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Message: [QUOTE="texasfight, post: 293649, member: 2283"] This is long, I know, sorry. It is pretty silly to believe the B12 is "poachable" right now. Nebraska left because they built their program on PQ/NQ athletes, which B12 disallowed. They have not been good since. They needed to leverage their past to find a different situation because they cannot compete straight up against top schools with a hold in the Texas recruiting market. Colorado was legitimately about revenue distribution. The old system paid out a percentage of tier 1 & 2 money based on who got picked up for TV. That's a completely fair market driven model that no one ever had a problem with, but it's not the even distribution other confs had. While schools like Texas got paid a little closer to their market value, so did schools like Colorado that didn't get picked up for as many national broadcasts and that made it difficult for them to compete with 2nd level schools in other confs. PAC took them because they know they're going to 16 eventually and geographically have much more limited options than the other three major confs. Missouri desperately wanted to get into CIC, and a into different situation where they didn't have to compete for recruits against UT & OU in the Texas market. They tried to burn down the B12 to facilitate their exit. They manufactured the outrage about revenue distribution, instability, and everything else so they could walk away clean. B1G turned them down and they had no choice but to flee to SEC, who happily took the extra cable subscribers for their future SEC network. A&M couldn't compete with UT in recruiting or for championships. They could win the head to head game about half the time and still be irrelevant because they couldn't win the rest of their schedule. They turned down a UT-A&M network in 2008. And they ran for the SEC in hopes of improving their revenue and recruiting so they can one day be relevant again against UT. They each had their own reasons and none of them really had anything to do with conference instability. There was a couple month period there last year where it looked a little bleak, but the conference responded well. They went to equal revenue distribution. They put in a rock solid GOR. And they added not superstar but respectable programs in TCU & WVU. There is no instability whatsoever in the conf now. They are extremely united and driving forward together. Rumors of OU to B1G are completely ludicrous. They are tied at the hip to OSU & UT. Without games in Texas every year, their recruiting would falter and they'd decline from relevance. UT will never ever go to B1G. They could have gone to SEC if they wanted to but turned it down. They may end up independent in 20 years, but they will never be in a different conf. The B12 did first with much notoriety verbally agree to a 6yr GOR (minus Missouri before they left), then later actually signed it. That is in place now. WVU & TCU were required to physically sign the same document when they agreed to come in. The new contract, which includes a 13yr GOR, has been verbally agreed for weeks. That agreement is on record and binding. The physical agreement will be signed at the meetings this weekend. While I agree most contracts can be broken with adequate financial settlement, I don't really know how you do that with this. The GOR is not tied to conf membership. The school can leave for another conf but doesn't take their media rights with them. It's difficult to breach. You're talking more a buy back, and assuming the conf would cooperate that would be at minimum the base value, which is $260m per school as of today, more when additional members are added. That's not realistic. No school is leaving the conf. On the other hand, BE and ACC are in very serious trouble. BE has been poached three times by ACC since 2003. We all know the BCS meetings are later in June and will set the structure for a playoff. While many of those detail are still in flux, we know for a fact AQ status is going away. The second BE loses AQ: Boise, SDSU, SMU, & Houston are gone. It is not worth it the travel costs and low ball media contracts if they don't have AQ. Without those additions, BE is in big trouble. ACC is going to be carved up. Most everyone fully understands the big four confs (SEC, B12, B1G, and PAC) are going to 16 teams operating on a pod system. There's 16 open slots remaining between the four of them. Try listing 16 strong football brands outside those four confs without mentioning the bulk of ACC. They are done and there's nothing they can do about it. The conference itself may survive in name, but with totally different members. B1G has already been talking to a couple schools. SEC will take two, B12 plans on taking five. Their insanely terrible contract just lit the fuse. Notre Dame is a complex situation. Of course they want to remain independent, but if a playoff system favors conf champs then they'll have no choice. There's also a coming scheduling situation that'd block them out. Essentially a scheduling alliance between each of the 4 super confs so that every team would play one OOC game against a team from each of the other confs. 8-game conf schedule on a pod system. That leaves one free OOC game against a team not part of the big four. Notre Dame would lose all their rivalries and not be able to make a playoff because of a SOS. BYU is another valuable property that's in the same boat. B1G is the more natural fit for ND but there's bad blood there. B12 would bend over backwards to get them. Both cases would guarantee games every year against Michigan, USC, & and open slot for Navy. What ND has said so far is they would come to B12 if they have 4 OOC games and can bring Pitt with them. B12 has countered with Georgia Tech. That's where we stand at the moment. I could see it going either way. It would be very presumptive for B1G to believe they have ND in the bag. B12 will add FSU & Clemson between late-June and the Aug deadline for them to inform ACC they're leaving. They are a more natural fit for SEC, but SEC blocked them in 2010 & again in 2011 because they do not add footprint/subscribers to an SEC network. What they'll make coming over is a lot more than $3m/yr. We're at 20m with ten teams and no championship. The championship alone is worth an additional 3-4m per school. The tier 3 rights are huge too. The ACC contract give all football and BB to the networks. The B12 contract gives a minimum of one football game and 8 BB, plus anything the network passes on for national broadcast, to the schools. UT makes 15m/yr on that, but a big piece of that goes to the TV production company creating the programming. They actually only pocket about 10m and 5 goes back to the school for academics. OU doesn't have a network. They outright sell their rights to Fox and pocket 8mil. KU makes about the same. FSU & Clemson were among 8 schools that commissioned a study last year to put a value on their tier 3 rights under the B12 framework. It's purported that FSU would be around 10m & Clemson around 6-7, the others (including Louisville) 4-5. FSU & Clemson are coming over because it's the best situation for them. B12's intent is to create an eastern division that limits SEC advantage by competing with them for markets. SEC is fine with that. Their strength in at the interior. They just want to expand footprint for their T3 network. B12 will take FSU & Clemson this summer. They'll wait for ND to figure out their future next summer (possibly bringing olympic sports early & not bringing football till 2016). GT is planned to come with ND. 15-16 for both SEC & B12 are the VA/DC and NC markets. There is supposedly a handshake deal in place that SEC will not oppose B12's grab of FSU/Clemson/GT if SEC gets first pick of VA & NC schools. In VA/DC: SEC is targeting UVa with VT as the backup, UVa is talking to B1G as their backup; B12 is targeting VT with Maryland as their backup, MD presumably would go to B1G if they don't get picked up by B12. In NC: SEC is targeting UNC with NCSU as their backup; B12 is looking at Duke if UNC goes to SEC with NCSU as a backup, if NCSU goes to SEC then they may pass on the sate and that's one of the very very few circumstance in which Louisville might be back on the market. All of that will be next summer or the summer after. Toward the back end of this process, some in B12 are also considering the addition of 4 non-football or basketball only members from BE & A10 that fit on the periphery of the footprint. Those serve three different purposes. If SEC takes UNC to raise their BB value then it'll be difficult for B12 to keep up. Adding additional BB value after the fact gets them there. Secondly, it makes ND real happy. And finally, it further expands market footprint for regional tier 3 networks/content that will bring significant additional value to members. It makes sense for those small BB schools because they retain several of their former conf mates while making 3-4 times the money. The 16 football members would add another $2-3m or so to their bottom line. So look, I came here to see what some other communities are thinking as far as expansion targets. But, a lot of stuff you guys are talking is just insane. It completely ignores both known facts and popular knowledge from the players in this game. If you can grasp the reality that's playing out and adjust fire to have a conversation about potential targets that makes some kind of sense, I'd really value your input. [/QUOTE]

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