(04-26-2014 08:40 AM)CajunExpress Wrote:  First of all I do know that UMASS has a fine basketball history, but am not fully involved with it. In other words I don't follow them, so I do not know the recent success. If they are still a high level team in their conference how many basketball games would the SBC need to make it a fair trade? FBS football gives us an un-needed championship game but a wanted one by Benson. Is that a fair trade, or do they need to throw in six games a year with SBC teams on a home and home, or four, or what number? IMO six games seems a fair trade?

Anything less seems like a bad trade.

The deal with the MAC is four games in home and home deals with MAC schools per season, so on average two visits to the MAC and two games hosted by UMass.

As far as what makes a good trade, remember that adding UMass FB-only adds $1m to the CFP payout, so depending on how that is split up between the Sunbelt and UMass, there's also that money. If the Sunbelt kept $600,000 for a pure travel subsidy payout, that would be $150,000 for each visit to Massachusetts, added on top of whatever the CCG contract brings ... ESPN, FS1, CBSSN and NBCSN would seem the likely bidders for that contract, so it would at least bring fair media value.

(04-26-2014 12:23 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  I don't see how the MAC TV deal gets close to the CUSA TV deal ($1 million per school). I just don't see ESPN spending that kind of money on the MAC. But if the MAC did get a TV deal similar to CUSA, I would think that the SBC is in-line for a similar deal.

The MAC deal getting to around $1m a school wouldn't seem a stretch ~ the MAC traded off money for visibility in the last contract, and since they aren't going to push for more visibility, the gain in media value is all going to flow through on the money side of the deal.

Whether CUSA will be able to hold onto the kind of money it presently has is up in the air ~ its dropped in relative value, but the absolute value of live sports has continued to climb, so CUSA would be hoping that a rising tide lifts all boats.