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Message: [QUOTE="Victory Lap, post: 61735, member: 897"] The BE is doing itself no favors right now by holding strong to SU and Pitt and letting TCU leave so easily. Now, I understand TCU wasn't a full member, but the only difference is a matter of contractual duties. Sports contracts are the most malleable and most changed contracts in the law, so the BE insisting on enforcing their strict legal rights is disingenuous and politically problematic. Litigation (a la WVU) will ultimately lead to settlement. If it doesn't, it will lead to a protracted legal battle that will keep the BE in a state of flux at least until the 2014 exit date, and will hurt the BE reputation immensely. For example, people complained about the delay in Apple's next-gen iPhone 4s release. Apple was ready to release the 4s a while ago, but found itself in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit concerning patent infringement concerning certain elements of its iOS with a certain other phone manufacturer. The lawsuit prevented Apple from releasing the iPhone on time because once released it becomes another device subject to damages under the lawsuit. But customers don't know that, and they don't care. People want their iPhones, so Apple settled early and probably could have gotten a better result if they had held out, but that could have taken years and they would have lost more money in the meantime by losing customer faith and retail sales. Regardless of Apple's legal rights, it had business and political concerns to consider, and the iPhone 4s came out shortly after the case settled. The BE should take note. Insisting on your strict legal rights is not a smart move (quite petty, actually) when there are millions of people, powerful school administrators, politicians, and advertisers basically agreeing that the BE should release SU and Pitt and WVU . It will not instill any confidence in teams like Boise St/Houston/etc. At best, they can flirt with the BE (a la TCU), and get out easily, which will keep the big east whirling in uncertainty, and probably be the final nail. Or they can commit and have to deal with an @$$ like Marinatto, who will make their lives difficult should another round of conference realignments occur. The Big 12 has been a decent model of how to threaten to exercise legal rights to create some leverage, but ultimately conceding, which instills confidence in the decision-making of the Big 12 administration and, well, makes them looks somewhat mature. "It's been real TX A&M, have fun in the SEC." The BE would be wise to do the same. [/QUOTE]

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