Expansion is Dead: Part II

Why is it that talk about college football expansion refuses to die? There is far more evidence to support the theory that, at least for the foreseeable future, expansion is dead.

But is it?

Dead? Not exactly but it certainly is in deep hibernation.

Certainly the Big Ten covets the opportunity to extend their product south and the conference hasn’t exactly been secretive about their desire to further pillage the ACC.  The problem is that the only schools that meet their profile just are not interested.

Maybe that changes now that ACC commissioner John Swofford publically admitted that an ACC network is years away and may not happen at all but I’m not so sure it would matter to Big Ten targets UVA and UNC.

The consensus is  that the Big Ten’s payout will dwarf that offered by the ACC --perhaps by as much as $20 million per year. Is that enough of an incentive to lure away the new TV markets in Virginia and North Carolina that the Big Ten craves?

I don’t think so.

In order for change to take place there must be either great need or great opportunity and very little risk.  Look at all the moves in the conference realignment drama that played out over the past two years: Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers, WVU and Louisville left the Big East out of great need. Maryland had perhaps the greatest need of all when they dumped the ACC for the Big Ten.  

Texas A&M, Missouri and Colorado left because of the great opportunity offered by membership in other conferences.

In every case the reward of switching conferences greatly exceeded the risk involved in the move.

And that’s why I believe the ACC is secure despite having the lowest payout of the major conferences.

I’m not convinced the risk-reward equation  supports a move by any ACC school.

First there is the grant of rights – the ACC’s grant of rights is modeled after the Big 12’s in that every member has agreed to cede both their television rights and the television revenue to the conference in the event of a theoretical move.

People like to argue about how secure a grant of rights makes a conference. There are many scenarios people contrive to get around the GoR but not a single attorney I’ve spoken to believes a GoR could be successfully challenged.  It’s just not worth the risk or the money and time it would take to even adjudicate the issue.

Add to that a powerful provision I’m told exists in both the Big 12 and ACC’s GoR – one that stipulates that each member  agrees that the loss of TV revenues for departing members isn't punitive.  

What that means is that if any school leaves the Big 12 or ACC for another conference they will not play on television remainder of the ACC/Big 12 TV contract and that they will receive absolutely no television money.

To me that ends the discussion right there. The risk is far to great to even consider a move.

Yet sources within the Big Ten continue to tell me that they believe the ACC GoR could be easily circumvented because the ACC schools did not receive due consideration for ceding their rights.

They believe that it maybe be illegal for state-funded institutions to grant rights without receiving proper payment.

I don’t argue the point with them.

But valid or not their argument is moot when the Big Ten can’t find an ACC school interested in even discussing the possibility.

As if the pesky grant of rights wasn’t enough there’s also the culture problem to overcome.

Most ACC schools identify with the southern culture whereas it’s safe to say to the Big Ten is a mid-west league despite the additions of Maryland and Rutgers.

It was easy for WVU to leave the Big East. The Big East didn’t fit WVU’s culture. The Big 12 is by far a better fit, at least culturally if not geographically,  for WVU.

UVA and UNC in the Big Ten? That’s a clash of cultures that usually spell doom for outlier – just ask Boston College how they’ve done as a member of the ACC.

The third factor against any ACC school leaving is the exit fee. Until the law suit with Maryland is decided the value equation of a move is a losing proposition.

How much of a revenue gap would be needed to overcome the GoR, the outlier factor and the specter of the exit fee?

How many ACC schools can risk a decade of no TV money or TV appearances?

There are scenarios where the Big Ten could entice certain ACC schools to leave.  Those schools each have unique revenue problems that somewhat offset the risk of adjudication – provided the exit fee is ruled punitive – but each of those schools falls short of the metrics the Big Ten requires.

Florida State, Georgia Tech and Pitt have revenue problems. FSU does not meet the Big Ten’s academic model and both GT and Pitt lack the large alumni base that the Big Ten depends on to inflate revenues. 

An official at NC State tells me they would jump at the chance to leave the ACC and UNC’s shadow, but like FSU the Wolfpack doesn’t meet the academic standards required by the Big Ten.

It’s my opinion that the Big Ten’s ACC expansion plans are over unless they reconsider schools that are not AAU members.

The Big Ten is trying.  The plan to move the basketball tournament to Washington D.C. was meant to be  a clear message to UVA but so far the Cavaliers are not listening.

Does Swofford’s sound bite about a potential ACC network change anything? Not unless the ACC’s exit fee is ruled punitive – if that happens then the risk-reward equation suddenly changes in the Big Ten’s favor.

There’s a few more scenarios concerning the SEC, the Big 12 and the Big Ten targeting the Big 12 that I’ll address next week. Some are more likely than others.

Some Notes:

• BYU has to be reconsidering the ban on Sunday play that has kept them out of the Big 12 – right?
• I’ve been one of the few voices openly saying that an ACC Network would never happen and I’ve been writing about it for over a year. Last week I came to believe one must be in the works because of the new found sense of allegiance UVA has for the ACC.

Big 5 Autonomy Ends Expansion

Sometime today the NCAA’s Executive Committee will vote to endorse a plan to give the 65 member institutions of the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 12 and the SEC the autonomy to make their own rules. 

In August, at the NCAA convention, the 350 schools that comprise the NCAA’s Division 1 will vote to ratify the changes.

There is some thought that the schools not in a power conference will veto the change and make the Big 5 play by the same rules as everyone else – that will not happen.

A veto almost certainly means that the Big 5 will break away from the NCAA and no one wants that.

So the 252 Division 1 schools that play in the 18 conferences not in the Big 5 will vote to ratify the changes along with the rest.

And once they plan then realignment, at least in the next 5 to 10 years,  is over.

Once the Big 5 have the power to make their own rules the desire to add mouths to the table will  shrink as their wallets grow.

The first change the Big 5 will make will be to pay their student-athletes scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance.  At WVU that means about $2,000 extra for every scholarship athlete.  That’s not a problem for WVU. The Mountaineers, flush with cash from the move to the Big 12 and their shinny new deal with IMG, have included that line item in the budget for the past few years.

Expect more changes too -- changes like insurance for athletes and covering other incidentals.

You can also expect the ACC and Big 12 to use their new found autonomy to change the rules for conference championship games.

The Big 12 won’t need the NCAA’s minimum of 12 members to play a championship game and the ACC will no longer be forced to sacrifice a lamb from the Coastal Division to FSU or Clemson.  Each will be free to determine their own rules for who plays in the championship game.

For the ACC that means no more Blue Devils or Deacons offering weak opposition to FSU – it means that two best teams will play to represent the ACC in the playoffs and it means the fans will enjoy a FSU-Clemson rematch nearly every year.

For the Big 12 it means no expansion. The conference is dead-set against expanding if the additions do not add to the television pot. 

I think that’s a huge mistake on the Big 12’s part but you can’t argue with their logic. Right now there isn’t an expansion candidate available that can satisfy the plethora of metrics necessary to justify expansion.

A few are close. A few are tantalizing close and only need a track-record of success and few more points in the college football “Q score” to be worthy of inclusion.

Recently a Big 12 official told me that the conference was prepared to offer BYU and the UCF Knights membership in the conference  if they were forced to meet the NCAA’s minimum number of members (12) for a championship game.

He told me that Bowlsby believed the details with BYU could be worked out and that UCF was by far the next best candidate available.

That won’t happen now – at least for a while. The trick for BYU and UCF will be in finding the money to compete with schools from the Big 5 for recruits and visibility.

It’s not hard to see BYU keeping pace. The Cougars have a contract with ESPN and their independent status will make them an attractive option for scheduling.

UCF will likely need it's alumni and fans to make up the difference to keep the Knight's program moving forward.

 I'm told the Knights will be vetted again in 2020 and if the Knights can continue their success and push themselves over the top in terms of measurable they may just get their ticket punched into the Big 12 when the new television deal is due. 

The change also means stability for the ACC despite the plans for further expansion by the Big Ten. A reliable Big Ten source tells me that UVA has communicated to the Big Ten it is no longer interested in leaving the ACC.

The money UVA receives will be in the same ballpark as the money the Big Ten receives. At least its enough to keep UVA in the ACC rather than being an outlier in the Big Ten.

An athletic department official at North Carolina State spoke candidly with me a few weeks ago about expansion and he had a few surprising observations.

He told me that only NC State and FSU would be willing to leave the ACC and then only if the offer came from the SEC and he doesn’t expect that offer to come anytime soon.

The source at NC State said that FSU agreed to sign the ACC’s Grant of Rights shortly after being  rejected by the Big Ten (academics).  Once FSU signed then all the others were eager to sign.

I asked the NC State official about the Big Ten’s belief that the ACC grant of rights could be circumvented and his answer was surprising.

He confirmed that the only consideration ACC member institutions received for signing the grant of rights were intangibles like security and that NC State thought the grant of rights could broken.

“There is some question that a state institution like NC State could legally assign broadcast rights without compensation at true market value.” He said.

But it’s his opinion it doesn’t matter.  The only schools in the ACC that meet Big Ten academic standards are not interested in leaving.  No amount of money is going to convince UVA or UNC to leave the ACC especially with the new autonomy of the power conferences on the horizon.

The reason is money.  Very soon the Big 5  will distance themselves from the rest. The ability to make their own rules allows them to eventually claim all the money and once that happens its just a matter of time before the Big 5 have their own commissioner and a unified television contract.  When (and if) that happens the difference between what the Big Ten earns and what the ACC earns will be negligible.

The Missing Dog Biscuit: A Christmas Mystery - Part 1 of 4.

This is a story about Christmas. This is also a story about dogs. There are some people who refuse to read stories about dogs fearing a sad ending. If you are one of these people you need not worry. This story has the happiest of endings.

Let's begin now that we all understand it's safe to continue...

Once upon a time there was a large white farm house that sat in the middle of a vast green field. The farm house was old. How old isn’t important--all you need to know is that the house was magical.

Now don’t fret at the mention of magic as this is a Christmas story. You will find no hobbits, unicorns or other magical creatures below.  Yes the house at the center of our tale is magical but only in small way. 

Buried deep in the old farm house’s foundation was a very special stone. A stone that that was older than old and was once carved with runes of great power by a wise old man who used the stone only to make people happy.

Thousands of years later that same stone, polished smooth by the years until the runes were invisible, found its way into the hands of another wise man that unknowingly buried the ancient talisman in the foundation of his house.

It was this stone that made the house special. The stone retained just a small bit of magic left over from when the world was young.  Just enough magic remained to charm  the large white farmhouse and the rolling green fields and nearby woods that surrounded the house.

The people who lived in the white farmhouse had no idea of the glamour that made the house such a happy place. They were happy and they didn’t question why.

In real life many people feel guilty for being happy. They feel so guilty that they start looking for reasons to be unhappy.  Not these people. They gave no thought to their state of grace.

We know what they didn’t. We know about the fading magic of the ancient rune stone and the small sphere of bright glamour that bombarded the farm with cheer.

Yet I know something that you do not. A fact that is central to the plot of this story that  I shall reveal to you now: the great white farmhouse in the middle of a vast green field had more than the ancient rune stone making it a happy place. The old farmhouse was also the home to four dogs.

See I told you this was a Christmas story about dogs!

Now it’s time for me to introduce you to our heroes, the four Portuguese Water Dogs  named Yorick, Eddie, Fozzie Bear and Sprocket.

The Mystery of the ACC Grant of Rights

Coercion - the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.

There's a riddle I'm trying to solve. A mystery that could lead to another piece in the college football expansion puzzle clicking into place.

Ask the right person the right question and doors open to new pieces of the puzzle. Sometimes the best leads are throwaway statements that seem innocuous at the time but take on greater meaning after review and reflection.

Last week a reputable source associated with a Big Ten school used the word "coercion" when asked why ACC schools signed a grant of rights.

At the time the importance of the word "coercion" didn't completely register. I was trying to determine the exact "weakness" the Big Ten had reportedly identified in the ACC's grant of rights and not having much luck cracking that particular buckeye. He wouldn't volunteer information except for the fact that the Big Ten was waiting for the ACC's exit feel to be ruled punitive.

I questioned him relentlessly throwing out theory after theory. He refused to comment until I finally said the only difference between the Big 12's grant of rights and the ACC's grant of rights was that ACC schools didn't get anything in return.

Finally I had hit on the right combination and he opened up. The Big Ten thought the ACC's grant of rights could be successfully challenged because the ACC member institutions didn't receive any consideration (money) for their rights.

That's when he said an ACC member  had said they were coerced into signing the grant of rights.

 Coerced? Really?

How could the ACC or any conference coerce members into signing a contract that transfers their television broadcast rights for nothing? I don't understand how that could occur.

Of course that opened up a different line of questioning. So far all the questions are unanswered and all I can do is guess.

My first thought was that FSU was coerced and once the Seminoles were onboard all the others fell into place. Plausible? Certainly. If FSU was coerced what was the hammer the ACC used to nail them down?

Less likely but still plausible was that FSU and the ACC coerced Virginia into signing the grant of rights.

Why do I think that?  Mostly because of the assurances about UVA and the Cavaliers interest in the Big Ten and Eric Barron's stated love for the ACC.

The above is just a theory so please don't take it out of context.

There are no answers - only more questions.

I don't have many contacts in the ACC so I need help in figuring this out. Did the ACC coerce its members into signing the grant of rights without consideration? If so how did they coerce them?

I'm not even certain ACC schools were coerced.  Did they receive anything but promises and intangibles like "security"?

Anyone out there reading this with information and willing to answer some questions please email me at dudewv@me.com. Unless you tell me otherwise everything you share will be off the record.

Expansion Update

None of what you are hearing on Twitter about Texas or the Big 12 expanding is true. Some of what you are reading has at least a partial basis in fact, but most of the chatter is just recycled rumors recited over and over again until they take on a life of their own.

In early October the Big 12 thought it might be forced to expand in order to have a conference championship game. Their expansion committee reviewed financials submitted by Cincinnati, UCF, USF and UCONN.

Fox and ESPN were part of the appraisal and they decided that none of the candidates offered enough value for consideration without impetus from the playoff committee.

That’s not an insult to the programs mentioned. None of them having been playing FBS football for that long and none of them have the track record of success the Big 12’s unique requirements demand - at least not now.

The Big 12 decided to table the idea of expansion until they know, for certain, the exact formula the playoff committee will use. They have been told their lack of a conference championship game will not hurt them, but until the exact formula is revealed they can’t be sure. They should know sometime over the summer.

Why wait? Isn't money the motivation for everything expansion related?

If the Big XII expands with any AAC school they take a pay cut and none of the Big 12 schools are willing to see their revenues reduced unless they have no other choice.
Again that’s not a slight to Cincinnati, UCF or USF. That’s the reality of the last ten years of television ratings for each school.

I understand the huge demographic market area of Ohio and Florida. I covet the deep recruiting base of both states for the Big XII but the conference doesn’t need untapped television markets.

They don’t have a conference-wide network to monetize additions for market share alone. They can't justify expansion with carriage or affiliation fees. They need big time programs with a history of winning. They need marquee match-ups for primetime that generate Nielsen ratings to justify advertising dollars.

Here’s the problem for the expansion candidates: without using market size as a factor the value of school’s football program is hard to quantify. TV ratings, merchandising, licensing, ticket sales, win-loss percentage and bowl performance become even more important and those factors are quantified over decades not years.

Expansion for the Big XII is only justified if programs with a national reputation that appeal to national television audiences are added. They need name recognition in a program, not demographics, and none of the available candidates has the cachet necessary to punch their ticket into the Big XII.

At least none that are on the East coast. BYU fits the bill on most counts in terms of program prestige, but the Cougars are reluctant to give up their own deal with ESPN especially when it means they can keep Sundays sacred.

The other candidates are all deserving programs but none pass the Big XII’s litmus test.

Add BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, USF, UCONN or Boise State and the revenues go down and that’s a deal-breaker right now for the Big XII.

Expansion is a dead issue… unless the playoff committee decides a conference championship game is weighted in the formula used to select playoff teams. If that happens the Big XII would expand to at least 12 by adding Cincinnati and BYU or UCF.

How likely is that scenario? Not very, according to those in the Big XII. They have been told they will not be penalized for their lack of a championship game.

Is all hope lost  for Cincinnati, UCF, USF, UCONN and BYU? No. The exact formula the playoff committee will use hasn’t been finalized.  If a weighted conference championship game makes it into the formula the Big 12 will move quickly to get to 12.

Remember the review the Big XII did of candidates back in early October I mentioned earlier? A lot of the rumors floating around Twitter and message boards come from those evaluations. People hear that a few schools submitted paperwork and jump to conclusions.

Here's a confession: back when WVU submitted paperwork to the SEC I jumped to conclusions too. I assumed that a school wouldn't submit financial documents to conference unless it had been accepted. 

I didn't have a full understanding of the process then but I know now the submission of financials is just the first step.

 The process is officially called "due diligence" and it's not a rubber-stamp. Factors are included in the submissions like budgets for individual sports and projects on facilities upgrades and such. They also contain information like ticket sales, merchandizing and contributions that are vitally important to the appraisal.

These documents are complex and many people within the schools are needed to compile all the information that's needed. The people who help assemble the packets obviously know what they are for and human nature takes over.

The problem is they only know about the submission.

The fact is that when a school is told no or “not now” it’s kept very quiet. In many cases only the president and athletic director know the outcome.  And the people who helped prepare the documents -- all they know is their school applied to the Big 12 and everyone knows you don't apply unless you know you will be accepted. So they naturally jump to the conclusion that submission means acceptance and that's how rumors are born. 

The other factor is the real unhappiness at Texas. There is a small, but very vocal faction, of Texas boosters who are jealous of the publicity that Texas A&M is receiving. They blame the Big 12 for the Longhorn's recent woes. Fortunately there are those at Texas who understand the real problem is an aging coach who has lost touch with the kids he must recruit.

Yes Texas had discussions with the Big Ten earlier this season. Both evaluated the grant of rights and decided it could not be circumvented and ended their discussions. 

I’m aware of the rumors that Big Ten lawyers think they have found an out for Texas. The Big Ten may have identified a weakness in the Big 12’s grant of rights. That’s unlikely. The grant of rights signed individually by all ten members of the conference is a simple legal instrument that relies on case law for its weight.

The very nature of its simplicity leads to divergent theories on circumventing it, but the undeniable fact is the any legal battle over the grant of rights is almost certain to take longer than 12 years.

The other certainty over any potential legal battle: the court would enforce the rights holder’s claim until complete adjudication.

The risk is just too high for the Big Ten. They could challenge the grant of rights, incur huge legal fees and lose and all the while the Big 12 would retain the rights to broadcast Texas sports and the money derived  from those rights. 

The Big 12 would not settle. Six current members would be fighting for their conference and their seat at the table. They would not disband for the same reason.  Jim Delany knows it would be a fight to the death.

The other rumor about the Big Ten: the one that says the Delany is still watching the outcome of the Maryland suit very closely - keep on eye on that one. I haven’t been able to verify it yet but on the surface that one has teeth.

On Luck and Texas

The first thing I did when I learned that Steve Petersen had been hired to replace Deloss Dodds as athletic director at Texas was to call my good friend Yancey Stubbs.

Yancey is hard a hard one to reach. He prefers a simple life uncluttered by the  dehumanizing intrusion of electronics. No cell phones, no computers, no modern luxuries to distract his thoughts with beeps, whistles or other artificial demands for attention.

He relishes  the peace of a quiet that  promotes contemplative thought and guards his environment against the most annoying conventions of modernity to the point that the only connection he has to the outside world is a single wall-mounted phone in the kitchen.

The phone is old school. A monstrous black thing that rings with a satisfying  "brrrrnnnggg" that rambles through the old farmhouse rattling windows as it sounds the alarm.

He answers the phone on the eighth ring with his characteristic " what fresh hell is this?"

"Dorthy Parker be damned" I say.

"Watch your tongue! She was a lady" he retorts.

With our customary greeting concluded I am free to get down to business.

"Luck didn't get the job."

Silence. Only the white noise of a bad landline connection crackling in my ear tells me the call is still active.

"Is that so" he finally says.

“Thoughts?” I inquire.

Again the line goes silent. Yancey Stubbs is a thoughtful man prone to extended silences as he carefully considers his words. Most find this habit disturbing. I do not. I envy his ability to think before he speaks. 

“Maybe we just misread the situation.” He suggests.

Yancey had a point. Maybe we did all just misread the situation. Could it be possible that our opinion of Oliver Luck is somehow jaundiced?

“Not likely we misread the situation that badly.” Yancey continued.

“I mean there was so much smoke around Luck and Texas it was like the entire state was engulfed in flames. The media can be bamboozled easily enough but for nearly every media out in both Texas and West Virginia to be so wrong tells me there must have been a quick change in direction by Texas that blindsided everyone including Luck.”

Again Yancey was spot on with his analysis. Chip Brown, the usually reliable unofficial mouthpiece of UT president Bill Powers, had said in a radio interview last night that the Longhorn’s coaching staff had been told it was Oliver Luck who would replace Dodds.

I quickly filled Yancey in on what Brown had said on the radio.

“I heard that too.” He responded. “And by all reports WVU was convinced Luck was leaving. So the only thing we can deduce from what we know is that the search committee just changed their mind.”

We both paused to consider the implications.

“Committees are strange beasts.” Yancey said. “They have a way of fudging up the works due to the very nature of consensus building. I’m darn confident that Powers wanted Luck. But he gave up the right to select “his guy” when he formed the committee. An embattled president can’t ignore the recommendation of the committee he formed.”

Yancey had a point. By all accounts the University of Texas is one big jabberwocky of political intrigue.  Maybe the selection committee just liked Steve Patterson more than they liked Oliver Luck or maybe they had an agenda that wanted to hire someone who wasn’t as close to Powers as Luck.

We may never know for sure why Patterson was chosen. However I am fairly certain that Luck wasn’t overlooked because of ambiguous answers over how he would handle Mac Brown. Yancey agreed with my assessment.

“Bullsnot! Athletic directors at Texas serve many masters and can’t fire a head football coach without consultation from the president. I get the feeling the process in Texas would be even more complicated. The athletic director is nothing more than a messenger.”

Again the estimable Mr. Stubbs was on point. Rumors about Luck and expansion always fail to take into consideration the role of the president and the vast political machine running in the background of most universities.

“And whoever said Luck wasn’t hired because of his reluctance to fire Mac Brown has a short memory.” Yancey added.

Just three years ago Oliver Luck fired a popular head coach with back-to-back-to-back 9-3 seasons. Luck didn’t hesitate to make changes. He made radical changes that angered most of the good old boy network. If nothing else Oliver Luck has been an agent of change during his tenure at West Virginia University.

 “I’m glad Patterson got the job. I’m glad Luck is staying.  I paused before continuing. “How long do you think he stays?”

“Not that long. It looks like Ollie has decided he has done all he can for WVU and it’s time to move on.  I don’t think he goes out and looks for another job. I just think he takes the next position in the NFL that’s offered to him.”

Before we had a chance to continue our discussion Yancey excused himself to catch WV public radio’s broadcast of the NY Metropolitan Opera. 

I always appreciate Yancey’s insight. His comments made me recall the circumstances that brought Oliver Luck to West Virginia. Luck had resisted becoming the athletic director at WVU and it took a hard sale by WVU president Jim Clements to convince him to accept the job. 

Now, three years later, Luck had safely navigated WVU out of the dying Big East and into the Big 12. He raised record-level funds for WVU and led the fight for the new baseball stadium and improvements to both the football and basketball facilities. He tackled rowdy fan behavior by thinking completely outside the box and selling beer inside Mountaineer Field. He led the effort to increase revenues by outsourcing Mountaineer broadcasts and ended the series with Marshall.

More importantly Luck cleaned up an athletic department that was demoralized and ineffective. He worked quietly to clean up potentially embarrassing situations within the department and brought WVU athletics into the modern age. 

If Yancey is right and it’s just a matter of time before Luck leaves then everyone who cares about the future of WVU needs to understand it’s not a case of one of our own abandoning the school we love. It’s the opposite – it’s about a former Mountaineer uprooting his life in Houston to save the football program of his beloved WVU.

When he leaves it will be because he has done all he can do for WVU and that too may just be what’s best for West Virginia.

Luck has made enemies. He’s angered many of the old school set and many think that a new face in charge of the department can bring these disenfranchised Mountaineers back into the fold when their money is needed the most.

Maybe that’s true. I’m just glad we don’t have to find out right now. WVU athletics are safe under Oliver Luck’s stewardship.