Big Ten Conference expansion on hold keeps Rutgers in Big East for now
WEDNESDAY, 08 DECEMBER 2010 21:35
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-conference-expansion-on-hold-keeps-rutgers-in-big-east-for-now
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
For the foreseeable future, Rutgers University will not be dropping out of the Big East and join the 12-school (along with the University of Chicago — which doesn't field big time football or basketball teams) Big Ten. The Midwest-based conference announced on Monday that their "expansion" mode has been put on hiatus and the conference isn't looking to add any school for the time being.
"I think, we will continue to look for expansion for another year," said Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez. "I think everybody was thing (last May) as schools were moving and looking that may be the direction (a 16-team conference). Our commissioner and our league decided to study it for a year."
There seem to be some whispers that college presidents and chancellors are becoming gun shy about conference expansion and that the industry wants to see the issue quiet down somewhat. The Big Ten seemed to have Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland, Missouri and Notre Dame as targets along with Texas. The Big Ten did take Nebraska. The Big East added Texas Christian University, the Pacific-10 plucked Utah from the WAC and Colorado from the Big 12, which now has ten schools after losing Colorado and Nebraska.
Of course as television needs programming and is ready to throw money into big-time college sports, there will be further realignments to please the barons of TV. Television runs the show no matter what college officials say, at least in football.
"I'm thrilled we have Nebraska," said Alvarez who oversees a 23-team, $90 million enterprise at the Madison, Wisconsin school. "It's a great fit for us and the thing that is exciting for me being a Nebraska graduate and having some many friends in Nebraska, how excited they were and how open they were to come to the Big Ten. You think there is loyalty there but as they say it is not the Big 8. The Big 12, they don't play Oklahoma every year, there is not that tradition, they weren't losing anything. So they are very excited to come and it really is a good fit for us."
Alvarez wasn't surprised that the Fort Worth, Texas-based TCU took a Big East spot despite not being close to any Big East schools.
"TCU has to look for what is best for them," said Alvarez. "Obviously getting into a (Bowl Championship Series) BCS Conference, it makes sense. If it makes sense for them, I have no problem with it. I don't think it is all about TV (the Big East has some major markets in New York and now the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and some midsized markets in Tampa, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati for football). TV is part of it. Aligning yourself in a conference with an automatic berth in the BCS is important. You have to balance the budget. If you are in charge of it, you make decisions that are best for your school. In my case (Wisconsin), I have 23 sports and football is the engine so whatever you can do in football to allow everyone else (the other sports at the school) to compete. You make the best decision for your program."
The Big East was a basketball conference that morphed into a football conference because that is where the money is. Seton Hall, Villanova, Providence, Georgetown, St. John's, Marquette and DePaul don't have big time football programs and Notre Dame remains an independent even though the school competes in basketball and other sports in the Big East. Former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is helping the conference with expanding the football playing schools. TCU will be the ninth football playing school and in all probability, the Big East will add a 10th school in the very near future.
Wisconsin will not play Rutgers in the Big Ten anytime soon, but that doesn't mean Alvarez is ruling out any New York metropolitan contests. Alvarez has had some conversations with the New York Yankees brass about playing a game at Yankee Stadium under "the what's best for the school financially" guise.
"I have talked to the Yankees, we have a great alumni base here (in the New York-New Jersey area)," said Alvarez. "If it makes sense and it would have to be early in the year, it would have to be in September that's the issue. I have talked to them about that and the Commissioner of Baseball (Bud Selig, Wisconsin alum) told him he can arrange them to be out of town for 10 days.
"We are looking at those (neutral site games) but I have to have seven home games and that is a mandate from my people. We have to have seven home games and if we can do something on a neutral site that makes sense and helps us in recruiting and satisfy some of our alums, we would look into that."
So is the turmoil of earlier this year with conferences beefing up over? "It appears to be," said Alvarez.
The key word there being "appears". But no one has shut the door on additional movement. Television money is flooded Big Ten schools as each is getting more than $23 million annually because of various deals. The Big East despite having some big markets is getting about one-third of the television dollars going to Big Ten schools.
When Comcast does take over NBC, the Philadelphia-based cable TV giant could rebrand the Versus network as some sort of NBC cable sports network and then go after major conference contracts and any conference that is adding or has added key markets could help pry more money out of ESPN, FOX or whatever Comcast plans to call Versus in the future. Rutgers may be a New Jersey school, but the football team's TV market is the New York metropolitan area, the nation's top market. That alone makes Rutgers a major player in the conference shuffle.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Big Ten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Ten. Show all posts
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Lawyers give love a bad name
Lawyers give love a bad name
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 06/15/10 at 6:41 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/15/lawyers-give-love-a-bad-name/
This is the kind of week in sports that lawyers love.
As the college sports map evolves, National Football League players question the legality of the NFL’s television deals with Disney Company (ESPN), General Electric (NBC), Sumner Redstone (CBS), Rupert Murdoch (FOX) and DirecTV, which promise that the 32 NFL teams will continue to get rights fees even if NFL owners lock out the players or if there are no games during the 2011 season.
And then there’s the case of the National Collegiate Athletic Association imposing sanctions on the University of Southern California’s athletic program.
The sports industry in the United States benefits from an extreme lack of public accountability. The people who cover sports – whether in print, digitally, on TV or on talk radio – have no idea how the business actually operates and, as a result, fail to report a large amount of standard, everyday business that would most likely upset fans were they to get wind of it.
But the U.S. is not alone to perpetrate this crime. The National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney will tell you Canada is just as guilty.
Maloney, a Canadian who has lived most of his adult life in the New York City area, criticized the way the Canadian media covered his team’s bankruptcy and compelled fans to move the franchise back to the other side of the 49th parallel into Hamilton, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba. And for all intents and purposes, Maloney’s criticism was justified. Toronto-based sportswriters acted more like welcome-wagon hosts than journalists in their effort to jockey the debt-ridden franchise to Hamilton. Most of the Canadian sports media wore its best red and white suit, complete with a red maple leaf lapel pin, when it wrote about the Phoenix franchise and deliberately chose to ignore the fact that the National Hockey League has the right to put a franchise where it desires. This basic business tenet was backed up by a Phoenix-based bankruptcy judge.
The Canadian media wants another team in the Toronto area. But as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle once said as he stood on the witness stand during the 1986 United States Football League-National Football League antitrust suit, leagues are natural monopolies and the business does what it wants.
Meanwhile, hourly lawyer fees continue to pile up as the Coyotes franchise fate hangs in the balance. A group called Ice Edge Holdings is still trying to nail down a lease with the city of Glendale, Arizona, that would include the establishment of a new tax and bonding district around the city-owned arena and Westgate City Center. Naturally, Canadian sportswriters have derided the plan and Ice Edge Holdings’ alleged money problems, and have counseled Winnipeg residents to patiently await the Coyotes franchise’s return to the city.
Yet while Glendale politicians devise a way to keep the NHL Coyotes in town, big-time college athletic directors along with their presidents, chancellors and boards of trustees try to figure out how to squeeze more money into their sports programs. Football is the big money maker for college sports. But just how much money do programs need?
At Wisconsin University, Badgers sports is a $90 million a year business.
Basic math shows that 800 athletes each awarded $40,000 in scholarship money makes approximately $30 million, give or take a few million for “labor”. The CBS-Turner Sports deal is worth about $800 million a year to be split among numerous schools. But it’s not enough money to fund every school. Something has to be done.
College sports and schools need more and more money due to rising salaries, health insurance and travel costs.
And despite the revenue stream that comes to big time college programs – in the form of luxury boxes and club seats at the stadium, concession dollars, merchandise sales and marketing partners – the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is being depleted through deals with and the creation of cable TV networks, such as the Big Ten’s partnership with FOX cable.
The Big Ten currently gives member schools an annual $22 million cut from cable TV revenues, but that could grow to a larger sum if the Big Ten Network reaches 60 million subscribers and charges two dollars per head. In order to reach the 60 million subscriber target however, the Big Ten needs a bigger geographic footprint than its Midwest-based business. The Big Ten has taken small steps in this direction by adding Nebraska (from the Big 12) and looking to add some schools in the east and south. The bigger the Big Ten geographic footprint, the more leverage the conference has in its ability to convince multiple cable system operators to add the network at $2 a month. Do the math: 60 million subscribers at $24 a year makes $1.5 billion, give or take a hundred million here and there to be divided among the schools.
That’s big money.
The pursuit of big money from cable TV is the reason why the Pac 10 conference hired Creative Artists Agency, a big time Hollywood representatives firm, to “advise” it on future expansion techniques. The Pac 10 didn’t miraculously fall in love with the thought of visiting the Colorado Rockies, nor did it develop a deep fondness for the song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas;” it saw revenue opportunities and went for them.
In the end, the promise of TV money from ESPN and FOX (coming from people with no stake in college football) kept the Big 12 going. The Big 12 lost Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac 10 but kept Texas with the other nine schools.
A curious line from Big 12 Commissioner Don Beebe deserves some attention: according to a story at CNNSI.com, Beebe said establishing “super” conferences could lead to “more governmental, legal and public scrutiny.”
Apparently the entire governing system of big time college sports wants to operate in a vacuum and wants to downplay things like schools being “tax exempt” entities when dealing with earnings for sports and possibly being forced to pay players for services.
Big time college sports programs presidents and chancellors have a single mantra now: find new revenue sources.
Cable TV is that source. Multiple system operators can make or break a conference. The Big Ten Network was a struggling entity until Comcast agreed to place the channel on the basic expanded tier on cable TV giant’s systems within the Big Ten footprint. Conversely, the NFL Network has never reached the heights league officials envisioned because the network has not been able to secure a basic expanded tier with Time Warner and Cablevision, among others.
The basic expanded tier is the ultimate goal for conferences that intend to bulk up by adding schools because simply said, that’s where the money is. The 1984 Cable TV Act, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, not only ensured cable networks’ survival but made them thrive. The basic expanded tier allows multiple system operators to bundle channels they think consumers want and sell them as one group to customers. The basic expanded tier allowed CNN, the Weather Channel, ESPN and other financially struggling networks of the mid-1980s to grow even though the bundling was in clear violation of antitrust laws and all the tenets of free market theory.
The basic expanded tier lineup is decided by multiple system operators and does not allow the consumer to choose what he or she wants to buy. It drives down the price of each channel because 90 million or more subscribers pay for ESPN, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC or Comedy Central on a monthly basis. But the system also begs the question of whether it is fair for 100 percent of customers to pay for what maybe one or two percent watch. College football is popular among a subset of Americans that forms less than eight percent of the 95 million or so subscribers that form the cable universe.
The re-regulation versus a la carte issue came up before Congress in the spring of 2004. In the end, cable operators, sports franchises, and cable news networks scored a huge victory when Republican Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia conceded that he did not have the support of fellow House and Senate members to introduce legislation calling for the re-regulation of cable television and giving cable customers the liberty to choose which channels they wanted to purchase.
As long as big time college sports make billions of dollars off of people who have no interest in the product, Congress will not change cable TV laws anytime soon.
The NFL gets a slice of cable and satellite TV money as part of the overall deal; and while it’s a significant share, a good amount of the NFL’s $4 billion licensing fee for TV comes from Redstone’s CBS, GE’s NBC and Murdoch’s FOX. Over-the-air networks pay for the NFL from mere advertisement while Disney’s ESPN and DirecTV get subscriber fees and advertising dollars. The National Football League Players Association is very mindful of how the NFL is funded and is concerned that CBS, NBC, ESPN, FOX and DirecTV seem to be willing to underwrite a lockout of the players in 2011 and line the pockets of the 31 franchise owners and the Green Bay with the usual nine figure license fees whether the league plays a game or not.
The NFLPA filed a claim before Special Master Stephen Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, contending that the league took lower revenue from the five media partners in exchange for guaranteed money in the event of a lockout in 2011. The owners, in the players’ mind, have a war chest and can easily afford to lock out the players.
Some of that money is coming from cable TV subscribers who don’t care about football and have no idea that they are contributing to the owners’ war chest and an NFL lock-out.
In 1984, President Reagan and Congressional leaders had probably never even considered the possibility that the legislation would lead to a complete realignment of big time college sports and give the owners some money in a labor action. Cable TV subscribers are still waiting for refunds for missed games from the 1994-95 Major League Baseball players’ strike, the 1994-95 National Hockey League owners’ lock-out, the 1998-99 National Basketball Association owners’ lock-out and the 2004-05 National Hockey League owners’ lock-out which lasted an entire season.
No cable TV subscriber has ever filed a class action suit requesting a refund for missed games, probably because they have no idea how much they are paying for sports on ESPN, Versus, the NFL Network, the MLB Network (which is also owned by multiple system operators), the various cable TV regional sports that are owned by Murdoch’s FOX, Brian Roberts Comcast or teams such as the New York Knicks and Rangers (MSG Network), the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets (YES) , the New York Mets (SNY), the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins (NESN), the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals (MASN), the Cleveland Indians (Sports Time Ohio), the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets (Altitude), the Big Ten Network and the Mountain West Network.
And if that isn’t enough, what happens if the Bowl Champions Series decides to strip the University of Southern California of the Trojans’ 2004 football championship? Will the NCAA face a lawsuit for defrauding ticket holders, cable TV and over-the-air TV networks along with marketing partners by admitting that USC cheated? Five years after the fact, the NCAA has declared that USC cheated which could mean that all games featuring USC’s football team between December 2004 and December 2005 were not legitimate contests. Does that mean that there is a chance that the college football record book would have an unusual line in the honor roll of national champions?
Although the Bowl Championship Series might vacate the USC championship, the Associated Press will not rescind the news organization’s 2004 college football champion (and why is a news organization handing out college football championships?). It’s the BCS’ right to do what it wants and the BCS may have a legal leg to stand on if the title is vacated thanks to a 3rd Circuit Court panel’s decision in May relating to the New England Patriots’ secretly videotaping their opponents’ signals.
New York Jets season ticket holder Carl Mayer, who is a lawyer, was seeking $185 million in damages for Jets fans in a civil case on the basis that the game’s outcome had been predetermined. Patriots coach Bill Belichick knew the Jets defensive signals due to his espionage. Mayer’s complaint centered on the New England-New York Jets season opening game in 2007. The Patriots won the game 38-14. The NFL fined Belichick and the Patriots for the team’s dishonesty and took away a first round draft pick in 2008. The whole issue was taken up by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter who met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell because of the enormity of the situation on the world stage.
Meyer’s case was thrown out by a three-judge panel in Philadelphia.
“We do not condone the conduct on the part of the Patriots and the team’s head coach, and we likewise refrain from assessing whether the NFL’s sanctions [and its alleged destruction of the videotapes themselves] were otherwise appropriate,” Senior Judge Robert E. Cowen wrote.
“At best, [Mayer] possessed nothing more than a contractual right to a seat from which to watch an NFL game between the Jets and the Patriots, and this right was clearly honored,” he added.
In other words, caveat emptor or let the buyer beware. You buy your tickets, so stop complaining.
It must be good to be a lawyer in sports these days: so many opportunities to make money on so many fronts. As George Young, the one time General Manager of the National Football League’s New York Giants, once said, “You show me a guy who says he is playing for the love of the game and I will show you a liar. It’s all about the money.”
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 06/15/10 at 6:41 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/15/lawyers-give-love-a-bad-name/
This is the kind of week in sports that lawyers love.
As the college sports map evolves, National Football League players question the legality of the NFL’s television deals with Disney Company (ESPN), General Electric (NBC), Sumner Redstone (CBS), Rupert Murdoch (FOX) and DirecTV, which promise that the 32 NFL teams will continue to get rights fees even if NFL owners lock out the players or if there are no games during the 2011 season.
And then there’s the case of the National Collegiate Athletic Association imposing sanctions on the University of Southern California’s athletic program.
The sports industry in the United States benefits from an extreme lack of public accountability. The people who cover sports – whether in print, digitally, on TV or on talk radio – have no idea how the business actually operates and, as a result, fail to report a large amount of standard, everyday business that would most likely upset fans were they to get wind of it.
But the U.S. is not alone to perpetrate this crime. The National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney will tell you Canada is just as guilty.
Maloney, a Canadian who has lived most of his adult life in the New York City area, criticized the way the Canadian media covered his team’s bankruptcy and compelled fans to move the franchise back to the other side of the 49th parallel into Hamilton, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba. And for all intents and purposes, Maloney’s criticism was justified. Toronto-based sportswriters acted more like welcome-wagon hosts than journalists in their effort to jockey the debt-ridden franchise to Hamilton. Most of the Canadian sports media wore its best red and white suit, complete with a red maple leaf lapel pin, when it wrote about the Phoenix franchise and deliberately chose to ignore the fact that the National Hockey League has the right to put a franchise where it desires. This basic business tenet was backed up by a Phoenix-based bankruptcy judge.
The Canadian media wants another team in the Toronto area. But as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle once said as he stood on the witness stand during the 1986 United States Football League-National Football League antitrust suit, leagues are natural monopolies and the business does what it wants.
Meanwhile, hourly lawyer fees continue to pile up as the Coyotes franchise fate hangs in the balance. A group called Ice Edge Holdings is still trying to nail down a lease with the city of Glendale, Arizona, that would include the establishment of a new tax and bonding district around the city-owned arena and Westgate City Center. Naturally, Canadian sportswriters have derided the plan and Ice Edge Holdings’ alleged money problems, and have counseled Winnipeg residents to patiently await the Coyotes franchise’s return to the city.
Yet while Glendale politicians devise a way to keep the NHL Coyotes in town, big-time college athletic directors along with their presidents, chancellors and boards of trustees try to figure out how to squeeze more money into their sports programs. Football is the big money maker for college sports. But just how much money do programs need?
At Wisconsin University, Badgers sports is a $90 million a year business.
Basic math shows that 800 athletes each awarded $40,000 in scholarship money makes approximately $30 million, give or take a few million for “labor”. The CBS-Turner Sports deal is worth about $800 million a year to be split among numerous schools. But it’s not enough money to fund every school. Something has to be done.
College sports and schools need more and more money due to rising salaries, health insurance and travel costs.
And despite the revenue stream that comes to big time college programs – in the form of luxury boxes and club seats at the stadium, concession dollars, merchandise sales and marketing partners – the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is being depleted through deals with and the creation of cable TV networks, such as the Big Ten’s partnership with FOX cable.
The Big Ten currently gives member schools an annual $22 million cut from cable TV revenues, but that could grow to a larger sum if the Big Ten Network reaches 60 million subscribers and charges two dollars per head. In order to reach the 60 million subscriber target however, the Big Ten needs a bigger geographic footprint than its Midwest-based business. The Big Ten has taken small steps in this direction by adding Nebraska (from the Big 12) and looking to add some schools in the east and south. The bigger the Big Ten geographic footprint, the more leverage the conference has in its ability to convince multiple cable system operators to add the network at $2 a month. Do the math: 60 million subscribers at $24 a year makes $1.5 billion, give or take a hundred million here and there to be divided among the schools.
That’s big money.
The pursuit of big money from cable TV is the reason why the Pac 10 conference hired Creative Artists Agency, a big time Hollywood representatives firm, to “advise” it on future expansion techniques. The Pac 10 didn’t miraculously fall in love with the thought of visiting the Colorado Rockies, nor did it develop a deep fondness for the song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas;” it saw revenue opportunities and went for them.
In the end, the promise of TV money from ESPN and FOX (coming from people with no stake in college football) kept the Big 12 going. The Big 12 lost Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac 10 but kept Texas with the other nine schools.
A curious line from Big 12 Commissioner Don Beebe deserves some attention: according to a story at CNNSI.com, Beebe said establishing “super” conferences could lead to “more governmental, legal and public scrutiny.”
Apparently the entire governing system of big time college sports wants to operate in a vacuum and wants to downplay things like schools being “tax exempt” entities when dealing with earnings for sports and possibly being forced to pay players for services.
Big time college sports programs presidents and chancellors have a single mantra now: find new revenue sources.
Cable TV is that source. Multiple system operators can make or break a conference. The Big Ten Network was a struggling entity until Comcast agreed to place the channel on the basic expanded tier on cable TV giant’s systems within the Big Ten footprint. Conversely, the NFL Network has never reached the heights league officials envisioned because the network has not been able to secure a basic expanded tier with Time Warner and Cablevision, among others.
The basic expanded tier is the ultimate goal for conferences that intend to bulk up by adding schools because simply said, that’s where the money is. The 1984 Cable TV Act, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, not only ensured cable networks’ survival but made them thrive. The basic expanded tier allows multiple system operators to bundle channels they think consumers want and sell them as one group to customers. The basic expanded tier allowed CNN, the Weather Channel, ESPN and other financially struggling networks of the mid-1980s to grow even though the bundling was in clear violation of antitrust laws and all the tenets of free market theory.
The basic expanded tier lineup is decided by multiple system operators and does not allow the consumer to choose what he or she wants to buy. It drives down the price of each channel because 90 million or more subscribers pay for ESPN, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC or Comedy Central on a monthly basis. But the system also begs the question of whether it is fair for 100 percent of customers to pay for what maybe one or two percent watch. College football is popular among a subset of Americans that forms less than eight percent of the 95 million or so subscribers that form the cable universe.
The re-regulation versus a la carte issue came up before Congress in the spring of 2004. In the end, cable operators, sports franchises, and cable news networks scored a huge victory when Republican Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia conceded that he did not have the support of fellow House and Senate members to introduce legislation calling for the re-regulation of cable television and giving cable customers the liberty to choose which channels they wanted to purchase.
As long as big time college sports make billions of dollars off of people who have no interest in the product, Congress will not change cable TV laws anytime soon.
The NFL gets a slice of cable and satellite TV money as part of the overall deal; and while it’s a significant share, a good amount of the NFL’s $4 billion licensing fee for TV comes from Redstone’s CBS, GE’s NBC and Murdoch’s FOX. Over-the-air networks pay for the NFL from mere advertisement while Disney’s ESPN and DirecTV get subscriber fees and advertising dollars. The National Football League Players Association is very mindful of how the NFL is funded and is concerned that CBS, NBC, ESPN, FOX and DirecTV seem to be willing to underwrite a lockout of the players in 2011 and line the pockets of the 31 franchise owners and the Green Bay with the usual nine figure license fees whether the league plays a game or not.
The NFLPA filed a claim before Special Master Stephen Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, contending that the league took lower revenue from the five media partners in exchange for guaranteed money in the event of a lockout in 2011. The owners, in the players’ mind, have a war chest and can easily afford to lock out the players.
Some of that money is coming from cable TV subscribers who don’t care about football and have no idea that they are contributing to the owners’ war chest and an NFL lock-out.
In 1984, President Reagan and Congressional leaders had probably never even considered the possibility that the legislation would lead to a complete realignment of big time college sports and give the owners some money in a labor action. Cable TV subscribers are still waiting for refunds for missed games from the 1994-95 Major League Baseball players’ strike, the 1994-95 National Hockey League owners’ lock-out, the 1998-99 National Basketball Association owners’ lock-out and the 2004-05 National Hockey League owners’ lock-out which lasted an entire season.
No cable TV subscriber has ever filed a class action suit requesting a refund for missed games, probably because they have no idea how much they are paying for sports on ESPN, Versus, the NFL Network, the MLB Network (which is also owned by multiple system operators), the various cable TV regional sports that are owned by Murdoch’s FOX, Brian Roberts Comcast or teams such as the New York Knicks and Rangers (MSG Network), the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets (YES) , the New York Mets (SNY), the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins (NESN), the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals (MASN), the Cleveland Indians (Sports Time Ohio), the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets (Altitude), the Big Ten Network and the Mountain West Network.
And if that isn’t enough, what happens if the Bowl Champions Series decides to strip the University of Southern California of the Trojans’ 2004 football championship? Will the NCAA face a lawsuit for defrauding ticket holders, cable TV and over-the-air TV networks along with marketing partners by admitting that USC cheated? Five years after the fact, the NCAA has declared that USC cheated which could mean that all games featuring USC’s football team between December 2004 and December 2005 were not legitimate contests. Does that mean that there is a chance that the college football record book would have an unusual line in the honor roll of national champions?
Although the Bowl Championship Series might vacate the USC championship, the Associated Press will not rescind the news organization’s 2004 college football champion (and why is a news organization handing out college football championships?). It’s the BCS’ right to do what it wants and the BCS may have a legal leg to stand on if the title is vacated thanks to a 3rd Circuit Court panel’s decision in May relating to the New England Patriots’ secretly videotaping their opponents’ signals.
New York Jets season ticket holder Carl Mayer, who is a lawyer, was seeking $185 million in damages for Jets fans in a civil case on the basis that the game’s outcome had been predetermined. Patriots coach Bill Belichick knew the Jets defensive signals due to his espionage. Mayer’s complaint centered on the New England-New York Jets season opening game in 2007. The Patriots won the game 38-14. The NFL fined Belichick and the Patriots for the team’s dishonesty and took away a first round draft pick in 2008. The whole issue was taken up by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter who met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell because of the enormity of the situation on the world stage.
Meyer’s case was thrown out by a three-judge panel in Philadelphia.
“We do not condone the conduct on the part of the Patriots and the team’s head coach, and we likewise refrain from assessing whether the NFL’s sanctions [and its alleged destruction of the videotapes themselves] were otherwise appropriate,” Senior Judge Robert E. Cowen wrote.
“At best, [Mayer] possessed nothing more than a contractual right to a seat from which to watch an NFL game between the Jets and the Patriots, and this right was clearly honored,” he added.
In other words, caveat emptor or let the buyer beware. You buy your tickets, so stop complaining.
It must be good to be a lawyer in sports these days: so many opportunities to make money on so many fronts. As George Young, the one time General Manager of the National Football League’s New York Giants, once said, “You show me a guy who says he is playing for the love of the game and I will show you a liar. It’s all about the money.”
Monday, June 7, 2010
Big Ten Conference expansion: College sports musical chairs game is about to begin
Big Ten Conference expansion: College sports musical chairs game is about to begin
MONDAY, 07 JUNE 2010 11:37
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Barry Alvarez is the Chief Economic Officer of a business that brings in over $90 million annually in Madison, Wisconsin. Alvarez has admitted the business, which is part of a business that has 10 active partners in various endeavors and another "silent" partner in the Midwest, doesn't necessarily need to take in more partners but could be forced into an expansion of the business in order to maximize revenues.
Alvarez is the Athletic Director of the University of Wisconsin, a school that belongs to the Big Ten conference, and Alvarez is looking for more money to fund his athletic program. He is not alone, the other 10 active sports playing members of the Big Ten want more money and the way to get that is by increasing the cable TV network that the schools along with the University of Chicago co-own with FOX Cable TV.
If the Big Ten adds more schools, the conference probably will be able to add to the growing cable TV network and reach a goal of 60 million subscribers. If the Big Ten hits the 60 million number and gets two dollars a month from each one of those subscribers, that means that particular college sports conference will bring in $120 million a month or close to $1.5 billion a year from cable TV programming.
"You know what, there are some interesting things going on, interesting discussions, you know there is a possibility of major change," said Alvarez.
Interesting things? According to reports the Big 12 wants to know whether Missouri and Nebraska are jumping to the Big Ten by this Friday. The Pac 10, which hired the powerful Hollywood reps, Creative Artist Agency, is looking to expand beyond the Pacific states. A former NFL insider said on Friday that former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is working extremely hard on plotting the future of the Big East, a conference which includes Rutgers.
Is Rutgers headed for the Big Ten? Is Rutgers going to stay in what remains of the Big East or will the school head to the Atlantic Coast Conference?
No one knows at this point. But changes are coming.
"I think there is a history of change," said Alvarez. "This isn't something new and you can go back and study the NC two A, study college athletics and see there has been expansion before. You have people (CAA, Tagliabue) to think outside the box and trying to make things better. Continue to tweak things. And I think this is just part of the process."
A couple of days ago, it was thought the Big Ten was the linchpin and other college conferences would react to whatever the conference was planning. But other conferences are also playing the change game and the Big Ten may not get first dibs on schools like Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Syracuse, Pittsburgh or Rutgers.
"The Big Ten doesn't need to do it," said Alvarez of expansion. "I think our Commissioner (James Delany) is looking to continue to improve the Big Ten and make things better. He's a guy who thinks outside the box and so I think this is a natural progression.
"I feel comfortable in looking into the expansion. I think there are a lot of things that make sense and I have a lot of confidence in our commissioner and in our (the colleges and universities) presidents and they're the ones that make the ultimate decision."
The ideal fit in football and athletics for Wisconsin and the other Big Ten schools is Notre Dame. The school is a football factory and can easily be accepted into The Committee on Institutional Cooperation which is the Big Ten's academic component. The Big Ten has to not only weigh the football/basketball and other sports programs but academics as well and that might be a problem for some of the schools that might be courted by Delany.
"I am working on that scheduling right now," said Alvarez who would like to get Notre Dame to play in Madison as an independent. "I don't think there is any secret, all of us would love to have Notre Dame in our league, I think it is a natural. And so, whether it will happen or not, I don't know but I sure would like to see it. (Notre Dame) will have to sit back and take a look at what is going on nationally, if there is expansion and it affects a number of leagues and all of a sudden maybe you have four big leagues. You know four 16-team conferences, when the music stops, you better have a seat. I'm worrying about one conference. Big Ten
"I don't know how the Big East will be affected or if it will be affected. I don't know enough about the Big East."
The Big Ten Commissioner Delany will meet with the heads of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin along with the University of Chicago and lay out various proposals. The conference could add one, three or five teams or sit at 11. Each school in the Big Ten is getting $22 million a year from the Big Ten Network and that could go depending on geography. Rutgers is in a Comcast state and more than likely, the Big Ten Network would pick up New Jersey subscribers from Comcast but it is unknown whether Charles Dolan's Cablevision or Time Warner would take the Big Ten Network in the New York area. But Delany may look to expand the TV network in the south, not the New York area and that could mean that Texas is the prize.
"That's what Jim will talk to the presidents about," said Alvarez of the Big Ten meeting. "I think he will give them information, they will discuss it and decide what direction they will go."
Alvarez was a football coach who is now really playing with the big boys. A football school like Wisconsin attracts big time TV contracts, sneaker deals, major marketing partners, well heeled alum, well heeled boosters, luxury box owners, club seat patrons and a whole host of other people who are both looking to make money off of a school and also make sure the school is producing winning teams in the big revenue generating sports such as football and basketball and in Alvarez's case, hockey.
"Basically I am running a $90 million company right now," said Alvarez. "We take no (Wisconsin) state funding, we are self-supporting, the engine that drives the train is football. We have 23 sports and 800 athletes and you have to pay the bills for the sports, coaches, etc. etc. It is important to find new money streams and ways to finance your programs. Football is the engine because of the TV money, 80-thousand seat stadium in our case but football generates the majority of the money. We profit share in our league and our TV contracts are second to none."
TV contracts second to none may be the most important words Alvarez uttered. The Pac10's deal with FOX is done after 2012 and suddenly far away schools from the Pacific coast like Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado or Baylor are attractive. Pac 10 teams receive an estimated $8-10 million from the present FOX deal; Southeast Conference deals get more than $17 million while Big East teams get about $7 million.
Big time college sports is all about money, there is literally a pot of gold available from the beast, cable and broadband TV, and that beast needs to be constantly fed. Boise State could be end up in the Mountain West Conference, a group of schools that in 2006 launched a TV network in the Rocky Mountains area. That cable network is partially owned by CBS and has programming on Versus. TV drove the last college conference realignment about seven years ago and it is the guiding force behind this one.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business:" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
MONDAY, 07 JUNE 2010 11:37
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Barry Alvarez is the Chief Economic Officer of a business that brings in over $90 million annually in Madison, Wisconsin. Alvarez has admitted the business, which is part of a business that has 10 active partners in various endeavors and another "silent" partner in the Midwest, doesn't necessarily need to take in more partners but could be forced into an expansion of the business in order to maximize revenues.
Alvarez is the Athletic Director of the University of Wisconsin, a school that belongs to the Big Ten conference, and Alvarez is looking for more money to fund his athletic program. He is not alone, the other 10 active sports playing members of the Big Ten want more money and the way to get that is by increasing the cable TV network that the schools along with the University of Chicago co-own with FOX Cable TV.
If the Big Ten adds more schools, the conference probably will be able to add to the growing cable TV network and reach a goal of 60 million subscribers. If the Big Ten hits the 60 million number and gets two dollars a month from each one of those subscribers, that means that particular college sports conference will bring in $120 million a month or close to $1.5 billion a year from cable TV programming.
"You know what, there are some interesting things going on, interesting discussions, you know there is a possibility of major change," said Alvarez.
Interesting things? According to reports the Big 12 wants to know whether Missouri and Nebraska are jumping to the Big Ten by this Friday. The Pac 10, which hired the powerful Hollywood reps, Creative Artist Agency, is looking to expand beyond the Pacific states. A former NFL insider said on Friday that former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is working extremely hard on plotting the future of the Big East, a conference which includes Rutgers.
Is Rutgers headed for the Big Ten? Is Rutgers going to stay in what remains of the Big East or will the school head to the Atlantic Coast Conference?
No one knows at this point. But changes are coming.
"I think there is a history of change," said Alvarez. "This isn't something new and you can go back and study the NC two A, study college athletics and see there has been expansion before. You have people (CAA, Tagliabue) to think outside the box and trying to make things better. Continue to tweak things. And I think this is just part of the process."
A couple of days ago, it was thought the Big Ten was the linchpin and other college conferences would react to whatever the conference was planning. But other conferences are also playing the change game and the Big Ten may not get first dibs on schools like Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Syracuse, Pittsburgh or Rutgers.
"The Big Ten doesn't need to do it," said Alvarez of expansion. "I think our Commissioner (James Delany) is looking to continue to improve the Big Ten and make things better. He's a guy who thinks outside the box and so I think this is a natural progression.
"I feel comfortable in looking into the expansion. I think there are a lot of things that make sense and I have a lot of confidence in our commissioner and in our (the colleges and universities) presidents and they're the ones that make the ultimate decision."
The ideal fit in football and athletics for Wisconsin and the other Big Ten schools is Notre Dame. The school is a football factory and can easily be accepted into The Committee on Institutional Cooperation which is the Big Ten's academic component. The Big Ten has to not only weigh the football/basketball and other sports programs but academics as well and that might be a problem for some of the schools that might be courted by Delany.
"I am working on that scheduling right now," said Alvarez who would like to get Notre Dame to play in Madison as an independent. "I don't think there is any secret, all of us would love to have Notre Dame in our league, I think it is a natural. And so, whether it will happen or not, I don't know but I sure would like to see it. (Notre Dame) will have to sit back and take a look at what is going on nationally, if there is expansion and it affects a number of leagues and all of a sudden maybe you have four big leagues. You know four 16-team conferences, when the music stops, you better have a seat. I'm worrying about one conference. Big Ten
"I don't know how the Big East will be affected or if it will be affected. I don't know enough about the Big East."
The Big Ten Commissioner Delany will meet with the heads of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin along with the University of Chicago and lay out various proposals. The conference could add one, three or five teams or sit at 11. Each school in the Big Ten is getting $22 million a year from the Big Ten Network and that could go depending on geography. Rutgers is in a Comcast state and more than likely, the Big Ten Network would pick up New Jersey subscribers from Comcast but it is unknown whether Charles Dolan's Cablevision or Time Warner would take the Big Ten Network in the New York area. But Delany may look to expand the TV network in the south, not the New York area and that could mean that Texas is the prize.
"That's what Jim will talk to the presidents about," said Alvarez of the Big Ten meeting. "I think he will give them information, they will discuss it and decide what direction they will go."
Alvarez was a football coach who is now really playing with the big boys. A football school like Wisconsin attracts big time TV contracts, sneaker deals, major marketing partners, well heeled alum, well heeled boosters, luxury box owners, club seat patrons and a whole host of other people who are both looking to make money off of a school and also make sure the school is producing winning teams in the big revenue generating sports such as football and basketball and in Alvarez's case, hockey.
"Basically I am running a $90 million company right now," said Alvarez. "We take no (Wisconsin) state funding, we are self-supporting, the engine that drives the train is football. We have 23 sports and 800 athletes and you have to pay the bills for the sports, coaches, etc. etc. It is important to find new money streams and ways to finance your programs. Football is the engine because of the TV money, 80-thousand seat stadium in our case but football generates the majority of the money. We profit share in our league and our TV contracts are second to none."
TV contracts second to none may be the most important words Alvarez uttered. The Pac10's deal with FOX is done after 2012 and suddenly far away schools from the Pacific coast like Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado or Baylor are attractive. Pac 10 teams receive an estimated $8-10 million from the present FOX deal; Southeast Conference deals get more than $17 million while Big East teams get about $7 million.
Big time college sports is all about money, there is literally a pot of gold available from the beast, cable and broadband TV, and that beast needs to be constantly fed. Boise State could be end up in the Mountain West Conference, a group of schools that in 2006 launched a TV network in the Rocky Mountains area. That cable network is partially owned by CBS and has programming on Versus. TV drove the last college conference realignment about seven years ago and it is the guiding force behind this one.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business:" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Big Ten expansion to start game of musical chairs among big time college sports schools
Big Ten expansion to start game of musical chairs among big time college sports schools
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 15:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-expansion-to-start-game-of-musical-chairs-among-big-time-college-sports-schools
Rutgers in position to be big winner or loser
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The future of the Big East Conference and Rutgers University's athletic program are going to become a major topic of conversation among the college sports industry and various cable TV networks in the next few weeks as the Big Ten Conference meets next week to consider future plans. Rutgers may or not be part of the Big Ten Conference's future.
There is one thing certain according to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. There is change in the air and that might start with the Big Ten adding a school or a number of colleges to the present 11-team conference.
"The dust has not settled yet from expansion of a number of years ago (2003)," said the Duke coach. "Because, it wasn't as clean. There are teams left out, the Big East, you have 16 teams, eight of them are football schools, eight of them are not. It lends itself to other options and the Big Ten is the catalyst now. If they do something, a lot of dominos will fall."
The Big Ten needs a 12th team so they could have a conference championship game, which they could put out for bid before over-the-air and cable networks which will be in additional cash.
The Big Ten may have Rutgers and Pittsburgh on the radar screen or maybe not. The Big East is concerned that other conferences may come after some of the conference's teams, such as Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut and the conference hired former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as a special advisor on "strategic planning" in an effort to keep the conference going. The Big East is not the only one that has added an "advisor." The Pac 10 has a new Commissioner, Larry Scott and has gone Hollywood as it has hired Creative Artists Agency to see what they can do about forming a network to enhance TV coverage by 2012.
The Big East is a basketball conference, not a football alliance and it is football, not basketball, that drives college revenues.
Krzyzewski knows that and so does Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball squad.
"I keep hearing different reports of which schools are going to be approached," said Auriemma. "You don't know which to believe and which not to believe. The one thing you can be sure of, something is going to happen. The Big East as we know it today will probably won't exist in the future. For me, ideally it would be great if we can keep the league the way it is because it has been successful and we have proven it can be successful. Who are the teams that are going to leave and what impact they are going to have, I think everybody is waiting to see.
"The dilemma that colleges have right now, if you are one of those teams that is approached by another league, whether it is the Big Ten or anybody else, do you turn your back on existing rivalries and loyalties and just go? Financially they have made it that yes, that is exactly what teams are going to do. If you are one of the teams that is not asked, do you sit around and wait for someone to leave and you pick up the pieces or do you now start to become pro-active and you are looking for someplace to go. I think whether you are asked or not asked, everybody is moving in some direction."
In 2003, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) invited three Big East schools, Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to join that collection of
schools which forced the Big East into realigning. The Big East has some schools that are attractive to other suitors. Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers have football and basketball programs. The ACC took three football schools in 2003.
Rutgers, in theory, would be a good fit for a Big Ten expansion because of geography in that the Big Ten Network, a cable TV partnership between the 11 universities in the conference and FOX Cable Networks. That network has 45 million subscribers and contributes to each school getting an annual check for $22 million from TV revenues. The Big Ten could increase the cable TV footprint by adding Rutgers which, is in Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner territory. An increase in a cable TV footprint means more cable TV revenues from subscribers. Comcast can put the Big Ten Network on any of the company's systems outside of the Big Ten and carries the network on systems with the Big Ten territory so New Jersey would get the network if Rutgers joins the conference.
But adding Rutgers does not necessarily mean that the Big Ten will "get" all of the New York market as neither Charles Dolan's Cablevision nor Time Warner, the other big New York area MSOs are locks to take the channel. Rutgers also has a problem in terms of the size of the stadium. As one time NCAA President, the late Myles Brand pointed out; you need between 80 and 90 thousand seats in a football stadium to really make money.
The Big Ten has to look at both sides of the coin in terms of adding Rutgers. The Big Ten has had Rutgers on a list of schools that make sense for conference expansion. But conference expansion is really not all that complicated according to Auriemma.
"This is all going to come down to college president's deciding this is what is best for our university from an academic standpoint and certainly financially, none of these moves would be happening if it was not financially rewarding."
No one is talking about Connecticut moving out of the Big East, not yet anyway. But Connecticut has a 40,000 seat football stadium, two top notch basketball programs and also claims part of the New York City market in terms of a following. If Maryland jumped from the ACC to the Big Ten, Connecticut might be a good fit in the ACC.
It is the new domino theory.
"Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse back in the day (1979) were the reasons why the Big East became the Big East in basketball," said Auriemma. "Well if you look at the Big East now, Connecticut is one reason the Big East is the Big East. Are we going to stay and become the linchpin of that league or someone thinks we are attractive enough now that we bring a lot to the table.
"I don't know of any school in our league or in a lot of leagues that brings more to the table academically and program wise up and down the entire sports spectrum."
Auriemma did say he has no idea how others view Connecticut.
Is conference expansion good?
For TV money yes, but schools lose local rivals and in Connecticut's case there are now long trips to the south to play in Florida or in the Midwest instead of the I-95 corridor. But the money is too good to pass up.
"From a cable standpoint, if you got your own network like the Big Ten does, sure you want to expand that network all over the country. Absolutely," said Auriemma. "But in terms of bringing a market (into a conference) when you don't have your own TV network, it doesn't do anything for you.
"Unless a league, and the Big Ten is way ahead of everybody in this regard, has their own TV network and is able to expand that and is looking for acquisitions that is going to give them that coverage all over the country, just to get in a league because ESPN, CBS or somebody may do this, that or the other thing. That has proven that doesn't work. I live in New England and I don't know everybody in the Boston area who says, hey BC is playing Clemson tonight, I got to get a ticket for that.
"These decisions are going to be made for financial reasons that are going to be impacting these schools 20 years from now, 25-years from now. Creating these super conferences probably and I would bet you that everybody involves with these sees a scenario where they are going to be like what the BCS has done in football."
It is all in the pursuit of money. The money has changed college sports.
"If the Big East is giving Connecticut $7 million and our budget is $50-55 million, whatever it is, and somebody is offering us $22 (million), now you say wow, we can compete now. What I would imagine in these discussions, people are saying, okay well your budget is $100 million, and so is mine and so is his and so is his, so we are all thinking the same thing, we are all going after the same thing so let's all form our own little club and let's compete against each other. If you are one of those other guys you are out.
"Is that fair? No, it is not fair but that is where the world is right now and these people are taking advantage of an opportunity. They saw the model, you have this sized stadium, you produce the revenue and you can join our club, if you don't you are out."
And that leads to a question, has the big time college sports industry gotten out of hand?
"I don't know if it has gotten out of hand as much as it is still in the process of change," said Krzyzewski. "Things change but when our sports is such that if one conference changes, it is going to have a rippling effect. If the Big Ten changes, it is going to change or could change four other conferences or more and I am not sure that is all bad. Change isn't bad. You are constantly looking for ways of improving and if the resources that are needed to fund all the programs each school has, it is not just basketball or football, you have to produce a certain amount of money to do that and if these changes produce that while still giving a quality experience for a student athlete, then I am all for it."
The times, they are a-changing in big time college sports. What makes a school attractive? That is what the solons of the Big Ten will deliberate upon next week. Is Rutgers attractive? Or does Pittsburgh, Missouri, Nebraska and Notre Dame work out better individually or collectively for the Big Ten? If Rutgers is "the other guy" as Auriemma referred to those not asked to join a conference, and if the Big East falls apart what happens?
That is a good question. Rutgers might end up in the ACC or the South East Conference. The game of musical chairs for money is about to begin.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics and Business of Sports." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com .
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 15:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-expansion-to-start-game-of-musical-chairs-among-big-time-college-sports-schools
Rutgers in position to be big winner or loser
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The future of the Big East Conference and Rutgers University's athletic program are going to become a major topic of conversation among the college sports industry and various cable TV networks in the next few weeks as the Big Ten Conference meets next week to consider future plans. Rutgers may or not be part of the Big Ten Conference's future.
There is one thing certain according to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. There is change in the air and that might start with the Big Ten adding a school or a number of colleges to the present 11-team conference.
"The dust has not settled yet from expansion of a number of years ago (2003)," said the Duke coach. "Because, it wasn't as clean. There are teams left out, the Big East, you have 16 teams, eight of them are football schools, eight of them are not. It lends itself to other options and the Big Ten is the catalyst now. If they do something, a lot of dominos will fall."
The Big Ten needs a 12th team so they could have a conference championship game, which they could put out for bid before over-the-air and cable networks which will be in additional cash.
The Big Ten may have Rutgers and Pittsburgh on the radar screen or maybe not. The Big East is concerned that other conferences may come after some of the conference's teams, such as Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut and the conference hired former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as a special advisor on "strategic planning" in an effort to keep the conference going. The Big East is not the only one that has added an "advisor." The Pac 10 has a new Commissioner, Larry Scott and has gone Hollywood as it has hired Creative Artists Agency to see what they can do about forming a network to enhance TV coverage by 2012.
The Big East is a basketball conference, not a football alliance and it is football, not basketball, that drives college revenues.
Krzyzewski knows that and so does Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball squad.
"I keep hearing different reports of which schools are going to be approached," said Auriemma. "You don't know which to believe and which not to believe. The one thing you can be sure of, something is going to happen. The Big East as we know it today will probably won't exist in the future. For me, ideally it would be great if we can keep the league the way it is because it has been successful and we have proven it can be successful. Who are the teams that are going to leave and what impact they are going to have, I think everybody is waiting to see.
"The dilemma that colleges have right now, if you are one of those teams that is approached by another league, whether it is the Big Ten or anybody else, do you turn your back on existing rivalries and loyalties and just go? Financially they have made it that yes, that is exactly what teams are going to do. If you are one of the teams that is not asked, do you sit around and wait for someone to leave and you pick up the pieces or do you now start to become pro-active and you are looking for someplace to go. I think whether you are asked or not asked, everybody is moving in some direction."
In 2003, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) invited three Big East schools, Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to join that collection of
schools which forced the Big East into realigning. The Big East has some schools that are attractive to other suitors. Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers have football and basketball programs. The ACC took three football schools in 2003.
Rutgers, in theory, would be a good fit for a Big Ten expansion because of geography in that the Big Ten Network, a cable TV partnership between the 11 universities in the conference and FOX Cable Networks. That network has 45 million subscribers and contributes to each school getting an annual check for $22 million from TV revenues. The Big Ten could increase the cable TV footprint by adding Rutgers which, is in Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner territory. An increase in a cable TV footprint means more cable TV revenues from subscribers. Comcast can put the Big Ten Network on any of the company's systems outside of the Big Ten and carries the network on systems with the Big Ten territory so New Jersey would get the network if Rutgers joins the conference.
But adding Rutgers does not necessarily mean that the Big Ten will "get" all of the New York market as neither Charles Dolan's Cablevision nor Time Warner, the other big New York area MSOs are locks to take the channel. Rutgers also has a problem in terms of the size of the stadium. As one time NCAA President, the late Myles Brand pointed out; you need between 80 and 90 thousand seats in a football stadium to really make money.
The Big Ten has to look at both sides of the coin in terms of adding Rutgers. The Big Ten has had Rutgers on a list of schools that make sense for conference expansion. But conference expansion is really not all that complicated according to Auriemma.
"This is all going to come down to college president's deciding this is what is best for our university from an academic standpoint and certainly financially, none of these moves would be happening if it was not financially rewarding."
No one is talking about Connecticut moving out of the Big East, not yet anyway. But Connecticut has a 40,000 seat football stadium, two top notch basketball programs and also claims part of the New York City market in terms of a following. If Maryland jumped from the ACC to the Big Ten, Connecticut might be a good fit in the ACC.
It is the new domino theory.
"Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse back in the day (1979) were the reasons why the Big East became the Big East in basketball," said Auriemma. "Well if you look at the Big East now, Connecticut is one reason the Big East is the Big East. Are we going to stay and become the linchpin of that league or someone thinks we are attractive enough now that we bring a lot to the table.
"I don't know of any school in our league or in a lot of leagues that brings more to the table academically and program wise up and down the entire sports spectrum."
Auriemma did say he has no idea how others view Connecticut.
Is conference expansion good?
For TV money yes, but schools lose local rivals and in Connecticut's case there are now long trips to the south to play in Florida or in the Midwest instead of the I-95 corridor. But the money is too good to pass up.
"From a cable standpoint, if you got your own network like the Big Ten does, sure you want to expand that network all over the country. Absolutely," said Auriemma. "But in terms of bringing a market (into a conference) when you don't have your own TV network, it doesn't do anything for you.
"Unless a league, and the Big Ten is way ahead of everybody in this regard, has their own TV network and is able to expand that and is looking for acquisitions that is going to give them that coverage all over the country, just to get in a league because ESPN, CBS or somebody may do this, that or the other thing. That has proven that doesn't work. I live in New England and I don't know everybody in the Boston area who says, hey BC is playing Clemson tonight, I got to get a ticket for that.
"These decisions are going to be made for financial reasons that are going to be impacting these schools 20 years from now, 25-years from now. Creating these super conferences probably and I would bet you that everybody involves with these sees a scenario where they are going to be like what the BCS has done in football."
It is all in the pursuit of money. The money has changed college sports.
"If the Big East is giving Connecticut $7 million and our budget is $50-55 million, whatever it is, and somebody is offering us $22 (million), now you say wow, we can compete now. What I would imagine in these discussions, people are saying, okay well your budget is $100 million, and so is mine and so is his and so is his, so we are all thinking the same thing, we are all going after the same thing so let's all form our own little club and let's compete against each other. If you are one of those other guys you are out.
"Is that fair? No, it is not fair but that is where the world is right now and these people are taking advantage of an opportunity. They saw the model, you have this sized stadium, you produce the revenue and you can join our club, if you don't you are out."
And that leads to a question, has the big time college sports industry gotten out of hand?
"I don't know if it has gotten out of hand as much as it is still in the process of change," said Krzyzewski. "Things change but when our sports is such that if one conference changes, it is going to have a rippling effect. If the Big Ten changes, it is going to change or could change four other conferences or more and I am not sure that is all bad. Change isn't bad. You are constantly looking for ways of improving and if the resources that are needed to fund all the programs each school has, it is not just basketball or football, you have to produce a certain amount of money to do that and if these changes produce that while still giving a quality experience for a student athlete, then I am all for it."
The times, they are a-changing in big time college sports. What makes a school attractive? That is what the solons of the Big Ten will deliberate upon next week. Is Rutgers attractive? Or does Pittsburgh, Missouri, Nebraska and Notre Dame work out better individually or collectively for the Big Ten? If Rutgers is "the other guy" as Auriemma referred to those not asked to join a conference, and if the Big East falls apart what happens?
That is a good question. Rutgers might end up in the ACC or the South East Conference. The game of musical chairs for money is about to begin.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics and Business of Sports." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com .
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