Arkstfan

Go look up how much Cal borrowed for their stadium.

USF is unreliable. Leavitt nearly ended up at AState when we hired Steve Roberts. His old AD was our AD and he was ready to go because USF hadn't kept any of their promises about training facilities, upgrading practice fields, and addressing the stadium. They gave him new agreement that set a deadline for the field house construction.

I think you are spot on. Those two schools mean something to SJSU, SDSU, Fresno, Nevada, etc. Get past the Great Plains.... Washington State is where Mike Leach was and the flag is at Game Day. Oregon State is uh that other Oregon school.

Sort of defeats the purpose if you never play.

Of course. But when NC State, Duke, Pitt, Boston College rebuild the ACC, SMU is at the table. They get to speak for and against candidates. They get to vote for or against candidates. They aren't standing there hat in hand hoping to get on the lifeboat.

Of course. Thing is it will likely be a decade until what they'd owe under the GOR will permit them to leave. Means when Florida State and Clemson and maybe 2-4 others leave, SMU is at the table determining who gets invited. You think ECU or Charlotte laughs off an invite to join Wake Forest, NC State and maybe Duke in a rebuilt ACC? South Florida isn't going to say no to joining Georgia Tech in a rebuilt ACC. They bought a seat at the table to get a vote on who joins the next revamp.

WAC 16 collapsed when it was figured out that MWC8 could make almost the same amount in TV as WAC16 but split fewer ways. SWC died when it was figured out that Big 8+4 had the same TV value as Big 8+SWC. AAC merging with MWC takes money out of your mouth and sends it to San Jose unless the Pac-2 really boost the income.

Why? You want crappy football at least get someone who can play decent basketball too. UConn had AAC membership and made the calculation that Big East was a better fit for the sports Big East sponsors. The AAC membership said all or nuthin and they took nothing. I don't think Army will accept but that's the first call. Army last year 1/3rd of their schedule was Sun Belt and 1/2 their losses were to Sun Belt. They've sort of figured out a niche. They understand the bowl oversupply means they're going to find a slot. CBSSN gives them love.

There's always been a buy in. Nebraska had pay. Maryland and Rutgers had to take limited shares. They just brought more equity to the table than SMU. Honestly, I suspect Cincinnati's leadership is pondering whether they messed up jumping early. Be back with Louisville. More games that drive ticket sales. More games that drive donations. Value of program sponsorship goes up. That sideline banner is worth a lot more if SMU is playing Clemson instead of Charlotte. Only positive interaction I've had with SMU was when they came to Jonesboro and was told they'd never been on the road to any stadium that had better visiting team facilities. Otherwise just annoying group. But as people in Arkansas, Missouri, Colorado and elsewhere learned, the license to print money from growing cannabis doesn't go to the guy who knows how to grow it and ship it and has for years without getting caught. It goes to the dude who has a million bucks he can post as bond for the license and has cash to lobby, and that ain't the guy who was growing pot back in the woods. It's not a meritocracy unless you consider wealth to equal merit.

They aren't giving up $200 million. They are investing $7 million(ish) a year foregoing AAC revenue that they'd make being in the league. They were NEVER getting ACC money without a significant buy in and that buy in is foregoing an ACC TV share (some sources saying will still get basketball distribution which ain't peanuts). You want to buy a $1 million dollar house, you have to plunk down $200,000 upfront that's how it works. Sure you can mortgage insurance and pay more per month. But you gotta buy equity or insure what little equity you have with mortgage insurance. USC and UCLA are not taking full Big Ten shares nor are Oregon or Washington because they have to "buy equity" in the Big Ten. SMU's cost to get ACC equity is going to be high because, well they are SMU, not Florida State. Think of it as one person going to buy a million dollar house when they have $750,000 equity in their current home vs someone with only $250,000 equity in the current house. The equity the first buyer is bringing means only has to borrow $250,000 to get in the new house. Other person needs to borrow $750,000.

MWC isn't coming to Texas. They have a nice tidy 14. If they do anything it will be make another run at Gonzaga now that Washington State is in.

They'll get more than $5 million in the next contract and they won't have to play any 9am local time games in Charlotte.

No MAC exercised option in the agreement where they invited UMass as a full member, if they declined, automatic kick out. MAC only invited UMass to balance out football only Temple. Once the Owls left, MAC had no interest in a football only UMass. All or nothing. UMass opted for nothing over playing basketball in the MAC.

You been to the La.Tech board... ever? They can more than pick up SMU's slack. 🙂

Exactly. Does AAC have to expand? Nope. 13 teams in an environment where divisions aren't needed isn't a problem. If you look at the "we want markets" approach, choices boil down to: Buffalo, NIU (sort of, rural by Chicago TV market), Bowling Green (sort of, rural but in Indianapolis market), Georgia State, Kennesaw State, Texas State (sort of, technically Austin TV market), Louisiana (ECU sized market smack dab between Tulane and Rice which as a larger public makes them probably a no vote for Tulane and Rice), UTEP, FIU, and Army. Doesn't fit but easy to get UMass. UMass is cheapest get, followed by CUSA and MAC schools at around $5 million. Think SBC buy out is $6 million. Who would knock their mamma down to join? UMass, Texas State, UTEP, La.Tech, WKU, MTSU, FIU, maybe Georgia State. Maybe Louisiana. Would others join yeah but there is a difference between jumping up and down yelling pick me and yeah we looked at the numbers, it works.

Talks ended because one or more of these statements are true. 1. The two schools said no way are we humping that far to play for that amount of money. 2. The AAC membership said no way are we humping that far to play for that amount of money.

Either the two have said no and commish is getting ahead of it, or did the math and can't justify going west.

Nailed it.

Oh and to just add. Big XII commissioner has said that in the future, he expects Big XII will break basketball away from the TV rights deal and sell hoops independently because he believes there is no new money to be made off football rights while there is potential for hoops to generate more, especially via streaming. He was all set to go after Gonzaga and UConn if the four corners schools didn't join because he thinks putting that much basketball prowess in one place creates something people will pay to see.

So far the trend has been power leagues disregard travel because the money is more than enough to put the unpaid "help" on airplanes. Absent money in the $30 million or more range, the trend has been geographic. A conference might be spread over a sizable range but has geographic clusters that lend themselves to regions. AAC is basically a SW conference and east coast conference. Sun Belt is South and East, MAC splits fairly nicely. CUSA is cobbled up post-raid and MWC is as compact as the west allows you to be. If I were guessing, AAC commissioner WANTS to go really big, maybe something like Washington State, Oregon State, SDSU, Boise and one of Air Force or UNLV. What remains to be seen is can he get the money to make that worth East Carolina kicking off at 10pm eastern time or for Washington State to kickoff at 9am Pacific.

Their interest is to consolidate value. Note that the P2+1 (ACC) is leagues with their own TV network. In the case of B1G, a network co-owned by the league, with ACC and SEC, a fat rights fee for the branding, but no capital outlay or risk by the leagues (absent bankruptcy proceedings). The G5 have been getting more linear spots because so much inventory is being hustled by the conference networks. Now that they have more inventory, there may be less need for AAC, CUSA, MAC, MWC, Sun Belt content but it still matters how many people will subscribe to streaming. I think there is an expectation at ESPN that they will move some of this new inventory to not just the networks they've created, but to streaming as well. Knowing everything that is going on ESPN cut a new contract with the Missouri Valley Football Conference that doesn't just put MVFC content on ESPN+ it also includes linear broadcasts. ESPN doesn't reveal their streaming numbers, but a few years ago (pre-Covid) some numbers did leak and one thing that popped up was, SBC does quite well streaming. Casual fans don't mean crap in a streaming environment, the dude who shows up for a big game or takes the kids once a year isn't likely to pay to stream the rest of the games. Charlotte probably beats App in linear audience, App undoubtedly has more fans willing to pay ESPN for the privilege of streaming than Charlotte has. A new market/economy is emerging. The upside for G5 is look at TV. Today if you are a studio/network you don't generally take your highbrow shows that appeal to people who appreciate great production values, good acting, and great scripts and stick them on CBS. You put that show on Paramount+ and you fill the time slot on CBS with a low cost "reality" show, or a competition show, or some cheap formulaic comedy. The G5 fill the need for cheap content, especially to fill in when your casual audience is people who might change channels because TAMU-LSU turns out to be boring or because Cowboys vs Giants on Thursday night isn't interesting. G5 fill your need for people willing to pay for streaming because you want wring extra dollars out of the process and insure content isn't counter-programmed in ways you don't want. G5 conferences do not fill your need for a dedicated linear/streaming network because they don't have the oomph to force Direct TV or Charter to pay a fat carriage fee. B1G and SEC (lesser degree ACC and even lesser degree B12) are Taylor Swift. Fat guarantees upfront to go to the studio, ridiculously large stadium tours, insane merch revenue, a follow-up live album and of course a movie that will generate theater revenue, followed by buy a copy, followed by rentals, followed by right to include in your streaming service. G5 is Jason Isbell. Got to be involved in having your own record company that puts it together, contract someone to distribute, make your money filling small venues on 200 date tour and making a bit each night on merch.

This is the first FBS conference to get raided at the end of a media contract since SWC and that was a whole different universe back then. Leagues with something in hand have an easier time. Schools left and their worldview matters too. If it were MWC gutted, I'd have few doubts about their survival because if say New Mexico and Wyoming got left behind, New Mexico State and UTEP would be interested. North Dakota State, South Dakota State, and maybe North Dakota would be calling. Montana and Montana State might be tempted. Cal-Davis, Cal Poly, Sacramento State, and Portland State would be looking at their capacity to shift subdivisions. MWC down to a handful of schools would have people saying pick me. Pac-4 has people saying pick me but the people doing the picking are so far not accepting their circumstances. They are apparently NOT calling the two Dakota States nor their ancient conference brothers Montana. CUSA wasn't being picky when the time came. I think they scored a bargain with Kennesaw State. Liberty will acquit themselves well and with new leadership now in place might actually be run by people they feel they can work with instead of a puffed up dude who thought he could bully or buy anything he wanted. Even if MTSU hadn't been in dire need of the departure money prompting their decision to turn down the MAC and effectively block WKU's departure, FIU, Tech and UTEP would still have found backfill schools. Pac-4 isn't mentally there.

He is not making predictions. He's thinking out loud about different configurations. It's no insider info and really not even doing close analysis of what would work best.

When Andre Dawson became a free agent, he wanted to leave Montreal because he felt the turf was too hard on his knees. Couldn't get any offers because it was the year the owners colluded to kill free agency. Dawson wanted out. Went to the Cubs and said just name your price for a one year deal and I'll come. Got like $600,000 before incentives. Tears it up, gets three years and six million on next deal. It's not unusual for people to say I'll take lesser compensation short-term to prove my worth. In the case of SMU, I view it as a speculative deal. SMU doesn't bring a lot of proven. equity so has to pay a lot to get in. No different than what happens in law firms. Dude has been making it rain and law firm wants him to join, they let his book of business be the price he pays to join, in some cases, the firm will offer him added cash to join up. Meanwhile Billy Bookworm who isn't a proven rainmaker is a proven expert at writing appeals. he offers valuable skills that the rainmakers can market since he sucks at marketing. Billy will have to pay to become a partner. He might have to make a lump sum and might have to borrow money to pay it, or he may get a restricted partner share for a period of time to pay his way in. SMU is a gamble. The gamble very simply is, will SMU's presence in the conference increase the number of people in Texas who watch because SMU is playing Pitt and does increase who will watch Virginia Tech play North Carolina? Does SMU's presence make it easier for Clemson or UVA to recruit a kid from Texas? No one can definitively answer those questions. Well I'm sure UNT fans believe they know a definitive answer and SMU fans believe they know a definitive answer. My guess is SMU long-term probably benefits as much as Cal simply by virtue of an old recognized name in a market that actually likes college football. SF market is much more pro oriented. The only issues pro sports have had in San Francisco and Los Angeles has been local governments have tended to say "You have a business that not only makes millions per year, the resale value rises by millions if not billions per year, you want a place to conduct business and have the rental income from concerts and other events, you need to pay all or most of the costs." There is however no reliable data that can be used to extrapolate those answers with high confidence. ACC requiring a fat buy in to insure against the possibility that they don't get the revenue and recruiting boost they hope to obtain makes plenty of sense. It is also possible the size of the buy in is case of the telephone game. Someone says, "hell if we have to give up 7 years of revenue, I'd do it" and becomes "SMU has offered to give up 7 years revenue."

Reddit CFB summed it up. Problem for ACC is if they admit Stanford and Cal, Florida State might get mad and leave. If they don't admit Stanford and Cal, Florida State might get mad and leave. Honestly if I'm an ACC president, Florida State's BS would be convince me to vote for Stanford and Cal as protection from the erratic leadership there. It doesn't seem clear if the president runs the school with consent from the board or the board runs the school and the president signs whatever is needed.