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MEGA Conference Realignment and lawsuits Megathread: Stories, Tales, Lies, and Exaggerations

Hold My Beer said:
Always enjoy your posts EC ... even the ones I disagree with ;)

I don't think there'll be trimming of any power conference fat by the networks for a variety of reasons:

1) Wins and losses are a zero-sum game. Administrators, boosters and fans of traditional heavyweights (the latter two groups whether they know it or not) don't want to hover around .500 on a regular basis because their teams are no longer padding win totals against middleweights and lightweights

2) Culling programs is a political hornets' nest neither Sankey and Petitti will dare touch, particularly as they need favors in Congress both now and in the future

3) College presidents and administrators are also sensitive to blowback from abandoning peers, e.g. Pac-12 sheepishness about ditching Oregon State and Wazzu. Not to mention, leaving a school behind is one thing. Kicking them out is a whole 'nother matter with legal ramifications that would make the ACC-FSU-Clemson mess look like traffic court in comparison

4) Perhaps most importanty, media entities — whether it's ESPN, FOX and friends or Apple, Amazon or Netflix or some other deep pocketed platform — somebody is gonna pay WHATEVER its costs for the second-best broadcast property in the country: College Sports. How much will an expanded CFP and an NCAA Tournament also controlled by the SEC/B1G be worth on an open market?
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Good points, but I think the landscape is changing rapidly into a professional sports model and then yes, culling the herd does become a possibility.

You brought up the small market teams in the NFL and how they are not kicked out of the league. This is mainly due to revenue sharing and also the league has minimum criteria for teams to meet to maintain a spot at the table - in particular a salary base, not just a salary cap on the high end. Along with personnel requirements to support the team. This at least enables all teams to maintain a minimal level of competitiveness which, in turn, leads to more competitive games and more interest in watching those games. The college game has revenue sharing, but not too many minimal requirements on how to use it. Not too many NFL teams playing a team every year who go DECADES without winning a single game against that opponent (relatively common in many conferences). Nor many point spreads of +20 or more in the NFL either (again relatively common in college).

Forget about the college presidents and administrators having the will to kick out members (although it is not without precedent - Temple kicked out of the Big East), but what about the TV Networks that are funding this whole party? Fox is spending $100M per B1G school each year to get the opportunity to broadcast some fine games, but they've got plenty of stinkers to show as well. We'll see if this contract is profitable for them or not by what is offered next time. But yes, I think you'll see some of that "conference brotherhood" start to erode when schools in the bottom half of a conference continue to cash the checks, but don't reinvest some of it into building a somewhat competitive program.

The Congressional deal already has a salary cap in essence. Players unions are already forming at some schools. Some of this culling may just come organically by those schools who can't afford it.

I'll never say anything is impossible anymore.
 
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Tony4Canes said:
Anyone break down the UT-Austin cut & TAMU-College Station? I'm sure they get most but be curious to see it

What's SMU?
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The endowment graphic is deceptive. All any college really needs is one billionaire backer looking for a vanity place to burn some money. Oregon has theirs, we have ours, Louisville has a guy, etc. SMU for sure has boosters willing to put their money up for their program.

Meanwhile, I doubt any of the billionaires coming out of Stanford or MIT or Northwestern is going to throw money at their football program. And I know their admins won't tap into that endowment for football. Heck, Stanford literally created endowed positions for coaches. Meaning they're not taking from the general fund.
 
grover said:
The endowment graphic is deceptive. All any college really needs is one billionaire backer looking for a vanity place to burn some money. Oregon has theirs, we have ours, Louisville has a guy, etc. SMU for sure has boosters willing to put their money up for their program.

Meanwhile, I doubt any of the billionaires coming out of Stanford or MIT or Northwestern is going to throw money at their football program. And I know their admins won't tap into that endowment for football. Heck, Stanford literally created endowed positions for coaches. Meaning they're not taking from the general fund.
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U do realize Uncle Phil donates to Stanford, too, right? He’s an alum there, as well. He’s given close to half a billy to them. That’s his 2nd baby.
 
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Squid Bumciorek said:
This was the plan all along. Disney doesn’t have idiot lawyers. Nobody was leaving ACC prior to 2036 unless ESPN agreed to it. Notice that in the entire time the litigation was going on, espn basically never got involved. They had zero concern about teams leaving for the B1G, no ACC school was getting out of the GOR without espn’s permission.

Espn also held cards on SEC membership. Suppose Clemson and fsu somehow came up with the money to buy themselves out of the ACC and were willing to accept 0 dollars to join the SEC like SMU did with the ACC- espn would still not let them switch conferences because it would then be forced to let the ACCs crown jewel, UNC go to the B1G. We’d be trying to follow them. Who is left in the ACC after that? Espn would be stuck paying hundreds of millions to teams with no viewers through 2036. I feel bad for everyone who had to read the posts from people pretending to have inside knowledge. Let’s see- it went from we have a deal to the B1G to maybe we are hoping to have a deal to we definitely don’t have a deal. Might have been 3 people on this site - myself, @NorthernVirginiaCane and @Empirical Cane that weren’t duped. The most laughable was the certainty that FSU and Clemson had invites to the SEC. Surely fsu wasn’t so stupid that it would sue to get out of the ACC without a guaranteed landing spot. Right? Right ?
Dr Evil Whatever GIF


So then someone might ask- then why did fsu and Clemson sue if they knew they would lose? The point of the fight was to embarrass the ACC to the point that it gave them more money. And it worked. As for our 4d chess playing AD, sorry to break it to you, Rad wasn’t sitting on his hands because he was outsmarting people, truth is he was not going to poke the ACC in the eye. I said it a dozen times but people didn’t want to believe it- look at his quotes after the ACC announced the GOR. He pushed for the GOR as a way to keep the ACC together. Admitting now that the GOR was garbage would be the same as admitting his greatest career accomplishment was a disaster.

steve martin two wild and crazy guys GIF by Saturday Night Live



And now the billion dollar question. If the recent rumors are true, why would espn and the acc agree to let ACC teams keep their media rights if they leave prior to 2036? And why would the ACC agree to it? It’s because everyone knows that the next big realignment happens in 2030-2031. B1G tv deal ends in 2030. Big12 tv deal is up in 2031. ESPN Playoff deal ends in 2031. ESPN owns the sec tv deal so it can do whatever it wants whenever it wants. Good news is we are going to be part of a superconference along with a handful of other ACC teams, bad news is it isn’t happening until 2030….

Hey that year, 2030, sounds familiar. Oh right it is precisely the timeframe that I predicted around about a year and half ago , which led to some posters calling me a troll.

Walter White Win GIF by Breaking Bad
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Well, I was right in that (i) there would be a revenue split between the ACC haves and have nots, (ii) nothing was going to happen until 2030ish or later, (iii) Clemson and FSU had no invites from the SEC or Big Ten and (iv) certainly Miami was not going anywhere. And I think I was right that the GOR was legally a slam dunk winner. So I am not surprised at this settlement but I am a little surprised that the exit fees are now so low. It only makes sense if they didn't have the votes to pursue the lawsuit because so many more schools (i.e., Miami, UNC and ??? (UVA & GT?)) wouldn't approve it as they are also eyeing their options.

I think that with the increased money, the big ballers in the ACC would rather stay in the ACC with the academics (compared to the SEC) and take slightly less $$ with the easier path to the playoffs, but that is only if the ACC can realistically get 2 bids each season and 3 occasionally. And I also don't see how any team other than Notre Dame grows the pie enough to be offered a full-share on day one. We will see. TBD.
 
NorthernVirginiaCane said:
Well, I was right in that (i) there would be a revenue split between the ACC haves and have nots, (ii) nothing was going to happen until 2030ish or later, (iii) Clemson and FSU had no invites from the SEC or Big Ten and (iv) certainly Miami was not going anywhere. And I think I was right that the GOR was legally a slam dunk winner. So I am not surprised at this settlement but I am a little surprised that the exit fees are now so low. It only makes sense if they didn't have the votes to pursue the lawsuit because so many more schools (i.e., Miami, UNC and ??? (UVA & GT?)) wouldn't approve it as they are also eyeing their options.

I think that with the increased money, the big ballers in the ACC would rather stay in the ACC with the academics (compared to the SEC) and take slightly less $$ with the easier path to the playoffs, but that is only if the ACC can realistically get 2 bids each season and 3 occasionally. And I also don't see how any team other than Notre Dame grows the pie enough to be offered a full-share on day one. We will see. TBD.
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Only way is if a team can get back to being an elite team almost every year. We need to get there. Big year for us. The games in September feel like the biggest we have played in 20 years.
 
SPFRcane said:
And the 7 overtime game against Gawja.....those 2 games put them as the most watched team in the ACC. If those games weren't televised on the days and times they were they aren't in the top 5!!
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I don’t have an issue with the Georgia game. There were at least other options. I do have a problem with teams getting credit for getting ratings when there’s no other option. They could have put literally ANY ACC team in that game and the ratings would have still been fantastic because there was nothing to compete with it.
 
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DTP said:
I don’t have an issue with the Georgia game. There were at least other options. I do have a problem with teams getting credit for getting ratings when there’s no other option. They could have put literally ANY ACC team in that game and the ratings would have still been fantastic because there was nothing to compete with it.
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STOP WHINING. We know the rules of the game, LETS SCHEDULE ACCORDINGLY!
 
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