(02-18-2018 07:34 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: (02-18-2018 10:09 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (02-18-2018 08:49 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: (02-17-2018 08:42 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote: (02-17-2018 08:18 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: I think AStatefan said the official Miami position is rescheduling is a courtesy and they owe nothing. Hurricanes are common in that area, especially in September. Most G5's will be thinking twice about home-and-homes with Miami where they play Miami first. Look, those G5-P5 deals have always been subject to getting cancelled if you play at the P5 house first---thats not really new. The G5 at least got the cancellation fee. But now Miami is trying to figure a way to get the freebie. I suspect there will be lots of new language in any contract with Miami from now on. The whole thing seems weird to me. Is Miami having money issues?
It will certainly be interesting to watch this progress.
I see this as ASTATE being small.
Small? I think you're being obtuse here. The revenues from a home game against a P5 represent a significant sum for the Red Wolves' athletic department. The officials at Arkansas St are trying to ensure their kids have uniforms to wear, travel expenses covered, and salaries for the medical staff that keep their kids healthy and Miami's response has been "not our problem". They need to have cash flow to make that happen.
Miami, not Arkansas St, will be the one that gets blackballed here. No one wants to work with a school who looks for every opportunity to weasel out of their obligations and try to get home games for free.
No, HoD is correct. ARK-State suffered bad publicity last fall when they whined about the canceled game, and it won't go any better for them now.
It's just bad form to badger an institution that had to endure a natural disaster about something as trivial as a football game. In the scheme of things, the health of any athletic department is small potatoes.
IMO, nobody will blackball Miami, heck a big-time program like that wouldn't get blackballed even if they were dead wrong. But ARK-State could face a backlash when trying to secure money games with P5.
This is very poor argument. With respect to "safety"---lets be honest. The governor was telling people to leave Miami. So how exactly was flying 1000 miles away from the storm 2 days before it arrived less safe for the athletes than staying in Miami? Secondly, the REAL reason the game wasn't played was not safety at all. In fact, the real reason was actually quite trivial compared to player safety (as we have already established they would have been safer 1000 miles from the hurricane). The real reason the game wasn't played is because they were afraid their players minds would be on other things. In other words, Miami feared their players would be distracted and might play poorly. Frankly, while that’s almost certainly true---Im fine with that being the reason to not play the game--I just dont think its a reason to avoid paying the damages from not playing nor do I think it should absolve Miami from the duty to replace the game as soon as reasonably possible.
The President and the Governor had declared Miami to be in a State of Emergency. Given that, i think it's very unlikely that a judge is going to be sympathetic to ARK-ST's second-guessing of the actions of Miami admins to cancel athletic activities at that time. Miami's actions will be viewed by any reasonable judge in the broadest possible light and with every benefit of the doubt. ARK-ST isn't going to get to first base with "well, they coulda done this or they coulda done that" arguments. A reasonable judge will recognize that it was the Miami officials alone who had to make on the spot decisions under the pressures of emergency conditions and didn't have the benefit of hindsight while making them. That clause in the contract about canceling due to emergency seems tailor-made for exactly what Miami faced.
So IMO, the only real issue is what has happened with the rescheduling process. The contract says a canceled game shall be rescheduled as the circumstances permit. That implies that each school has an obligation to discuss with the other how to reschedule the game. If either school was to refuse to discuss this, drag their feet on it, etc. that be violating the terms. Basically, it seems that once whatever emergency has caused the game to be canceled has passed, both parties are obligated to make a good-faith effort to reschedule the game.
But, the contract doesn't say that the outcome of that discussion has to be on terms favorable to once side or the other. It isn't biased in favor of playing the game sooner or later, etc.
As far as i can tell, the discussions have taken place. There's no evidence that ARK-ST or Miami dragged their feet or were otherwise unwilling to discuss rescheduling. The ARK-ST letter says that the lawsuit is being filed because the results of these talks is a failure of the parties to agree on a mutual date.
I expect Miami to win, because they have complied with the terms of the contract - their cancellation of the game was in compliance with the "force majeur" clause, they have discussed rescheduling with ARK-ST as required by that same clause, and they have offered a rescheduling date, in 2024 or 2025. ARK-ST's position seems to be that these dates aren't good for them, but the contract doesn't say that a rescheduled date has to be particularly good for either side. It doesn't say the rescheduled game is to be played sooner rather than later. It just has to be a reasonable date. Given that it's not unusual for games to be scheduled 6-7 years out, it's hard for ARK-ST to argue that Miami's offer is unreasonable.
But we'll see ...
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Interesting article on Ark State suing Miami
