(03-21-2024 10:00 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

Whatever. It's nice not being the only bad guy.

(03-21-2024 10:14 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  @TexanMark

If/when the ACC collapses, do you think most Cuse fans would prefer:

1. Join an expanded (and nationwide) Big XII?

2. Re-join the Big East and park football in some kind of independent-type arrangement with schools mostly in the Northeast?

Join the Big24 or whatever Frankenconference is there

(03-21-2024 10:09 AM)Sparty Baby 84 Wrote:  OP, here's why:

*+Florida State - NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX in football, no hoops value
*+Clemson - NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX in football, no hoops value
*Miami - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, no hoops value
*North Carolina State - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, ESPN/ESPN 2 in hoops
*Virginia Tech - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, no hoops value
*Louisville - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, no hoops value
*North Carolina - CW Network in football, NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX in hoops
*Duke - no football value, NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX in hoops
*Syracuse - CW Network in football, ESPN/ESPN 2 in hoops
*Virginia - no football value, ESPN/ESPN 2 in hoops
^Wake Forest - no value
^Boston College - no value

* ESPN is willing to pay for this.
+ ESPN will be forced to pay for this at SEC prices starting 2025-2026.
^ ESPN is not willing to pay for this.

The only question now is how much ESPN is willing to pay for the following lineup (below) from 2027-2035.

*Miami - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, no hoops value
*North Carolina State - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, ESPN/ESPN 2 in hoops
*Virginia Tech - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, no hoops value
*Louisville - ESPN/ESPN 2 in football, no hoops value
*North Carolina - CW Network in football, NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX in hoops
*Duke - no football value, NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX in hoops
*Syracuse - CW Network in football, ESPN/ESPN 2 in hoops
*Virginia - no football value, ESPN/ESPN 2 in hoops

The headliners here are Miami, Louisville, and VT. I remember when these three played in the Big East. So, ESPN will dust off their old copy of that contract, add the value of UNC and Duke hoops to it, and adjust for inflation.

Survey says... $20 million per year for this lot from 2027-2035. Of course, Notre Dame will still be exploiting them throughout this contract if anyone was curious. Although, the Big Ten will be telling its members not to schedule them during this time. The Big Ten would be more than happy to watch Notre Dame's ego take a hit from playing these guys and SEC schools and going 6-6 every year until they finally realize that their school was built on Northern Indiana grounds on the backs of Big Ten country labor.

Thank you

Stopped reading after Louisville has no hoops value. Are you 15?

(03-21-2024 10:24 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(03-21-2024 10:14 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  @TexanMark

If/when the ACC collapses, do you think most Cuse fans would prefer:

1. Join an expanded (and nationwide) Big XII?

2. Re-join the Big East and park football in some kind of independent-type arrangement with schools mostly in the Northeast?

Join the Big24 or whatever Frankenconference is there

Makes by far the most sense as far as economics and stability go.

Sure miss watching Syracuse in Big East basketball, though

(03-21-2024 08:12 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

Waiting until Feb. 1, 2025 to trigger the extension isn't helping the ACC's good guys.

Poor Jim Phillips has better things to do than sue 1 2 of his member schools

I do not actually think it is about the money. In many instances it has actually blinded the general public, university administrators included. It's the details that come out later that bother people with how much ESPN/FOX actually control and we are in the midst of lawsuits about how much control was given (for so little money in hindsight).

(03-21-2024 10:36 AM)Dull Impact Wrote:  I do not actually think it is about the money. In many instances it has actually blinded the general public, university administrators included. It's the details that come out later that bother people with how much ESPN/FOX actually control and we are in the midst of lawsuits about how much control was given (for so little money in hindsight).

So it is actually about the money?

(03-21-2024 08:32 AM)esayem Wrote:  They don't have to, that's why there is a deadline. I'm pretty sure Frank has responded multiple times in great detail to this question, but you still felt the need to create a new topic?

These lawsuits are going to be in court for years so I wouldn't bank on these early exit and settlement theories. The vast majority of the conference is all-in on the suits so it is in their best interest to stall well past ESPN's renewal, which I believe will be picked up. The general media deal is undervalued and the make-up gain is all in the ACCN—which is a moneymaker for ESPN as well.

These aren't going to court. It will be settled. But both sides will delay to give them more time to negotiate. So its not going to happen soon. You don't sue your most valuable member if you intend to have a continuing relationship. The ACC lawsuit was an invitation to negotiate an exit.

(03-21-2024 08:34 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(03-21-2024 08:29 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  ... even if the Grant of Rights is ironclad it's always possible a rogue judge makes a rogue decision.

You deleted my major point. Hoping for a hometown decision by a judge is pretty much a Hail Mary.
1. The GOR only applies to the rights necessary for the ESPN Agreements (up to 2016).
2. But if the contract is as Dellinger reports, then the ESPN Agreement only requires the ACC to supply game inventory from 15 schools, NOT the 15 schools named in the GOR.
3. With the new additions, Clemson's game rights are not necessary for the ESPN Agreement.
QED. Expansion broke the GOR.

Now it's the ACC's turn to hope for a hometown decision (Clear intent of the GOR as understood by all parties when it was signed, etc etc).

If the ACC schools were locked into the GOR, as I believed a week ago (I didn't especially believe the backfill clause, I'm still not sure I believe that Dellenger has the backfill clause correct. Doubting my doubts--why didn't Florida STate mention the backfill clause?), then ESPN Disney have a business decision to make : Are the projected revenues to ESPN from the ACC Network worth paying the increasing cost over time of the ACC "Tier One" contract out to 2036 for the game inventory they'll be getting?

But if the GOR is a wet paper bag, then Florida STate and Clemson (at least) are gone-zo, replaced by say South Florida and Memphis, or Oregon STtae and Washington State. The value of a half-dozen ABC or ESPN games with the undefeated or one-loss ACC powerhouse-of-the-year is a lot less.

(03-21-2024 08:12 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

Waiting until Feb. 1, 2025 to trigger the extension isn't helping the ACC's good guys.

Poor Jim Phillips has better things to do than sue 1 2 of his member schools

Because all the schools they want to maintain 100% of the rights to haven't agreed yet to move to the SEC. Apparently 3 of them have. It seems to me the Virginia schools may be the hangup as they are the ones rumored to be counter organizing. Perhaps that means they both weren't getting what they wanted? But the grouping they were attempting to organize didn't look like P2 lottery winners. You will note that Miami and Notre Dame weren't in that grouping.

It could also be that "if" ESPN wants to rebuild the ACC that the schools they want to replace the departing ones have not been lined up.

Triggers only exist to be pulled, and options only exist to be made.

(03-21-2024 10:00 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-21-2024 08:22 AM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Maybe they don't want to.

I think that's possible.

IMO the ACC deal isn't the bargain for ESPN that many seem to think it is. It's a decent deal, but not a great one I think. I am not sure the ACC could, right now, sign a better deal if suddenly its rights were on the open market.

With whom? Who's buying second-tier sports rights for the dollars P5 schools have come to expect?

We learned (should have learned) this from the PAC 12 drama. There IS no market outside of ESPN.

Quote:So ESPN, in cost-cutting mode, might end up deciding to cut the ACC loose.

I'm not expecting that to happen, but I think it could, it's within the realm of reasonable possibility.

(03-21-2024 10:00 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

Thats more what Im thinking---at least not right now. Anyone leaving in or around 2024 is going to pay massively to do so. Right now, nobody who isnt looking at getting into a P2 conference that will pay close to 100 million a year---will be leaving anytime soon. Even if an AAC school might consider the Big12 the preferred option, until the GOR is over or nearly expired---I just dont see anyone else paying that massive early exit fee in order to head into the Big12. That said, the GOR is held together by the ESPN TV deal. If ESPN elects to exercise their right to opt out of the ACC in 2025 (due to the absence of key schools exiting to the SEC/B10)---then those other left behind schools would then be free to go where ever they prefer.

Why would ESPN be interested in extending the agreement if they know behind the scenes that 3 of the best brands are about to walk out of the ACC and join the SEC? I mean when you think about it their non-comital attitude makes perfect sense...

(03-21-2024 08:32 AM)esayem Wrote:  They don't have to, that's why there is a deadline. I'm pretty sure Frank has responded multiple times in great detail to this question, but you still felt the need to create a new topic?

These lawsuits are going to be in court for years so I wouldn't bank on these early exit and settlement theories. The vast majority of the conference is all-in on the suits so it is in their best interest to stall well past ESPN's renewal, which I believe will be picked up. The general media deal is undervalued and the make-up gain is all in the ACCN—which is a moneymaker for ESPN as well.

Why in the world do you think protracted litigation that is deciding which schools are going to be in the ACC makes it less likely ESPN declines its option? I'm pretty sure the opposite would be true.

Q. "Why doesn't ESPN extend the ACC agreement?"
A. It's not in their long term interest to do so.

(03-21-2024 11:35 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(03-21-2024 08:32 AM)esayem Wrote:  They don't have to, that's why there is a deadline. I'm pretty sure Frank has responded multiple times in great detail to this question, but you still felt the need to create a new topic?

These lawsuits are going to be in court for years so I wouldn't bank on these early exit and settlement theories. The vast majority of the conference is all-in on the suits so it is in their best interest to stall well past ESPN's renewal, which I believe will be picked up. The general media deal is undervalued and the make-up gain is all in the ACCN—which is a moneymaker for ESPN as well.

Why in the world do you think protracted litigation that is deciding which schools are going to be in the ACC makes it less likely ESPN declines its option? I'm pretty sure the opposite would be true.

Because ESPN has to make their decision in Feb 2025 (or before). They have to make their decision, yes or no, by a hard deadline. If the cases aren't resolved, too bad so sad, ESPN has to say Yay or Nay, and live with that decision.

It's not the protracted-ness of the litigation that will govern ESPN's decision, it's the likely outcome. Before Clemson blacked out several pages of their filing, presumably details of the ESPN contract that are favorable to their claim, I was in the "LOL Florida State is going to get wrecked in court" camp.

But I don't know what's in that contract. ESPN does.

(03-21-2024 08:29 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(03-21-2024 08:12 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  Waiting until Feb. 1, 2025 to trigger the extension isn't helping the ACC's good guys.

Poor Jim Phillips has better things to do than sue 1 2 of his member schools

ESPN negotiated (sort of) for an extension until Feb 2025. They're launching the Fox-WBD-ESPN product this year, they're launching ESPN Flagship streamer next year. The value of a low-audience streaming service is uncertain, even if the Grant of Rights is ironclad it's always possible a rogue judge makes a rogue decision.

ESPN obviously knows more than us about the ESPN contracts, but I'm very curious what's in the blacked-out pages of the Clemson lawsuit. I suspect it's the clauses in the agreement that require the ACC to have 15 schools, not any particular 15 schools.

The league, currently at 17 members, is required to have 15 members to satisfy the ESPN agreement. Falling below the number opens the door for the network to end the contract — one of the primary reasons that the conference added three schools (SMU, Stanford, Cal) last year in a controversial expansion movement not supported by three members (we’ll get to that later). Ross Dellenger, MArch 19 2024

I, and many of us, were very surprised that the ACC allowed ESPN an escape hatch in the contract and even more surprised that the ACC allowed ESPN to delay a decision on that escape hatch for four years.

If the ACC is swapping out Florida STate and Clemson for South Florida and Memphis, (with more backfilling probably on the way) picking up the ACC option is a lot less attractive.

yes.

Even if it's 4 for 2, and they add those 2 plus Tulane and UConn as well.

Especially since they now have the SEC.

(03-21-2024 09:54 AM)BePcr07 Wrote:  It’s cheaper for ESPN to move attractive properties to the SEC, pay those properties more, then reduce the payouts to the remaining ACC schools.

“Well then the ACC will just expand beyond 15 again and keep their payout!”

Wrong. By the time, the B1G and XII will be so much more attractive to the remaining schools that they will jump for greener pastures and boom goes the dynamite.

Step 1. To SEC: Clemson, Duke, Florida St, North Carolina.
Step 2A. To B1G: Miami, Virginia.
Step2B. To XII: Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina St, Virginia Tech.

I agree that 1 and 2A are potentially possible. But I don't think 2B happens. I think ND is going to rebuild the ACC, and those schools are unlikely to leave ND in a lateral move.

(03-21-2024 09:55 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  ACC should withhold any media payments to the schools suing for causing problems, and to send a message to other schools that the same thing could happened to them as well.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

(03-21-2024 08:34 AM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(03-21-2024 08:29 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  ... even if the Grant of Rights is ironclad it's always possible a rogue judge makes a rogue decision.

That is what appellate courts are for.

(03-21-2024 09:55 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  ACC should withhold any media payments to the schools suing for causing problems, and to send a message to other schools that the same thing could happened to them as well.

This is why college sports needs you and your non-sense approach as commissioner.