This was not the scenario anyone envisioned after Friday. Thursday was supposed to be the last chance to save the Big 12. Then Nebraska said goodbye, and all that was left was waiting for the official word from Texas and whether Texas A&M would go its own way to the SEC.
Instead, Dan Beebe pulled a miracle. After a weekend of being portrayed as a moron to a nice guy in the wrong place with no power — he got a fresh renegotiated contract for the Big 12/10 that made it worth Texas’ while to stay.
Texas had a meeting Monday with the other remaining nine schools in the Big 12 about a TV deal included in a plan put together by Beebe that would keep the league intact with its current programs, according to multiple reports. The Dallas Morning News reported the cable TV deal is with Fox Sports.
Based on a TV deal in the works that could pay upwards of $25 million per year, Texas leaned toward staying in a 10-team Big 12 for the foreseeable future, Orangebloods.com reported, citing sources familiar with negotiations.
Texas stands to earn between $20 million and $25 million annually in television revenue in the reworked deal, including money from its own network, according to Orangebloods.com.
The Longhorns’ network figures to generate between $3 million and $5 million, according to the Orangebloods.com report. Because the Big 12 has unequal revenue sharing, the deal will mean more money for Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma, who all would receive at least $20 million annually from the new deal.
The other seven schools in the Big 12 would make between $14 million and $17 million, doubling what they currently receive in TV revenue.
In other words, they managed to leapfrog the ACC and even the SEC to a degree with TV money. I am stunned. So are others. To the point that they believe it had to be something more.
And still Texas made the decision to head West and would be announcing it today if not for the politicians.
Baylor’s omission got a few legislators worked up, but Texas’ arrogance toward Texas A&M started the firestorm. UT produced this plan, then handed it over to A&M for rubber-stamping.
The Aggies don’t like being told what to do by the Longhorns.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is an Aggie. Better yet, a former A&M yell-leader. When A&M revolted by courting the SEC, and the ‘Horns started talking about never playing the Aggies again in any sport, why wouldn’t a governor step in?
Texas legislators scheduled hearings on Wednesday to discuss the issue, and suddenly the mood changed. State appropriations are no small matter.
If so, we will hear about it soon. That sort of thing doesn’t stay quiet long.
I will also say that the fact that this happening is also why conference expansion is not over. It may be paused. It may have slowed considerably.I mean, you know there is some annoyance in ACC and SEC land that their deals already appear to be obsolete.
The Big 12/10 appears willing to stay at 10 for now, but there is always a chance they might look to go back to 12 — or act proactively
But it is not over. The Pac-10 still has to decide if it will go after Utah to get to that even number of 12. Or if it will pull a Big 11.
The Mountain West is now on notice and should be nervous. A program that seemed set to get its BCS auto-bid, and perhaps pick up some teams from the Big 12 break-up could find itself picked apart over the next couple of years. Things change quickly.
The Big 10/12 may or may not act further, but who knows when.
The SEC is most certainly still looking at options.
Then there is the fact that a lot of details about this new Big 12/10 TV contract are yet to fully come out. There are reports that this deal is some 18 years in length. That seems absurd and almost guarantees its obsolescence in 5 years.
As for Pitt and the Big East.
/sigh
Anyone believe the Big East will actually do anything proactive now that there is time to breathe? Actually look into their own network or ways to improve their revenue stream that keeps looking worse and worse?
Yeah, I doubt it either. Sadly, I doubt the football schools will do much to pursue splitting the football teams off and expanding, since teams like Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers and even UConn are still eying/pining for future conference expansion/realignment scenarios that could pull them into the Big 10/12 or ACC.
Back to watching this happen far slower than anyone wants.
Glad to see greed in college athletics is still alive and well. Texas I’m sure now wants to feel like the hero for coming in and saving the day for the Big 12 when in reality they were willing to ditch the whole conference to the first person waving a few extra bucks their way….way to go Longhorns!
outings prior to New Year’s Day.
I know that I have been negative this past week, however, I believe that we are in real trouble in our football program. The Big East stinks when compared to the other BCS conferences. STOP TALKING ABOUT BASKETBALL…the conference restructuring is 100% football….$$$$$$$$$. Adding ECU, UCF, Memphis, etc. further compounds the problem!! At some point in the not too distant future Wanny and Co. will run in to a stone wall come recruiting time. Forget about the **** Star kids….we are going to be chasing * and ** star talent because we could easily lose our automatic BCS bid. This is about GREED and Pitt had better start thinking like Wall Street if it wants to continue fielding big time football teams.
the university actually educates young adults and that is what matters. i would much rather send my donations to the university rather than the athletic department. this conference realignment garbage has soured me on college athletics.
If anything, the ACC would be a better fit for Pitt. Realistically it doesn’t matter to me. Like I said, I don’t care about the finances of the athletic department. Especially if they aren’t experiencing substantial capital expenditures. I don’t know where the money is going and I don’t really care.
I don’t think anyone on this site would question my motivation for being on the site. If a university is making $20-25 million per annum from the football program, then there is no question that it should be shared with the players. Of course a 18-24 year old living and competing with his friends is going to be having fun. I guarantee 10 years from now that he wishes he would have shared in the wealth.
I don’t care about Michigan, PSU, OSU, etc. al. These schools have very little in common with Pitt. The college experience at these universities is much different than the majority of the schools in the Big East and ACC. They are large land grant universities in the mid-west. Pitt is an urban campus with tons of kids from the east coast.
Finally, you cannot consistently lose population for an additional 20 years and remain competitive. Eventually, the trend will become a problem. Book it.
I love Pitt and appreciate the conference and opponents they compete with now. I am not pining for the Big Ten. Maybe you should root for OSU or Michigan etc. al. Everyone knows most of the fans of those schools didn’t attend the universities. Pitt is just fine in the Big East. If they leave for the Big Ten, then count me as disappointed.
“Baylor football coach Art Briles, a Texas native who has spent his entire career in the Long Star state, put it this way: “I got resuscitated. You can take your hands off my chest. … I’m extremely excited, it’s like being given new life.””
Most athletic departments barely break even because they waste money. They don’t care about the bottom line. Do we really benefit from scholarship table tennis, archery, or darts? No, we don’t. Not as a university or as a society. If money is the goal, then the athletic department should think more like a capitalist. That means thinking about not just revenue, but the bottom line. These departments don’t think about the bottom line at all. That is why all this talk about money is fruitless. It is wasted and not economically productive.
If the whole mess with the “Big Texas Conference” (really don’t know what to call the former Big 12 anymore) had not taken place, I would agree strongly with your point about how the Big East now has to worry every year about being picked apart. The fact is we just watched the Big 12, anchored by Texas, Oaklahoma, and Nebraska, come to the brink of extinction. Chas is right, the exapansion train has been brought to a crawl and will likely stop all together after the PAC 10 goes to a 12th team, but that train will leave the station again someday. When the super conferences are formed, there is nothting the BE could do to fight off the expansion raids. We chould have ND, PSU, and Mia in our conference and would still be vulnerable to a Big 10 raid. So really, every conference is at risk for losing members in the future, not just the Big East. As for the perception of the BE as a FB conference, I will agree with you that we are easily at the bottom of the BCS conferences. However, the results on the field do not support the perception. The fact is, the BE holds its own quite nicely against other BCS teams. I’ve seen the nubmers posted here before. As for playing OSU, MICH, and WISC vice WVU, Cincy and Lville, again its not quite what you are making it out to be. The only way we get to the Big 10 is if they go to 16 teams. I seen several talking heads on TV say that the only way to schedule a 16 team conference is with two 8 team divisions. You play every team in your own divsion and two teams from the other divsion once each year. Therefore, It is very likely that Pitt would only see Mich or OSU at Heinz Field once every eight years! No thanks, I’m not trading a yearly game against WVU so I can have the distinct honor of hosting the great Michigan Wolverines at my stadium once every eight years! Since the BE likely will be plucked apart when the super conferences arrive (and they will because that is the only way to bust the NCAA and the BCS and get to a true playoff for a NC), we really should add Memphis as a 9th team to even out scheduling. They are OK in FB, have a great BB tradition, and are locate in a very nice place to visit. One last thing, I know this is all about FB, but I am just a fan, I hope we can hold on to BE BB as long as possible, becuase for my money nothing beats the BE BB season, culminated with the BE BB Tournament in MSG. One day it will be gone, and that will be a very sad day that no number of FB games against The Ohio State University with its 33% graduation rate will make up for.
I will add one thing about BE football. IF the Big East does stay together I am excited about the future. Clearly the perception is low as a Big East football conference, but over time perception can change by winning big games. The possibilities are exciting. Look at the last few years… Cincy was a few secs away (in the BIG 12 champ game) of having a shot in the National Championship game (forget the fact that they got smoked against FL). WVU wouldve been in the National Championship game had Pitt not won the 13-9 game. Louisville a few years back had a chance but had that one loss to Rutgers. I dont know about you guys but isnt the primary goal to Win a National Title? If Pitt is ever going to win another Nat Champion, their best shot is in the Big East Conference.
I personally enjoy being the underdog as a conference and being able to root for Big East teams out of conference (I do not enjoy the possibility of being left out in the cold). But IF the Big East survives, Pitt is in a position to own a BCS conference. They have the best resources and history in the Big East and have shown improvement every year. They need to have that breakthrough year where they win their conference in a BCS bowl. And the best chance at that happening is in the Big East.
Yes, football and basketball are usually the only two that turn a profit. That money is used, for the whole athletic dept.
They are non-profit, most athletic departments in the country are in the red. (No, not USC, Alabama, Michigan and Notre Dame,) but there are over 300 universities, just in Div. 1 basketball, I don’t how many universities there are that have competive sports. Most of these are scraping by, and why they hit so hard for donations. I’m missing your point, does Pitt have 10’s of millions laying around for the athletic dept that we don’t know about, or, do you want to dissolve all other sports other than FB and BB???? I really don’t understand your point. They are not a business, they are an education system that provides sports to their students. In order to do this, they have to try and make as much money as possible, because the expenses of running an athletic dept are enormous. Not sure what you want, do want sports to go away?? That’s cool, that’s your opinion. You only want FB and BB, that’s cool, again, your opinion, not sure what you want athletic depts to do??
So you believe this super conference realignment is altruistic to provide more scholarships for non-revenue producing sports?
Marco:
I’m not saying we should pay the players. I’m saying that if everything is motivated by money, then the players should benefit as well.
This is all about ego and money. That should not be the case when we are discussing college athletics. This is certainly not for the good of the sport, the student, or the fan. This is a big money grab by a few conference commissioners and greedy athletic directors/university presidents who could care less about non-revenue producing sports. Get a clue.
It does not make sense for Pitt to be in a conference like the Big Ten. Pitt has little in common with the schools in the Big Ten.
uhh, you mean besides history, traditional rivalries, geography, AAU membership/academic mission, facilities, major football and basketball programs…??
pitt is already in the aau and the academics have thrived.
pitt does not have the facilities, nor could they because of geography, of the schools in the big ten.
pitt has had more basketball success in the last 10 years than all of the big ten teams besides michigan state.
anything else?
i don’t think pittsburgh is all that midwest. then again, i don’t live in the southills.
pitt doesn’t have nearly the enrollment as the schools in the big ten. the campus is in a city. big ten basketball sucks. the locations suck. other than psu, there are no rivals. you lose the big east tournament, which is awesome. and the football is boring as hell.
pine away.
Bartender, ectatic, says “first time I’ve ever had a patron here that a drink was named after.”
Grasshopper asks, “Jim?”
It wasn’t personal. I appreciate your argument as well. Your writing style wasn’t exactly Shakespeare. Apparently your wife didn’t read your posts, considering many of them were one paragraph. Your wife must teach english at a school where the primary language is Arabic.
The problem remains – it is the perception of the Big East. There hasn’t been that one big, powerful football program that gets to the BCS each and every year. Louisville was good, the WVU, then Cincy. UL and WVU won some big bowl games, too.
We all hope Pitt will be the one BE program be that one powerful program to do it and while Pitt has come agonizingly close, they haven’t climbed over the hump.
There isn’t going to be a BE FB – ACC merger until the conference expansion starts again in 1-3 years. The ACC will not be shocked into reality until the SEC raids their schools in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina – or Maryland gets an invite to Jim Delaney’s Kingdom and accepts. When the ACC can no longer have a conference championship game then, and only then, will Stupid Swofford realize what is going on and act – or the remaining ACC schools will throw him out.
We can all speculate what will happen over the next several years. Texas may yet try to go to the Pac 11 with their own TV network in place and take OU, OSU and Texas Tech with them. Texas A&M may yet go to the SEC and be joined by Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech. Jim Delaney’s Kingdom will certainly continue to woo Notre Dame, who will turn down the Kingdom until they get an offer palatable to them – which would mean some combination of Eastern schools and the ability to continue to play USC and Navy when they want to.
I wish the BE FB schools would separate from the BB schools and add some more FB programs, even if it’s some combination of East Carolina, Central Florida, Temple, Army and Navy, Memphis and/or the University of Houston. The season lasts twelve games and an eight team conference just doesn’t have enough conference opponents. People will go to Pitt football games as long as the Panthers are winning.
Reading over your posts, I find it very difficult to comprehend your criticism of my writing. Please do yourself a favor. Provide my posts to your wife along with your posts. Let her grade each for grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, content, etc. I am curious about the results. If I am a teenager, then you must be a toddler.
sounds good.
I grew up in Northeast Ohio. In the 1970s the Big Ten was a lousy football conference. Michigan-OSU was the Boring Bowl and the Pitt-Penn State game was far better. Bean Cook called the Big Ten a bunch of snobs long ago and it’s true. Nevertheless, if the Big Can’t Count comes calling, Pitt must answer.
I’ve said it before. Pitt’s best hope is the SEC raids the ACC and the rest of the ACC schools meet with whoever is left in the Big East FB conference to form a new conference.