Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[broken24]

No, it's not about NYC watching Rutgers, which they refuse to do now before an extreme uptick in competition by switching leagues.

It is about TV revenue

The BTN gets about 10 cents from a small chunk of NYC subscribers that pay for the sports tier with the BTN.

If Rutgers joined the B1G, not only would the B1G get 80 cents instead of 10 from NYC and NJ subscribers, bye they would get it for every DirecTV and dish subscriber, not just sports package subscribers, because those are base package channels in B1G footprint states. t

Isn't that what I said?

How does the PAC 12 (or B1G for that matter) make money by adding them?

1) Larger market with low ratings can be as good or better then small market with great rating. Getting 5% of NY and NJ to watch Rutgers play football is equal to 90% of Nebraska watching the huskers game.

2) Getting Pac 12 TV (or BTN) on basic cable is where the money is. Also, Supposedly the PAC12 owns all or most of Pac12 TV vs. the 50/50 split that BTN has.

 

[Buckeyefrankmp]

You only have the football flight cost, think of all the non revenue sports... that would be just plain stupid move for the them...

When Ohio State went to play USC airfare alone was $346,000. I don't know what that cost will be in 2012 dollars.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/football/ncaa/10/07/cfb.economy/index.html

 

[PlanetFrnd]

When Ohio State went to play USC airfare alone was $346,000. I don't know what that cost will be in 2012 dollars.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/football/ncaa/10/07/cfb.economy/index.html

You should pose this question in the Poli forum - might get some good color there

 

[PlanetFrnd]

For some reason I thought UW was Jesuit... yeah, nevermind on Zaga or St. Mary. Nevada and UH are my best guess for next, but I'm 99.9999% sure I wont be proven right anytime soon.

Agreed.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...cellor-gushes-adoration-pac-12-162450573.html

Rainbows makin' chit-chat...

 

[Muck]

Rainbows makin' chit-chat...

You can't blame the guy for setting high goals.

Unfortunately the reality is that the Pac-12 turned down Oklahoma (...along with Oklahoma St.) which sums up the chances of smaller programs getting an invite anytime soon.

 

[PlanetFrnd]

Not sure if this is the best place, but seems like a good spot. Another good Ramzy piece.

http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/06/11655/b1ggie-pac

B1GGIE & PAC Against the World
By Ramzy Nasrallah - 05 June 2012

Obligatory. Via
While college football continues to squabble over how to best exploit its postseason, Jim Delany stays focused on his empire. He seems truly disinterested in talking about playoffs.

Sure, the B1G commissioner catches grief from all directions for presenting as a haughty, unsympathetic codger. He might be the biggest obstacle between making the leap toward a college football championship that makes sense from the over-thought exercise in overt corruption that the BCS currently is.

Delany is an accidental villain who refuses to be swept up or swayed by the squabble. He didn't create his conference or the bowl system. He inherited both, and he tinkers with both to his liking with only one intent: Equipping his conference with greater reach and power.

However cold he may be, Delany is laser-focused exclusively on the long term, which annoys virtually everybody in our short-term world. He deploys focus groups and delegates subordinates for the cosmetic stuff unrelated to his mission, like hyphenating trophy names nobody will remember or deciding which school is a Legend and which is a Leader.

That's unimportant stuff for another department and another guy. It's short-term and superficial. All Delany is concerned with is making B1G richer and more dominant, and if any idea or initiative doesn't satisfy that singular goal, he just isn't interested. He doesn't need to be interested.
It's not just the postseason that's under siege; it's the entire framework of college football itself. While other conferences were trying to strengthen themselves with numbers, Delany pulled in one school, Nebraska.

Then he called Larry Scott, whom he saw lapping the rest of the field by way of the sincerest form of flattery - to Delany...

 

[Saw31]

Not sure if this is the best place, but seems like a good spot. Another good Ramzy piece.

http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/06/11655/b1ggie-pac

Love the headline, but hope no one busts a cap in our ass now...

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

Les Wexner has donated tens of millions to Ohio State. T.Boone Pickens singlehandedly purchased Oklahoma State football's relevance. Imagine what a foreign Les or T.Boone could do for, say, Arizona State or Purdue. There are plenty of magnates like them beyond our shores who could become university donors if they just knew what the product was.

Rather nonsensical comparison for several reasons. First off, Wexner's total donations are just short of $200M, none of which has gone to athletics other than his "anonymous" donation for the WHAC revamp a couple of years ago. Hardly synonymous with Pickens' role at OSU Lite.

Secondly, is it really a healthy development for say a Chinese businessman to start pumping money into our (or UCLA's or Michigan's) athletic department because he wants it to be his show toy. Yeah, I'm sure that would have no corrupting influence on an athletic department.

 

[BigWoof31]

Not sure if this is the best place, but seems like a good spot. Another good Ramzy piece.

http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/06/11655/b1ggie-pac

The "Counter-Point" arguement is now up and posted on SBN Atlanta. It's author is an Atlanta native and Michigan grad, so I think you'll find the tone as analytical and not "trolling" in nature.
http://atlanta.sbnation.com/2012/6/8/3072354/sec-tv-network-big-ten-media-position



Specifically, he targets Ramzy's argument:

Dominance ebbs and flows in cycles. The decline of the B1G in football coincided with BTN, which provided the distribution framework in place to insulate B1G's institutions from any decline in on-field performance. Ask NBC what it thinks of its Notre Dame football ratings when the Irish are disappointing, which is a blip now entering its 19th season.

with this:

The most interesting sentence in the piece was this one: "Dominance ebbs and flows in cycles. The decline of the B1G in football coincided with BTN, which provided the distribution framework in place to insulate B1G's institutions from any decline in on-field performance." The problem with this claim is that conference strength is not cyclical. The SEC has structural advantages over the Big Ten and other conferences, most notably that it sits in a more talent rich region and then its member schools convert their barrels of cash into hiring the best available coaches. Likewise, the decline in the Big Ten's fortunes does not coincide with the creation of the Big Ten Network. A conference that has won two national titles in 42 years (or as many as the SEC has won in the last 18 months) and lost eight of its last nine appearances in the Rose Bowl (the Big Ten is 12-28 in its last 40 Rose Bowls, which raises the question "why is this conference masochistic?") has to confront decline on a time frame longer than five years

 

[Ramzy]

I had a Twitter conversation with Michael about this - the counterpoint is basically "but, football!" He was predisposed to believing that without a national championship, interest in B1G sports will wane and the brand will grow less valuable, thereby generating less cash.

That's incorrect for a whole slew of reasons, least of all because just being a part of the championship narrative is good enough. I think that the way it ended he understood the foundation of the argument that Delany is in control and winning.

To understand Delany's ambition you have to think about universities rather than ADs. Wexner's gifts have gone to both the university and the AD. B1G universities attract investment at a pace that dwarfs any other conference outside of the Ivy League. ADs are an engine for that investment, and football acts as the pistons. His approach is entirely mechanical in that regard, it's effective and his results take place beneath the surface. He's not acting quarter to quarter or even year to year, but decade to decade. The Big East gave itself a death sentence in the early nineties but is only really dying now, for example.

Probably the biggest misconception is that I'm a Delany fan. I admire his focus and his strategic thinking...but damn it, I'd love a six-team playoff to end the season as a buttress to the second-tier bowls.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

To understand Delany's ambition you have to think about universities rather than ADs. Wexner's gifts have gone to both the university and the AD. B1G universities attract investment at a pace that dwarfs any other conference outside of the Ivy League. ADs are an engine for that investment, and football acts as the pistons.

Since you're new, I'll put this gently: bullfuckingshit.

Athletics--and football specifically--have virtually nil influence on a university's overall fundraising. It's not the pistons. It's not the drive train. It's not even the fucking muffler.

How is Indiana raising more money than Ohio State over the last few years? How has Minnesota's endowment surpassed that of Ohio State over the last couple of years?

You also make it sound as though Wexner is an equal supporter of both. He has given one significant donation to athletics in 30+ years, and his total athletic donations are about 7% of what he's given lifetime. None of Ohio State's largest donations has ever gone to the AD.

 

[calibuck]

Agree with Ord, most of the gifts/donations to a university are not from the jocks that go on to make millions in the pros......they are from the geeks that played with test tubes or printed circuits, or started companies that made them zillionaires. In fact, someone like a Swisher that pays for a ball field are rarities, not the norm.

If you point to the 'Schott' that was not a donation, but the sale of the 'naming rights' to the facility. Also note that the basketball floor has it's own name, and the locker rooms and the toilets, etc.....those are marketing efforts which allow the company's name to get out there, and are called an advertising expense, which is written off their taxes.

To be sure, the university (all of 'em, not just tOSU) sell or rent what they can to defease their expenses, build facilities, or build a pot from which to sustain scholarships, and the AD (athletic directors) can get creative (see Andy Geiger) to accomplish those tasks.

The fact that people give to their alma mater (I am a Life Member) indicate that they are greatful for what they learned, experiences gained or friendships made during their times at college, and that their successes are somehow tied to those experiences.

:gobucks3::gobucks4:

 

[ochre]

With some of the interest people have shown towards UVa as an expansion target, due in part to their academics, I thought this story might interest people in this thread:
http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/UVa_Professor_Bill_Wulf_Resigns_159629815.html

Official Letter From Professor Bill Wulf

Dean and Interim President Zeithaml,

By this email I am submitting my resignation, effective immediately. I do
not wish to be associated with an institution being as badly run as the
current UVa. A BOV that so poorly understands UVa, and academic culture
more generally, is going to make a lot more dumb decisions, so the
University is headed for disaster, and I don't want to be any part of that.
And, frankly, I think you should be ashamed to be party to this debacle!

and another with background on what prompted this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...rsities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.single.html

On Thursday night, a hedge fund billionaire, self-styled intellectual, ?radical moderate,? philanthropist, former Goldman Sachs partner, and general bon vivant named Peter Kiernan resigned abruptly from the foundation board of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He had embarrassed himself by writing an email claiming to have engineered the dismissal of the university president, Teresa Sullivan, ousted by a surprise vote a few days earlier.

 

[Woody1968]

With some of the interest people have shown towards UVa as an expansion target, due in part to their academics, I thought this story might interest people in this thread:
http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/UVa_Professor_Bill_Wulf_Resigns_159629815.html

and another with background on what prompted this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...rsities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.single.html

Yes, the situation there is quite ugly right now, but I don't expect this to have any long-term effect on the University or its Academic or Athletic programs.

 

[Muck]

For those who don't know Bill Wulf is a MAJOR name in the computer science field.

The friends I have with connections to the school are very unhappy with the way things went down.

Fired for Protecting Languages?

One of the key complaints of the board members who orchestrated the ouster of Teresa A. Sullivan as president of the University of Virginia was that she rebuffed their suggestions that she eliminate or sharply cut German programs, sources familiar with the discussions have told Inside Higher Ed. The Washington Post on Sunday reported that one of the most specific disagreements between board members and Sullivan was their view that she "lacked the mettle to trim or shut down programs that couldn't sustain themselves financially, such as obscure academic departments in classics and German."

To faculty members and others at the university who have been puzzled and dismayed since word last Sunday of Sullivan's forced resignation, news that she may have been punished for protecting liberal arts disciplines seems likely only to increase support for Sullivan and anger with the Board of Visitors. Protests by faculty members and students are expected today as the board meets this afternoon, and more calls came Sunday from prominent Virginians seeking to have Sullivan continue on as president. Sullivan has asked to speak to the board in open session, but has been told that she will be permitted to speak only in closed session.

.../snip/...​

Departing President Defends Her 'Incremental' Approach to Change at U. of Virginia

In her first extensive public statement since she was forced out of the University of Virginia presidency, Teresa A. Sullivan cast herself Monday as an "incrementalist" resistant to "corporate-style, top-down leadership."

Ms. Sullivan broke her silence in a 14-page document, which amounted to a full-throated rejection of a rapid transformation of the institution that she said could be risky and destructive.

Ms. Sullivan's statement, released as she met in private with the Board of Visitors, never mentions the board or its leadership by name, but it leaves little mystery that she felt pressured by some of the board's members to make dramatic cuts that she argues would threaten the diversity of programs at the university and jeopardize its national reputation.

"I have been described as an incrementalist. It is true," wrote Ms. Sullivan, who was president for just two years. "Sweeping action may be gratifying and may create the aura of strong leadership, but its unintended consequences may lead to costs that are too high to bear."

And, she added later in her statement, "being an incrementalist does not mean that I lack vision."

.../cont/...