CBS Sports: Realignment Fallout, What's Next

[BrewingFrog]

For what it's worth, TCU officials/trustees met with Gov. Abbott yesterday. BU and TT have already made the trip to Austin, too.

Still think it's not different?

TCU brass has ‘very productive’ meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott amid Big 12 shake-up
https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/college/big-12/texas-christian-university/article253100953.html#:~:text=TCU officials met with Texas,athletic director Jeremiah Donati said.&text=Abbott received TCU's message well,schools land in good spots.

Paywall.

I don't know what Governor Windmill is going to do, other than make happy noises and get a lot of positive copy for acting "concerned."

Whether these guys make the pilgrimage down I-35 or not is immaterial to the fact that there simply isn't precedent or principle behind legally coercing UT to either stay in a situation benefitting others while financially harming them, or extorting money from them beyond what is presently their legal responsibility. They are fulfilling their contractural obligations to the other parties bound by the Contract. The other parties are trying to go around this and look for relief outside the bounds of the agreement based on things not germane to the contractural bonds that held the parties together. There's no reason to hold them up, so long as they do what the contract says they have to. It's as simple as that.

Let them go. They won't like what they find...

EDIT: There may well be a case for tampering (or whatever the legal term is) against ESPN/Disney. If you want to soak the Big Evil Corporation behind all this, there they are. But, I'll tell you right now, no one will lift a finger or whisper so much as a discouraging word towards them.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

Paywall.

I don't know what Governor Windmill is going to do, other than make happy noises and get a lot of positive copy for acting "concerned."

Whether these guys make the pilgrimage down I-35 or not is immaterial to the fact that there simply isn't precedent or principle behind legally coercing UT to either stay in a situation benefitting others while financially harming them, or extorting money from them beyond what is presently their legal responsibility. They are fulfilling their contractural obligations to the other parties bound by the Contract. The other parties are trying to go around this and look for relief outside the bounds of the agreement based on things not germane to the contractural bonds that held the parties together. There's no reason to hold them up, so long as they do what the contract says they have to. It's as simple as that.

Let them go. They won't like what they find...

Huh? There's no precedent? You're caught up on the word "legal" and you're only looking at this through the lens of contract law. The words you should be focusing on are "lawmakers" and "legislative."

Lawmakers from BU and TT threatened to cut funding to the UT school system back in '94 if UT didn't take them with them to the B12. And you know what happened. At least I think you know.

 

[cheese83]

A UT move to SEC could cost the Waco, Lubbock and Fort Worth economies $500M
University communities that get left behind in the conference shake-up stand to lose economic heft and jobs.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/...the-waco-lubbock-and-ft-worth-economies-500m/

For what it's worth, the author, Ray Perryman is a Waco guy and Baylor/Rice grad, but is a highly distinguished economist and analyst. It doesn't take much imagination to see that he is advocating on behalf of Baylor and setting the stage for his study to be introduced to the Texas Legislature.

It's well worth the read, and in fact does help TCU, too.

Here's another link in case you want to by-pass the DMN. You can also download his full report as a pdf.

https://www.perrymangroup.com/publi...f-texas-and-ou-leaving-the-big-12-conference/

Looking at the report briefly and the numbers he has TCU losing the most financially out of all the other schools for some reason in both scenarios and from almost every aspect of how they're measuring financial impact. He's saying in both scenario 1 & 2 we are going to have a reduction of $52 million if the Big 12 stays in tact and then $100 million if we all leave? We are the smallest school in probably the best city remaining out of the 8, if anything I would have thought it would impact us the least compared to Tech or Okie St where these are pure college towns at this point. If Tech or Oklahoma St get screwed over that would be devastating to the towns & universities.
I would think we already have historic financial data showing the difference from our time in CUSA & the MWC, I'm finding it hard to believe the impact he is stating for us is even close to realistic. The model is acting like us getting kicked out of the Big 12 is going to have a massive impact on Ft. Worth and seems extremely far fetched.

 

[Eight]

Huh? There's no precedent? You're caught up on the word "legal" and you're only looking at this through the lens of contract law. The words you should be focusing on are "lawmakers" and "legislative."

Lawmakers from BU and TT threatened to cut funding to the UT school system back in '94 if UT didn't take them with them to the B12. And you know what happened. At least I think you know.

the big difference some 27 years later is that no texas team had left the swc at that time as opposed to now with the ags having already left the big 12 for the sec

additionally, if we do a quick texas political power check in '94 we have richards and bullock, who were tied to which two schools?

baylor does have paxson, but he is too busy keeping the rangers and the feds out of the rape cover up and his own political/ legal issues and who does tech have with near the political power of bullock

 

[BrewingFrog]

Huh? There's no precedent? You're caught up on the word "legal" and you're only looking at this through the lens of contract law. The words you should be focusing on are "lawmakers" and "legislative."

Lawmakers from BU and TT threatened to cut funding to the UT school system back in '94 if UT didn't take them with them to the B12. And you know what happened. At least I think you know.

Yes. I was looking at the little I know of contract law.

In the meantime, I was reading up on the Bowlsby letter, and subsequent statements, and I must say I am impressed! He called them out. Possibly the first person to do so. And, he is outlining a case that looks pretty strong for interference and trying to use their Media clout to wiggle out of paying the remainder of their Contractural obligations, and get their co-conspirators off the hook for theirs.

Bowlsby doesn't have a thing to lose. He knows the BIGXII is as dead as Caesar, and that the instant it is pronounced so, he is out of a job and probably headed to his lakeside shack out in the Hill Country. He is free to deliver manful thwacks to ESPN, and quite possibly hurt them. Badly.

If the BIGXII sued ESPN, I would imagine they would do so in Texas, where the Conference is headquartered. The jury pool would consist of people well aware of the financial impact their decisions and machinations affected. Hubris, meet Nemesis...

At this point, it's all about leverage. Bowlsby just aimed a .44 Anaconda right at ESPN's skull.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

the big difference some 27 years later is that no texas team had left the swc at that time as opposed to now with the ags having already left the big 12 for the sec

additionally, if we do a quick texas political power check in '94 we have richards and bullock, who were tied to which two schools?

baylor does have paxson, but he is too busy keeping the rangers and the feds out of the rape cover up and his own political/ legal issues and who does tech have with near the political power of bullock

Understood. I guess what I'm saying is that TCU, BU and TT all trekked down to Austin for a reason and had a goal in mind. Although there's no Bob Bullock or David Sibley this time around, the three schools still have representation in the state house and senate.

I wouldn't dismiss the power of the political horse-trading that goes around....one rep/senator promises another that they'll support their pet project if they get the same in return. And I bet there are a lot of senators/reps who don't exactly want to see UT dwarf the other schools in Texas.

I also think it would be naive to assume that BU and/or TT won't do what's in their best interests, and their best interests only.

 

[McFroggin]

Looking at the report briefly and the numbers he has TCU losing the most financially out of all the other schools for some reason in both scenarios and from almost every aspect of how they're measuring financial impact. He's saying in both scenario 1 & 2 we are going to have a reduction of $52 million if the Big 12 stays in tact and then $100 million if we all leave? We are the smallest school in probably the best city remaining out of the 8, if anything I would have thought it would impact us the least compared to Tech or Okie St where these are pure college towns at this point. If Tech or Oklahoma St get screwed over that would be devastating to the towns & universities.
I would think we already have historic financial data showing the difference from our time in CUSA & the MWC, I'm finding it hard to believe the impact he is stating for us is even close to realistic. The model is acting like us getting kicked out of the Big 12 is going to have a massive impact on Ft. Worth and seems extremely far fetched.

This is city economic data. DFW is a place that many would go on vacation. An Iowa St fan may come to DFW for the TCU game and stay to take in all that the metro area has to offer. That same Iowa St fan isn’t spending as much time and money in Lubbock.

 

[CountryFrog]

This is city economic data. DFW is a place that many would go on vacation. An Iowa St fan may come to DFW for the TCU game and stay to take in all that the metro area has to offer. That same Iowa St fan isn’t spending as much time and money in Lubbock.

If that Iowa St fan has ever been to Lubbock before then they likely aren't spending ANY time or money there.

 

[Spike]

You're probably right. It just seems like planning for 6-12 months to exit without any transparency when you have an advantage that no one else does largely because of free gifted money that no one else gets, and that advantage is being used to damage at least three other universities in the state plus the economy of the Texas municipalities they are located in should be actionable in some way.

Now that we know they've acted in bad faith for over six months, sat on boards and committees dealing with the future of the conference they are damaging/destroying it just seems like they should be responsible for some of the damage they are causing.

What noone is saying is that OUT are trying to distance themselves from @steelfrog. Who can blame them?

 

[BrewingFrog]

no doubt you have to work all the angles, i just don't think you have the politicians in the positions with the same affiliations that were there in '94

dade phelan is a texas grad, harrision keeler is an abbott appointee who taught and was an administrator at ut-austin

not saying pressure through the legislature won't happen or cant be effective, simply that this move has been in the planning for a very long time and i highly doubt that those on the texas regents board making this push didn't do some vetting ahead of time. the democratic caucus chair is another horn, but the republican caucus chair is a frog, stephanie klick so who knows right?

No politician wants the UT Alumni Association targeting them in any election. They will make noises, but nothing will ever get done.

 

[cheese83]

I also think a lot of falsehoods have been spread over the years about realignment and have become accepted as conventional wisdom.

Whenever realignment comes up, you always hear people talking about how X is a small school and doesn't bring eyeballs, but Y is a state school with huge enrollment/alumni base and does.

When you look at Tech vs. TCU, Tech is what, 4X the size of TCU, roughly? Yet there has never been a case where 4X the number of people watch a Tech game vs. a TCU game (unless they are playing UT or OU, duh). All this enrollment/alumni nonsense doesn't scale up in relative terms for the middle of the pack teams, and it never has (see proof below).

Additionally, and this is really the big factor -- NEITHER team moves the overall needle for ESPN or FOX. Tech may get a few hundred thousand more people watching their games than TCU -- I emphasize "may" since average TV ratings show it's closer than that over the years. A few hundred thousand extra eyeballs per game nets ESPN or FOX peanuts in the grand scheme of things. They need the tens of millions of extra eyeballs that the UTs and OUs of the world bring throughout the season.

In retail terms, Tech and TCU and all the others are at best loss leaders to get people in the ESPN/Fox doors for UT and OU, and that's why we're seeing ESPN conspiring the kill the B12.

By the way, here is some data from 2019 -- and we sucked that year but held our own on TV. OU had more than 30 million more people watch their games than TCU/Baylor/Okie State/WVU et. al. throughout the season.

And again...look at the second column that shows averages when teams aren't playing OU/UT. The gaps between the "Forgotten 8" is meaningless to the networks.

My biggest take from this is that people watch "big games" that involve a large brand -- in other words a highly-ranked OU vs. another school in contention, which explains UTs relatively dismal showing below. When UT is bad, nobody is watching them play Kansas, KState or WVU.

The data is tough to really compare since time slot and channel has a massive impact on eyeballs. Just a brief look at 2019 and OU played Iowa St (3.17m viewers) and us (3.15m viewers) on Fox at 7pm. When we played UT at 3:30 on Fox it drew 2.58m. The better your team the better time slot and channel, so just since I was curious I looked up our numbers in 2017 since that was our last good season.

Time slot, channel, team, viewers, ranking vs all others with respect to viewers:

7 pm FSN vs. Jackson St
2:30 pm CBS vs. Arkansas - 2.345m 7th
2:30 pm ESPNU vs. SMU - 372k 19th
2:30 pm ESPN vs. No. 6 OkST - 2.574m 9th
2:30 pm FS1 vs. No. 23 WVU - 1.149m 14th
11 am FS1 vs KSt - 568k 16th
7 pm FOX vs. KU (we got the night slot since we were no.4) - 1.19m 12th
2:30 pm ABC vs. No. 25 Iowa St - 2.85m 5th
6:15 pm ESPN vs. UT - 1.897m 14th
7 pm FOX vs No. 5 OU (we were ranked 6) - 2.96m 7th
11 am FS1 vs. Tech - 388k 21st
11 am FS1 vs. Baylor - 472k 22nd
11:30 am FOX vs. OU (CCG) - 5.896m 3rd (over Clemson/Miami & USC/Stanford)
8 pm ESPN vs. Stanford - 4.368m 12th

Basically any time we play on FS1 the ratings suck. Also the SMU rivalry game is just a total dumpster fire for us ratings wise along with our cupcake game.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

Looking at the report briefly and the numbers he has TCU losing the most financially out of all the other schools for some reason in both scenarios and from almost every aspect of how they're measuring financial impact. He's saying in both scenario 1 & 2 we are going to have a reduction of $52 million if the Big 12 stays in tact and then $100 million if we all leave? We are the smallest school in probably the best city remaining out of the 8, if anything I would have thought it would impact us the least compared to Tech or Okie St where these are pure college towns at this point. If Tech or Oklahoma St get screwed over that would be devastating to the towns & universities.
I would think we already have historic financial data showing the difference from our time in CUSA & the MWC, I'm finding it hard to believe the impact he is stating for us is even close to realistic. The model is acting like us getting kicked out of the Big 12 is going to have a massive impact on Ft. Worth and seems extremely far fetched.

That's what all economic studies do...they overinflate the reality. I commissioned these kinds of studies for professional golf tournaments for years. I usually laughed when they came back with the economic impact of a US Open being nearly a billion dollars. But the same firms were doing economic impact studies showing that building a new Amazon depot would bring a billion dollars to the economy.

Since the politicians are used to seeing them overinflated, the baseline is established.

I wouldn't worry too much about politicians digging as deeply as you just did. All they need to know is that this was done by an accredited firm and then they'll run with it. Like just about everything else, it's the pitch that matters.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

The data is tough to really compare since time slot and channel has a massive impact on eyeballs. Just a brief look at 2019 and OU played Iowa St (3.17m viewers) and us (3.15m viewers) on Fox at 7pm. When we played UT at 3:30 on Fox it drew 2.58m. The better your team the better time slot and channel, so just since I was curious I looked up our numbers in 2017 since that was our last good season.

Time slot, channel, team, viewers, ranking vs all others with respect to viewers:

7 pm FSN vs. Jackson St
2:30 pm CBS vs. Arkansas - 2.345m 7th
2:30 pm ESPNU vs. SMU - 372k 19th
2:30 pm ESPN vs. No. 6 OkST - 2.574m 9th
2:30 pm FS1 vs. No. 23 WVU - 1.149m 14th
11 am FS1 vs KSt - 568k 16th
7 pm FOX vs. KU (we got the night slot since we were no.4) - 1.19m 12th
2:30 pm ABC vs. No. 25 Iowa St - 2.85m 5th
6:15 pm ESPN vs. UT - 1.897m 14th
7 pm FOX vs No. 5 OU (we were ranked 6) - 2.96m 7th
11 am FS1 vs. Tech - 388k 21st
11 am FS1 vs. Baylor - 472k 22nd
11:30 am FOX vs. OU (CCG) - 5.896m 3rd (over Clemson/Miami & USC/Stanford)
8 pm ESPN vs. Stanford - 4.368m 12th

Basically any time we play on FS1 the ratings suck. Also the SMU rivalry game is just a total dumpster fire for us ratings wise along with our cupcake game.

Great points. I bet if you look at our overall numbers for the year we played Ohio State, we got a pretty big bump from that game alone.

I bet it's in our best interests as far as having value to the conference for us to schedule the LSUs and Ohio States of the world non-conf.

 

[Froggish]

If the City of Fort Worth was as entrenched in TCU Football as that study makes it out to be we wouldn't be in this situation.

 

[BrewingFrog]

Gentlemen, I don't think it is possible to overstate just how important Bowlsby's letter and statement is. ESPN has literally gotten away with tampering, interference, extortion, coercion, and a host of other esoteric legal jargon through the years. They were able to do so because they had the checkbook, and were the Only Game In Town. Cross them, and be blackballed. They wield enormous power, and are well aware of it. But, through the years of being the Biggest Bully, they got sloppy. Someone spilled the beans on what they were up to.

As I understand matters, ESPN still owes the BIGXII $1.08 billion for the remainder of their broadcast contract. They have been caught conspiring to lure other Conference Members to competing Conferences, thus bringing the BIGXII membership below the level needed to enforce the Contract, in order to get out of paying their Contractural Obligations. Further, they disclosed their schemes with UT and OU as a way for them to avoid paying their obligated GOR fees to the BIGXII in order to gain those rights back before the Contract expired. Bowlsby correctly called this "tortious interference" and methinks he has a pretty strong case.

The absolute last thing ESPN wants is to be sued by a Conference, and have all their foul dealings dragged out of them in discovery and/or open court. No one has any love for them, and to be placed in legal jeopardy is quite rightly terrifying. They have a lot of sins to answer for, and they will do very nearly anything to avoid answering.

Again, leverage.

 

[BrewingFrog]

exactly as well as the call to arms by the fwst. where were those editorials in the past few years exhorting their readers to back the frogs?

Keep in mind that the Star Telegram is owned by... Disney! Who owns ESPN.

Oh, what a tangled web...

 

[cheese83]

This is city economic data. DFW is a place that many would go on vacation. An Iowa St fan may come to DFW for the TCU game and stay to take in all that the metro area has to offer. That same Iowa St fan isn’t spending as much time and money in Lubbock.

I understood that it was city economic data (specific to Ft. Worth not including DFW from what I read), our stadium holds 45k so even if we are getting 10,000 traveling fans (which is generous IMO) on average for a home game (say 7 home games) that the annual impact in GDP is a reduction of $153 million if the Big 12 stays together and $219m if it falls apart? Come on that's ridiculous. Ft. Worth's economy is not that reliant on TCU football home games. In Ames, Lubbock, Waco, Manhattan, yes I can see that. But we are a small private school with a tiny stadium. I think it will have an impact but not nearly as great as stated in his report.
Sure feels like Baylor paid his firm to put out a nice report with doomsday numbers to help their cause. I was a student when we were in CUSA and the MWC, the stadium experience isn't that much different minus the student section from when I was there. Same deal with the parking lot parties and people drifting in and out of the games.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

I understood that it was city economic data (specific to Ft. Worth not including DFW from what I read), our stadium holds 45k so even if we are getting 10,000 traveling fans (which is generous IMO) on average for a home game (say 7 home games) that the annual impact in GDP is a reduction of $153 million if the Big 12 stays together and $219m if it falls apart? Come on that's ridiculous. Ft. Worth's economy is not that reliant on TCU football home games. In Ames, Lubbock, Waco, Manhattan, yes I can see that. But we are a small private school with a tiny stadium. I think it will have an impact but not nearly as great as stated in his report.
Sure feels like Baylor paid his firm to put out a nice report with doomsday numbers to help their cause. I was a student when we were in CUSA and the MWC, the stadium experience isn't that much different minus the student section from when I was there. Same deal with the parking lot parties and people drifting in and out of the games.

All of what you say is true, but I’m not sure that helps us.

 

[cheese83]

All of what you say is true, but I’m not sure that helps us.

Oh yeah I'm not saying it helps us at all, just that the economic report is full of crap.

 

[Big Frog II]

Keep in mind that the Star Telegram is owned by... Disney! Who owns ESPN.

Oh, what a tangled web...

No longer is it owned by Disney. It is now part of McClatchy.