Most observers of college sports know that winning games, building successful programs, and playing in highly-ranked conferences aren't the only things that university boards and presidents care about when it comes to college FB and BB.

For a lot of universities, particularly those with modest endowments, the bottom line is revenue.

They're non-profit institutions, and their primary mission is educational. They have to keep costs down, and athletic budgets tend to be a drain on their finances. Thus, they try to do whatever they can to generate revenue from their athletic programs.

From that vantage point, it's understandable that the AAC remainers (ECU, Memphis, Navy/Wichita St., SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, & USF) chose to respond to the Big 12 raid by adding 6 CUSA teams, even though the conference is expected to drop down in the rankings when the six additions join in 2023-24.

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For ESPN's part, the logic behind adding the six schools was simple: The knew that the only way to offset the loss of UC, UCF, and UH viewership from its ESPN+ platform was to add twice as many schools as the AAC was losing, and to make sure that they all came from sizable cities or metropolitan areas.

ESPN made it clear that their goal was not to help the AAC become a power conference, but simply to generate as much viewership/revenue as they can from their portfolio of AAC schools. This has been disillusioning for those AAC fans who took the conference's "P6" strategic plan, as set forth by Commissioner Aresco seriously. It has now been made clear that the "P6" idea was little more than a pipe dream, if not a charade, all along. As it turned out it was, at best, a marketing ploy that the upper echelon schools in the conference used to generate interest from the "power" conferences.


So the question isn't why things unfolded the way they did, but rather this:

Did the AAC remainers make the right decision when they abandoned their prior commitment to add only the schools with the highest quality football and basketball programs and then did a complete 180, opting instead to do the opposite, if that was the only way to keep the revenue flowing?

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Jed?

(11-12-2021 05:58 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  Most observers of college sports know that winning games, building successful programs, and playing in highly-ranked conferences aren't the only things that university boards and presidents care about when it comes to college FB and BB.

For a lot of universities, particularly those with modest endowments, the bottom line is revenue.

They're non-profit institutions, and their primary mission is educational. They have to keep costs down, and athletic budgets tend to be a drain on their finances. Thus, they try to do whatever they can to generate revenue from their athletic programs.

From that vantage point, it's understandable that the AAC remainers (ECU, Memphis, Navy/Wichita St., SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, & USF) chose to respond to the Big 12 raid by adding 6 CUSA teams, even though the conference is expected to drop down in the rankings when the six additions join in 2023-24.

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For ESPN's part, the logic behind adding the six schools was simple: The knew that the only way to offset the loss of UC, UCF, and UH viewership from its ESPN+ platform was to add twice as many schools as the AAC was losing, and to make sure that they all came from sizable cities or metropolitan areas.

ESPN made it clear that their goal was not to help the AAC become a power conference, but simply to generate as much viewership/revenue as they can from their portfolio of AAC schools. This has been disillusioning for those AAC fans who took the conference's "P6" strategic plan, as set forth by Commissioner Aresco seriously. It has now been made clear that the "P6" idea was little more than a pipe dream, if not a charade, all along. As it turned out it was, at best, a marketing ploy that the upper echelon schools in the conference used to generate interest from the "power" conferences.

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Nice conjecture piece. LOL! Go AAC!!

Granger … err … I mean Jed, stick to spamming the Temple board.

(11-12-2021 05:58 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  For ESPN's part, the logic behind adding the six schools was simple: The knew that the only way to offset the loss of UC, UCF, and UH viewership from its ESPN+ platform was to add twice as many schools as the AAC was losing, and to make sure that they all came from sizable cities or metropolitan areas.

(snip)

I'm not sure about that. First, there has been a lot of talk about the AAC "keeping the overall dollar value of the contract the same", but if the new schools are getting less, then the dollar value has actually declined on a per-school basis, it's just that the existing AAC schools are making the new schools bear the entire burden of that cut to keep themselves whole. So it's not like adding twice as many schools in 'major markets' actually offset the loss of UCF, UH and Cincy. It didn't. Second, IMO adding six low-value schools helps ESPN in the long run, because this lowers the overall value of the AAC, making it likelier that in 2032, they won't have to pay much more, if anything to keep us. We weakened ourselves by adding a bunch of low-value teams. It was a pennywise, pound-foolish move, IMO.

The whole SEC/B12/AAC thing has IMO benefitted ESPN greatly. First, as valuable as it is, the SEC is going to be a lot more valuable with Texas and Oklahoma, and ESPN is going to benefit from that well out in to the 2030s thanks to their long-term deal.

Second, both the Big 12 and AAC, who ESPN has deals with, have both been significantly weakened, meaning ESPN is likely to be able to give both a haircut and shave the next time their deals come up. Heck, they will both get a haircut and shave sooner than that, the AAC already has.

(11-12-2021 08:03 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-12-2021 05:58 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  For ESPN's part, the logic behind adding the six schools was simple: The knew that the only way to offset the loss of UC, UCF, and UH viewership from its ESPN+ platform was to add twice as many schools as the AAC was losing, and to make sure that they all came from sizable cities or metropolitan areas.

(snip)

I'm not sure about that. First, there has been a lot of talk about the AAC "keeping the overall dollar value of the contract the same", but if the new schools are getting less, then the dollar value has actually declined on a per-school basis, it's just that the existing AAC schools are making the new schools bear the entire burden of that cut to keep themselves whole. So it's not like adding twice as many schools in 'major markets' actually offset the loss of UCF, UH and Cincy. It didn't. Second, IMO adding six low-value schools helps ESPN in the long run, because this lowers the overall value of the AAC, making it likelier that in 2032, they won't have to pay much more, if anything to keep us. We weakened ourselves by adding a bunch of low-value teams. It was a pennywise, pound-foolish move, IMO.

The whole SEC/B12/AAC thing has IMO benefitted ESPN greatly. First, as valuable as it is, the SEC is going to be a lot more valuable with Texas and Oklahoma, and ESPN is going to benefit from that well out in to the 2030s thanks to their long-term deal.

Second, both the Big 12 and AAC, who ESPN has deals with, have both been significantly weakened, meaning ESPN is likely to be able to give both a haircut and shave the next time their deals come up. Heck, they will both get a haircut and shave sooner than that, the AAC already has.

Except they didn't "give the AAC a haircut" at least by what everything we are hearing is. They've kept the total dollars of the deal the same if the AAC increased the inventory for ESPN and then how the league members decide to divide it is not of ESPN's concern. Of course there's been very little publicly said about this so who the hell knows. ECU's AD in a conversation with the guy who runs our 247 site said that ECU will not see any drop in TV revenue from the new additions, but that doesn't really answer the question about how this is exactly going to work.

it was a great move by aresco.
the remainder keep the same amount of cash flow after the Big 3 departed and the newcomers get a chance to prove themselves and gain a wider audience.
the AAC P6 campaign has worked as we are viewed as the 6th best conference and have much more respect than previous years. this is obvious by UC being 5th in the CFP. The AAC gained some solid teams that will grow just like UCF and Houston did.

give it time.

and yes...im aware this is a troll post.

(11-12-2021 08:26 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(11-12-2021 08:03 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-12-2021 05:58 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  For ESPN's part, the logic behind adding the six schools was simple: The knew that the only way to offset the loss of UC, UCF, and UH viewership from its ESPN+ platform was to add twice as many schools as the AAC was losing, and to make sure that they all came from sizable cities or metropolitan areas.

(snip)

I'm not sure about that. First, there has been a lot of talk about the AAC "keeping the overall dollar value of the contract the same", but if the new schools are getting less, then the dollar value has actually declined on a per-school basis, it's just that the existing AAC schools are making the new schools bear the entire burden of that cut to keep themselves whole. So it's not like adding twice as many schools in 'major markets' actually offset the loss of UCF, UH and Cincy. It didn't. Second, IMO adding six low-value schools helps ESPN in the long run, because this lowers the overall value of the AAC, making it likelier that in 2032, they won't have to pay much more, if anything to keep us. We weakened ourselves by adding a bunch of low-value teams. It was a pennywise, pound-foolish move, IMO.

The whole SEC/B12/AAC thing has IMO benefitted ESPN greatly. First, as valuable as it is, the SEC is going to be a lot more valuable with Texas and Oklahoma, and ESPN is going to benefit from that well out in to the 2030s thanks to their long-term deal.

Second, both the Big 12 and AAC, who ESPN has deals with, have both been significantly weakened, meaning ESPN is likely to be able to give both a haircut and shave the next time their deals come up. Heck, they will both get a haircut and shave sooner than that, the AAC already has.

Except they didn't "give the AAC a haircut" at least by what everything we are hearing is. They've kept the total dollars of the deal the same if the AAC increased the inventory for ESPN and then how the league members decide to divide it is not of ESPN's concern. Of course there's been very little publicly said about this so who the hell knows. ECU's AD in a conversation with the guy who runs our 247 site said that ECU will not see any drop in TV revenue from the new additions, but that doesn't really answer the question about how this is exactly going to work.

Except if the reports are correct, to me they did give the AAC a haircut, because the "total dollars" thing doesn't matter, only the pan-conference per-school amount does, and if the reports are correct, the per-school amount is falling. The "total dollars" thing is an illusion to make the AAC feel better about what is happening, a haircut.

I mean, if we had added 6 teams after losing 3, to go from 11 to 14, and the total 12-year dollar value went *up* from say $1 Billion to $1.1 Billion, but the per school payout went *down*, for everyone, from say $6m a year to $5.5m a year, would you call that an increase or a cut? IMO, that's a cut. "Total dollars" is IMO a meaningless term that conceals what is actually happening.

The AAC then has decided that only some members, the noobies, will actually fall under the knife. That's just us (USF, ECU) being selfish like the B1G, rather than fair like the SEC (which IIRC always cuts in new members at the full value from the git). But that doesn't change what has happened: "we", the conference as a whole, got cut. Some members have then just used their power to force the cut on to other members.

And in the long run that doesn't save us either. IMO we added a bunch of low-value schools, and that will hamper us in the future, like it has CUSA.

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This is part of the picture that has been a puzzlement to some, and it hasn't been talked about much:

It might appear to some that Commissioner Aresco must have had a complete change of mind, since none of the six incoming schools were ever considered seriously for membership at that time by Aresco, because every one of them would have, in his own terms: "diluted the brand and diminished us." Of that, there is no doubt, because the only other schools that were on the AAC's short list between 2019 and 1/1/2021 - by all accounts - were BYU, Army, Boise St., Air Force, SDSU, and CSU.

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"Why AAC likely won't move quickly to replace UConn and a potentially significant ripple effect".

Memphis - Commercial Appeal - June 28, 2019

“We’ll consider a 12th school, but unless that school helps our strength and really enhances our brand, why would you do it?” Aresco told the Houston Chronicle. "We’re not going to do anything that dilutes the brand and diminishes us at all.”

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/college/memphis-tigers/2019/06/28/aac-uconn-big-east-mike-aresco-memphis-houston-cincinnati-ucf-navy-tulane-smu-usf-ecu/1578171001/

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Make no mistake, Mickey and Co. told them EXACTLY who to add

Sent from my SM-N981U using Tapatalk

Hasn't anybody learned anything? You do what ESPN says to do. If not, you are in for a whole lot of hurt. Sure, they could have taken App State etc against ESPN's wishes....... and then a real haircut would have happened.

(11-12-2021 09:16 AM)Stay Cool Wrote:  Make no mistake, Mickey and Co. told them EXACTLY who to add

It certainly seems that way.

(11-12-2021 09:27 AM)otown Wrote:  Hasn't anybody learned anything? You do what ESPN says to do. If not, you are in for a whole lot of hurt. Sure, they could have taken App State etc against ESPN's wishes....... and then a real haircut would have happened.

True.

The funny thing, though, is that I was always under the impression that ESPN was totally backing the AAC with the whole P6 thing and wanted it to become a power conference.

I'm wondering if that was:

1) Simply a misimpression due to naivety on my part - - or simply perceiving what I wanted to perceive?

2) Different ESPN executives who have had differing priorities over time?

3) The executives' priorities didn't change, but they kept hoping that the AAC would add some quality schools, and became impatient/bailed on the AAC when they failed to replace UConn?

4) or - All of the above?



.................

To some extent a lot of us might have thought that ESPN was on the AAC's side, since we kept hearing about how close Aresco was to ESPN, and they handled the UConn thing with kid gloves.

I have a hard time believing that it was pure naivety, because if it was, then Commissioner Aresco was a hell of a good actor, because he sure had me fooled into believing that he was sincere with all that "P6" stuff.

Not only that, but he went way out on a limb, talking about P6 everywhere he went. Hard to believe that he was faking that, given that some in the media referred to it almost like derisively at times. It almost seemed like he was starting to be referred as "Mike "P6" Aresco" or just "P6."

(or "when will this guy shut up and stop yammering about P6?")


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The idea that there have been changing priorities at ESPN seems to make more sense as an explanation.

Perhaps few of them expected the OU/UT to join the SEC until somewhat recently, and they may not have expected such a counterattack from the Big 12?

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However, I know how exasperated I became by the AAC's complete unwillingness or inability or "wimpiness" when it came to making any strategic moves of any kind - - such as replacing UConn.

and that makes me think that some of the ESPN executives might have gotten fed up with the AAC's indecisiveness and their complete failure to take their own "strategic plan" seriously.

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(11-12-2021 08:59 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-12-2021 08:26 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(11-12-2021 08:03 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-12-2021 05:58 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  For ESPN's part, the logic behind adding the six schools was simple: The knew that the only way to offset the loss of UC, UCF, and UH viewership from its ESPN+ platform was to add twice as many schools as the AAC was losing, and to make sure that they all came from sizable cities or metropolitan areas.

(snip)

I'm not sure about that. First, there has been a lot of talk about the AAC "keeping the overall dollar value of the contract the same", but if the new schools are getting less, then the dollar value has actually declined on a per-school basis, it's just that the existing AAC schools are making the new schools bear the entire burden of that cut to keep themselves whole. So it's not like adding twice as many schools in 'major markets' actually offset the loss of UCF, UH and Cincy. It didn't. Second, IMO adding six low-value schools helps ESPN in the long run, because this lowers the overall value of the AAC, making it likelier that in 2032, they won't have to pay much more, if anything to keep us. We weakened ourselves by adding a bunch of low-value teams. It was a pennywise, pound-foolish move, IMO.

The whole SEC/B12/AAC thing has IMO benefitted ESPN greatly. First, as valuable as it is, the SEC is going to be a lot more valuable with Texas and Oklahoma, and ESPN is going to benefit from that well out in to the 2030s thanks to their long-term deal.

Second, both the Big 12 and AAC, who ESPN has deals with, have both been significantly weakened, meaning ESPN is likely to be able to give both a haircut and shave the next time their deals come up. Heck, they will both get a haircut and shave sooner than that, the AAC already has.

Except they didn't "give the AAC a haircut" at least by what everything we are hearing is. They've kept the total dollars of the deal the same if the AAC increased the inventory for ESPN and then how the league members decide to divide it is not of ESPN's concern. Of course there's been very little publicly said about this so who the hell knows. ECU's AD in a conversation with the guy who runs our 247 site said that ECU will not see any drop in TV revenue from the new additions, but that doesn't really answer the question about how this is exactly going to work.

Except if the reports are correct, to me they did give the AAC a haircut, because the "total dollars" thing doesn't matter, only the pan-conference per-school amount does, and if the reports are correct, the per-school amount is falling. The "total dollars" thing is an illusion to make the AAC feel better about what is happening, a haircut.

I mean, if we had added 6 teams after losing 3, to go from 11 to 14, and the total 12-year dollar value went *up* from say $1 Billion to $1.1 Billion, but the per school payout went *down*, for everyone, from say $6m a year to $5.5m a year, would you call that an increase or a cut? IMO, that's a cut. "Total dollars" is IMO a meaningless term that conceals what is actually happening.

The AAC then has decided that only some members, the noobies, will actually fall under the knife. That's just us (USF, ECU) being selfish like the B1G, rather than fair like the SEC (which IIRC always cuts in new members at the full value from the git). But that doesn't change what has happened: "we", the conference as a whole, got cut. Some members have then just used their power to force the cut on to other members.

Did you advocate for new members of the AAC/Big East to get equal splits of C7 Big East name sale money? If it were about being "equitable" then I'm sure you were pushing for that since every member but Tulsa had accepted invites to the Big East at that point and then you guys sold the name and took the vast vast vast majority of that money and made everyone else pay exit fees and entry fees to join a league that ended up getting a TV deal that was like 600k higher than the C-USA deal we left. The C-USA schools joining this time are getting a way better deal. They are leaving a C-USA that was paying them something like 500k a year (might be less not even sure) to come in and get paid at least 2 million to start and increasing over time. They aren't getting their TV revenue "cut" they are getting at a minimum a 4x raise not to mention the other league distributions from the CFP/tournament credits that are substantially higher than C-USA. Also, no one forced these schools to agree to those terms, they could have said no or held out for equal shares from the start. Take that up with their presidents who agreed to the terms.

Jed do your homework... I hate writing novels!

If put to a vote, I surmise fans of the residual AAC schools would have added just enough to meet the bare minimum requirement - all other factors equal.

Fur everyone that don't like math and hates the AAC, and keep questioning whether the "AAC keeping the overall dollar value of the contract the same"...

Follow me here... It's very simple math.

If 12 AAC members signed a deal for an average payout of $7M per school/year over a 12 year contract length, then the average yearly payout to the Conference for distribution ("TV MONEY" only) would be 12*$7M=$84M... UConn left in 2019 and UC, UCF, and UH will depart on July 1, 2023 (1 year early), all together leaving $28M of TV Revenue on the table(4*$7M=$28M).

Now as far as the new 6 additions, They will be paid that $28M and will be making an average of ($28M/6=$4.6M) per year.

It has been reported that the new additions will make about $2.5M (this is for the first year only wit incremental increases), which might be right because they are joining on the 4th year of the contract.

Important note: The AAC contract has built in incremental increases.

In conclusion, the 8 Legacy teams will get: (8*$7M=$56M)
East Carolina University
University of Houston
University of Memphis
University of South Florida
Southern Methodist University
Temple University
Tulane University
University of Tulsa/Navy
Wichita State University

And the 6 new members will get: (6*$4.67M=$28M)
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Florida Atlantic University
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
University of North Texas
Rice University
University of Texas at San Antonio

That's still an $84M average payout to the conference per year!!

BTW, the simple answer is yes.

Now go and post the same question on the BIG XII board as to whether the made the right decision by adding BYU, UC, UCF, and UH.

One of the weirdest things in sports to me is the hand wringing of TV money. As a fan, it's really hard for me to care. Sure more is better. Other than that, I don't care. I wouldn't want my favorite team sacrificing themselves to make an extra $10mil/year in TV dollars. It's not my money. Why do I care? Why do you care?

(11-12-2021 10:47 AM)Z-Fly Wrote:  One of the weirdest things in sports to me is the hand wringing of TV money. As a fan, it's really hard for me to care. Sure more is better. Other than that, I don't care. I wouldn't want my favorite team sacrificing themselves to make an extra $10mil/year in TV dollars. It's not my money. Why do I care? Why do you care?

If the additional money had zero impact on the product on the field/court and the ability to retain or hire quality coaches then I agree I wouldn't care either. Like I don't care in the least that the Atlanta Braves have a bad TV deal compared to most of the rest of the MLB and don't care what any player or coach makes just as long as the product is good. An additional 10 million a year to any of our programs though could make a massive impact on the product, which is the only thing that matters, and losing money could have a massive negative impact on the product.