(05-06-2013 10:05 PM)jaminandjachin Wrote: I'm surprised it took this long for someone to post this. Everyone should realize this is for everything and not just TV.
I knew this since the St. Louis Dispatch wrote an article on Big Ten payouts three years ago.
The Big Ten folks were throwing out big numbers and saying that it was all from TV contracts. The Post-Dispatch looked at it and found out that number was from all sources:
"Notre Dame's roots as football independent may be too deep for move to Big Ten
By Vahe Gregorian
OF THE POST-DISPATCH
05/23/2010
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Shrouded in construction materials under the vigilant gaze of the "Touchdown Jesus" mural on the nearby Hesburgh Library stands the most visible variable in the haze surrounding the future of the Big Ten and arguably the college football landscape itself.
Contained within venerable Notre Dame Stadium is the essence of what yet distinguishes Notre Dame football even as the football itself has ebbed, winning only one national title since 1977 and making Brian Kelly the fifth man named Fighting Irish coach in less than a decade.
Contained within isn't mere history but hallmarks of what informs ND's present philosophy and future aspiration to remain stranded on its own island.
No Jumbotron looms over the stadium, even if it likely could command millions in advertising revenue before a crowd that has filled it (now nearly 81,000) for virtually every game since 1966.
Nor are there luxury suites, an idea floated behind the scenes in the recent past only to be "torpedoed" by trustees, a knowledgeable campus source said.
And the only advertising within the stadium bowl is a modest one for ISP Sports radio on the press box and a subtle "NBC Sports" logo on one scoreboard.
That seems a modest enough concession to the network that has nationally broadcast every ND home game since 1991 — dwarfing national appearances by even the most successful schools in the last generation that often are relegated to regional television.
Not that Notre Dame has any aversion to money. It's just that with multimedia, marketing and licensing revenues of nearly $30 million a year, according to a 2008 report in the SportsBusiness Journal, it needn't wring itself dry to make ends meet.
So for the moment, anyway, it evidently doesn't have much to gain financially by affiliating itself with the Big Ten.
The Post-Dispatch reported last week that the 2009-10 revenue split from the Big Ten for Illinois was $19.9 million, of which $14.9 was from TV revenue and the rest from bowl and NCAA Tournament appearances among its members.
Notre Dame declines to specify the worth of its contract with NBC, which runs through 2015. The SportsBusiness Journal called it more than $10 million a year, and other media outlets have characterized it as around $15 million.
Conversely, though, it's no wonder the Big Ten likely still would swoon over ND.
Of the schools, including Missouri, believed to be under consideration in the Big Ten's announced expansion study, Notre Dame is the singular one coveted by the Big Ten before (in 1999), perhaps the only realistic target that could by itself be reason enough for the Big Ten to expand and the only one Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany acknowledges contact with now.
Delany, of course, wouldn't divulge what he has talked with athletics director Jack Swarbrick about, but he has become well-familiar with ND's philosophy of football autonomy and Big East membership in other sports.
"That's what it has chosen to do; that's its destiny," Delany said, pausing and seeming to inadvertently leave wiggle room by adding, "You know, has been its destiny."
Indeed, some wonder about Notre Dame's ability to sustain that going forward.
"Notre Dame has lost its cachet and will not be able to find another contract anything like the NBC deal if it remains independent," renowned economist Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College said in an e-mail.
Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith, who played for ND's 1973 national championship team and was an assistant coach during the Fighting Irish's 1977 title run, sees other reasons Notre Dame should break with tradition.
"I love them deeply," he said this past week, adding, "But I've always struggled with the quality experience that today, in this landscape … football players (are having). … If they end up being one of the schools (asked to join), I hope they would consider what a conference championship means to a young person."
The climate has changed since ND last won a meaningful bowl, beating Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl after the 1993 season.
Since then, the Bowl Alliance that morphed into the BCS altered the bowl structure in such a way that anything short of winning a BCS bowl would be a disappointment for ND — which has yet to win one and has only a win over Hawaii in the 2008 Hawaii Bowl to show for its last 10 bowl appearances.
"It's a different time and space," said Smith, playfully adding that he might be the one ND alum making this argument, and adding, "I'm just the guy who was in Room 325, Cavanaugh Hall."
The counterpart who occupies Smith's seat at ND has this and more to consider as he determines how to navigate what's ahead and sell it to the ND administration.
But thus far, Swarbrick said during BCS meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz., internal discussions about the school's football future never even reach the point of "financial analysis" because the "top priority" for the school itself is retaining football independence.
"It's so central to the roots of the university," he said.
That might change and necessitate rethinking if what Swarbrick broadly characterizes as "seismic" changes occur.
Swarbrick wouldn't elaborate on what that might constitute, but one scenario that could force ND's hand would be a Big Ten plundering of the Big East since ND's other sports need a home base.
One way or another, though, it would take extraordinary circumstances to deter Notre Dame from an identity more than 100 years in the making — ironically enough with a nudge from the forerunner of the Big Ten, the Western Conference.
The school applied for membership repeatedly through 1908 and later was boycotted by the conference at the urging of then-Michigan coach Fielding Yost.
Left playing a diluted schedule, Swarbrick said, Notre Dame lost $2,000 in 1911 and $500 in 1912 and was at a crossroads when it hired Jess Harper after that season.
"He did two things that were just remarkable," Swarbrick said. "One was he engaged in a national schedule. And two was he introduced the forward pass."
St. Lous University can take issue with that assessment, considering in 1906 SLU coach Eddie Cochems arguably was the first to capitalize on the legalization of the forward pass.
But mythology always has been part of ND lore. And Harper indeed took advantage of rules changes allowing passes to be thrown outside a theoretical box and using moving targets as a new force, Swarbrick noted.
And his team popularized the pass on a grand stage against powerhouse Army at West Point in 1913.
"The New York media captured that moment," Swarbrick said, "it intersected with the immigration wave in America and Notre Dame changed forever."
At least until now.
Whether it can thrive with that niche in the future is another question, one perhaps with a parallel precedent.
Between 1924 and 1969, Notre Dame did not participate in bowl games as a matter of principle.
"It was pushing back against the trend," said the campus source mentioned earlier in this story, "but not able to stop the trend."
Can it this time?
As staunchly as Swarbrick wants to preserve the status quo, he also acknowledges it's impossible to see the future.
"This is all about media. … This is a dynamic environment fostered by that leading edge change," he said, adding, "Three years from now, it will be something else. Maybe Google's in the rights acquisition business (then)…
"What does that do to the world? How are people consuming our product in five years?"
Between then and now, differently enough, perhaps, even to test the timelessness of Notre Dame tradition."
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CBS/B1G Schools receive $25.7 Million Per School for 2012
