Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
- Thread starter ISUcyclones11
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I saw a report from Mandel (who’s a **** reporter but has PAC 12 sources) that at least 2 P12 schools are against any expansion.
I’m assuming that’s Oregon and Washington, which, if that is the case, means there definitely won’t be any expansion for the foreseeable future. Those two are key to the league surviving, so the other schools really can’t afford to overrule them on schools like SDSU and SMU
Sounds familiar. OuT was against expansion as well. Tougher to get the conference to fold and avoid the penalties with a bigger league. At 10 teams, it only takes them to leave + the 4 corners and you are getting close to being able to dissolve a league even if you are tied to a GOR.
The PAC could earn significantly more TV money if they'd televise the Colorado Board of Regents meetings....maybe make them pay per view.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. Oregon and Washington are hoping that if/when they get an invite to the B1G and if a GOR exists, the conference is smaller, they and a few select others who leave for other power conferences will just vote to dissolve the Pac 12. This is what ESPN/American tried to do a few years ago after the OU/T exit to get them to the SEC sooner and cheaper. Dumb move by ESPN thinking Big 12 teams would just freely join the American. Now if they tried to funnel those team's to the ACC, it may have actually worked.
The way publicly available GORs are structured, if you have an invite to another conference, you don’t get a vote on the issue of dissolving the conference. If a school doesn’t have an agreement in writing from their new conference, they don’t vote to dissolve the conference. There’s no reason to believe a GOR written by competent lawyers for the purpose of keeping a conference together would be structured any differently. Lying about having a conflict of interest sets up the offending institution for a slam-dunk case for damages to every school in a worse off position. With most schools being public, this would be very easy to prove due to public record laws.
If everyone has a better landing spot lined up, dissolving the conference might be in the table. Otherwise, it’s not a realistic plan.
I think it has more to do with them (if it is UW and UO) worried about diluting the media payouts with two additional schools moreso than dissolving the GOR. If the new P12 contract is just a 5-6 year GOR, they could probably easily buy out the last year or two if a B10 invite materializes.
Money is more important than conference stability to WAOR at this juncture
Not sure the logic of playing more non-con games. Sure it could create more inventory for TV partners. But if the inventory is of quality (another P5 game) that a Pac10 media partner would want, there's a 50/50 chance it would be a road game.
But maybe it creates a more diverse time zone schedule for a media partner. I would think they would need to create a "challenge" weekend with another P5 conference that currently plays an 8 game conference schedule. A real "alliance".
This. I just don’t see SDSU or SMU being additive to the PAC in the $25M per year plus range.
SDSU gets $6.6M in the MWC. $16M buyout over 5 years is another $3.2M, plus whatever facility upgrades they have to do to get on board with the PAC, increased travel costs and don’t forget their share to pay for the PAC network’s expenses. They can’t come on board for less that $16M or $17M (before chipping in for the PAC network). A half share of $25M for 5 years isn’t financially viable for them, and to be frank, I doubt they’re worth $16 or $17M.
I think the loophole in your argument is conferences don't invite new members. New members apply to join the new conference.
It's been reported that CU, OR and WA have met with Big12 or Big10 and yet they are still voting members of Pac10. So I feel there is a legal grey area that schools know how to navigate.
If that’s the case, you don’t understand legal matters very well, then. There’s discussions, agreements, and signed deals. There’s a difference between each. Don’t treat them all as the same.
The PAC schools are essentially free agents as of 7/1/24 at this point. There’s no need to dissolve the conference as they wouldn’t make a move before then. That changes if they re-up for another 5 years and then try to dissolve the conference in 2-3 years.
Texas and OU still had voting rights on some league issues after announcing they were leaving. Other issues, they no longer had voting rights. For example, they didn’t get a vote on adding new members or the new media deal. If there was a vote to dissolve, they would not have gotten a vote.
Something like this would take 6 schools, 2 conferences and 2-3 networks. No way that gets done on a wink and a handshake without it getting out either before, during, or after when all the schools that got screwed sue all the schools that went somewhere better.
All the other noise aside, 9 is a great number for a conference. The ACC was at 9 members before they invited the Big East teams. 9 means they can play a round robin football and basketball schedule with 4 home and 4 away in football and 8 home and 8 away in basketball with room to play a good OOC team or two in football.
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Was OU, UT, USC, UCLA leaving common knowledge by their conferences before it was released by the media?
Those schools were all voting on all conference matters until their leaving went public.
So if there is a vote to dissolve the Pac10 or ACC, I'm confident every school will have a vote. Like I said, they know how to navigate around conference bylaws.
Answered your own question. P12 wont get squat for a 9th game between WSU and Cal, but they could get 3 more high value non cons out of UU, UW, UO who can all schedule one more decent home and home - which all 3 like to do already.
3 good games vs 3 crap games prob adds $1m per team annual, my estimates.
But what does it say about you if you get more value from noncon games than in conference? Ouch.
No, the conferences didn’t know they were leaving. I think OUTs plan was to do was USCLA and wait until about two years before the current media deal ended.
You keep simplifying it into all or none, and pretending like gigantic side deals are done on a handshake.
SDSU is a prime example of why schools don’t start leaving (or dissolving) their current conference until they have the agreements in place to join their new conference.
Texas and OU had some voting rights up until then end for matters that involved them. Dissolving the league would no longer involve them, since they were leaving.
The same would be true for any school that voted to dissolve the PAC (or ACC) if they had a deal to leave for another conference. That conflict would begin to exist when they entered the agreement to join the new conference, not when it became public knowledge. Their vote would be voided retroactively to the date the conflict of interest came into existence. Suddenly, the PAC’s a zombie a you’ve got 6 schools whose participation in their new conference’s media deal is legally void, and the deal they had in the PAC is legally valid once again. That’s, ah, not a great situation.
Throw in some fraud for the administrators for knowingly voting when they knew they had a conflict of interest. Or perjury if there were lawsuits and they lied to cover it up. Nobody’s going to those lengths to cover up a conference move, it’s career suicide and putting themselves personally in legal peril.
Edit: It’s the same back and forth we had on the ACC’s GOR. All the reasons the ACC schools are very unlikely to dissolve the conference to get out of their GOR would apply to the PAC. Additionally, the PAC’s could be bought out simply because its likely to be far shorter than the 12 years the ACC still has in theirs.
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For most of the conferences, the conference games are more valuable. So adding conference games to a season is done to add value/money to a media deal.
The only reason to lower it is if the non con games are more valuable. Which makes me believe that the media people believe that the Pac adding games with other higher value conferences is worth more than conference games. Just makes the Pac look even lower value. An extra game with the SEC,B1G, B12, ACC is worth more. And, because they would only get 50% of those games at home, it means they believe the PAC is worth less than half those other conferences, to make the move make sense.
Then by not adding anyone....staying at 10, they split it up less ways. Like the B12 did last time, but the B12 maintained 9 conference games, Because overall they were more valuable than noncons for the B12.
This makes the PAC look weaker, but may be strategic enough to keep them together for a few more years.
Years down the road, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if there’s a 30 for 30 where the Big10 and SEC knew of each others’ deals. Felt like they were setting it up to announce together. But, they would have had to keep the schools out of it for FOIA reasons. Just the two commissioners sitting down at the country club making moves like they were chess pieces. Then TAMU screwed up their plans.
You continue to focus on a written agreements to join a new conference being up front. Go back and look at the process for OuT to join SEC. They didn't request to join and SEC didn't formally agree to accept OuT for many, many months after July 2021 when it initially broke in the media.
What you are missing is a university using intermediaries, boosters and consultants to do the legwork and get the table firmly set.
You mention that SDSU was burned. That's why they were burned- they followed the playbook of indirect contact to feel confident they were Pac bound.
If a school is going to rely on dissolving their conference to circumvent their GOR and join a new conference, they are going to have smart enough lawyers to guide them on the process.
Listen to CU Chancellor's statements in the media. He is very careful with words. He hasn't "negotiated" with Big12. But do you think he doesn't know where CU stands financially if the jump to Big12?
If there was a vote on a matter that was effected by them leaving right before they announced their departure, the other voting members could call to void the previous vote and hold a new vote.
So if they held a vote then the next day said they were leaving, and the matter is directly affected by them leaving their vote could/would be annulled and a revote would be held.
For it to matter though the vote would have to be close enough or the overall situation change enough that the voided votes would change the outcome.
A vote to dissolve would have to be all but unanimous, or when those schools announce they are leaving after the vote, the remaining schools voting against, would/could just nullify their vote as being invalid due to planning to exit prior to the vote. Then revote to void the previous vote. The way these contracts are made is if you have plans to leave etc then your vote is void regardless if you have given notice or not. So just because schools havent given notice, any school that has plans to leave before a vote, that vote can and will be void.
OUT are not even allowed in the room when future information and discussions are going on. They are allowed only in matters that effect them and the time they are still in the conference. So for OUT they only have a say or allowed in meetings for things talking about things like this season schedules, rules etc. Anything that effects the conference as a whole, or moving forward they are not allowed or involved.