(04-17-2013 10:06 AM)bullet Wrote: (04-17-2013 09:45 AM)JMUDuke25 Wrote: (04-17-2013 08:58 AM)S11 Wrote: (04-17-2013 01:47 AM)JRsec Wrote: Texas will not be for expansion until they know whether or not they are staying. 10 is easier to dissolve than 12. If they do decide to stay then they will only want a pair of teams with cache.
Texas is for worthwhile expansion. We won't just add anyone.
If UT was looking around they wouldn't lock themselves in for a decade with the GOR. To imply otherwise is tin-foil hat-ish.
The GOR are about as useful as an exit fee. Neither are likely to fully hold up in court and both are negotiable as hell.
Rinse and repeat: If UT was looking around they wouldn't lock themselves in for a decade with the GOR. To imply otherwise is tin-foil hat-ish.
UT isn't going to the SEC. They aren't going to the B1G and fly their women's softball team all around the Midwest (quote from President Powers), they aren't going for less money in the ACC and they aren't going west-they've already explored the Pac twice.
One more time for good measure: If UT was looking around they wouldn't lock themselves in for a decade with the GOR. To imply otherwise is tin-foil hat-ish.
I would say that in this environment a little tin foil hat-ish-ness is preferable to head in the sand-ish-ness. The Big 12 remains 8 votes away from dissolution. Additions, as I pointed out a year ago, coupled with the GOR will put this to rest. But here we are a year later with West Virginia still on an Island and Texas still dragging their feet on additions. Texas has no need to be in a hurry about anything. The longer they and Notre Dame wait the more likely they are to get the offer they are looking for whether that is a hybrid deal like the Irish worked with the ACC or concessions like those Texas wanted from the PAC.
Should Delany be successful in poaching a couple of more ACC teams (which I am not convinced he will be) it would likely start the long ballyhooed run on that conference. The Big 10 and SEC would expand, but since they are both feeding networks I don't think there would be much left for the Big 12 to expand with.
Math takes over at that point and the earnings gap becomes a chasm. Not pursuing additions puts Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma in a more flexible position to respond to that kind of scenario. The fact that they haven't expanded means that they consider it to be enough of a possibility to remain cautious. That is hardly tin-foil-hattish to say.
I promise you if anything happens to the ACC we are moving to 3 conferences. The present Big 12 doesn't have the markets to compete with an expanding Big 10 and SEC and the revenue gap would only lock the Big 12 into the same disadvantage that has plagued the ACC. Do you really think the Horns and Sooners will allow that to happen to their programs? I don't.
Also, the elimination two of the remaining 5 power conferences would earn each team in the remaining three conferences (if the remaining conferences had 20 teams each) an additional 2 million dollars per year in just playoff shares. That doesn't include added markets and content upgrades from the additions. It also strengthens the three regions of the country that must remain totally engaged in any kind of playoff to keep advertising dollars maxed for the networks. The networks want the entire nation to remain engaged and for there to be competitive balance between the surviving conferences.
But that's just the way I see it. Maybe we are done and everything remains static. But, it just doesn't look that way to me.
As Teddy Roosevelt and the movie "Signs" taught me, "Wear a tin foil hat that fits softly and carry a big baseball bat."
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Bowlsby-Big 12 Still Not Looking To Expand.
