Big 12 Expansion rumors

gucci888 · Oct 18, 2016

jbasket said: ↑

I'm going to post the article link from above because it was a pretty good read and he deserves the clicks:

http://cyclonefanatic.com/2016/10/williams-what-the-big-12-is-banking-on/

It's not a fansided article, give the guy the due credit.
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Thanks. Thought I copied it in.

shastarocket · Oct 18, 2016

Goodness gracious...

tinman · Oct 19, 2016

gucci888 said: ↑

Thanks. Thought I copied it in.
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good article.

it's the tv/media money.
Same reason why Notre Dame never joins a league.

DonnyMost · Oct 19, 2016

Major said: ↑

LOL...

http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...ted-decision-decline-expansion-earlier-divide

Memo tells Big 12 officials to say decision to decline expansion was unanimous

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The memo issued by the Big 12 indicated to league members several "do's" and "don'ts" when discussing the decision on not to expand.

Do:

• Indicate the Board arrived at a "Unanimous Consensus."

• [Say] the Board was unanimous in its desire and commitment to stay at 10 members.

• Refer to the conference as equal to our peer group.

• Revenue alone does not win championships.

• We are not going to publicly discuss consideration details.

• We were exhaustive in our research.

• We have the most competitive competition model in college sports.

• Refer to 2024-25 as an opportunity to explore the media landscape and how to use new technologies to deliver content to our fans.

• The sunset of our Grant of Rights agreements allows the Conference to be in an active marketplace.

• Expansion is no longer an active agenda item.

Don't:

• Say we are at a competitive disadvantage.

• Say revenue determines strength.

• Say expansion is dilutive.

• Say candidates were not deemed Power 5 worthy.

• Refer to any specific expansion candidate/school by name.

• Indicate that TV influenced decision.

• [Say] we are psychologically disadvantaged.

• Discuss 2024-25 as a grant of rights issues.
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ROFL.

Tenchi · Oct 19, 2016

DonnyMost said: ↑

ROFL.
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I don't think Boren got the memo.

gucci888 · Oct 19, 2016

tinman said: ↑

good article.

it's the tv/media money.
Same reason why Notre Dame never joins a league.
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Another good article. Some of the SEC stuff seems far fetched but good info on calling Boren's bluff and cash flow possibly coming the Big 12's way. Bolded the good parts:

After months of consultant reports, school presentation, and enough speculation to fill a library, the Big 12 announced on Monday that they are not expanding. Not holding off on expanding, not putting it on hold…not expanding. Confused? Don’t be, it shouldn’t have been a shock to any of us. All of this expansion talk and research and presentations was for two main reasons; mouths and money.

The reason expansion conversations were even given any time within the Big 12 boardroom was primarily to make Boren, the most vocal proponent of expansion who stated the Big 12 was “disadvantaged”, put up or shut up. The Big 12 has always been a collection of individuals, as opposed to a team, but most schools kept their business “within the family”, so to speak. Outside big money donors, two individuals have stood out in the Big 12 for shooting their mouth off, Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds and David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma.

Dodds retired, but Boren has continued his approach of using the media to force the Big 12 to deal with what he wants, instead of promoting the direction of the conference. Several times in the past Boren has blown up other plans while pushing for a secondary deal with nothing more than ill-timed sound bites. Understand that no one in the Big 12 wanted to expand, but his public comments made it so the Big 12 had to address what its chairman was saying. Several schools, including Texas, used this to lure him into a trap.

By agreeing to look at expansion with a critical eye, the Big 12 created the opportunity to put the concept of expansion, which has been a constant conversation since 2010, to bed. If they pay to collect numbers from consultants and quantify the benefits, there was an agreement on the table to either expand if the benefit was there or end the process for good if there was not. Unlike most of the speculation, it was not set up to be an anecdotal conversation. The numbers were very black and white.

In the beginning, when talking of expansion, Boren was thinking schools like Louisville, Arkansas, and LSU would be available, not understanding, or perhaps caring, that his public comments were poisoning the water and making the Big 12 appear unstable. Once the process began it became obvious that what all of us already knew was true – the only schools applying where those from outside the Power Five.

That’s when Texas sprung its trap.

Almost a day after the unanimous decision to look at expansion, the University of Texas publically supported the University of Houston’s bid as an expansion candidate. Texas Tech, the other public university in the Big 12 from Texas, followed suit. Houston was the one school Boren wanted nothing to do with because recruiting is already becoming far more difficult for Oklahoma than it was in the past and many Sooners come from Houston.

Tom Herman’s Cougars, who have some serious talent, have recruiting classes that average around 158 miles around the campus. Oklahoma is 430 miles from Houston and its players have an average distance of 515 miles to campus. Only Kansas and Iowa State had higher averages, the Big 12 in general averages 386.16 miles as a conference. Promoting another drain on Texas talent was a no go for the Sooners, but the Longhorns move made it so that if Oklahoma wanted to expand it had to swallow a very bitter pill.

With those two moves, Oklahoma’s power in the room diminished significantly. They could no longer impose their will on the process because someone else not only said they cared, but said who they care about. Additionally, the benefit of specific schools was quantified. The quiet members of the conference finally out maneuvered the loud.

Even with Texas’ support, Houston never had enough votes. You need eight votes and the message out of Dallas was the presidents wanted it to be unanimous. This is what eventually killed Big 12 expansion in this new approach – no one could get eight votes, let alone ten. Houston had four votes against, BYU had at least three votes against, Memphis had at least three votes against and Cincinnati, who is basically the vanilla in this sundae, wasn’t sexy enough to bring in on their own.

In a nut shell this is why Big 12 expansion was destined to fail, at least immediately. Come 2023 the conversation could be completely different. At that point media contracts from three conferences all start getting negotiated, putting a lot of options in play. Additionally, the big stink after Hurricane Matthew was the division LSU was causing within the SEC, pushing back against any sort of compromise until it got exactly what it wanted. This may feel like a one off issue, but it is a glimpse of unhappiness that has been brewing for years percolating to the service. It isn’t to the point that A&M was at in 2010, but there are many in Louisiana who are tired of Birmingham and it isn’t going away.

This isn’t to say any of that is happening, it is to point out that six years from now is going to be a much different world than we are seeing today and the college football landscape could be facing changes that make television programming seem adorably quaint by comparison.
Which gets us to the second reason the Big 12 pushed to talk expansion, money. When the Big 12’s Tier Two media deal was renegotiated in 2011 it allowed a swap of games with ABC/ESPN so that Fox received some Tier One games and ESPN received some Tier Two content, including basketball. The problem is that was only a renegotiation with a slight extension and their Tier One deal with ABC, which is light on content compared to other Power Five conferences, is still the old deal from before realignment even started. This has the Big 12 undervalued compared to the new contracts that have been put on the market lately.

The key leverage the Big 12 had was language placed into the contracts that gave the Big 12 a prorated increase per team for anyone who joined the conference. In a sense, it was a pre-negotiation the Big 12 put in place that the networks never expected would come to be. With that clause the Big 12 could add a Group of Five program and be paid as if they added schools like Texas and Kansas.

As I proposed when the Big 12 initially discussed expansion, the conference could add two teams and increase revenues by around $50 million initially, which would grow to nearly $80 million towards the end of the contract. The Big 12 doesn’t want to expand, but it does want more revenues. Instead of paying $50 million for two teams the networks already pay little for, they could pay the Big 12 $40 million more per year to not expand, which would grow to $70 million.

That means the Big 12, which makes about $25 million this year per school on its contract, would make $29 million, which is one million less than what the SEC paid out from its media contract, including the SEC Network. This doesn’t include the Big 12’s Tier Three deals nor the new championship game, which begins in 2017.

In a sense it normalizes the Big 12’s media contract against the other Power Five. That’s the real reason they were talking seriously about expansion; to bring ESPN and Fox to the table who want nothing to do with this prorate clause.

The Big 12 doesn’t need more teams, it just needs updated media deals and post season success. More importantly, they need less mouths. It seems they’ve taken the first steps to get back on the same page together and that is critical if they ever want to entice bigger brands.

http://big12fanatics.com/expansion-euthanasia/
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DonnyMost · Oct 19, 2016

This made me LOL so hard

zeeshan2 · Oct 19, 2016

samtaylor · Oct 19, 2016

UH went all out for their presentation and it didn't matter. smh

Tenchi · Oct 19, 2016

samtaylor said: ↑

UH went all out for their presentation and it didn't matter. smh
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If you have a shot you go for it. The only thing embarrassing is the Big12 board. I always wondered how it felt to live in Miami during the Schnellenberger years or Houston during Phi Slama Jamma. Would have been fun to go to something memorable like that in town.

sammy · Oct 19, 2016

Tenchi said: ↑

If you have a shot you go for it. The only thing embarrassing is the Big12 board. I always wondered how it felt to live in Miami during the Schnellenberger years or Houston during Phi Slama Jamma. Would have been fun to go to something memorable like that in town.
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The presentation can be re-used?

DonnyMost · Oct 19, 2016

Wow, they released their presentation materials.

http://www.uhcougars.com/genrel/UH_presentation.html

Tenchi · Oct 19, 2016

sammy said: ↑

The presentation can be re-used?
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I would hope so but to whom would it be used for? ACC, B10. or Pac12? Would have been fun to see the other Texas/OK teams in town regularly. There was a nice buzz at the beginning of the season when UH played OU. Made me nostalgic for the run n shoot Oilers, the Rudy T Rockets, and the Killer Bs, but I think I was still a bit too young to appreciate it at the time.

tinman · Oct 19, 2016

Tenchi said: ↑

I would hope so but to whom would it be used for? ACC, B10. or Pac12? Would have been fun to see the other Texas/OK teams in town regularly. There was a nice buzz at the beginning of the season when UH played OU. Made me nostalgic for the run n shoot Oilers, the Rudy T Rockets, and the Killer Bs, but I think I was still a bit too young to appreciate it at the time.
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What about Gallery Furniture when it was a tent shop or Houston Wrestling at the Sam Houston Coliseum ?

Tenchi · Oct 19, 2016

tinman said: ↑

What about Gallery Furniture when it was a tent shop or Houston Wrestling at the Sam Houston Coliseum ?
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Never saw Gallery Furniture back then or the Sam Houston Coliseum sadly.

Pat · Oct 19, 2016

As long as we are going back, anybody remember Rainbow bread wrappers?

J.R. · Oct 24, 2016

ESPN WILL RESTRUCTURE ITS DEAL WITH THE BIG 12, FOX WILL NOT

DonnyMost · Oct 25, 2016

J.R. said: ↑

ESPN WILL RESTRUCTURE ITS DEAL WITH THE BIG 12, FOX WILL NOT
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This makes a lot of sense because ESPN has the broadcast rights to the most likely expansion candidates are already. They didn't want to have to foot the bill for teams like Cinci or Houston moving to the Big 12.

Buck Turgidson · Oct 25, 2016

DonnyMost said: ↑

This makes a lot of sense because ESPN has the broadcast rights to the most likely expansion candidates are already. They didn't want to have to foot the bill for teams like Cinci or Houston moving to the Big 12.
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Exactly. What does Fox think now? They said "no", right?

I have no idea what the **** is going on anymore, and I'm sick about the whole thing.

DonnyMost · Oct 25, 2016

Buck Turgidson said: ↑

Exactly. What does Fox think now? They said "no", right?

I have no idea what the **** is going on anymore, and I'm sick about the whole thing.
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Fox is simply betting that the B12 won't expand until after the next round of TV contracts are negotiated.

Fox doesn't own the rights to hardly any of the expansion candidates though.

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Big 12 Expansion rumors

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