outoftown

Provided it is cash that would be pretty good actually, a piece of progress from the last deal. Those "in kind" services like in the Apogee deal should usually really be discounted by about 80%

If that is the truth, then Colorado is the winner for reading the tea leaves before the others did.

I would have to think if SMU plays in a league with that much travel, they will be happy to have opponents where travel is absolutely minimal and opponent fans traveling is a reasonable size.

If its down to that kind of amount: Might the most valuable schools go independent rather than stick with the conference? If you come over: Are you getting a full share? If you do not, is it still worth going? Almost certainly not for MW schools who would have to pay 34 million. With 17 its iffy enough as you are paying now and can really only recoup if things stay surprisingly stable. A bad bet. For AAC schools who would incur even more travel than MWC jumping: How low would the exit fee have to be for it to be worth it? Who would have to come with to make it bearable travel wise? By when do you have to stabilize the membership to have a tv deal be valid, because times is of the essence? I feel the fact that time will run out on the PAC because it is so expensive for MWC members to get out by 24 is what will kill the PAC. If they were 2 months earlier they could have eaten the best pieces of the MWC. Now it is likely the MWC will eat some of the leftovers instead. The PAC leadership incompetence is staggering. Add the financial albatrosses of the PAC-12s HQ and past tv network troubles and it makes more sense that way around

The probywith this is, that not only will the share be probably only half, but also that you have to front the money. That can be real tricky for some schools. Add that when losing further schools there will likely be clauses reducing the deal, and it's not a slam dunk anymore. If Oregon/Washington go (independent of B10, the deal will dip) if all 4 corners go additionally you may be back to single digit millions (of which you don't get full share), have spent lots of exit fees and be stuck with high travel

I want them to make enough to survive but only barely. I think that is about 20 million per with looots of streaming. At that rate it becomes really non obvious for AAC teams to go there if they do not get more than half share (which they will not).

I think the money for the media deal for the PAC prior to this defection could indeed have been at about the 30 million range with a lot of streaming. Who knows for sure at this point. But even then it is also financially smart for CU to leave. The P12 deal needs to outright beat the B12 deal for them to have staying make sense. What gets often not enough discussed is that the B12 pays out a good deal more (like 5 million) than P12 with similar tv money, because it does not have the same HQ and prior network disaster liabilities plus a good deal more NCAA tournament bball units. For anyone making the jump another bit of caution is that it does not seem likely that P12 wants to let anyone join with anything even approaching full share. Hence SDSUs troubles. If the media deal is lower and instead in the lower 20 mil range half shares start being seriously problematic for teams that have to pony up 17-34 million exit fees in order to join a place that doesn't appear stable

I am sure that even a slightly watered down (no UCLA/USC but everyone else) PAC-12 is still paying out a lot more than the AAC. But it is also a lot of traveling out west, and potentially even less exposure from what one hears. Add that remaining schhols will likely want newbies to come in on a sliding payout scale and it is likely not a financial risk, but it is not an overall slam dunk anymore. Still it would likely not be good for UNT if SMU left the conference. Right now that conference is regionally fairly nice for UNT. Take out SMU and it becomes less so.

Lashlee is 5th. And honestly I think that is too high. Until his squads start performing up to the talent he has he is only a decent recruiter who was a good coordinator. He could still completely be like any UT head coach since Mack Brown. And the fact that recruitment is good has less meaning to me than it would elsewhere, because he has more money to support him than any other AAC coach. Concerning new coaches i think this article has it about right, but it is always a bit of a crap shoot. I get the skepticisim of Dilfer, but honestly - nobody ever really knows if first time D1 head coaches will work out. Its kind of a crapshoot. That said people who were succesful head coaches at FCS and DII tend to work out a tiny bit better on average than those who were coordinators, but the difference is not huge while variability is.

Don't get me wrong, i don't mind the betting talk, but when reading the title I was hoping someone was going to give me in depth insight on how the O-line vs D-line matchups were gonna go.

I do think Wren Bakers seat at WVU is getting slightly less well air conditioned. But it has fairly little to do with Huggins. That one really didn't leave him with much choice. It has more to do with him having retained the football coach and as a result now partially owning Neal Browns results.

Agree. If you 'donate' money in exchange for a tangible return to your personal interest, usually that is not called donating, its called buying. If in a ptw mobile phone game I 'donate' money in exchange for a tool/character/player and pay through googlepay, don't I pay a sales tax? Why should the donors who 'donate' money in exchange for a player not have to pay a tax?

That is the thing here: This guy has actually been to 108 of the 133 stadiums. He only ranks those. He does it -by his own admission - fairly subjectively.

It feels like the AACs exit fees are low. Particularly if you compare them to those in the MWC.

While I get that the Mountain West is annoyed at SDSU, I think acting fast and negotiating fairly benevolently instead of playing hard ball is actually its best buisness decision. Because if they insist SDSU left, then there is zero chance at getting 34 million in case they need to leave late, because then SDSU can rightfully say: you insisted we told you we are leaving in June, so we get to go for the lower prize. So i would hurry and tell SDSU they can come back in for 2 million or so. You can still play hard ball when they try to make their move official (provided it ever happens, which at this point I don't think is a given anymore). But actually losing SDSU for only 17 million is not good buisnes for the MWC in the long run.

Productive but not great College players have never been better paid than right now. And likely never will make more than right now. Donor fatigue is real and when folks figure this out it will reduce the amounts going to NIL. Add the enrollment cliff and the problems in linear tv probably stopping the limitless increase that has been coming in revenue, and I think schools will fight hard for some of that donor money to come back to them, where donors don't have to worry about whether it counts as charitable.

The problem is, that not expanding / having to change who they will expand with, will likely prolong media deal negotiations again. If you are a media company you want certainty in the contract about the product you will get in return for your money. Especially because it seems so uncertain. The narrative of getting a deal and then expanding is oversimplified. It is also possible that SDSU was gonna get a reduced deal. paying 34 million to only make 10-12 a year instead of 6 will take a long time to be worth it with fairly high risk considering the PAC instability. SDSU may have been slightly overplaying their hand, but the PAC is overplaying its hand massively.

Well, I am still not a believer when it comes to his "calling your ass out" on tampering bit. But on this one I think he has got it mostly correct (its not really an automatic berth though, the AAC will not get in every year).

We care, because not having commits is even worse than having commits who may not stick

Yes, that is exactly what is happening. Its a whole back and forth, that -should SDS not find a landing spot- will need mending fences. Also if SDSu finds a landing spot, but only post June30 then this interpretation by the MWC will lead to them losing out on 18 million.

A lot of quality commits -even if there is a chance they will not all stick - sure beats radio silence on the recruitment front. Its like a farmer seeing his crops grow well a month before harvesting season. A lot may go wrong until the harvest, but good growth in the early stages is a precondition for a great harvest later on. At this point in time you can't do better than to get them to publicly express their preferential interest in UNT over other schools. It may not be a ginormous win yet, but be happy you have it, cause the alternative sucks much worse.

I will believe him whenever he names someone for the first time. Until then it is posturing in an attempt to preemptively dissuade with likely not much behind it. I mean if the player wants to leave, it will be hard to prove because they will have little incentive to show their coach their DMs, and neither will the high school coaches.

The Athletic FOIA'd the letters. and posted them for those who have the subscription. It is somewhat ambiguous, but I would tend to say that a reasonable person would indeed read the initial letter as an exit because of the very unfortunate wording SDSU used, including sending it to all presidents (which is a requirement for exiting) "...this letter is to formally notice that SDSU intends to resign from the Mountain West Conference effective June 30 2024 or at an agreed upon later date" It gets a bit complicated because they also ask for an extension on their exit notice. But the above sentence puts them in my mind in a legally difficult position. That said, if I were the MWC, seing as the PAC-12 will almost definitely not manage before friday (June 30), I would answer them that -out f the goodness of their hearts- they accept SDSUs interpretation that they did not serve notice of exit, provided the send timely notice that at this point they have indeed not given notice of wanting to exit. I think it will improve the MWCs negotiation position, because if the notice then comes after June 30 they can ask more money and it will be difficult for SDSU to scrape that money together in the first place.

So, when it says "school funds" here... is that direct subsidy from the academic side? Is Contributions = donations? I have a hard time believing that is really only 2.5 million I also noticed that UNT is in the top10 when it comes to "total Allocated" (which includes student contributions).

UCLA is done. The governors approved it after UCLA had to make some of the other system schools whole. But its happening.