Details Of The New TV Pact Are Beginning To Emerge

Doesn’t pass the smell test? I’m shocked.

Texas did not all of the sudden jump off the Pac 10 bandwagon for no reason. A&M as well. There was some significant money being thrown at us to keep the BCS status quo in college football.

Blueshorn-

I saw you resigned as a LFM last night in another thread. By my count – you have resigned like 4 years in a row. I assume all of those up front costs you pay to rejoin must be getting expensive. As often as you have quit on the program and forfeited your tickets I am surprised you have ever attended a game.

We made out well in this deal – financially. I am sorry DD did not personally consult you before making this decision.

Smell test? SBD?

Oh srr, you are so very droll.

Newy,

I attended every home game but one last fall. I had a prior commitment in another state for that one. I also attended the OU game in Dallas, and the BCS Championship game in Pasadena. I travelled thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars supporting the Longhorns.

I have very high expectations for our program. I’m often disappointed in their short-sightedness. This is one of those times. I’ll probably get over it. But I’m glad you’re happy they made a lot of money. That’s all that matters.

Newy25 -
 
You’re reasoning by inference. If Texas makes the reported 25 million in TV revenue solely from the Big 12-2 contract, I’ll eat my hat. This isn’t Enron. The numbers don’t just conjure themselves into existence because Iowa State is playing Baylor on prime time.

While dealing with this confusing situation, one must find humor where one can.

Scipio-

I operate under the assumption that DD does not walk away from money. Ever. He did not decide to pull the Big 12 together out of a strong sense of loyalty towards Kansas State or Baylor. We got paid. There is no other logical explanation.

Of course we’re going to make more money. That goes without saying. We were in any event. The point is that it’s not going to be the reported sums.

As fragile and fluid as this all is, I would be shocked if in 5 years we were playing these same teams in this conference. Maybe the SEC is where we ultimately go with our own network? Maybe we beef up the Big 12 if we prove we are powerful enough to create TV value for an expanded market?

Maybe the Pac 10 decides to go to 14 teams and we take A&M or Oklahoma with us? This is not how the college landscape is going to look a few years from now. For the time being I am willing to go with it and not set my hair on fire and cancel my season tickets like some.

Newy,

Did you miss the part in the “press conference” where our guys said we are making a long-term commitment to the conference with substantial penalties? If srr’s info is correct, Fox wants an 18 year commitment to dole out all the money. If the money even exists.

DeLoss said he hasn’t even talked to any of the TV people. He’s relying on Beebe. I find that laughable.

The important thing is that Mack is happy with the soft schedule.

Slow playing to make sure due diligence is done is one thing — this smacks of us acting insouciant and taking Bebe at his word to simply buy us time time to figure out what the hell to do.

Beebe has entered the lexicon.

srr50-

I really think the speed at which everything payed out caught everyone off guard. The powers at be just needed to plug the dam and fabricated a solution. Everyone(Texas, ESPN, SEC) needed some time to plan for their long term future. From UT’s perspective it gives them time to develop the Longhorn Network, do the proper research on long term possibilities, and figure out what to do with A&M( let Gene Stallings term expire). I just don’t see how the network money is possible over the long term. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Any way you cut it, this outcome is better than a PAC16 with a$m in the SEC. Much better than being a Big 10 also ran and freezing our butts off at games in northern climes. And thankfully 18 years of easier schedules than we would ever see in the SEC.

I like it. Until there is a playoff that takes the pressure off every regular season game, I want a patsie schedule. I prefer to win by 30 points than to sweat bullets playing some big name team that could ruin our chances of being in the MNC game.

I will welcome all the tough exciting games you guys seem to want every year only when it is like the NFL and we can get into a playoff with as little as an 8-4 season.

I don’t see how we are ever going to get the money discussed. Beebe basically said in his interview that we have nothing concrete just some discussions with ESPN that they won’t give us less and FOX that they will give us more when the contracts expire… next year. Not good.

How can you call it a MNC and in the same breath suggest that we should play a shitty schedule in order to have a shot at it?

What’s wrong with sweating bullets once in a while?

What’s wrong with sweating bullets once in a while?

Ask Mack Brown.

There’s nothing wrong with this arrangement. OU, CU, and NU used the old Big 8 to reach titles. USC did the same with the PAC-10 in recent years. Now UT, amu, and 0u will do the same (except that, for amu, the accomplishments will be almost entirely rhetorical).

I think these two comparisons make much more sense than the snarky comparisons to the SWC we see being thrown around.

spider gets it. If winning national titles is a goal then we just took the easiest road.

This is not the old SWC. This conference is better than that. It may kind of suck, but in actuality it is stronger than the PAC 10, especially with USC about to drop off. It is much stronger than the Big East and is stronger for now than the ACC.

We lost a team that has a well below .500 average over the last 5 years and a team whose best year in the last 5 contained the glory of a home loss to Iowa State. The conference didn’t get notably weaker and for all the pussy rubbing the Big 12 has been the 2nd best football conference over the last 10 years and I don’t even think that is debatable.

Could we have joined or formed a stronger conference? Yes. Is this conference terrible? Not in the least. Only one conference is notably better and one other is likely to be better.

An 18 year deal? Who was negotiating for Beebe, Andre Johnson’s uncle?

Also, we just set a bad precedent of “saving” all the other Big 12 schools. Once you’ve saved ‘em once, you may find others think you are forever obligated to save ’em again. That makes the "we’re just waiting to make a better move later" line of thinking tougher.

This was the time to get out with the least possible amount of useless baggage (read Tech).

And what I am hoping is that the UTCS admins, after feeling the backlash, use the reduced TV dollars as an excuse to go ahead and pull the trigger.

Nothing is signed – that much I know for sure. One would have to assume the SEC offer is still good. The underlying economics that drove them to make that offer haven’t changed.

We can be the bad guys and take the blame for breaking up the conference. By all mens – we’re A-OK with that.

I was hanging out on Lake Travis this weekend and I think I saw the Aggie SEC invite skiing with the Loch Ness monster. I think Elvis was driving the ski boat.

Bob. Thank you.

I think people were hankering for “an exciting national college football scene” VS what is best for UT financially and athletically. I want both, but if I have to choose between them, I will go with the latter.

The status quo has served UT well for the last 15 or so years, and sticking with it for a while longer is a sober and eminently defensible course of action.

Before dismissing old SWC comparisons as snarky, you might actually look at what the old SWC was. Old doesn’t mean circa 1994 SWC. Old means circa 1980. Good Arkansas, good Texas, and then two more top 20 type teams derived from SMU, A&M, Baylor, U of H. Horrific Rice and TCU.
 
It also nicely sums up the parochialism of the current conference and it’s utter lack of national appeal.

So Rice, SMU, UH and TCU have the same national appeal as Ok. state, KU, KSU, Mizzou, and Iowa St? I don’t see it.

Look, I’m not saying we did the right thing, I’m just saying that other conferences suck ass the same or worse than the Big 12-2. And I doubt that I can be convinced that it = the old SWC. I’ll try to be open about it, but any comparison to a conference with UH, Rice, SMU and TCU is going to be a tough sell from a national appeal standpoint.

“One would have to assume the SEC offer is still good. The underlying economics that drove them to make that offer haven’t changed.”

Ag, you’re fucking delusional if you think aTm has an offer from the SEC.

Blueshorn, why didn’t you put a period before the word “if”?

Scipio, we lost all of our national appeal with Colorado and Nebraska? If so, then picking up Arkansas and SMU should bring it back.

Bartoncreek -
 
The idea that you put the words national appeal and KSU & ISU in the same sentence is amusing. Yes, I suppose they have more national appeal than Rice. Their Q rating is somewhere around Screech from Saved By The Bell.
 
You also forget how good SMU and UH were for stretches. SMU had top 5 finishes, including a #2 ranking before the death penalty. In any given year, the SWC always had 2-4 Top 20 teams. Expand that to Top 25 and it’s more. The point holds.
 
The bigger point is pretty simple: there will be two Big 12-2 bullies with a rotation underneath in any given year that are 8-4ish and another five absolute pieces of shit. However, these pieces of shit will all play each other, so wins will be manufactured along with some out of conference gimmes. And no doubt some of them going 8-4 through this formula will be seen as a great vindication for your point.
 
We had six bowl teams! OMG!!!!
  
The trends in this league aren’t good.

Monahorns -
 
Our league never had national appeal over the last couple of years. Texas is/was/will always be the national appeal. And to a lesser extent, OU. Not the league. Nebraska at least offered some sliver of historical promise.
 
In fact, we’re the local appeal too. Our road games are always packaged with opponent season tickets and we often guarantee them their only sell out of the year.
 
This league isn’t very appealing to the average Big 10/SEC/Pac 10 football fan. People who aren’t grasping that refuse to grasp. This shit isn’t hard. I can’t wait to bludgeon all of you with tv line-ups of the Kansas-Iowa State, Texas Tech-Kansas State, Oklahoma State-Baylor variety. Those ratings will sparkle. But don’t worry – Beebe has a TV package!

No way, Bob, I was hanging out with the Aggies SEC invite all weekend. We were knocking back drinks with a responsible BP executive and a good idea for a network sitcom. We never left the house.

Scipio,

No need to be so bitter. You and srr50 are right more often than wrong. Why get so miffed when this is the only one you wiffed?

Scipio gets it. The SWC held no appeal at all for anyone outside of Texas. That was fine pre 1980ish when ticket sales were the driving revenue factor. Once TV money started to outstrip ticket sales that kind of parochialism was no longer financially viable.

There is now one game in the Big 12 worthy of national interest -the RRR. At least prior to this we had the possibility of 4 to 6 national interest games a year TX-OU, Big 12 title, TX-UNL or OU-UNL and maybe one or two other game made interesting by the situation.

We have killed the Big 12 championship game, eliminated a nationally televised rivalry game CU-Nebraska, And eliminated the TX-UNL OU-UNL games which were interesting nationally.

The Big 12 is a local interest only conference right now. I can’t see how we’re generating the money being talked about in this contract. If it’s real 4 years from now Fox will be bitching about losing a ton of money on Big 12 football.

Not only that but our supposed commitment to academics can really be called into question . Whatever you want to say about CU’s athletics, it was one of the better schools in the Big 12, and apparently the big 10 thought enough of Nebraska to invite them.

If we sign an 18 year deal we damn sure better have a buyout clause that allows us to leave sooner rather than later i.e. something in the 10-15 million dollar range rather than 50 million.

The big 12 is now either the NHL on obscure cable channel no one has ever heard of or boxing on pay-per-view. We have essentially limited our appeal to a select group of die hard fans (mainly TX and OU fans).

Does the deal look better if Notre Dame sorta joins us?

Given the last few years Texas vs Tech should hold some interest. Here’s hoping Tubs doesn’t screw the pooch.

I suspect the buyout clause with Fox is getting first dibs the deal for wherever Texas and OU ends up. The deal is stupidly long and I suspect the only reason they made it so long is to have leverage for the next round. I don’t think anyone expects it to run to the end.

Also don’t discount how much the third tier and local signage rights are worth. To some extent I think we just shuffled money around. We get more from Fox but lose the money from Host communications. Here’s hoping that we end up positive on that. I have a sneaking suspicion this is where we’ll regret the deal

Wake up

If by sorta you mean the non-revenue sports from Notre Dame join the Big 12 then the answer is NO! If by sorta you mean they agree to play Texas and OU every year or every other year in football AND the non-revnue sports join the conference then the answer is yes.

I don’t have a lot of hope for the Tech game maintaining national interest long term. Really they had one game against us and one against OU and then promptly fired the coach who got them to that point because they were pissed about how much they had to pay him.

Lets say that tuberville is successful. He will either leave for a better program or Tech will get rid of him when they can’t afford his salary. At least that’s my takeaway from the Mike Leach era.

So we’re like the Pac 10/12 now? They only have USC and to a lesser extent Oregon as national programs. No one cares about the other games except to the extent it will determine who might go to the national championship.

Texas Wahoo
No one outside of Cali/ Arizona/Oregon and Washington cares about the PAC 10. Of course those states actually contain cities with people in them as opposed to vast tracks of corn and wheat.

Scip, are you saying that we lost national appeal by losing Nebraska and Colorado as conferencemates? or that we blew a chance to raise our national appeal by joining a conference that contained west coast teams?

Roach,

“Not only that but our supposed commitment to academics can really be called into question . Whatever you want to say about CU’s athletics, it was one of the better schools in the Big 12, and apparently the big 10 thought enough of Nebraska to invite them. "

CU is not a good school, it’s on par with Baylor as some bear fans have pointed out. Nebraska isn’t a good school, the Big 10 has caught some flack for lowering their academic standards to acquire Nebraska.

“TX-UNL or OU-UNL and maybe one or two other game made interesting by the situation.”

Any game that has TX or OU facing a team that is ranked in the Top 25 will be a good game. The Jamal Charles game against Nebraska carried no national appeal. NEB/OU hasn’t been a big deal till this past year (a couple of 3-4 loss teams in early November = not that big of a deal). That was actually the biggest OU/NEB game in years, which is sad.

I’m in the camp of we didn’t lose anything by losing Nebraska and Colorado. And the current Pac 10 is much shittier than the current Big 12 from a football/basketball standpoint.

Dick:

You’re just plain wrong about CU and they have the research dollars to prove it. Comparing Baylor to CU is a joke.

Nebraska is not a good school, but its not a bad one either. It’s not like some of the dregs we’re joined to the hip with now.

Neither school is Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Cal, Stanford, or UCLA. All I’m saying is the Big 12 looks a lot more like the SEC than the PAC 10 or Big 10.

Our conference might be one rich alumnus adopting a great football player to play at the alma matter away from the SEC.

Wahoo,

Forget the PAC 10/12. Yes, our league pretty much sucks shit through a straw in football. But Texas got a lot of money (if you buy the pie-in-the sky we’ve been fed so far), and DeLoss can add “Savior” to his title of “Genius.” .This is the way the majority of our fanbase and Iowa St. see it, so it must be true.

Mack is giddy at the softer schedule and he’s the greatest coach in America, so who are we to complain? The Pure Prairie League – It’s great for Texas! ™

True, we’ll be playing boring conference games in shitty places for years to come but we’ll all keep shelling out the jack. Otherwise, we’re not true and loyal fans. Sure, you could stop donating to the foundation and pay scalpers’ prices to the few games that are worth a fuck. Or you could just swallow your pride and cough it up, lest you be labeled a parasite, a whiner (my favorite), or a T-shirt fan.

Blueshorn -

Please tell me how this hurts our schedule from the one last year. The one that walked us right to the title game.

Yeah, I don’t see how this is much different. Nebraska may be a big name, but the candle is flickering.

Scipio,

No need to be so bitter. You and srr50 are right more often than wrong. Why get so miffed when this is the only one you wiffed?
 
OK, Bill – I’ll bite. What did I whiff on? The fact that I pointed out years ago that the Big 12 as we concieved of it had its days numbered? My interest in a superconference was aspirational. I think it makes for a fun product.

Newy,

I won’t ask you to take my word for it. You can read Huckleberry’s article if you care to take the time.

http://barkingcarnival.fantake.com/2010/06/16/conference-change-impact-by-the-numbers/

As Scipio notes in the comments, the conference is weaker. That isn’t going to help us, but be happy with more money, dude. It’s everything.

Anybody who pines for superconferences pines for a day when non-revenue sports are completely disbanded.

Hopefully, that never happens.

Non-revenue sports won’t be disbanded with Title IX.