(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

(05-26-2023 11:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

you're overstating.

Texas -Texas A&M will happen, no doubt.

tge 9th game is about Texas-Tennessee or Georgia-Okkahoma. or Kentucky-Ole Miss

(05-26-2023 11:21 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

you're overstating.

Texas -Texas A&M will happen, no doubt.

tge 9th game is about Texas-Tennessee or Georgia-Okkahoma. or Kentucky-Ole Miss

Texas-Oklahoma is almost certainly being protected no matter what happens. So, UT-A&M can’t be an annual rivalry if the SEC has a 1-7 format.

(05-26-2023 11:14 AM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  Who has the money? They have the upper hand.

(05-26-2023 11:21 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

you're overstating.

Texas -Texas A&M will happen, no doubt.

tge 9th game is about Texas-Tennessee or Georgia-Okkahoma. or Kentucky-Ole Miss

Texas-Oklahoma is almost certainly being protected no matter what happens. So, UT-A&M can’t be an annual rivalry if the SEC has a 1-7 format.

(05-26-2023 11:26 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:21 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

you're overstating.

Texas -Texas A&M will happen, no doubt.

tge 9th game is about Texas-Tennessee or Georgia-Okkahoma. or Kentucky-Ole Miss

Texas-Oklahoma is almost certainly being protected no matter what happens. So, UT-A&M can’t be an annual rivalry if the SEC has a 1-7 format.

Then they just wont have a pure 1-7 format. If the Big Ten is looking at a "flex" model where some teams have 1 protected rival, some have 2, some have 3, why can't the SEC? Or everyone gets three protected rivals, and you play 5 of the other 12 schools instead of 6.

Games like Texas- Texas A&M aren't going to get reduced. It's games like Texas vs (throws darts) Kentucky and Georgia. Texas vs Texas A&M every year is more important than making sure Texas visits Kentucky and Georgia once every four years. Maybe four, maybe five, maybe six years.

(05-26-2023 11:31 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:14 AM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  Who has the money? They have the upper hand.

So does a mandatory pro rata for all SEC newcomers exist or not?

Does ESPN have the power if Greg Sankey can get a full per-institution share for every addition to his conference?

(05-26-2023 11:31 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:14 AM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  Who has the money? They have the upper hand.

So does a mandatory pro rata for all SEC newcomers exist or not?

Does ESPN have the power if Greg Sankey can get a full per-institution share for every addition to his conference?

(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

(05-26-2023 11:54 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:26 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:21 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ESPN is the one paying the bills.

ESPN has the super-favorable ACC contract where there is absolutely no rational interest for them to end it outside of Magnificent 7/SEC (or even Big Ten) fans trying to paint a biased picture of how the ACC breaking apart is somehow financially favorable to the Walt Disney Company that is in austerity mode right now.

Without ESPN, there is no additional money for the SEC. The SEC can’t go to the open market. As we see in the other thread, it’s an open question whether ESPN will even fund a 9th SEC conference game with freaking Texas and Oklahoma (who are more valuable brands than FSU and Clemson). If ESPN won’t kick in money so that UT-A&M is reinstated or preserving games like Alabama-Tennessee or UGA-Auburn, then they’re showing me that the extra value of adding games like FSU-UGA or Clemson-Alabama actually is NOT as important as keeping costs down. ESPN can instantly get a bunch of more marquee college football games with the SEC *now* but they’re wavering on spending anything on it.

you're overstating.

Texas -Texas A&M will happen, no doubt.

tge 9th game is about Texas-Tennessee or Georgia-Okkahoma. or Kentucky-Ole Miss

Texas-Oklahoma is almost certainly being protected no matter what happens. So, UT-A&M can’t be an annual rivalry if the SEC has a 1-7 format.

Then they just wont have a pure 1-7 format. If the Big Ten is looking at a "flex" model where some teams have 1 protected rival, some have 2, some have 3, why can't the SEC? Or everyone gets three protected rivals, and you play 5 of the other 12 schools instead of 6.

Games like Texas- Texas A&M aren't going to get reduced. It's games like Texas vs (throws darts) Kentucky and Georgia. Texas vs Texas A&M every year is more important than making sure Texas visits Kentucky and Georgia once every four years. Maybe four, maybe five, maybe six years.

That’s all possible, but as we have seen in both the SEC and Big Ten, individual athletic departments have very different ideas about what’s best for the conference (as evidenced by the “shock and horror” from schools like Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State that in order to receive the full value of the NBC prime time contract with the Big Ten, they actually have to play prime time games the whole year as opposed to only before Halloween).

Look at how Nick Saban (who had been a proponent of a 9-game SEC schedule) got miffed when he perceived Alabama’s set of annual rivals would be more difficult than everyone else. These schools can’t handle the perception of one school getting better or more favorable treatment than another one, which is why having schools get a different number of annual rivals is so difficult in practice.

So, I’d agree that’s a possible solution if the SEC schools would consider it, but my impression is that the SEC schools are even more obsessed with the perceived strength/weakness of their annual games than the Big Ten schools and, as a result, no one is agreeing to any format that doesn’t apply equally to everyone.

(05-26-2023 12:24 PM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:31 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:14 AM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  Who has the money? They have the upper hand.

So does a mandatory pro rata for all SEC newcomers exist or not?

Does ESPN have the power if Greg Sankey can get a full per-institution share for every addition to his conference?

ESPN would not have signed the contract if they weren't amenable to it.

(05-26-2023 10:52 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  I do think we blame ESPN for a lot of these moves and its really the consultants in the commissioner's ear.

(05-26-2023 12:42 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 12:24 PM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:31 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:14 AM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  Who has the money? They have the upper hand.

So does a mandatory pro rata for all SEC newcomers exist or not?

Does ESPN have the power if Greg Sankey can get a full per-institution share for every addition to his conference?

ESPN would not have signed the contract if they weren't amenable to it.

So to be clear: ESPN is good with a paying the increase necessary so that each and every school Sankey invites to the SEC receives a full share from Day 1?

(05-26-2023 09:17 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  From the Sports Business Journal video podcast last August:

Andrew Marchand (SBJ): "What is your criteria (wrt to conference expansion)? Do you look at these institutions and say, 'they're worth this much to us TV-wise, and, if you add those teams to your league, it's worth this much.' How do you look at it from a TV perspective?"

Burke Magnus (ESPN): "A very important nuance here because this often gets mischaracterized - certainly about us. The kind of analysis you're talking about, we don't get involved until it happens, right. If Conference X comes to us and says, 'hey, we've extended invitations to these two institutions' ... There are, in every contract we have, usually very specific provisions about how a negotiation would then commence — but it's after the fact, right, it's not before. We don't sit there ever and get involved in 'hey, guys you should do this school instead of that school and here's why.'

"But downstream, its our job to assess market value for institutions that are coming and those provisions have been specifically constructed in the rights agreements for a long time now. It used to be more of an open-ended process. In some contracts it's a specific number. You've heard the phrase pro rata, meaning like whoever comes in regardless of who it is gets a share equal to a per-institution share the others get (so) sometimes it's actually prescribed, sometimes it's a negotiation. Sometimes it's both (where) 'hey the baseline is a pro rata and we go from there' depending on who it is.

"I know people out there are looking for smoke and guns and suspect involvement (from ESPN) on the front end, but trust me when I tell you my day is full enough."

1. As ESPN's most valuable college property, does the SEC's pro rata clause likely fall in the (quoting Magnus) "whoever comes in regardless of who it is get a share equal to a per-institution share the others get" category?

2. Is it likely the SECret 7 were aware of the SEC's pro rata provisions during their (previously) confidential meetings? If so, how might that impact their collective determination in finding an escape hatch from the ACC?

3. What kind of leverage, if any, does an unrestricted pro rata clause for the SEC give Greg Sankey in negotiations with ESPN?

4. Or is Magnus simply being less than forthcoming and, in fact, as many here and elsewhere proclaim, ESPN can simply say "yes, we'll play a full share" or "no, we won't pay a full share" to any potential new members and thus the pro-rata clause isn't unrestricted at all?

(05-26-2023 09:17 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  From the Sports Business Journal video podcast last August:

Andrew Marchand (SBJ): "What is your criteria (wrt to conference expansion)? Do you look at these institutions and say, 'they're worth this much to us TV-wise, and, if you add those teams to your league, it's worth this much.' How do you look at it from a TV perspective?"

Burke Magnus (ESPN): "A very important nuance here because this often gets mischaracterized - certainly about us. The kind of analysis you're talking about, we don't get involved until it happens, right. If Conference X comes to us and says, 'hey, we've extended invitations to these two institutions' ... There are, in every contract we have, usually very specific provisions about how a negotiation would then commence — but it's after the fact, right, it's not before. We don't sit there ever and get involved in 'hey, guys you should do this school instead of that school and here's why.'

"But downstream, its our job to assess market value for institutions that are coming and those provisions have been specifically constructed in the rights agreements for a long time now. It used to be more of an open-ended process. In some contracts it's a specific number. You've heard the phrase pro rata, meaning like whoever comes in regardless of who it is gets a share equal to a per-institution share the others get (so) sometimes it's actually prescribed, sometimes it's a negotiation. Sometimes it's both (where) 'hey the baseline is a pro rata and we go from there' depending on who it is.

"I know people out there are looking for smoke and guns and suspect involvement (from ESPN) on the front end, but trust me when I tell you my day is full enough."

1. As ESPN's most valuable college property, does the SEC's pro rata clause likely fall in the (quoting Magnus) "whoever comes in regardless of who it is get a share equal to a per-institution share the others get" category?

2. Is it likely the SECret 7 were aware of the SEC's pro rata provisions during their (previously) confidential meetings? If so, how might that impact their collective determination in finding an escape hatch from the ACC?

3. What kind of leverage, if any, does an unrestricted pro rata clause for the SEC give Greg Sankey in negotiations with ESPN?

4. Or is Magnus simply being less than forthcoming and, in fact, as many here and elsewhere proclaim, ESPN can simply say "yes, we'll play a full share" or "no, we won't pay a full share" to any potential new members and thus the pro-rata clause isn't unrestricted at all?

(05-26-2023 12:42 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 12:24 PM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:31 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(05-26-2023 11:14 AM)The Sicatoka Wrote:  Who has the money? They have the upper hand.

So does a mandatory pro rata for all SEC newcomers exist or not?

Does ESPN have the power if Greg Sankey can get a full per-institution share for every addition to his conference?

ESPN would not have signed the contract if they weren't amenable to it.

So to be clear: ESPN is good with a paying the increase necessary so that each and every school Sankey invites to the SEC receives a full share from Day 1?