USM, ODU, Marshall getting an early start on the CUSA evacuation

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

Good riddance

[Arkstfan]

15 hours ago, keith said:

Hahahah...no, not confused and I don't think anyone here is suffering any form of buyer's remorse.

What I hear is, "the Conference won't negotiate with us."  My take is the Conference is saying there is nothing to negotiate and these three schools don't like that so are walking away unilaterally.  Would they feel better if they sat across a table and heard, "there is no price the Conference would entertain that would allow for early departure.  You are bound by the 14-month notice you accepted and agreed to.  Meeting adjourned."  How is that  any different?  Or does it "open a door" for binding arbitration or something?

Just because two parties "negotiate" doesn't mean the outcome will be any different.  Would the conference negotiate with each university independently or as a group?  What if there is an acceptable price the Conference would accept for early departure and only 1 of the 3 was willing/capable to pay?

I don't think there is any love-loss here for the current C-USA leadership.  When the dominos began to fall with the latest rearrangement of the deck chairs kicked off by Texas/OU and the SEC, there was a general timeline set for everything to fall into place.  Everyone probably would have liked it to happen immediately, but that's not the way it works and with such a massive reorganization it was going to take some time to get everything in place.

If I'm being completely selfish I really only care about what this means for UNT's schedule next season.  Will we have to replace two games with FCS opponents?  Will we lose a home game?  I haven't looked at other conference games affected.  Maybe we just load up with other conference mates that also have holes in their schedules now even if it means playing someone twice?

 

This isn’t a Middle Earth quest where good and evil face off, or there are do-gooders vs baddies.

Contracts are and partnership agreements are designed to deal with an agreement coming to an end.

CUSA’s agreement from what has been posted on the Tech board is vague on the matter of how to deal with someone leaving early. It says the league can recover damages but does not have a liquidated damages clause (ie. We are going to save the problem of calculating damages by just agreeing it is X dollar amount). That’s not good planning but it is what is. It does say the league can ask for injunctive relief, essentially specific performance.

The problem is courts normally don’t like to force people to go do something they don’t want to do, they prefer to assess monetary damages and get the file marked closed rather than have the specter of having to revisit if the parties disagree on how well the forced performance is being done.

The hitch for CUSA is when the league gets the vapors explaining how it’s too late, they can’t adjust the schedule, they are going to be asked, “Did the schools tell you they wanted to leave early?” Then the next question is “Knowing their intention, why didn’t you prepare an 8 game schedule for 11 teams in the event they went forward?”

It’s no different from the (fairly) well known case where a guy got metal in his eye and needed two surgeries, doctors got his distance vision back close to normal but his near vision required corrective lenses (glasses). The guy refused to get glasses and part of his claim was he couldn’t perform work requiring near vision and had lost a couple jobs because of that poor vision. Court held that buying glasses wasn’t unreasonable. He could get damages for the cost of them but couldn’t collect damages because of he couldn’t work when he refused to mitigate.

CUSA had no obligation to negotiate release terms. That’s simply a norm, customary behavior. CUSA does not have to behave like other conference or even as it has in the past such as the early release of Army.

What CUSA did have an obligation to do is take another hour and prepare a back-up schedule for 11 teams in the event the three went forward with departing and it is unlikely a judge will be sympathetic to CUSA for any mayhem caused by failing to mitigate by preparing a second schedule.

CUSA can sue and try to prove the early departure cost the league X dollars in revenue or they can simply contact the schools directly and say we think you are causing X dollars in damages by leaving early and try to sort it out rather than “maybe” going for the moon shot of an injunction.

If CUSA goes the injunctive route, CUSA will file suit in state court in Texas, most likely each school will file suit in their own state seeking declaratory judgment that CUSA and a state court in Texas cannot force an agency of the state to perform acts that the governing body of the agency said to not do (ie. Play in CUSA instead of Sun Belt).

Going the court route is not smart unless the schools refuse to pay reasonable damages because it’s going to be a morass that lasts into 2023 or longer.

[keith]

According to SouthernMiss..."The University first advised Conference USA in early December 2021 of the University's plans to terminate its membership in June 2022."

Unless there has been some sort of rip in the space-time continuum in Hattiesburg, they missed their obligation by at least 8 months.  If the existing wording of how separation will be handled is vague, it was probably vague (and intentionally so) when they became part of the conference.  If they didn't like the vagueness, then why didn't they insist that it be changed at that time?  What's not vague is the 14-month notice requirement.  

I think it is unreasonable to ask the conference (any conference) to work out all the possible combinations and permutations of scheduling on the *possibility* (or even the stated "intent") of 1, 2, 3 or (insert your number here) institutions that may or may not leave prior to a stipulated notice and termination date - either by mutual agreement or by simply walking away.  This is precisely the reason the 14-month requirement is in the by-laws.

For everyone that hates C-USA and thinks this is great that these three are screwing the conference, they are not.  They are screwing all the universities that are going to be around for the 2022-2023 season.

I feel that the Sun Belt may be culpable here as well.  By accepting the invitations knowing that they have not been released from their existing obligations to C-USA they have interfered.   BTW, did the Sun Belt develop alternative schedules that both included or excluded 1, 2 or all 3?

[Arkstfan]

5 hours ago, keith said:

According to SouthernMiss..."The University first advised Conference USA in early December 2021 of the University's plans to terminate its membership in June 2022."

Unless there has been some sort of rip in the space-time continuum in Hattiesburg, they missed their obligation by at least 8 months.  If the existing wording of how separation will be handled is vague, it was probably vague (and intentionally so) when they became part of the conference.  If they didn't like the vagueness, then why didn't they insist that it be changed at that time?  What's not vague is the 14-month notice requirement.  

I think it is unreasonable to ask the conference (any conference) to work out all the possible combinations and permutations of scheduling on the *possibility* (or even the stated "intent") of 1, 2, 3 or (insert your number here) institutions that may or may not leave prior to a stipulated notice and termination date - either by mutual agreement or by simply walking away.  This is precisely the reason the 14-month requirement is in the by-laws.

For everyone that hates C-USA and thinks this is great that these three are screwing the conference, they are not.  They are screwing all the universities that are going to be around for the 2022-2023 season.

I feel that the Sun Belt may be culpable here as well.  By accepting the invitations knowing that they have not been released from their existing obligations to C-USA they have interfered.   BTW, did the Sun Belt develop alternative schedules that both included or excluded 1, 2 or all 3?

Sun Belt hasn’t released a schedule. Rumor mill says SBC did schedules for just the 10, the 10 plus JMU, the 10 plus ODU, USM, Marshall, and the 10 plus all four.

I am failing to see what “screwing” is taking place.

An 8 game slate with 11 teams isn’t hard to draft. The Big Ten did it for decades.

The only potential change in revenue is if the TV partners cut their distribution but that is resolved by the three paying the damages. It isn’t going to cost UNT anything to replace USM with a different CUSA team on the various schedules.