(08-07-2022 07:36 AM)CardinalJim Wrote: (08-06-2022 04:26 PM)JRsec Wrote: Because Florida sponsored F.S.U. for SEC membership in '90-91 and wanted to do so again in 2011, when South Carolina wanted to sponsor Clemson. Their reasons were simple and true. Both solicited donations to the athletics fund in order for fans to qualify for those tickets. In a world where those in the know realized realignment would continue and conference schedules would get tighter, they correctly surmised that the only way to guarantee games with these rivals could continue was to bring them into the conference. The angst was great enough in 2011 that Slive asked for a gentlemen's agreement not to nominate in state rivals until ESPN's renegotiation clause requiring 2 new markets before a contract revaluation could be done was satisfied. Clay Travis got the story backwards, turned it into a blackball agreement, which it was clearly not, and fanboys across the ignorant internet turned a lie into a myth!
Slive promised Machen and Pastides that after 2011 no such restrictions would exist again and the only qualification would be profitability, which in the age of brand and content they both are profitable, not UT and OU profitable, but accretive.
So when I hear FSU and Clemson to the SEC I hear a consideration to USC and UF fulfilled, because we are perhaps this realignment away from playing all games in conference if we grow past 20.
You regularly say there isn’t a Gentleman’s agreement. Here are a decade plus list of articles, the last from ESPN, disagreeing with you.
https://www.on3.com/teams/kentucky-wildc...f-the-sec/
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1173...-expansion
https://www.bestofarkansassports.com/gen...as-to-sec/
https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...ue-schools
This old Sports Illustrated article claims there was a gentleman’s agreement because of race. I don’t know about the rest of the SEC but I know what the attitude toward African American athletes in Lexington used to be.
Kentucky fans still call Louisville “The Blackbirds”. They chant it ball games.
Racism is alive and well in Lexington when it comes to Louisville. That’s why you’ll never see UK support UofL joining The SEC.
https://vault.si.com/vault/1965/06/14/th...vited-home
I would like to agree with you about the gentleman’s agreement but it’s alive in well here in the bass ackwards place in America
Yes, there are plenty of sorry articles mostly written to appeal to fan emotion and draw hits and none of them is what happened in the room where the commissioner and 12 presidents decided the future. So, knock yourself out Jim. Can you look at any news in the past 20 years or so, even when some articles line up, and say you actually believe the spin, politicization, or any of it?
These schools play a good cop bad cop role. Presidents vote bottom line and answer to the State's which employ them. States which have other schools which sometimes have their stature threatened by realignment disparity. Presidents don't have to talk about how they voted and what they said since its private. This puts them in position to push for a FSU, Clemson, or less enthusiastically Georgia Tech which in 2011 Georgia's president was asked to do by his state's politicians.
Athletic Directors get to publicly fan the flames of rivalry. It stirs ticket and donation revenue and keeps interest high. A&M's president voted for Texas while their AD played to impassioned donors.
What happened in '92 is a matter of record if you can find it. UF sponsored FSU. In 2011 things were super tightlipped with N.C. State and Va Tech talk, a deal going on in the ACC and Missouri was a great public distraction even when Boren was trying to push OU and OSU as a pair. In looking at a jump to 16 in the ACC and SEC with moves which were then proposed So Carolina and Forida's presidents were extremely anxious about their money games and whether keeping cross conference rivals would be feasible as realignment continued.
There were people in that meeting in which I have complete trust and Slive commented on it once, essentially verifying the incident.
The blackball story was first pushed by Travis and exploded from there with many articles playing peat and repeat. It's what I meant by saying it gained myth status.
Believe what you wish. I'll simply trust those I know. And I will add this, just look at all the lies the media pushes about realignment now! I think it's safe to assume the SEC has interest in Florida State and North Carolina, I've heard of back channels and visits. But no source has flatly stated any prospects names yet. Some local blogger tossed out Miami, Clemson, FSU and UNC, another replaced Miami with UVa, and Patrick regurgitates it as his own idea. All of these beat writers scour blogs and do internet searches regularly to get ideas to drive hits, and none of it is credible. It's all fiction until something happens, and legally its treated as such.
Jackie Sherrill spoke of the SEC's defensive expansion plan in an article. His was secondhand information likely leaked by his AD from a discussion with his president. It was mostly correct with a tad of second or thirdhand embellishment and it has remained a source of a lot of conjecture.
Picking the PAC as a target of the B1G by me was simply logic in use. Their preference in action is for AAU schools. They passed on Kansas and Missouri in 2011 and prior, and the ACC is tied up. Where else were they going to go?
What I've had to say about the SEC came from the people I know and trust.
Oh, and in 2010-2 Bleacher Report was even more of a laughingstock than it is now and ESPN writers and hosts don't know anything. Example: Finebaum insisting just a week or so before OU and UT broke that it would "never happen". So something which had been off and on in serious talks with the SEC since 1987 had never sunk in on Finebaum, or he just lied. Take your pick.
