenary? I don't take that word in a negative way at all. I'd be disappointed if UC wasn't mercenary.

(04-27-2011 08:11 AM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Isn't that the very definition of mercenary? I don't take that word in a negative way at all. I'd be disappointed if UC wasn't mercenary.

To me, 'mercenary' has negative connotations. As in the dictionary definition:

"Primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics."

And it's clear CatsClaw meant it to have negative connotations.

(04-27-2011 08:05 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:55 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:33 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Quote:It is when you're a fan of the Big East football school least likely to land in a BCS conference if massive conference expansion ever took place.

This makes little sense. It's in the interest of weaker schools, the ones less likely to land in other BCS conferences in the event of massive expansion/reorganization, to want huge exit fees. Because these schools contribute less to the value of the conference, and thus get more revenue from the current conference than they contribute. Since in effect they are subsidized by the stronger members, they are the ones with an interest in keeping that good (for them) deal going ...

Ummm...yes. That's basically what I implied. CatsClaw is a Cincinnati fan. They are the Big East program least likely to end up in a stronger position if superconferences ever come about. Of course he is for higher exit fees and considers those schools "mercenaries" that may have a possibility at joining a better conference somewhere down the line.

That makes sense. I misunderstood what you said. To me, you seemed to be talking about the behavior of the weak school itself, not how it viewed the behavior of others.

But glad to have that miscommunication cleared up.

(04-27-2011 07:50 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-26-2011 03:04 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  That is some very interesting news Matt. For those here who disagree that your school should sign such an agreement, your school may not have any choice if they want to recieve a big tv deal. The network, whoever that is, has to protect itself and likely will ad specific language to do so, that member schools will have to accept. Its not about just looking out for numero uno. If the network demands a commitment from the member schools to protect their investment, the member schools will have to acquiese.

Did ESPN/CBS demand that of the SEC? Did ESPN demand it from the ACC? If so, it seems to be a deep secret. I wonder why they didn't?

Quote:Being in the BE involves contracts that details what is expected of each program. Programs should reasonably be able to live up to those expectations. If a school leaves the BE which may cause its tv deals to be reduced

Now you've answered my question: The reason networks do NOT demand huge exit fees, is because they have an easy solution to the problem of teams exiting - they can reduce the rights fees in the TV deal accordingly.

From what I understand, Fox did add increased exit fees to their new deal with the Big 12 and I can see why. I dont know if the SEC and and Acc have exit fees in their new tv deals or not.

I dont think that the simple solution to a network that is heavily involved with a conference and paying astronimical fees for the rights to broadcast that conferences games by simply reducing their rights fees in the event that the conference loses members is as simple as you make it out to be. In the past if there was movement between conferences, Espn still got to broadcast the games of the teams that left. For instance when the acc took the 3 BE schools, Espn still got to broadcast their games since both conferences were under contract with espn. But if for instance a league that ESPN does not have the rights to takes some schools from a league that Espn does have the rights to, Espn could forever lose the opportunity to broadcast those games. These sorts of deals could erode Espn's dominant foothold on college sports and being the "worldwide leader in sports." So there is some impetus for a company like Espn to make sure that conferences protect themselves and Espn's long range investments. You have to believe that Espn is concerned about the new competitors springing up.

Thats only Espn. A competitor like NBC Sports or Fox Sports or the other competitors springing up, would have even more reason to make sure that its investments are protected with a large exit fee from conferences under contract. Since they are trying to make their mark and get a piece of Espns empire they have much more to lose from a conference who loses teams which may result in ratings decreases, which results in reduced advertising rates. The less inventory that a conference has that people want to watch leads to less demand for the network, which leads to less a network can ask from cable companies which directly affects revenue. This same principle applies to Espn, but to a far less degree at this time.

Summed Up:

1)Less quality inventory

2)Less demand which leads to lower fees that cable companies are willing to pay to network.

3)Ratings decrease

4)Lower advertising rates to charge advertisers

5)Overall possible revenue decrease, or lower overall revenue growth depending on whther you are Espn or one of the new competitors.


There are plenty of reasons for a network to make sure that confernces protect themselves and the networks by adding exit fees.

(04-27-2011 08:19 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 08:11 AM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Isn't that the very definition of mercenary? I don't take that word in a negative way at all. I'd be disappointed if UC wasn't mercenary.

To me, 'mercenary' has negative connotations. As in the dictionary definition:

"Primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics."

And it's clear Cuseroc meant it to have negative connotations.

If you are going to debate at least figure out who said what. I never used the term "mercenary". It was CatsClaw.

(04-27-2011 08:56 AM)cuseroc Wrote:  From what I understand, Fox did add increased exit fees to their new deal with the Big 12. I dont know if the SEC and and Acc have exit fees in their new tv deals or not.

I dont think that the simple solution to a network that is heavily involved with a conference and paying astronimical fees for the rights to broadcast that conferences games by simply reducing their rights fees in the event that the conference loses members is as simple as you make it out to be. In the past if there was movement between conferences, Espn still got to broadcast the games of the teams that left. For instance when the acc took the 3 BE schools, Espn still got to broadcast their games since both conferences were under contract with espn. But if for instance a league that ESPN does not have the rights to takes some schools from a league that Espn does have the rights to, Espn could forever lose the opportunity to broadcast those games. These sorts of deals could erode Espn's dominant foothold on college sports and being the "worldwide leader in sports." So there is some impetus for a company like Espn to make sure that conferences protect themselves and Espn's long range investments. You have to believe that Espn is concerned about the new competitors springing up.

Thats only Espn. A competitor like NBC Sports or Fox Sports or the other competitors springing up, would have even more reason to make sure that its investments are protected with a large exit fee from conferences under contract. Since they are trying to make their mark and get a piece of Espns empire they have much more to lose from a conference who loses teams which may result in ratings decreases, which results in reduced advertising rates. The less inventory that a conference has that people want to watch leads to less demand for the network, which leads to less a network can ask from cable companies which directly affects revenue. This same principle applies to Espn, but to a far less degree at this time.

Summed Up:

1)Less inventory

2)Less demand which leads to lower fees that cable companies are willing to pay to network.

3)Ratings decrease

4)Lower advertising rates to charge advertisers

5)Overall possible revenue decrease, or lower revenue growth depending on whther you are Espn or one of the new competitors.

This is a good point. The Big 12 is particularly important to Fox because (1) on a national scale, the conference constitutes around half of FSN's national college football programming and (2) on a regional scale, it's very critical programming since Fox owns the RSNs that cover the entire Big 12 territory (FS SW and FS Houston in Texas and Oklahoma, FS MW and FS KC in Missouri, Iowa and Kansas). Reducing rights fees in the event of further schools leaving the Big 12 doesn't really help Fox out that much in terms of what the network really wants out of the Big 12. The only time a network can take advantage of that is if it controls the inventory for both the raider and the raided (i.e. the ACC raiding the BE in 2003), which is becoming less commonplace as the markets gets fragmented more.

(04-27-2011 09:01 AM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 08:19 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 08:11 AM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Isn't that the very definition of mercenary? I don't take that word in a negative way at all. I'd be disappointed if UC wasn't mercenary.

To me, 'mercenary' has negative connotations. As in the dictionary definition:

"Primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics."

And it's clear Cuseroc meant it to have negative connotations.

If you are going to debate at least figure out who said what. I never used the term "mercenary". It was CatsClaw.

Sorry, thanks for the correction.

Further to my last point, if you look at the list of Fox's owned and operated regional sports networks, you can see why they threw in a huge bid for the ACC, have paid up to the Big 12 and will likely pay up to the Pac-12:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Sports_...d_operated

The networks that Fox owns and operates are largely concentrated on the West Coast (LA, Arizona, 25% of CSN Bay Area), Southwest/Great Plains (Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas) and Southeast (Florida, Georgia, NC, SC, Tennessee), which basically covers the territories of the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC, respectively.

In contrast, the largest BE markets are home to Comcast-owned RSNs (SNY, Philly, DC, Chicago, New England). There's a lot of "all sports rights are skyrocketing" stories out there, but there's definitely much deeper context in who specifically wants what. Something to think about there.

(04-27-2011 08:19 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 08:11 AM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  

(04-27-2011 07:42 AM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  It's "mercenary" to look out for your own interests?

Isn't that the very definition of mercenary? I don't take that word in a negative way at all. I'd be disappointed if UC wasn't mercenary.

To me, 'mercenary' has negative connotations. As in the dictionary definition:

"Primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics."

And it's clear CatsClaw meant it to have negative connotations.

Then, I had the definition wrong... I always assumed, without looking it up, it was pretty much "looking out for numero uno, regardless (but not necessarily at the expense) of ethics".

But, really, is there any ethics violation in leaving a conference? It's always "every school for itself", IMO.

Anyway, regardless of how we define "mercenary", that's the exact reason for having exit fees - protection of the conference members, and the TV network that signs them up. Not sure why anyone is hung up on how exit fees "hamstring a school that leaves", when dried-up-and-broke Colorado was able to ante up and leave the Big 12