(01-16-2019 03:52 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  Guys, always remember this. Texas has power issues, not financial ones.

There’s no money in the world that can convince Texas to go to another conference and be a team player. Why? They have money. Tons of it.

What Texas wants is to be in control. They like to dictate terms and conditions, be a decision maker from expansion to tv deals to league matters. They like to be surrounded by an entourage of yes schools. They won’t get any of that in the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12. Oklahoma can throw a fit once in awhile but they’ve been quite successful in the Big XII. They can look at Arkansas, Nebraska and Texas A&M as a cautionary tale of what happens when you get away from Texas and join a stronger league with more resources. The last thing Oklahoma wants is to be Nebraska.

Nonsense.

Now Texas has certain things it wants the conference to be. Like it insisted on limited partial qualifiers when it joined the Big 12. It could get those sorts of things in either the Big 10 or Pac 12. Might even in SEC.

This post by JRSEC was the basis for my post:

(01-14-2019 01:16 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Pressure. There are essentially 4 championship game time slots on a Saturday. There is one too many games. The playoff committee issues go away with 4 conferences too. Product placement from the middle of the nation to the extremities also fits the corporate models in which lines are blurred between regions to enhance viewer penetration in multiple regions.

The Big 12 has the smallest existing footprint but a high saturation of viewers, brand power which escalates content value when distributed, and Texas, the key population state has already been penetrated by another region.

In the minds of the networks their question is how best to use those 28 million viewers in Texas? From their vantage point pieces of the Texas market in the PAC, Big 10, or ACC would all increase the national appeal of conference broadcasts. With regard to the SEC the only issue would be enhancing their penetration of the Texas/Oklahoma market.

Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia, and Oklahoma are markets so small that whether their schools were in any particular conference is not much of an issue.

I'm not saying definitively that this is a deliberate push to the Big 12. However I am saying that their parsing would solve a great many of the issues plaguing the current issues confronting the networks. Theoretically it could be used to give the Big 10 the recruiting access it needs, give the PAC a market that actually cares about watching football, multiply the content value of the SEC or enhance its weakest aspect (hoops), or to enhance the value of the ACCN.

If ESPN profits, Murdoch profits. If FOX profits, Murdoch profits.

I told this board in 2012 that this realignment was actually the hostile takeover of an undervalued and haphazardly managed and organized product, college football. And that when corporate raiders make a hostile takeover they organize the product to enhance its market value. That means culling poor product, placing top brands where they enhance others, and pushing strong regional product into national exposure.

The gap between the A product and the B product has already been established and the time slots apportioned on non traditional days and hours ensures that the gap is enhanced and remains.

We have two CCG's that pay, those of the SEC and Big 10. We have two CCG's that frequently lack a second worthy challenger, the PAC and ACC. We have one that can have great product but which across the course of the season yields too few games of national interest, but which if realigned could enhance any or all 4 of the others.

So that's the reason I look at this move and wonder if we aren't witnessing the ratcheting up of heat at precisely the right time for two networks to push their advantage in:

A. Enhancing the value of 4 conferences in which they own or lease the majority rights.

B. That by product placement they also may open up existing contracts, renegotiate them, and extend them.

C. That by extending them they avoid the interference of the FAANG companies when current contracts expire.

D. FOX and ESPN are in prime position to be able to mitigate damage claims since they split the T1 and T2 rights of the Big 12, ESPN owns Texas's T3, FOX owns Oklahoma's T3, and ESPN holds Kansas's T3 rights and the value of all the rest would be easily handled.

So there is motive and opportunity. The question remains whether or not there is the desire?

Also, take that and add in this too:

Don't you think that Rupert Murdoch looks at college basketball as dysfunctional as college football?? Don't you think ESPN & FOX would love get a cut of the March Madness action in addition to the assets they already hold?? I believe that soon you will see those two networks make moves in that direction. Imagine the NCAA's biggest sports televised by only ESPN and Fox. What I believe he (Rupert Murdoch) wants to do, end game so to speak, is to create a "Sky" network in the U.S., that would be similar to the Sky Network in UK or the Star Network in India (neither of those networks have any competetion, unless I am mistaken).

Rupert Murdoch is 87 years old. I think his major moves are done. At this point getting out of bed and to the breakfast table is a feat.

As Wedge correctly notes, Texas can sit pretty much any place they want to sit. What ESPN has is the ability if Texas wants to sit in the Pac-12 or Big 10 is use LHN as it's chip to get some of the equity in BTN and P12N

(01-17-2019 04:36 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  As Wedge correctly notes, Texas can sit pretty much any place they want to sit. What ESPN has is the ability if Texas wants to sit in the Pac-12 or Big 10 is use LHN as it's chip to get some of the equity in BTN and P12N

It's a chip with less and less value as you get closer to June 2031.

Most likely they will simply settle with Texas and walk away should they join the B1G. There might be some posturing, but it will come down to how much the buyout is and how much ESPN still owes. Think of it as an expiring NBA contract on the buyout market. The value diminishes annually. ESPN wants to get out of the roughly $120M they would still owe Texas after July 1st 2025. So it just comes down to a price.

(01-16-2019 03:52 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  Guys, always remember this. Texas has power issues, not financial ones.

There’s no money in the world that can convince Texas to go to another conference and be a team player. Why? They have money. Tons of it.

What Texas wants is to be in control. They like to dictate terms and conditions, be a decision maker from expansion to tv deals to league matters. They like to be surrounded by an entourage of yes schools. They won’t get any of that in the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12. Oklahoma can throw a fit once in awhile but they’ve been quite successful in the Big XII. They can look at Arkansas, Nebraska and Texas A&M as a cautionary tale of what happens when you get away from Texas and join a stronger league with more resources. The last thing Oklahoma wants is to be Nebraska.

"What Texas wants is to be in control."

This is an outdated caricature. In days gone by, there were cattlemen/oilmen who had more money than they could ever spend, so their whims and will fell upon all those around them, far and wide. The local constable, judge and politicians were on the payroll. This is that guy you keep referring to as "Texas" who so badly needs to control his realm. These people still exist, but they will not be making the decision about the Longhorns and realignment.

The current University President is from Illinois, I think, and matriculated at Cornell. The rest of the Administration is equally exotic. They will consider football secondarily when the time comes.
Can you imagine that UT could watch Oklahoma and Kansas move to the B1G and remain entirely content to "control" the remaing seven dwarfs. Yes, they, alone, would decide whether we would see Memphis or Colorado State enter the Texas harem.

If Texas believes that Oklahoma is leaving the conference (very likely), then Texas will be proactive about making their own move.