Texas went for this deal because they have come to realize a fundamental truth. The NCAA protects a select few brand names, avoids as much conflict as possible with them, and is - in the end - a fairly powerless governing body for college athletics.

The sips are simply exploiting a much larger problem...of which A&M, as a member of one of the BCS conferences, is somewhat complicit. Favoritism and elitism and preferential treatment at the top level of college sports. This is NOT the first indication that the field is not level in the NCAA.

The very principle of automatic bids for some, but not all, conference champions to the BCS money games is prejudicial treatment and unethical. Yet we'll gladly take our share of that prize and will justify it to our last breath over perhaps a more deserving team.

"i think i've heard this before."

C'mon he's not talking about sharing all athletic revenue. But each member of the conference equally shares the money made by the conference. The top teams benefit from playing the weaker teams - and each team recognizes they each important.



[This message has been edited by ChiAggie (edited 7/13/2011 2:41p).]

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The NCAA protects a select few brand names, avoids as much conflict as possible with them, and is - in the end - a fairly powerless governing body for college athletics.

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And which teams would those be? Alabama? Ohio State? USC? Oklahoma? They punished those schools for doing wrong. Hell, they even let us off light in '94.

I don't think NCAA plays favorites, honestly. Hopeless inept? Perhaps.

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But each member of the conference equally shares the money made by the conference.

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I know you aren't talking about the Big "12". 3 teams get 70% of the pie.

I'm talking about the Big Ten.

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It's as simple as not playing a game you can't win. You tradition hounds long for the day when the game was much different.

A&M will not be able to compete with Texas over the long term if the LHN goes through without being affiliated with a serious top notch conference or being the top dog in their own conference.

. . .

The game is different. If you love A&M, get over the tradition crap and fight for what is best for the school.

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Blue star post, here.

Getting thrown into a pit of lions is not wishing for success of your school. The only reason that people want to go to the SEC is because they don't like the way Texas is behaving.

We don't have to go to the SEC....we could be independent...we could join the Big East....we could join the Pac 10.

We don't have to choose SEC...but if they clean up their mess...maybe it could be okay...

If not, independent....then after 3 years....we can choose what is best for A&M.

Palooza11 == Fail.

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And which teams would those be? Alabama? Ohio State? USC? Oklahoma? They punished those schools for doing wrong. Hell, they even let us off light in '94

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Add Miami to that mix..three of those rebounded to win national championships since. The verdict is out on USC and OSU but there's no reason to believe they won't be back.

Why? Because the NCAA won't ban TV appearances anymore and that's where the money is. The big programs which get a disproportionate share of that pie are able to weather storms, cheat a little and get away with it, all because they know that the NCAA won't really hurt them. They favor the big programs by not hitting those programs where it really hurts - TV revenues.

It goes hand-in-hand, the NCAA's ineffectiveness and the favoritism either intentionally or unintentionally tipped to the programs bringing in the most TV money.

USC has little incentive to clean up its act, except for a little embarrassment which is fleeting. Same will happen in Columbus. As long as the NCAA won't hit them in their pocketbooks, cheating will remain part of their business. There's much more to gain than to lose.

[This message has been edited by DecadePlan (edited 7/13/2011 3:26p).]

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The only reason that people want to go to the SEC is because they don't like the way Texas is behaving.

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Speak for yourself. I'd like to go to the SEC so I can see Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn and LSU regularly against my team...

... as opposed to... Baylor? Oklahoma State? Iowa State?


This conference is Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M. Any game not involving those teams going head to head is considered a snoozefest for the rest of the nation.

I tune into to Auburn vs Georgia, or Florida vs Tennessee.

The rest of the nation doesn't tune into Texas A&M vs Texas Tech.

mhayden


Couldn't agree more.

Lordy we sound like a bunch of women!

"tu isn't playing fair! They have a competitive advantage!" blah blah blah


The situation reminds me of that old bumper sticker we used to have around in the 1960's: "Don't have your own oil well? Get one!"


Don't have our own network? Get one!

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We don't want to start our own because in order to sustain it you would have to televise high school games and doing so is simply not fair and is not ethical.

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Do you have a link for this, SoftwareInventorDude? Not saying that you're wrong, I'd just like some confirmation from somebody at A&M saying the reason we don't want to start out own is because we would have to televise high school games.

Frankly, I don't believe it.

As far as being unethical, that horse has long been out of the barn. I've been watching high school football games on TV for years.

I have no problem with a school having its own network as long as it follows these simple rules:

1. It cannot broadcast any high school competition or any similar competition where potential recruits would be shown.

2. It cannot broadcast any conference games that would take money from the conference tv and any other teams involved.

3. They can only broadcast their own games/competitions that would not have been shown otherwise.


I can't wait to see how "objective" ESPN reporters are when it comes to their games.

Maybe Bill Byrne, whom I wholeheartedly support most of the time, should have been a little more far-sighted. This is what he had to say about the sips getting their network last year, BEFORE it happened:

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Statement One: Texas is going to have a cable channel like the Big Ten Network that will give them even more money and recruiting advantages. After all, it was reported in orangebloods.com and many media outlets picked it up, so it must be true.

Here are the facts. The bottom line is NOTHING HAS CHANGED! They could have had their own network for the last 14 years of the Big 12 and so could we or any member of the conference. Our friends have been bringing their Longhorn Sports Network television mic flags around for years. Their stand alone network has still not happened yet.



ABC/ESPN and FOX continue to have rights to the league's vast inventory of home football, men's basketball, and women's basketball games. For specific's regarding the Big 12 TV Contracts, click here.

There are quite a few baseball and softball games, tennis matches, swim meets, women's basketball and even a few men's basketball and football games that are not selected by ESPN and Fox Sports. And it's those contests, and only those contests, which may be broadcast on a school's own network. We call it a third-tier network. We broadcast many of these contests for free on our Aggies All-Access website powered by CBS Sports. I'm proud to say we have more viewers of our contests than the next three CBS Sports powered websites combined. In effect, that is our Aggie Network and we offer it to you for free around the world.

When we built the 12th Man Productions facilities, our plan was all along to eventually put together an Aggie Network. We are better positioned than any other conference school to do it. Having said that, we would still need to invest millions of dollars to hire the staff, and purchase the equipment and air time to do our own network. And while we would have some live programming from what ABC/ESPN and Fox Sports did not select, the bulk of programming would be replays of recent games and rebroadcasts of historical games. Even ESPN does not have enough live programming to fill its' schedule each day. That's why the Aggie Network is still on the internet.

Today, the financial numbers simply do not work in our favor to produce 168 hours of TV every week. If you think about it, a separate school network does not work unless it's public television, and they need all kinds of institutional and federal government funding. Last time I checked, the college athletic departments are not eligible.

On the other hand, a conference television network can work. There is enough live and delayed inventory to fill the week, although, even then, the live programming would be skimpy. I would support the new Big 12 doing developing its own network. If you have your own network, the paradigm has shifted on how you build a conference. You ultimately want to expand your footprint to increase the number of cable/satellite viewers who pay a monthly fee to receive your network.

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[This message has been edited by Ansel (edited 7/13/2011 4:59p).]

Good find Ansel. I'm curious now who owns rebroadcast rights for any of the Horn opponents. For instance, can OU or A&M demand cash for rebroadcast of a previous game or is the fee paid to ESPN once-for-all? I would assume the latter (instant classics as an example) but not sure how this applies to the LHN. Is it possible that A&M renegotiates its contract to demand right of refusal for any broadcast on a network named after an opponent?

I'll let the lawyers-in-the-know handle that one. t.u.'s really opened a Pandora's box here that seems to be trampling a lot of rights.

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I'm curious now who owns rebroadcast rights for any of the Horn opponents.

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The home team owns the rights as it has always done. There has been no change here. Thus any sporting event played in Austin is fair game for re-airing on the Longhorn channel at a later date.

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The home team owns the rights as it has always done. There has been no change here. Thus any sporting event played in Austin is fair game for re-airing on the Longhorn channel at a later date.

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Soooo, will they be airing their home slate from last year? I'd love to see the UCLA, Baylor, Iowa State, and A&M games again.

We can always whip out 2004-2005 to counterbalance.

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When are the lawsuits going to get filed? The first one I'd throw out there would be against the NCAA for allowing this network to get started (competitive advantage over everyone else)

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I repeat: the NCAA DOES NOT CONTROL TELEVISION RIGHTS.

The Supreme Court has already decided this. Individual universities, either independently or through affiliation with a conference, control broadcast rights.

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NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) television plan violated the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts. The case dealt with television rights to college football games, which until the lawsuit were controlled by the NCAA and limited the appearance of university teams in each season. The Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia Athletic Association sued to force the NCAA to stop the practice. The Supreme Court held that the NCAA's actions were a restraint of trade and ruled for the universities.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_v._Board_of_Regents_of_Univ._of_Oklahoma
So you red-blooded aggies are for restraint of trade, huh?

Reminds me of this pic:

SCREW THEM BOTH. I dislike ESiPN more every day.

Big 12-2 schools should all get together and agree to not field any teams against Texas.

Let us push them towards going independent and let them be someone else's problem.

I feel the potential for the LHN is a death blow and I'm beyond caring about any rivalry.

Let us disassociate from them, join the SEC and start blazing a new trail.

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Big 12-2 schools should all get together and agree to not field any teams against Texas.

Let us push them towards going independent and let them be someone else's problem.

I feel the potential for the LHN is a death blow and I'm beyond caring about any rivalry.

Let us disassociate from them, join the SEC and start blazing a new trail.

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what a fantastic idea! i wonder why nobody has thought of that before!

please make sure you bring this to the attention of the leaders at oklahoma and a&m. i am sure they will be willing to throw away the biggest payday on the schedule.

we need more thinkers like you.

The Little 5 would never support that. They know that if the Big 12-2 implodes, they will be begging for invites into the Big East of C-USA.

Hook 'Em Horns

Hellraiser97

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"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas." -- Davy Crockett

I guess I don't see the big deal. Seems like everyone is getting way worked up over nothing.

Hell, Notre Dame has had a monopoly on every Saturday on NBC for years and I can't see that they benefited all that much from it.

The Texas administration made a smart move to generate extra money. This is America. You can't be for the free enterprise system and then turn around and criticize someone else because they made a smart business move and make more money than you do.

A&M should get off their ass and do something creative, like going to the SEC or some other smart business move instead of crying about what somebody else does.

What about an Agriculture network that is a partnership with other leading Ag schools that features agriculture news and sports ? What about a network of military schools that features Army, Navy, Air Force, A&M, the Citadel and other military schools that shows sporting events and war films, history, etc.

Quit crying and complaining and use the system for A&M's benefit.

I love the sips that post acting like Ags in order to push through the idea that everything is peachy with cowtv.

This is not the same as Notre Dame. This is a 24/7 commercial for tu.

The NCAA does not allow capitalism to reign. If they did, we could just bid for players. What they allow is some schools to manipulate the system to their advantage while other schools are punished trying to use capitalism to benefit themselves.

eventually t.u. is going to be the rich kid with no friends and having to spend the money alone.

no school will want to be in a conference with them, and likely a lot of schools will refuse to schedule them.

It will be personally very satisfying to see how they like life as an independent.

While there might be a lot of great games, in general it makes for a pretty boring existence unless your team is in the national championship hunt into November.

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what a fantastic idea! i wonder why nobody has thought of that before!

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Yeah, it's being reiterated by a few posters here, but smart asses like yourself are only critical without offering your own thoughts on the matter.

Biggest payday, sure, but we'll survive. Of course I would already be in the SEC. In my imaginary world I would pull the trigger on these fantastic ideas:

1. move to SEC

2. drop tu from scheduling

3. stream all Aggie athletic events live and free

4. drop the damn T-star and work on branding aTm - including getting college apparel that doesn't suck

5. develop a new intro for our football team that takes into account current players and potential recruits interests (ESPN the Magazine on the grand entrance)

6. develop uniforms that maintain our conservative nature, but also are exciting for young players/recruits (ESPN the Mag - Over 50% of players polled voted Oregon as having the best uniforms)

feel free to add your own

or be a dick about it

whichever...

The KEY thing about this thread is to make sure and forward Mandel's article far and wide.

Finally, some opposition is dribbling out in the media and we can reference it to others.

National public opinion counts. Rats work best in the darkness.

Twatson, go kill yourself you worthless sack of ****. Your existence is offensive to all other sentient beings.

HTH

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I don't think NCAA plays favorites, honestly.

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. . . and the moon is made of green cheese . . .

All of you people who equate seizing a market advantage in sports as the same as free enterprise business are idiots.

First of all, these are STATE SCHOOLS we are talking about. They have no free enterprise rights.

Was it "capitalist" of tu to hoard scholarship players? Was it "wealth redistribution" or "socialist" or "communist" for the NCAA to limit the number of scholarships to level the playing field?

The point of sports is for things to be settled on the field with the teams having as little outside variance as possible.

The NFL realized this and is booming. MLB refuses to realize this and the fan support is dwindling as a couple of teams have a competitive advantage.

Though there is money in sports, keeping the integrity of the competition on the field is top priority. Otherwise, why couldn't A&M put springs under Kyle Field to adjust the elevation of the endzones to make sure the Aggies were always going downhill on offense and the opponent was always going uphill? Afterall, we have the "right" to do what we want and if other schools dont like it, they can just a) do it at their stadium too, and b) get anti-slope shoes.

Amateur state run athletics is not the same as a free market system, and anyone who tries to make it out as such is incapable of seeing detailed differences in things.

Chi-town, cause of action under the Sherman Act (antitrust)?

Guys, make sure to forward Mandel's article far and wide...other Texas school alums, B12 Conf. alums, everybody needs to oppose this
Texas-Aw unsportsmanlike power play.

FORWARD THIS ARTICLE! It tells the truth.
It sheds light, and, as I said, rats prefer to operate in the dark.