texowl2
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RE: Missouri State
(03-05-2020 01:52 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote: (03-03-2020 11:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (03-03-2020 10:44 AM)texowl2 Wrote: sad but the bold has been evident for many many years. I never forget a conversation I had with Mike Pede 15 or so years ago how they had cut his promotional budget since they were solely focused on spending and not net. I still think Texas will go to the PAC as I don't think that the B1G wants to deal with their ego, thus either K State or Iowa St. PAC will get UT, BYU, and 2 from Baylor, Tech, TCU, Boise, AFA, or Colorado St. BIG 12 3.0 will be like the rest-second status.
The "Rice Way" focused solely on cutting spending rather than generating revenues for at least 40 years. Unfortunately that time frame overlaid the period when major programs and select academically elite schools that chose to play big-time athletics--Stanford, Duke being the leaders--made conscious efforts to tap into the revenue opportunities available. Rice didn't. I remember a meeting of football and other lettermen with Hackerman at the Owl Club, at the time of the firing of Ray, where Hackerman kept complaining that athletics had to cut spending because it was overspending its budget. I asked him directly if the problem was exceeding budgeted expenses or shortfalls in revenues, and he responded that it was 100% revenue shortfalls. That was indicative of the thinking of Rice toward athletics at the time.
I don't think PAC will take BYU or Baylor or TCU, since they currently have a policy of not taking a religious school. I think tOSU has an even bigger ego than TexasU, and the B1G lives with that. I would love to be at the first B1G meeting when the Horns start telling everybody else that they don't know how to run a conference.
Now that this thread has been hijacked yet again into a re-alignment thread, let me add a few points:
The Big Ten has a contiguity rule, so Texas won't be going there. Kansas could theoretically go, but its football program and television market profile are too small for consideration. I don't think the Big Ten is looking at expansion for the time being anyway.
There had been discussion in the past that Texas might go to the Pac-12 should it decide to expand. The sticking point here is who would go there with UT, as the Pac-12 wouldn't want to expand without adding two schools. In terms of athletic profile and revenue, the obvious choice would be Brigham Young. However, while I think the Pac-12 could add a religious school, it wouldn't be one that actually acts like one such as BYU. I suppose Oklahoma could be a partner for Texas, but it's been made clear that OU and Oklahoma State are a package deal, and I don't think the Pac-12 would be interested in OSU. Schools like Boise State are right out, as they don't fit the academic profile the Pac-12 likes its schools to have.
As Owl69+ stated earlier, the big driver for any future re-alignment is the re-negotiation of the Big XII television contract. The Big XII is the only one of the so-called "Power 5" conferences not to have its own cable TV network, mainly because Texas made its own deal with ESPN for a cable TV channel, perhaps as a prelude to going independent. However, the Longhorn Network's revenues haven't been all that good. Will ESPN pull the plug on LHN and negotiate a deal with the entire Big XII, forcing UT to go in with the rest of its Big XII compatriots? Being by far the biggest revenue generator in the conference, how would UT feel about having to share TV revenues with its neighbors? It indeed would be ironic if UT, having left the Southwest Conference because it was tired of carrying the other conference members around in terms of revenue, found itself almost thirty years later in a similar situation....
Rules are always only rules until money comes to bear, and big money that much more so. If there is one thing that is certain, this is even more true when it comes to academia. (It's like the old joke about how we have established who you are, now we're just negotiating) 4 Super-conferences and the 8 team FB playoff will draw major bucks like there is no tomorrow. It will happen and the Big 12's collapse is not long. We will all enjoy UT's agony during the next realignment having been the one who started it all long ago.
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03-05-2020 07:04 PM |
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