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

[Tony4Canes]

Interesting

 

[grover]

Wellllll...

The school that was complaining the most about unequal revenue distribution in the Big East was...Miami...because in the "lean years" we made so little money that we incurred massive operating deficits.

I realize that the "Michigan is better than Northwestern" crowd has probably never worked for an entity in the sports industry. But I have. And I can tell you one simple thing, you need REVENUE CERTAINTY. Sure, it's awesome when you can EXCEED expectations (such as what Miami accomplished with the CFP championship game run), but you need absolute revenue certainty in a number of areas, including all your "contractual" arrangements (sponsorships, etc.).

It wasn't about the "top tier", because the top tier of the Big East was based solely upon year-to-year success. Thus, while Miami was arguably one of the "top tier" teams of the Big East, our payouts were feast-and-famine. Thus, a "lesser" program like Boston College (or God forbid, St. Johns) might have made more money than Miami in any given year simply by succeeding at football or basketball while Miami was on probation.

So you can crap on the "lower tier" schools all you'd like, but the reality is not whether you are "lower tier", but whether the lowest payouts are enough to pay the bills and keep the lights on.

Thus, when Miami wanted to explore ways to improve payouts in the Big East, many other schools (especially the basketball-only schools) mischaracterized our efforts out of jealousy, knowing full well there was no way to have EQUAL distributions in a league in which some schools WERE basketball-only schools.

There's no way in **** the Big 10 will ever boot Northwestern or Purdue. Now, Rutgers and Maryland are different, but I doubt that will happen either. And the "value" of Northwestern and Purdue is about much more than their football records.

There's got to be a compromise though, no? If I were Taint or Michigan, I'd be livid that I subsidized Indiana's rise to the top. I understand the entire conference needs to be sustainable. But I do think the largest earners (e.g., the ones with the largest television audiences) should be compensated more.

 

[caneingville]

Even in the "lean years" of 1995 - 1999, Miami football finished each season as 1st or 2nd in the BE except for 1997. Even basketball finished in the top 4 of the BE in the last 3 of those years. Not sure how there was much famine on the field. If Miami wasn't getting paid with those results, they were right to look elsewhere.

You're right, a key goal for any business entity is revenue certainty. It isn't just in the sports industry. Just try and get a decent loan from a bank or sell shares of ownership if you can't show revenue stability. It's part of the reason there are conferences in the first place - share the risk, realize some schools will be up others will be down, and in other years it flip flops.

The issue all of college football is facing right now is this isn't the college football of even 20 years ago, let alone the college football of the early 20th century. As such, money is more important and the patience to allow the bottom feeders to take as much as everyone else in the conference, but not pay into their programs to be competitive is dwindling. Patience will really disappear if it affects TV negotiations. B1G TV numbers were disappointing this year. Could be a one-off situation, if not, negotiations could be interesting.

Interesting that Big 10 TV numbers were disappointing this past year. I hate how much of a monopoly the mothership has.