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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 1747163, member: 27"] Again, the Fox bid is for a maximum of $250 million. That would be for the majority of the games available in the package, it would include the conference championship game, give them first choice of games to air, etc. The only way the B1G is going to get someone to match that $250 million for a package well less than half of what Fox gets is if they someone makes bids the same amount for a vastly weaker package. It isn't going to happen. The B1G surely wanted ESPN to match or outbid the extremely aggressive Fox bid. They surely wanted to keep as much of their package on ESPN as possible. Moving most of it to Fox scares the hell out of them and the coaches and ADs in the league are justifiably worried this could affect recruiting. That is why the proposed length of the deal is so remarkably short. The B1G promised its schools huge money with this contract and the only way they are going to be able to deliver on it is to move the league to the crappy Fox networks. It goes worse for the B1G. They brought in UMd and Rutgers only to bring in more money from their B1G network. As cord cutting continues to accelerate dramatically, that decision is going to haunt them. Here is an extract from an article on that topic: [I]3. We may look back on the Big Ten's addition of Maryland and Rutgers as very poor business decisions. Maryland Rutgers were the last major realignment dominoes to fall. But these weren't decisions made predicated on launching a new network. (The SEC Network wouldn't have launched without Texas A&M and Missouri, meaning the SEC was leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table.) Maryland and Rutgers were added to the Big Ten based on the value they could bring to the Big Ten Network. Both are in large markets where the cable rates could theoretically increase substantially. But in a debundled universe are there enough Maryland and Rutgers fans to pay for their addition in an over-the-top market? No way. So if the Big Ten Network -- which is half owned by Fox -- starts to see money declining from debundling, you have to rely on huge fan bases to make up the deficit. A good early test for how nervous cable companies are about debundling will come with the Big Ten's rights packages which will be sold this year. How much can ESPN and Fox afford to bid? [/I] [B][URL='http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/what-happens-to-conference-networks-if-cord-cutting-accelerates-012016']Linkage[/URL][/B] [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?