So what's happened in the last day?
-Texas bullied its way into its own TV contract by taking advantage of the smartest, most-confident, most-capable league commissioner in all of the land.
-Texas A&M, after days of tough talk about not following the Longhorns, decided to follow UT and stay in the B12.
-Missouri, after being bad-mouthed and blamed for the B12's poor management, decided to play the role of the beaten spouse who can't leave...kinda fitting- they already played "the girl too-easy-to-get" for the BT a few months ago.
-Kansas, Iowa State, Baylor, KSU and Mizzou decide that they'll simply forgive and forget the fact that much of the conference was ready to bail on them and leave them for dead.
-Beebe decided to use Colorado & Nebraska's buyout funds to help leverage UT and others to stay.
Remember, this whole thing started because multiple members of the league were angry that UT got preferential treatment...Good thing that problem is solved.
Honestly, I don't fault UT for being arrogant and looking out for its own best-interest...that's its president & AD's job. I do greatly-fault the Big 12 and many of its members for bowing down to them.
-The Pac10's Larry Scott looks like a boob (and James Taylor) as he continues to promise a bright future with unicorns, rainbows and fantastic expansion plans (read as Utah coming to the P10).
-Colorado exists on an island in the Western-most collegiate conference in the US...at least for the time being.
-The Mountain West goes back to being marginally-important as the little sisters of the B12 turn their collective back on the non-BCS league.
-Jim Delany stays quiet.
-Jack Swarbrick stays quiet.
-The SEC stays put...for the time being...and no dominoes from the ACC, then the Big East fall.
-EsPN continues to report out of both sides of its mouth. I think it's OK for an entity to report what it hears from reputable sources...but EsPN clearly has made it a practice to send multiple reporters different directions in search of different expansion story lines. This way, they'll always be right.
"Various sources reporting: FIFA to join the Pac10, as soon as 2011...Steven Strasburg named commissioner of the Big East."
Some say Jim Delany is a loser in all of this- I don't think so. Delany wanted and wants to do a couple things with expansion- grow the footprint of the TV network and move toward a playoff in football...which grows the revenue base of the conference. I'd argue both have been achieved...and the BT's efforts might not yet be completed. Plus, he didn't bow down at the alter of Bevo during this process...a real positive, if you ask me.
Jim Delany kisses no one's ass...except Notre Dame's.
The biggest losers are, in a very particular order:
-The Pac 10 and its commish, Larry Scott
-The numbers 10 & 12- like Larry Scott, they no longer have any clout nor carry any weight. No one respects them for what they once were.
The biggest winners are:
-University of Texas
-University of Nebraska
-The Big Ten
The seismic changes that seemed to be upon the college sports world turned out to be little-more than a small shake beneath our feet. Now the question becomes, is Silent Jim done, or will two more teams join the BT?
9 comments:
I agree with almost everything you stated. I think if the Pac 10 does pick up Utah (Okay, everything you said since it hasn't happened yet), then Utah would be a winner. Sure, the undefeated seasons will probably be gone, but to have a shot at an automatic bid in the BCS, plus increasing TV money by 5 times is a big upside. I don't think it makes the Pac 10 that much stronger, but it sure helps Utah, just like Nebraska's jump to the Big 10.
The whole CU jumpt to the left coast still doesn't make that much sense to me.
I feel like CU was the butt of a pratical joke. "Hey everyone, let's tell CU that Friday is dress like a clown day. Talk about your clown costume but we'll dress in suit and ties"
Colorado has wanted out for at least two reasons, from what I read: the Big 12 doesn't care much about academics, and of course there's the revenue non-sharing. I'm not sure they really cared where they went as long as it was to a conference that valued academics.
I agree that Delany isn't at all a loser. So far, he's done exactly what he wanted to do: expand the conference while staying true to the conference's principles (i.e. not at all what the Pac-10 was trying to do).
Texas is kind of a winner now ... the only thing is that if they really are developing a TexasChannel, it's going to be a problem down the road when the conference collapses. I doubt the BTN would give any school-sponsored channel the rights to any live games (and who knows how recorded games can be shown?). That could be a nice little albatross to join the existing one, the one that reads "Texas gets what it wants, so fork over, bitches."
Paul, Utah definitely will be a winner...but nothing's happened yet- I haven't even heard that the negotiations are serious. That might be because we're not out West, but that's kinda the point. Scott sought to make the P10 a more-nationally-attractive brand...he failed. Utah's departure would hurt the Mountain West badly.
The rumors are flying like crazy out here, but nothing has happened yet. Scott may be recovering from the shell-shock of having his grand prize pulled out from under his nose. Who knows what exactly will happen at this point, but I'm pretty sure Scott wants 12 teams so they can have a conference championship.
Not just from Utah's departure itself, but subsequent events ... I can't imagine BYU would want to be in a separate conference, and if BYU and Utah both leave, Boise State's arrival hardly makes up for that.
That would give the Pac-10 13 teams, so presumably they would be looking for a 14th ... and given they'd have six pairs of schools and one unmatched school (Colorado), who would be the 14th? Colorado State, naturally. (This is a stretch - I don't think they provide as much as, say, Arizona State does - but they'd definitely be available, and perhaps being a part of the Pac-14 would help them improve.)
If all that were to happen, the MWC would be gutted ... they'd have to absorb teams to get back to a decent size. That might almost drive them back to one of the rumored proposals (Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri), and of course that puts Texas back on an island again.
The little sisters of the B12 would have to receive around $15million/yr. from their new conference to make it worth while...and there's no way the MWC would bring that sort of TV contract, especially after the Pac?? is finalized.
Zlions - the Pac 10 won't take BYU because they refuse to play games on Sundays. Not a huge deal for football, but it is for all the other sports. Many have argued that BYU would fit better in the Pac 10 than Utah because they are stronger in Olympic style sports than Utah is, but the fact that they are private and don't want to play on Sundays hurts them significantly. BYU would not get an invite.
Bdowd is right - more likely for MWC teams to go to the Big 12 because of money. Right now, MWC teams get between 1 and 2 million/year in TV revenue.
Ooh, good point. I forgot about the Sunday thing. I'd imagine that would be a huge pain in non-revenue sports (and basketball as well to a lesser extent, although my impression is that the Pac-10 plays conference games primarily on Thursdays and Saturday?).
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