So NU SHould Have Went Back to the Big 12?

admo said:
Amazing (if true).  Let's see if this makes any sense.

ESPN owns SEC Network
ESPN still owes Texas $160 million for the Longhorn Network
ESPN owes the Big 12  $1 Billion over the next 4 years

Sounds like the big player in this has been ESPN, the entire time

The plan (discussions 6 months ago?) - move 2 teams to SEC, implode the Big 12, and get a billion off the books. 
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How does one sue the very company that you have an ongoing TV contract with?  Would not the act of suing said company null and void their contract with the conference?  I think it does.  It is a win-win situation for ESPN and they know it. 

Which minor conferences did ESPN contact?  And will they go after the Big 12 left-overs?  I am sure ESPN has an under the table deal for them if they do. 

 
Bledred said:
How does one sue the very company that you have an ongoing TV contract with?  Would not the act of suing said company null and void their contract with the conference?  I think it does.  It is a win-win situation for ESPN and they know it. 

Which minor conferences did ESPN contact?  And will they go after the Big 12 left-overs?  I am sure ESPN has an under the table deal for them if they do. 
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:dunno I don't know. Just trying to connect the dots.  The rumor is the remaining Big XII will go to the AAC American Athletic Conference. 

 
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Bledred said:
How does one sue the very company that you have an ongoing TV contract with?  Would not the act of suing said company null and void their contract with the conference?  I think it does.  It is a win-win situation for ESPN and they know it. 

Which minor conferences did ESPN contact?  And will they go after the Big 12 left-overs?  I am sure ESPN has an under the table deal for them if they do. 
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Not necessarily. Companies can sue a supplier and they can still be required to fulfill their commitment.  However, it might make it pretty difficult to get a new contract with them when the time comes.

 
Bledred said:
How does one sue the very company that you have an ongoing TV contract with?  Would not the act of suing said company null and void their contract with the conference?  I think it does.  It is a win-win situation for ESPN and they know it. 

Which minor conferences did ESPN contact?  And will they go after the Big 12 left-overs?  I am sure ESPN has an under the table deal for them if they do. 
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I don't think so, if their actions have been detrimental to the future of the BIG 12, they could be liable for the remainder of the contract, plus any damages they have caused. That is if the BIG 12 can be found to have standing in the suit.

 
Toe said:
IDK about McClintock's statement that the ACC is unlikely to expand. If I'm West Virginia, I'm all over them.

And I could still see the Big Ten taking the top of the Pac, and then the bottom eight of the Pac merging with the leftover Big '8' teams. Doesn't necessarily have to happen this year, though. (I don't think the Big Ten needs to rush as much as some are acting like.)
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It means absolutely zero that WVU wants to be in the league. Lots of teams want to be in the league. ESPN is litearlly gatekeeping all of these moves. See UConn being blocked in 2011 as an example:

A famous realignment quote that re-emerged – one that makes ESPN suits itchy – echoed from the past on Wednesday. Former Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo told The Boston Globe in 2011 about BC blocking UConn from the ACC: “TV – ESPN – is the one who told us what to do.”
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Just because you are “good” at football doesn’t mean you’re valuable to a league monetarily. WVU is an absolutely atrocious academic school located in a declining population state with an already small population that brings nowhere near the national or local audience needed to not just meet but grow the existing ACC revenue per school.

It’s the same reason Iowa State and Kansas and the rest of the B12 teams are screwed. The “Irate 8” as they’re being called average the exact same TV audience as the AAC games do when they play one another (i.e. no games v TX/OU). Stewart Mandel laid this out on The Athletic:

The Athletic also compared the Big 12’s data with that of the American Athletic Conference. For apples-to-apples purposes, only games on the ESPN networks were included, as the AAC does not have a contract with Fox.

The 22 non-OU/Texas Big 12 home games on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2 over those two seasons averaged 1.37 million viewers. The 49 AAC home games on those same networks averaged 1.01 million viewers. But take away that one mammoth Ohio State-TCU outlier from the Big 12, and its number drops to 1.10 million.

That’s just 90,000 more viewers, on average, than the AAC draws.
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The AAC just signed a $7M per team per year deal with ESPN and ESPN is actively trying to fold some of the remaining Big 12 teams into the American. Anyone that thinks any of these teams is getting into the Big Ten or ACC or PAC12 either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to understand the financial component to all of this. All 8 of those schools are in essence, filler.

 
Hopefully anyone who before refused to believe ESPN had a major SEC bias and influenced college football behind the scenes to build them up is starting to understand they have been doing this for a very long time.

ESPN built the SEC.  They were lucky in that Alabama emerged as a power house program to help foster all their BS.  ESPN has been preaching that no conference in the country is anywhere comparable to the SEC for a very long time even though, that wasn't the case.  Slowly, that reality has influenced many major things throughout college football.

This all just builds on my already dislike of ESPN and the SEC.

 
BigRedBuster said:
Hopefully anyone who before refused to believe ESPN had a major SEC bias and influenced college football behind the scenes to build them up is starting to understand they have been doing this for a very long time.

ESPN built the SEC.  They were lucky in that Alabama emerged as a power house program to help foster all their BS.  ESPN has been preaching that no conference in the country is anywhere comparable to the SEC for a very long time even though, that wasn't the case.  Slowly, that reality has influenced many major things throughout college football.

This all just builds on my already dislike of ESPN and the SEC.
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Or did ESPN facilitate ($$$) the building up of the SEC via an army of bag men to top recruits, planting saboteurs in competing conferences, pressuring conferences to move in certain directions (confirmed), and giving nation wide broadcasting praise/exposure to the SEC while bashing everyone else.  ESPN is more of a shady syndicate than a media company.  

 
Bledred said:
Or did ESPN facilitate ($$$) the building up of the SEC via an army of bag men to top recruits, planting saboteurs in competing conferences, pressuring conferences to move in certain directions (confirmed), and giving nation wide broadcasting praise/exposure to the SEC while bashing everyone else.  ESPN is more of a shady syndicate than a media company.  
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That's what basically has happened.

 
I wonder if there's any lawsuit that the NCAA can put towards ESPN if they had the backbone to actually do something meaningful. In my mind, the lawsuit would be about them negatively influencing the success of college football because of disinformation and shady dealings behind the scenes.  Was there anything done that was actually against the law?

Of course, they would have to have actual documented proof of this.

And...ESPN probably would never do this because ESPN would then become extremely negative towards the NCAA to protect themselves.

 
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BigRedBuster said:
There is possibly an opportunity in this for a program like ISU that has been on the rise the last couple of years.  If they end up in the AAC or Mountain West conference, there is a chance they would go in and be one of the better programs right away in those conferences.  This would allow them to win conference championships and end up in the playoffs. 
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I mean... you must be assuming that the playoff will expand? Because I think UCF proved pretty definitively that G5 teams have no actual chance of getting into the playoffs in the current format. And I kinda wonder if the TV power-brokers even WANT them to have a chance...

 
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Toe said:
I mean... you must be assuming that the playoff will expand? Because I think UCF proved pretty definitively that G5 teams have no actual chance of getting into the playoffs in the current format.
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Yes, that would be the assumption.  Which, I think eventually, that will happen.

Well....unless some how the SEC/ESPN convince the NCAA that there isn't a need to do that because they can just take 2-3 SEC teams in a 4 team playoff and all is well.

 
Crusader Husker said:
So this is what we know...

Nebraska was right!  (we knew that)

Texas and OU will do what is best for them.  (we also knew, maybe not as much with OU)

The rest of the Big 12 were clueless (yes, again)

Kevin Warren is a lame, weak and worthless leader  (we have known this through every turn)

Texas sucks!!!  (still....)

Really is anything here a surprise?  
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Crap, I need to add a new one...

ESPN is knee deep into determining what happens in college sports.  (It all started with the Longhorn Network.  Another reason for me to hate ESPN.  I only watch live sports there)

 
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