CalBear95

If that happens then things will get really bonkers not only because the SEC would be at an odd number (which suggests there is another regional team in play) but because the BXII would be further diminished. That ought to give any PAC schools pause if leaning BXII and make Oregon really nervous about be stuck in a literal mid-major BXII

Saw an article (forget where but reputable brand) talking about ACC and PAC. Expect finances to be paltry under current framework being discussed. Arizona schools are staying in the fold until those revenue projections are presented. Then things get interesting. Arizona schools could bolt to BXII which probably forces Oregon to that same league. But that wasn’t why the article caught my eye (yes, I am burying the lede). It offered an possibility I hadn’t considered but doesn’t seem totally far fetched: the ACC becomes the aggressor and raids the PAC and BXII (in some case for schools like Cincinnati and BYU that aren’t yet even in the league yet). Most schools come from the PAC. Honestly, if that happened (1) I think it would be a great outcome for the the PAC schools involved and (2) you would have to respect the sheer audacity of it. Also, the BXII which is being a bit arrogant at the moment would, once again, find itself trying to figure out what just hit them (I don’t wish ill for them but their certainly of being in the driver’s seat at the moment is naïve given how crazy the dynamics of realignment are)

What’s nuts is that Oregon fell 4 spots. Says to me a good season my DL probably jumps them back up

Not saying I agree but 4x6 conf ==> 4 team tournament over 2 weeks rotating LA, Vegas, Mercedes, Jerry, Hard Rock? Or top seed’s home digs Rd 1 and then Vegas for final.

I suspect UW has license to use that number in the right situations

Yeah, it’s called Phil Knight’s cell phone

Those numbers are really rough for the PAC. Makes us the proverbial sick man of Europe. I know I’ve harped on this elsewhere but short sighted greed is getting in the way of a workable solution. In the PAC, the valuable brands are Oregon, UW, Furd, Utah, pick ‘em Arizona school, and possibly the Buffs. That’s 6 schools. No idea on the BXII to get the media markets you need. ACC is likely Virginia, UNC, Clemson, Miami, FSU, Pitt, and maybe GT to get the Atlanta market. That gets you to 18 assuming the BXII can find 6 teams (BYU, FIU, WV, one TX school, Kansas, and Iowa State can be dropped as their media value is either duplicated by the PAC or ACC, or is too low). Where greed gets in the way is any desire for asymmetrical revenue sharing. Does anyone think the Detroit Lions (Buffalo, Jax, etc…bring in more revenue than Dallas or the NYG? But the league works because a rising tide raises all ships. The long game is the collective win. But greed has a way of making people short sighted which is why I think this madness drags on far longer than it should

At some some point the insanity has to end for non-football at least. The geographic logistics are - and I think I can say this without violating the rules of OBD - utterly stupid. It makes zero sense for water polo teams on the west coast to travel to the Midwest for regular season games. Same for lacrosse going the other direction. Track and field in any direction. It’s like they are doing this backwards. Hoarding monopoly rights on as broad a national footprint as possible and hand waving at the logistics If football truly is 85% of the media value why not just pool those rights across the country? And the value of that number has to go up as leagues trim the fat off the lower value brands in the sport. For these so called media visionaries, I just don’t understand why the B1G and SEC merge, take the PAC brands they want and use the combined media leverage to force ESPN to release the ACC brands the newly merged leagues want. Instead we are ending up with this kloogy Frankenstein of a model which seems to be a way station to an inevitable NFL model for the top CFB brands w/r/t media rights.

Solving the ACC conundrum provides waaaaaay more upside than some combination with the BXII. It sounds like that is where GK is focusing his efforts while trying to fend of the BXII from poaching. My guess is a lot of these ‘imminent’ or ‘deep in conversations’ rumors are originating from the BXII to try and panic/peel off 1-2 programs and thereby make some combination with the PAC a fait accompli. The longer this goes w/out a definite outcome, the more probable the ACC option becomes. The BigXII is going nowhere. They are going to turn down tomorrow the 6 teams they would poach today because why exactly? The truth is, the BXII would crawl over broken glass to have those 6 teams and nobody should doubt that for a second. So long as the ACC thing is in play, there will be no movement towards the BXII I will bet Oregon and UW are supportive of that if B1G and SEC are not happening.

How would the ACC get out of a new GOR? ESPN isn’t going to just let them out of the current agreement and go on the open market. The PAC isn’t going to sign a deal that doesn’t contain some termination scenario if the ACC somehow does manage to dissolve a new GOR Said another way, the ACC will need to continue with a GOR for some period to ESPN in exchange for restructuring their current deal

It would be very interesting to understand the methodology behind this. The UW and Oregon numbers seem wrong at a gut level.

I would think there are the votes in the ACC to dissolve their current GOR contract. It is killing them because it is (a) egregiously undervalued and (b) will continue to be ever increasingly so for another 12 years. As such, there is definite value in eliminating that millstone around each team’s neck. FWIW, I would imagine a new GOR to ESPN would run 6-7 years making it highly unlikely if not impossible for a raid by the SEC for the next 4-5 years. If that assumption is correct, the high value ACC brands will need to weigh the cost and probability of success in getting out of their current deal via litigation vs the relative certainty of getting into the B1G or SEC in 6-7. I have no idea what the calculus is on that and I expect some high paid actuaries and/or IBs are on the ACC payroll at present to help figure that out.

I can’t imagine any deal involving the ACC omitting the dissolution of their current deal with ESPN. ESPN might be willing to do this because they can make more money and ensure the B1G (Fox) doesn’t have the best west coast brands The ACC won’t get raided in a vacuum (Oregon would be part of any such movement). My take on this is that it is all about brands not geography per se. I also think there two more primary iterations on realignment. Whatever happens to the ACC will be the first. Thereafter I believe however many super leagues are left merge, discarding the deadweight brands to get down to a number akin to the NFL’s. Does anyone think Northwestern is more valuable an asset than Oregon or UW? They get paid because of having the good fortune of being in the B1G before all of this craziness started. The real payout comes from optimizing the number of valuable brands relative to geographic footprint that ensures national interest. Oregon isn’t dilutive. Purdue and/or Indiana is (especially when you consider the Dallas Cowboys of CF, Notre Dame, will be in the fold). Rutgers. Maryland. And so on. You could get the SEC and B1G down to 16 major brands each which is effectively your AFC and NFC Long way of saying, a deal that involves pooling the best brands of the PAC and ACC isn’t death given there will be one more turn of the crank in my view

You are totally right…when I did in my head I came up w/$38MM then did in calc but used 12 instead of 22. Thought that looked odd

Good point vs brand value which matters Example: the Green Bay Packers aren’t in a large media market (even if you counted the entire state of Wisconsin) but their brand value is probably higher than most teams in the league GB shares licensing and media revenue because the overall pie gets bigger for all y/y

I honestly don’t know if the Big XII and PAC can force Oregon to do anything before the ND decision comes down. They and UW are the remaining jewels so it isn’t like they can’t wait to see how everything pans out (anyone of the opinion that a post merger grow oils turn them down if they came on later?) ND is the linchpin. If they go, the ACC will do everything they can given the loss of ND from their schedule. If ACC goes, SEC and B1G will raid. That said, maybe the only way the ACC can get out of current deal is via approaching ESPN some larger merger w/whatever comes out of a Big XII and PAC combination. It’s all guesswork at this point

For those looking to go independent, who do you schedule? I think you at best have to latch onto a conference like ND does with the ACC And ND has a deal w/NBC because ND has a strong national brand and a huge east coast following. Oregon doesn’t have that kind of value. To me, the independent route is program death

I would take a reduced share and/or work with PK to subsidize. What I didn’t expect is the ~$80/MM/year delta. That’s a big number. I think the math gets a little easier though. Assume $300MM/year for a PAC 10 is correct so that’s $30MM/team. If you add Big XII I believe their number is $500MM (let’s just go with that to make this easy). Assume ACC can’t get out of deal so they don’t get added in. $300MM + $500MM = $800MM $800/22 = ~$67MM/year If B1G offers $63MM (or whatever it was) I think you would take it given intangible (not really) vale of being at a national level in terms of visibility

@Charles FischerIs there a story linked in the article or is this your speculation around the internal politics?

If what @Charles Fischer just posted is accurate it may be moot. my uber point was, if they think you are dilutive then pay the delta. If they think that’s true over the course of the deal, don’t get hung up on pride. The NPV of that money is well worth it considering playing for some period of time in the G League and what value that actually delivers I’m not saying go begging. Just make it hard to be left out.

One word w/r/t UCLA: schadenfreude then guilty about the others and I would earnestly try to bring them along so I am not in regional Siberia

To summarize via snark from other corners of the Interwebs “I listen to Collin Cowherd so you don’t have to”

Edurank seems little more objective and Nebraska is in the 60s, Oregon in the 80s. Outside of that, the other schools are would represent 3 of the top 4 institutions in the league

In terms of academics UCLA, Cal, and Stanford are more elite than anything currently in the B1G. In terms of high profile sports, Cal certainly drops from that cohort. UW ranks 5th in public institutions and has a strong commitment to high profile sports Oregon is AAU and definitely strong in high profile sports All of these schools clear the snob hurdle in that regard (and as noted, many B1G schools should actually be looking up their noses at them). I would be curious if Oregon and UW agreed to effectively purchase their dilution whether the B1G would let them in.

Dude is worth $43.5Bn.