Not enough eyeballs. Aside from Texas, A&M, and OU does anybody else care about the teams in this conference?

a big 12 network could and would work (there is a mountain west network for godsakes)

wouldn't be as lucrative as the Big 10 network though for the reasons RIP stated

Don't take headlines on Orangebloods literally. There apparently is some sleight of hand going on here to make the numbers look bigger than they actually are (an apples to oranges kind of deal). ESPN partnering up with the Horns would not be a good thing, IMO, but they are trying to make it look like ESPN is paying 4 times more for the cable netowrk than what they really are getting for that portion of the deal.

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Not enough eyeballs. Aside from Texas, A&M, and OU does anybody else care about the teams in this conference?

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Not sure what you mean. Tech, Missouri, and even Kansas have received a lot more attention than aTm over the past decade.

Just telling you what I hear from Big Ten folks up here about Nebraska and academics. Neb isn't even in the top quarter of schools in the Big XII, they will be at the bottom of the Big Ten with MSU from an academic standpoint. The Big Ten likes big research budgets - Nebraska is improving but will lag its new peers for the foreseeable future. Heck, there are still people up here who complain about Penn State not being Big Ten material/fitting the profile.

The Big Ten will NEVER accept t.u. so long as they have their own network. Texas will have to give that up if they want to join. Seeing as how they had the chance to do that this summer and passed, I think that ship has sailed for them. I think the PAC-12 is closed off for them now as well since the conference will own all media rights under the new agreement. Texas will not leave the Big XII at this point. Other schools may but they get to have their cake (independent style tv deal) and eat it too (conf schedule, read opponents, for non-football sports) under this arrangement.

Meanwhile, I'll just keep pushing TAMU and Rice to the Big Ten.

Edited to add: RIP is right, the Big XII's original sin is too few people and market redundancy (KSU-KU, OU-OSU, ISU in a UI state).

[This message has been edited by Univex (edited 11/11/2010 11:10a).]

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Why can't a Big 12 network ala the Big 10 work?

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Isn't the answer obvious? The Big 10 doesn't have a school that thinks they should call all the shots and have their own TV network. Neither does the SEC, the PAC10. etc, etc.

Questions I have.
How does ESPN distribute this? Do they create a new station dedicated to the longhorns only and include it on TV carriers sports pack? I do not see how they will have enough content or interest from anyone outside TX to justify it.

What about the teams that tu plays, do they get a cut of the money for games shown exclusively on their channel or replayed on it? Pretty sure we are not going to let the tu TV folks roll up into college station and televise our game if we are not getting a cut of the revenue. We don't even allow FSN to roll up and include our games on TV if they are not part of the conference deal.
What about TV contracts that other conferences have, what happens when they play tu? Pretty sure any FOX game isn't going to be played on their network. What about the Big12 TV deal? tu has few football or basketball games that are not already on tv.

If tu goes independent in football, where do the rest of their sports go? Even going independent doesn't mean they will have enough content for their own network. Look at ND they have an agreement to have their football games televised by NBC but no network of their own.

The Big10 network is a great idea and generates a lot of revenue, but that is 11 schools. A lot of the time even with 11 schools there is no watchable content on their channel. A longhorn network would have to be supplemented with so much crap (6 months of the year there are no revenue sports playing games) that it might as well be off the air most of the time. it seems there would be maybe a few live football and maybe a third of their basketball games that could possibly be live on this channel. How is that going to generate enough money to justify the channel, none of the other sports will generate enough interest to pay the bills to keep the channel on the air.

I just don't see how it will work, and I certainly do not want to pay extra for it, just like I would like to stop paying for a bunch of other channels with crappy content that I get.

I love having stars!

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They aren't going to hoard up all the great talent because they have an ESPN deal, IMO.

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I tend to think they would increase their probability of landing a Ricky Williams/Vince Young type player.

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A lot of the time even with 11 schools there is no watchable content on their channel. A longhorn network would have to be supplemented with so much crap (6 months of the year there are no revenue sports playing games) that it might as well be off the air most of the time.

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I'm not so sure it matters. Again, with the rise of social media, personal branding, and increased opportunities for generating revenue (i.e., Chad Ocho Cinco and Terrell Owens) having your talent showcased 24/7 in football,basketball, and baseball would attract top recruits which would increase the probability of winning - and everybody loves a winner. Texas will continue to profit from a continually growing fanbase which will negate 6 months of stale programming.

SECede sooner than later!

http://twitter.com/aTmSECede

BYE BYE BIG 12

SEC! SEC! SEC!

This is freaking Killing me. We need an ATM channel, and it doesnt need to be national. It just needs to be on in TX. Wwestern La would be gravy.

Content would be freaking easy. Just show old football games. Have a special on injuries caused by the WC. Have a special on Ags that killed a lot of Germans/ North Koreans/ Chicoms/ N Vietnamese/ Republican Guard/ al quaeda/ etc. Have a special on hot chicks that graduated from ATM, hosted by the chick who worked at the tap and was in playboy.

Most of us are junkie enough to support it to where it breaks even. It doesnt need to make $$$. We just need the propoganda out there, in the State of TX, to help us recruit.

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Tech, Missouri, and even Kansas have received a lot more attention than aTm over the past decade.

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Except when push came shove over the summer, none of those schools had options save tech who could only go anywhere as a tag along.

Austin American today says regents are expected to vote to allow Bill Powers, tu president (Cal Berekley grad..)to negotiate a deal to get the longhorn network going for 2011.

My guess is tu wont go independent. They will just agitate for a bigger share of the conference revenue pie. This is leverage.

The programs on their schedule are good enough that tu could: (1) keep A&M, ou, and whichever b12 teams are willing to go 2 for 1 or play guarantee games; (2) fill in around ou, A&M, Ole Miss/ ND /BYU/ MD with a bunch of garbage games.

tv markets in the B12 are very different than in the Big Ten or SEC. The big 12 tv markets are very concentrated. They are more spread out in the other big conferences.

St populations (rough estimate):
TX: 25 mil
ok: 3.5 mil
ks: 3 mil
mo: 6 mil
io: 3 mil, U of Iowa (bten) controls most of it

So TX has 60% of the conferences tv sets.

Of those, tu controls 60%. Ags probably control 25%.

So no other program in the nation besides ND has this opportunity to exert leverage. Now, if we ever overtook tu again, we could exert that same kind of leverage. tu needs to keep A&M down, because we are the only threat, other than a ND revival, but thats not going to happen b/c ND's academic standards are too high to recruit the athletes it needs.

Allowing A&M to go to the SEC would be the dumbest thing tu could do athletically, because they would not be able to exert influence via the conference.

In the current Mack10, tu has its cake and eats it too:
-Controls conference
-gets tv network
-gets big share of revenue
-has respectable academic institutions surrounding it: KU, A&M, Mizzou, Baylor
-Keeps home for hoops and $$$ losing sports

Breaking up the conference would effectively re-shuffle the deck. tu already has the upper hand. The $$$ would have to be overwhelming to make a move.

[This message has been edited by Agsuffering@bulaw (edited 11/20/2010 12:48a).]

I think agsuffering has been reading my mind!

If the 12 million figure is correct, that gets t.u. in the ballpark of what they could have gotten in the Big Ten (projections were 35-40 million per school with t.u. and TAMU) without having to give up control, traditional rivalries and or endure extra travel. This cements them into the Big IIX.

[This message has been edited by Univex (edited 11/11/2010 2:50p).]

texas is no more an "espn school" as the big 10 is a "fox conference." espn and fox are just the distribution partners. fox and comcast are leaders in RSN distribution. then you have independent, team-owned RSNs like YES network. this is relatively new territory for espn. shocked they went with them if comcast or fox were realistic options.

[This message has been edited by carter4133 (edited 11/11/2010 6:01p).]

It's not shocking if the Fox offer was 2-3 million and ESPN's was 12 million.

I just think Texas' deal with ESPN is another sign of the general expansion of college football that will ultimately result in the realization of a cfb playoff..

I think its fairly obvious that ABC/ESPN (Disney) is trying to corner the college football market.

After Fox parntnered with the Big Ten to produce the Big Ten network (2007), ESPN/ABC responded by:

-renegotiating/extending their own deal with the Big Ten to 10 years, $1billion

-offered the SEC an insane amount of money for a record breaking 15-year TV deal

-offered the ACC a similar unprecedented TV deal

-helped "save" the Big 12 in order to prevent Pac-10 expansion and the inevitable creation of a Big Ten-like network carried by FoxSports

-countered FoxSports' offer for the "Longhorn Network" w/ a bid that paid 6x more and provided coast-to-coast coverage (as opposed to regional coverage) despite there still being questions to the markebility of such a network

Texas wants the Big 12 to work and would prefer that IMO... Makes the most sense for them

Texas isnt going independent... to quote Texas' AD, "not in my lifetime"... and President Powers feels the same way.

Where is Kentucky Mustang when you need him?

I agree with you for the most part Univex. We both seem to fundamentally understand what the sip leadership is hoping to strong-arm out of everyone else. Personally, I think there is more emphasis on control than direct cash flow, because control begets cash-flow.

I just dont know the conference openings are available. It seems our options are stay the course or go to the SEC. Hopefully we wont have to find out how strong a lever (or life boat) the SEC is.

I dont think the Ten will look at us now. They wanted tu but would have taken A&M in the package. Rice fits academically but has 0 market share. Mizzou would be a fit, but not a game-changer. Now that they have NU as their magical #12 team, it seems that future additions would have to be game-changers, not just solid additions. (ND, TX, possibly Rutgers, Maryland or Syracuse)

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I think tu is too smart to overcook the goose.

Its a shame the SEC is such an embarressment academically. Otherwise, it would be the perfect out. We go east and become made men, tu keeps on oppressing the peasants in the Mac9...

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It's not shocking if the Fox offer was 2-3 million and ESPN's was 12 million.

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that's not how it works. the two institutions form a JV and then split the economics. one partner provides the content and the other partner provides the distribution. there are no license fees between the content provider and the distribution provider, rather the license fees go from the content provider to the JV. economics could certainly impact the decision, however. for instance, if fox or comcast wanted 49% of the JV and ESPN was willing to take 25%, that could sway the content providers' decisions (UT in the instant case).

And good call Akers. The super Pac was Fox's chance to control college football west of teh Mississippi. ESPN pulled out all the stops.

[This message has been edited by Agsuffering@bulaw (edited 11/20/2010 12:51a).]

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I just think Texas' deal with ESPN is another sign of the general expansion of college football that will ultimately result in the realization of a cfb playoff.

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disney/abc/espn already has broadcast rights for texas college football via its big 12 contract. espn's play is defensive, if anything.

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Where is Kentucky Mustang when you need him?

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is this a joke? the only that guy knew and understood less than sports media was how the SEC football conference operates.

[This message has been edited by carter4133 (edited 11/11/2010 4:43p).]

I think the Big Ten would still be interested. Everything I heard up here from January onwards is that we showed no interest. I know Rice has no market share but they provide a lot of things that are important to the Big Ten. If they were willing to consider Vanderbilt, I think they would consider Rice as part of a package.

Positives:
Great academics (this actually matters to them)
Travel partners with a single metropolitan hub - they won't take a geographic outlier without a travel pair
Rice facilities are good enough (they're getting a new B-ball arena, right?) with possibility of games at Reliant
Not a threat athletically and significantly upgrades baseball
Rice doesn't have to provide market share. TAMU will be enough to charge a higher carriage rate for the BTN across the state
Guarantees the Big Ten's big boys at least one football game per year in Texas (UM, tOSU, PSU, Wisc)
Access to the state for marketing, recruitment, games, revenue etc without having to deal with t.u.


[This message has been edited by Univex (edited 11/11/2010 4:17p).]

I like the Rice/TAMU Big Ten idea. Think of the *****in games we could go to in Houston when our Aggies are on the road.

I think I have converted the local beat writer to the idea. I will try to get him to bang that drum in some off-season columns.

Cliff Notes in Bold

College Athletics is all about branding, especially with football. With branding you create a high barrier of entry to keep your program on top.

In the NFL this sort of thing can't happen because of forced parity- bad teams get top draft picks and a spending cap prevents one team from turning into the NFL's Yankees.

But in college football it seems as if the system (and its sportwriter cogs) PREFERS to only have a few major teams that are good every year competing with each other. The disdain so many have on the accomplishments of programs like Boise that raise themselves up despite the odds shows that the system favors only the elite.

TU's branding efforts over the past decade have been absolutely perfectly executed - something akin to Nike signing Jordan in the marketing world. TU has established its brand (and the orange uterus) as THE representation of the state of Texas. The chance for A&M to be Texas's team left with Jackie. No matter how bad they do in individual seasons they have created such a powerful brand that we basically have no hope of every competing with them in that respect ever again.

I mean heck, if we beat them this year that means three out of the last five years we have beaten them, but do any of those wins help our brand or hurt theirs? Only a very little bit due to their fortified position brandwise. The national narrative is that they are the better program despite the results on the field, and in life perception matters more than reality (a truth which is probably the Aggie Achilles Heel).


I used to be really worried about this, especially since so few Aggies understand branding so as a fan base we really don't understand how screwed over we really are. In my old perspective the news of TU's TV deal would have been a mental death blow, as it pretty much guarantees that their brand remains on top and despite performance on the field little boys in Texas will grow up to want to be Longhorns.

But this summer changed my perspective. I have realized that A&M's culture honestly prevents us from becoming some sort of larger brand- we are purposefully exclusive which directly conflicts with a flagship school's purpose to represent the state as a whole.

Therefore we don't need TV networks, nor do we need greater brand exposure because our base is dedicated but with a certain ceiling. I say let TU be the ND of Texas, it doesn't hurt us because we never had a chance at the role to begin with.

OU is program that really holds us back. Even after TU gets all the talent and fame there is enough left over to win championships and Stoops has proved that to be the case. In fact TU's culture of having all this success handed to them on a silver platter makes them weak compared to other major national powers, another thing Stoops has proven.

We need to get to the SEC not to get ahead of TU- which is impossible at this point- but instead to get ahead of OU. Even though our brand is weak currently, a few years of piggybacking on the VERY strong SEC brand and we will tip the scales some.

Let TU have whatever riches it wants, they will still be poor in spirit. A&M needs to worry about how to best position our brand to overcome OU, the real team holding back our fortunes.

[This message has been edited by Cardboardboxer (edited 11/11/2010 4:55p).]

Thanks for a solid post cardboard

Amen to cardboard's post. SECede as soon as possible

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