Conference Realignment

[Richard7125]

The SEC, B10 and ND already tried to vote to go to 8 or 12 once and lost. They were held up by the ACC, B12 and PAC. Each conference still only gets one vote.

yeah, i understand that. There has been speculation that the SEC and Big10 would hold their own playoff (maybe include ND) and everyone else would hold their own playoff. I think before that happens, the ACC, Big12 and Pac12 would vote to expand the current playoffs when they expire in 2025 and be included in the Big Dance. This is pure speculation on my part, but it makes some sense to me.

 

[bobongo]

I think the conflation of academics and athletics is part of the Big10. Every member of the conference is a member of the alliance. The only member of the alliance who isn't a member of the conference is Chicaco, who was invited when the alliance was formed, had been a Big10 athletic member but dismantled the sports program. Penn State joined the conference and the alliance at the same time. Nebraska joined the conference and the alliance at the same time. Rutgers and Maryland joined the conference and the alliance at the same time. (Same time is relative. Rutgers and Maryland actually "joined" the alliance a year earlier, but had committed to the conference and were waiting for start athletics) Up to this point, no school has been able to join the alliance without joining the conference and vice-versa.

The alliance pools purchasing power, resources, and influence. If Vanderbilt were to join the Big10 alliance they would gain access to research data and reports from all of the other Big10 schools. I don't know much about GTRI and how it operates so I can't say how beneficial extra governmental influence and access to the other schools data would be.

"Big 10 alliance"? The "alliance" includes more schools than just the B1G athletic conference, no?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

No one pays media money. The school just doesn’t earn anything.

My point was that the GoR isn’t the impediment for the B1G that it is for the SEC. B1G will get their $$ regardless of whether the school or their previous conference owns the media rights.

If an ACC team went to the B1G, the B1G Network wouldn’t have to air any of their games to earn money from their market. With the SEC it’s a different animal.

I think you misread what I wrote.

Know why UCLA and USC will wait? Grant of rights.

The reason the B1G isn't getting USC and UCLA now instead of two years from now is the PAC GoR. The lost money not matter to the B1G, but it sure matters to those two schools. If a GoR was breakable, I'm sure those two schools would love to break it and bolt sooner. Same with UT and OU to the $EC.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I think you misread what I wrote.



The reason the B1G isn't getting USC and UCLA now instead of two years from now is the PAC GoR. The lost money not matter to the B1G, but it sure matters to those two schools. If a GoR was breakable, I'm sure those two schools would love to break it and bolt sooner. Same with UT and OU to the $EC.

Looks like a business decision by the schools.

Not sure how it would affect the B1G payout to each of those schools, as the B1G money is not tied to media rights. The B1G Network just wouldn’t broadcast USC or UCLA home games, but would still gain cable revenue because a member team is in that media market.

I’m sure there’s more to it then that. But USC and UCLA may be the ones deciding to wait, not the B1G. SEC and Tex/OK are a different situation.

 

[RonJohn]

"Big 10 alliance"? The "alliance" includes more schools than just the B1G athletic conference, no?

Only Chicago, who: was a founding member of the Big 10, dismantled their sports program, and joined at the inception of the alliance. For 68 years, not one school has joined who didn't also join the athletic conference.

EDIT:. I think you are missing my overall point. Up to this point, the Big 10 schools have treated joining more like the schools becoming partners instead of simply a business agreement to play each other in sports and to share money, like the SEC appears to do. It likely isn't a coincidence that they have only invited teams that also got an invite to the association. It is the schools joining, not just the football teams joining.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Looks like a business decision by the schools.

Not sure how it would affect the B1G payout to each of those schools, as the B1G money is not tied to media rights. The B1G Network just wouldn’t broadcast USC or UCLA home games, but would still gain cable revenue because a member team is in that media market.

I’m sure there’s more to it then that. But USC and UCLA may be the ones deciding to wait, not the B1G. SEC and Tex/OK are a different situation.

It's not the B1G. USC and UCLA would lose the money from those games. The PAC would distribute that revenue evenly to the other schools. The GoR means that USC and UCL will stand pat until it expires. That's the exact same reason that UT and OU are waiting. It has nothing to do with their new conference tv deals. That's what I've been saying the whole time.

 

[CEB]

Looks like a business decision by the schools.

Not sure how it would affect the B1G payout to each of those schools, as the B1G money is not tied to media rights. The B1G Network just wouldn’t broadcast USC or UCLA home games, but would still gain cable revenue because a member team is in that media market.

I’m sure there’s more to it then that. But USC and UCLA may be the ones deciding to wait, not the B1G. SEC and Tex/OK are a different situation.

Wait two years and collect $70M from Pac 12 media deal in the interim OR move now, make your new conference a boatload of money, take $0 for the next two years from your current Pac 12 deal and get paid in 2024 the same amount you would’ve made if you had just stayed in the Pac 12 for two years and gotten paid....

Pretty sound business decision.

MAYBE you’re right that the BIG could cash in on having a school in the media market if that is how their deal works, but why in the world would a school do that? BIG couldn’t pay them from their media deal because any media earnings by those schools belong to the PAC. You’re just throwing away $70M in PAC earnings so you can offer your market to the BIG for free for two years.

 

[mts315]

I'm not sure why the SEC would want to take any of the big-name east coast schools, ie Clemson, FSU, Miami etc. These teams do not open any new markets for television money. The SEC doesn't need them for competition on the field, I don't think the matchups against those schools would move the needle in viewership any more than the teams currently in the SEC. It would be smarter in the long run to ignore those teams in realignment and let them wither once the two mega-conferences are in place.

The BIG could look at one of the FL schools or Clemson but they don't fit the academic profile, except for maybe Miami in a stretch. We would be a perfect choice for the BIG from an academic’s standpoint and would not be a danger currently in football to scare the main schools.

It makes more sense to pick-up smaller schools with the last few slots for the 2 main conferences and kill the better sports schools in the process.

 

[Richard7125]

Wait two years and collect $70M from Pac 12 media deal in the interim OR move now, make your new conference a boatload of money, take $0 for the next two years from your current Pac 12 deal and get paid in 2024 the same amount you would’ve made if you had just stayed in the Pac 12 for two years and gotten paid....

Pretty sound business decision.

MAYBE you’re right that the BIG could cash in on having a school in the media market if that is how their deal works, but why in the world would a school do that? BIG couldn’t pay them from their media deal because any media earnings by those schools belong to the PAC. You’re just throwing away $70M in PAC earnings so you can offer your market to the BIG for free for two years.

USC and UCLA would get a heavily watered down distribution (call it 20%) from the Big10 compared to all of the other Big10 schools because the Big10 doesn't get any media revenue from USC or UCLA games. Not sure why that is hard to understand.

 

[CEB]

USC and UCLA would get a heavily watered down distribution (call it 20%) from the Big10 compared to all of the other Big10 schools because the Big10 doesn't get any media revenue from USC or UCLA games. Not sure why that is hard to understand.

I think you’re misreading my post and the post it was in response to.
Actually they don’t get anything from media until the PAC GOR expires. Their media rights belong to PAC for two more years and that was my point refuting the notion it was simply a “business decision” to stay in the PAC instead of joining BIG immediately.

 

[forensicbuzz]

It's not the B1G. USC and UCLA would lose the money from those games. The PAC would distribute that revenue evenly to the other schools. The GoR means that USC and UCL will stand pat until it expires. That's the exact same reason that UT and OU are waiting. It has nothing to do with their new conference tv deals. That's what I've been saying the whole time.

It seems you’re looking past what I’m saying to prove your point. Obviously, if UCLA and USC left the PAC12 early, they’d lose the incline from broadcasting their home games. That’s the point of media rights. Not a point in question.

If USC and UCLA joined the B1G, they would get their portion of the B1G distribution because the B1G money isn’t tied to media rights. That would more than compensate for what they leave on the table the PAC12 with owning their media rights.

Since B1G doesn’t really need the media rights to make $$, they can give UCLA and USC their equal share. The B1G share overwhelms the loss of PAC12 medial rights contribution.

Stop trying to prove a point no one is disputing.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Wait two years and collect $70M from Pac 12 media deal in the interim OR move now, make your new conference a boatload of money, take $0 for the next two years from your current Pac 12 deal and get paid in 2024 the same amount you would’ve made if you had just stayed in the Pac 12 for two years and gotten paid....

Pretty sound business decision.

MAYBE you’re right that the BIG could cash in on having a school in the media market if that is how their deal works, but why in the world would a school do that? BIG couldn’t pay them from their media deal because any media earnings by those schools belong to the PAC. You’re just throwing away $70M in PAC earnings so you can offer your market to the BIG for free for two years.

Why would UCLA and USC not be able to collect from their B1G contract?

B1G can’t televise USC and UCLA home games, but so what?

 

[forensicbuzz]

I think that’s the crux of the confusion. The B1G payout isn’t part of USC or UCLA’s media rights unless the B1G actually broadcasts their home games or games considered to be home games. PAC12 doesn’t own the rights to their away games.

 

[g0lftime]

It seems you’re looking past what I’m saying to prove your point. Obviously, if UCLA and USC left the PAC12 early, they’d lose the incline from broadcasting their home games. That’s the point of media rights. Not a point in question.

If USC and UCLA joined the B1G, they would get their portion of the B1G distribution because the B1G money isn’t tied to media rights. That would more than compensate for what they leave on the table the PAC12 with owning their media rights.

Since B1G doesn’t really need the media rights to make $$, they can give UCLA and USC their equal share. The B1G share overwhelms the loss of PAC12 medial rights contribution.

Stop trying to prove a point no one is disputing.

I am not sure how the B1G contracts with new members are defined but Maryland had to wait until 2020 to get a full share of the conference distribution. I believe that was 5 years. I believe it was about half of the other members distribution.

 

[slugboy]

It seems you’re looking past what I’m saying to prove your point. Obviously, if UCLA and USC left the PAC12 early, they’d lose the incline from broadcasting their home games. That’s the point of media rights. Not a point in question.

If USC and UCLA joined the B1G, they would get their portion of the B1G distribution because the B1G money isn’t tied to media rights. That would more than compensate for what they leave on the table the PAC12 with owning their media rights.

Since B1G doesn’t really need the media rights to make $$, they can give UCLA and USC their equal share. The B1G share overwhelms the loss of PAC12 medial rights contribution.

Stop trying to prove a point no one is disputing.

We may be talking past each other, or you may have meant something else, but how is it the case that the B1G doesn't need media rights to make money?

The B1G sells TV football games to FOX. Whether through ad revenue or carriage fees or something else, FOX makes money selling those games. For carriage fees, if FOX wants more, they have to convince Time Warner/Comcast/Spectrum/LocalCableCompany to either carry the network and pay for it or pay more for it than they were before because they've added more games that customers in that area will pay extra for.
The B1G splits the revenues from FOX among the member schools. If there's not an income increase (i.e. FOX doesn't get paid more from the local cable companies), the pie gets split among more schools and the payout goes down (i.e. the equal share gets split among 16 teams instead of 14, but the pie is the same size).
FOX isn't going to pay more for income that they're not getting.

The ACC Network got a bump in income through households/carriage fees when Comcast agreed to carry the network.

If a TV provider is paying money, it's for the media rights. Whether it's households or eyeballs or anything else, it's something accessible through media rights.

If any TV service (FOX/ESPN/etc) pays tens of millions of dollars without getting more content, they either have a magic group of subscribers who will just let their bills go up, or they're about to fire some of their negotiators.

FOX would be nuts to pay more without the media rights. The cable companies they get money from would be nuts to pay more. The subscribers would be nuts to pay more. The B1G would be nuts to pay USC and UCLA for income they're not getting.

In the end, for TV, it's all about the media rights and how much they can get someone to pay for a product based on them. Everything else is just rearranging the pieces.

(A side item is people watching "Pardon the Interruption" or one of the other talking head shows because they're on your team's network. One of the people who can watch more than 5 minutes of that will have to explain to me how that works)

 

[CEB]

Why would UCLA and USC not be able to collect from their B1G contract?

B1G can’t televise USC and UCLA home games, but so what?

No; UCLA and USC can’t make money from their media without consent of the PAC as long as they are subject to their GOR agreement. If they leave the PAC while still obligated by GOR and the BIG starts paying them a share of media proceeds from another media deal, they're in a lawsuit. It would take a lot of money and probably more than a year to work through the lawsuit, so stay put, take your PAC $$$ for two years, and fully join BIG after you control your own media rights.

 

[CEB]

I think that’s the crux of the confusion. The B1G payout isn’t part of USC or UCLA’s media rights unless the B1G actually broadcasts their home games or games considered to be home games. PAC12 doesn’t own the rights to their away games.

This clarifies your earlier point a bit more but I also say distinction without difference. It doesn’t matter what individual games the PAC does or does not own, the PAC owns their media rights. The individual schools can’t get paid directly for media in any form or location outside of the PAC agreement. All money received by the conference, who owns the rights, and then distributed to members.
That’s my understanding. I’m happy to hear valid argument to the contrary.

 

[forensicbuzz]

We may be talking past each other, or you may have meant something else, but how is it the case that the B1G doesn't need media rights to make money?

The B1G sells TV football games to FOX. Whether through ad revenue or carriage fees or something else, FOX makes money selling those games. For carriage fees, if FOX wants more, they have to convince Time Warner/Comcast/Spectrum/LocalCableCompany to either carry the network and pay for it or pay more for it than they were before because they've added more games that customers in that area will pay extra for.
The B1G splits the revenues from FOX among the member schools. If there's not an income increase (i.e. FOX doesn't get paid more from the local cable companies), the pie gets split among more schools and the payout goes down (i.e. the equal share gets split among 16 teams instead of 14, but the pie is the same size).
FOX isn't going to pay more for income that they're not getting.

The ACC Network got a bump in income through households/carriage fees when Comcast agreed to carry the network.

If a TV provider is paying money, it's for the media rights. Whether it's households or eyeballs or anything else, it's something accessible through media rights.

If any TV service (FOX/ESPN/etc) pays tens of millions of dollars without getting more content, they either have a magic group of subscribers who will just let their bills go up, or they're about to fire some of their negotiators.

FOX would be nuts to pay more without the media rights. The cable companies they get money from would be nuts to pay more. The subscribers would be nuts to pay more. The B1G would be nuts to pay USC and UCLA for income they're not getting. In the end, for TV, it's all about the media rights and how much they can get someone to pay for a product based on them. Everything else is just rearranging the pieces.
(A side item is people watching "Pardon the Interruption" or one of the other talking head shows because they're on your team's network. One of the people who can watch more than 5 minutes of that will have to explain to me how that works)

The B1G makes money from the cable companies for carrying the B1G. They make about $0.25/box in areas where they don't have a school in the market and about $1.25/box in areas where they do. By being in the LA market, they automatically get an increased share of the cable market. They in partnership with Fox (49/51), they don't sell them games. The ACC/SEC relationship with ESPN is about eyeballs on games because the ACC/SEC sell the broadcast rights to ESPN and get a dispersement. B1G works differently. At least that's the way it's been explained to me by a B1G person.

 

[GoldZ]

One point about the head to head records of the ACC vs SEC. This may surprise some based on the oft mentioned complete dominance of the sec vs ACC in football. If you include the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s so far, the sec has won 62.5% of the games. Idk, but this doesn't sound much like complete domination to me. Especially when you add in bagmen and home economics/turf mgt. majors. Sure the ACC has that, but not at the same level. Well, I guess the expansionists thingy doesn't much care, huh?

 

[RonJohn]

This clarifies your earlier point a bit more but I also say distinction without difference. It doesn’t matter what individual games the PAC does or does not own, the PAC owns their media rights. The individual schools can’t get paid directly for media in any form or location outside of the PAC agreement. All money received by the conference, who owns the rights, and then distributed to members.
That’s my understanding. I’m happy to hear valid argument to the contrary.

There are a lot of people on the internet saying lots of things about GOR. I have not seen the GOR contract online, but have seen the previous one posted online. I included a quote from that document below which is said to resemble the current contract. This basically says that the conference owns the games that are covered by the ESPN agreement. (Which I haven't seen available anywhere) It says that the schools are obligated to allow ESPN access to the facilities and are required to assist ESPN to satisfy the obligations of the contract. It does not say that a school is obligated to pay money received from outside subscriber fees, or media money that other schools in a different conference generate. However, if a company like Fox were to pay additional money for adding an additional school, they would probably only include the additional revenue that the school actually generated. If the school opened a new market to raise subscriber fees, but didn't include any additional content they would probably only pay based on the additional subscriber fees, not as a ratio of the current contract which includes content.

EDIT: This is the old ACC GOR contract, not a PAC12 contract.

1. Grant of Rights. Each of the Member Institutions hereby (a) irrevocably and
exclusively grants to the Conference during the Term (as defined below) all rights (the "Rights")
necessary for the Conference to perform the contractual obligations of the Conference expressly
set forth in the ESPN Agreement, regardless of whether such Member Institution remains a
member of the Conference during the entirety of the Term and (b) agrees to satisfy and perform
all contractual obligations of a Member Institution during the Term that are expressly set forth in
the ESPN Agreement. The grant of Rights pursuant to this paragraph 1 includes, without
limitation, (A) the right to produce and distribute all events of such Member Institution that are
subject to the ESPN Agreement; (B) subject to paragraph 7 hereof, the right to authorize access
to such Member Institution's facilities for the purposes set forth in and pursuant to the ESPN
Agreement; (C}the·right·ofthe·Conference or its designeeto ·create and to own ·a -copyright of
the audiovisual work of the ESPN Games (as defined in the ESPN Agreement) of or involving
such Member Institution (the "Works") with such rights being, at least, coextensive with 17
U.S.C. 411(c); and (D). the present assignment of the entire right, title and interest in the Works
that are created under the ESPN Agreement. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this
paragraph, the grant of Rights pursuant to this paragraph 1 shall not include any rights of a
particular Member Institution to sports as to which the Conference and such Member Institution
have agreed, as of the date of such Member Institution's execution of this Agreement or ajoinder
thereto, that such Member Institution will not participate as a member of the Conference. The
grant of Rights pursuant to this paragraph 1 shall remain subject to the right to produce and
distribute, by means of specified media, those events of such Member Institution dwing the
Term which are reserved to the Conference and the Member Institution under the ESPN
Agreement and which may be exercised as permitted by the ESPN Agreement and in accordance
with Conference policy. Each Member Institution will cause any affiliated entity which has
previously been granted any interest in the Rights, to grant such interest to the Conference to the
extent necessary to allow the Member Institution to fully perform all of its obligations under this
Agreement and provide the Conference with the Rights contemplated hereby.