CalBears87;574912 said:

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Negotiations don't really start until somebody walks away from the table...

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Pretty much. Like everyone has said, this is not over. I am looking forward to the next round. This is almost as good as Modern Family.

Cal_Fan2;574934 said:

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You couldn't be more wrong and I figure by your tone you are not a Larry Scott fan...

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You don't have to tell by his tone . . . kasaja has been downplaying Scott's accomplishments from day 1.

QuakeFan;574921 said:

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I meant 14 is difficult given the Pac's specific issues of the 8 coastal members and everyone's desire for SoCal access. Can't divide into pods because 14 is divisible only by 7 and 2. Probably would have a Pac-7 division with one LA team going east, and that would be the end of that team playing Cal/Stanford each year, as giving that team 3 permanent cross-divisional games would be untenable.

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I supposed it could be accomplished by putting the Okies in the South and moving Colorado or Utah to the North. CA round-robin games could be protected.

sycasey;574964 said:

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I supposed it could be accomplished by putting the Okies in the South and moving Colorado or Utah to the North. CA round-robin games could be protected.

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That leaves USC and OU in the same division, which is a competitive balance problem like to the old Big XII South. And protected CA inter-division games would leave each CA team with only one extra inter-division game to rotate amongst the other teams (assuming 6/3 scheduling)--NW teams' exposure to SoCal would be cut to almost nothing.

Unmentioned in all this is that Oregon/OregSt/Washington/WSU are the other losers. They agreed when the conference expanded to 12 to accommodate Utah/Colorado by being placed in the P-North without special access to the recruit rich SoCal zone. They did this because everyone figured it would be a temporary situation. Now it's not. So they play SoCal teams only once per year. More to the point, they play IN SoCal only once every two years. That's a significant recruiting disadvantage because it is the games in a recruit's home area that his family and friends can easily (and at lower cost) see in person. You already know what a USC recruiter's pitch is going to be when he's up against Oregon: "Yeah kid, you are great, you'll go pro easily after three years no matter what school you pick. But if you go to Oregon, your family will only see you play in person once during your entire college career..."

It's not good for them. We're unaffected of course....

Cal84;574973 said:

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Unmentioned in all this is that Oregon/OregSt/Washington/WSU are the other losers. They agreed when the conference expanded to 12 to accommodate Utah/Colorado by being placed in the P-North without special access to the recruit rich SoCal zone. They did this because everyone figured it would be a temporary situation. Now it's not. So they play SoCal teams only once per year. More to the point, they play IN SoCal only once every two years. That's a significant recruiting disadvantage because it is the games in a recruit's home area that his family and friends can easily (and at lower cost) see in person. You already know what a USC recruiter's pitch is going to be when he's up against Oregon: "Yeah kid, you are great, you'll go pro easily after three years no matter what school you pick. But if you go to Oregon, your family will only see you play in person once during your entire college career..."

It's not good for them. We're unaffected of course....

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Winning football games has an effect as well. Five years ago the current divisional structure would have been disastrous to Oregon recruiting, but as of now it will make small dent. OSU/WSU/UW all seem to be recruiting at the same level this year as last.

On a side note I've never seen a fan base overstate the worth of something more than UT fans with the LHN. For some reason they think it's only a matter of time until they can reach BTN availability, despite some serious holes in their business plan

howcanilose;574774 said:

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Yea I feel bad for them, I wonder if it'll sour any potential future expansion plans.

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If Larry would have taken the Okies', I think it would have just pissed Texas off and damaged any future negotiations. Texas in general comes across like they will not be coerced into any decision because of their pride and arrogance. If Larry would have stripped the Okies' from the BIG that's exactly what would have happened and Texas would not be happy about it. With Larry taking a step back from the Big 12 schools, it will allow the pressures to build against Texas, but also allow that conference to stay intact for the time being.

Texas would also like to see what comes of the LHN first, before making any sort of hasty decisions. Larry has to believe Texas is going to come around eventually, either because of the failure of the LHN, or for some other reasons that I'm unaware of. Otherwise he would have taken the Okie teams.

So I think it was a good thing Larry didn't try to close this thing prematurely, (which I think he could have if he wanted to) it would not have been good for the stability of the conference. This way Texas can see there LHN for what its worth, and know exactly what they will be sacrificing before they sacrifice.

"When you get the answer you want, hang up."

If true, it is a mistake. There will be 16 team conferences in the future. The Pac 12 really has only these teams to look to if they want to expand. A better move would be to accept Oklahoma and Oklahoma St and force Texas' hand. Yes the current alignment looks good today, but if the ACC and SEC continue to expand the Pac 12 could be fighting for teams to add and Texas despite it's arrogance is the big chip. They know it and want their LHN and all that goes with it.

Texas is the only reason to expand to 16. They have the market, the players etc. Oklahoma is a great program, but really they are second fiddle when being compared to Texas. I agree Texas would need to make concessions to join, but right now there is no reason for them to drop their demands. If Missouri joins the SEC and the Pac 12 extends invitations to OU and OSU that might very well change the equation.

The Pac 12 does not want to see Oklahoma go elsewhere. This would put the Pac 12 in a bad position should the rest of the conferences go to 16 as expected. No way the Pac 12 wants to get left out. I do suspect however this decision to stand pat is tenatative and is based upon the current situation of Texas not dropping its demands for better treatment. Should that change I believe the conference would reconsider its position and quickly.

Yes....some of the Presidents didn't want it but numerous other sources have said if Larry wanted it, he could have gotten the votes for OU/OSU only....he didn't recommend that...so yes, Larry Scott get just as much credit..in fact, he gets more..[/QUOTE said:

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I believe Scott doesn't have enough votes, otherwise he would have recommended the expansion. Consider Oklahoma's Boren:

Monday.... Received authorization to act on conference realignment. Says besides staying at Big 12, the focus is only Pac.

Tuesday..... Says Ok wasn't going to apply for Pac 12 membership this year.

Why even get authorization to act if he already knows he wasn't going to apply?

Larry probably told Boren he's going to recommend expansion and both thought Larry could push it through.

The other possibility is that this is really a huge smokescreen for Scott to act later this year.

Cal fans favorite reporter, Chip Brown, said on the radio this morning that accepting OU and OSU by themselves was only a 6-6 vote currently.

He also mentioned that BYU was almost certainly not going to be invited and that the Big 12, if it can hold together, is likely to try to pick off a Big East team (Louisville was mentioned). The available Texas schools (TCU, SMU, UH) don't bring anything market wise to appease Fox's investment so they'll have to look to new markets even if the travel is ridiculous.

BearLineman;575030 said:

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Now they can beat up on lesser competition and make outrageous claims that a 13-0 Big Whatever record should be enough for a NC appearance.

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12-0, unless they play Hawaii. You can't have a conference championship game without 12+ teams.

I'm happy to stay at 12 teams; at the end of the day the Pac16 is intriguing but there are downsides as well.

I think it was a combination of things. Larry Scott's decision-making does not happen in a vacuum. He probably took each proposals, evaluated them, saw how it may or may not benefit the conference, then met with the chancellors, gave him his recommendation and that was that.

I can't help but think that at least 5 or 6 of the teams in the conference did not want expansion. It's also nice to see some of the other posters on here come to the conclusion that Texas' *ssholery and effed mentality was not worth the money.

Let's get back to football and forget about the Big 12. If this proves one thing - its that nobody or any team pushes the Pac-12 conference around.

I must say, one other thing that's appealing is that the Pac12 comes out of this in a position of strength, with regards to public perception. Last year there was a lot of "Larry Scott got played by ESPN/Texas" but now with the HUGE contract coming in next year, and with a very firm message that the Pac12 was calling the expansion shots this year, I think we come out of this much stronger.

I guess that just reflects the reality of being in a position of strength due to the TV contract etc. but still, nice to see.

drunkoski;575061 said:

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we should have taken oklahoma and OSU and forced texas' hand. hopefully 10 years from now we wont be looking back at this wondering why everyone else is at 16 and in the national picture and we are not.

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Yeah, I can't really agree with that. If and when the time comes, OU and Texas will still find the Pac a better landing place than anywhere else.

drunkoski;575061 said:

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we should have taken oklahoma and OSU and forced texas' hand. hopefully 10 years from now we wont be looking back at this wondering why everyone else is at 16 and in the national picture and we are not.

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If Texas' hand wasn't on board with the Pac-12 last weekend, when faced with OU/OSU's imminent departure, and if Larry ruled out 14 for revenue and geographic reasons, forget it. Texas could have easily just gone back to playing OU out of conference, as they have for decades. OU to Pac-12 isn't a point of leverage. There is no "forcing Texas' hand." You don't seem to understand how Texas brass operates, and the way they view their LHN.

A better bet is to wait 5 years, and see if the LHN fails. Then renegotiate. Texas and OU aren't going to the Big 10 or SEC, or for that matter the ACC.

drunkoski;575067 said:

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not sure if the longhorn network really gets off the ground it's going to be much harder to get texas then than now.

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Yes, and if pigs fly, they're going to put Southwest out of business.

The LHN is a steaming pile of crap, or a stillborn steer, take your pick.

Even if somehow pigs do fly, OU is going to be even more ready to split from UT and join the Pac than they were this time around.

drunkoski;575061 said:

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we should have taken oklahoma and OSU and forced texas' hand. hopefully 10 years from now we wont be looking back at this wondering why everyone else is at 16 and in the national picture and we are not.

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Agree.

Interesting thoughts by Wilner http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2011/09/21/did-the-pac-12-risk-its-future-by-not-expanding/

This brightened my day, big-time. :woohoo :bravo :bravo

goldenokiebear;575092 said:

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Agree.

Interesting thoughts by Wilner http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2011/09/21/did-the-pac-12-risk-its-future-by-not-expanding/

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It is an interesting read though I think the comments of some of the posters are also fairly insightful.

Looking at this from the big picture, I wonder if the chancellors/presidents of the universities really took a step back and realized what kind of decision this was. Adding OU and OK State would likely have destroyed the Big 12 and set off a series of moves that would have altered the landscape entirely. It would have marginalized alot of teams.

Did the university presidents want to be responsible for that? I'm not so sure. They certainly would have been had they taken OU and OkState.

The other issue was the academics of OK State in my opinion.

I agree with one of the above posters that said that the Pac 12 can bargain from a position of strength now. Joining the Pac 12 required no formal application - just a negotiation between presidents and AD's with financial arrangements being the top concern. I don't think we hoodwinked OU. I think it was probably their preference to remain in the big 12. But what likely could have killed the deal was the fact that we only wanted OU but taking one team leaves us with an odd number. Taking OK State was probably something we never wanted. The other option was Texas but they are such a-holes, they wouldn't agree to revenue sharing. so here we are.

This worked out just fine. We are in a good conference. We have the best TV deal in the country kicking in next year. We called the shots. We have all of the key players' phone numbers in case something new develops.

Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the Big 12 have to try to figure out their futures. Maybe they can paper over their differences. Maybe not. Texas has to know that its LHN almost destroyed the conference and still might. When the Longhorns started looking around for places to go outside of the Big 12 there weren't a lot of choices. In particular, the Pac-12 wasn't falling over itself to bring them in. The LHN and Texas' me-first attitude are dealbreakers and we are fortunate that they are the Big 12's problem and not ours.

If the Big 12 works out its problems then the Pac can stay at 12 teams for a while and collect on its TV deal. If the Big 12 can't work out its problems, the Pac is the logical direction for Oklahoma and Texas to look in the future. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.

6956bear;575009 said:

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If true, it is a mistake. There will be 16 team conferences in the future. The Pac 12 really has only these teams to look to if they want to expand. A better move would be to accept Oklahoma and Oklahoma St and force Texas' hand. Yes the current alignment looks good today, but if the ACC and SEC continue to expand the Pac 12 could be fighting for teams to add and Texas despite it's arrogance is the big chip. They know it and want their LHN and all that goes with it.

Texas is the only reason to expand to 16. They have the market, the players etc. Oklahoma is a great program, but really they are second fiddle when being compared to Texas. I agree Texas would need to make concessions to join, but right now there is no reason for them to drop their demands. If Missouri joins the SEC and the Pac 12 extends invitations to OU and OSU that might very well change the equation.

The Pac 12 does not want to see Oklahoma go elsewhere. This would put the Pac 12 in a bad position should the rest of the conferences go to 16 as expected. No way the Pac 12 wants to get left out. I do suspect however this decision to stand pat is tenatative and is based upon the current situation of Texas not dropping its demands for better treatment. Should that change I believe the conference would reconsider its position and quickly.

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Couldn't agree more with this -- I fear a huge opportunity has been missed to increase the number of TV sets the Pac could reach by SEVENTY PERCENT! Given our geography, Texas is the only real market remaining for the Pac 12, and we had a chance to get it for the price of letting UT keep some third tier rights (i.e., broadcasting UT's debate team and Olympic sports to an audience of dozens).

It reminds me of the Godfather, when Tom Hagen advises the Godfather to do a narcotics deal with the Turk because if you don't, you risk everything you have, not now, but 10 years from now. In 2021, we will regret letting this opportunity slip away.

...in terms of markets. I disagree, though, that you look first at the money and then work out the other problems.

Admitting Texas under current conditions would have been foolhardy. Clearly, Texas is not ready to be an equal partner. That was an important pre-condition for the Pac-12 CEOs.

In one to two years, LHN will not have delivered the promised exposure and revenue; I believe that ESPN will eventually kill it.

Or if it becomes an albatross around UT's neck, Texas will kill it.

Those possibilities are much more likely than the possibility that (a) the Big 12 achieves conference stability & harmony and (b) LHN is profitable for ESPN as well as UT.

Oklahoma and UT will be back at this within one to two years. The door has not slammed shut.

scibear;575142 said:

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Couldn't agree more with this -- I fear a huge opportunity has been missed to increase the number of TV sets the Pac could reach by SEVENTY PERCENT! Given our geography, Texas is the only real market remaining for the Pac 12, and we had a chance to get it for the price of letting UT keep some third tier rights (i.e., broadcasting UT's debate team and Olympic sports to an audience of dozens).

It reminds me of the Godfather, when Tom Hagen advises the Godfather to do a narcotics deal with the Turk because if you don't, you risk everything you have, not now, but 10 years from now. In 2021, we will regret letting this opportunity slip away.

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But scibear - why should Texas have been let in under some special condition - regardless of how miniscule it might have been. My thought is that the Pac 12 wouldn't let any team in that seeks to have preferential treatment. And allowing Texas to keep LHN - it opens the door for other teams to do the same. Then you have anarchy.

As far as Tom's advice - you know - the Godfather lost Sonny in that deal. :p

FiatSlug;575194 said:

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...in terms of markets. I disagree, though, that you look first at the money and then work out the other problems.

Admitting Texas under current conditions would have been foolhardy. Clearly, Texas is not ready to be an equal partner. That was an important pre-condition for the Pac-12 CEOs.

In one to two years, LHN will not have delivered the promised exposure and revenue; I believe that ESPN will eventually kill it.

Or if it becomes an albatross around UT's neck, Texas will kill it.

Those possibilities are much more likely than the possibility that (a) the Big 12 achieves conference stability & harmony and (b) LHN is profitable for ESPN as well as UT.

Oklahoma and UT will be back at this within one to two years. The door has not slammed shut.

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I can't believe the LHN will have enough content, cable and satellite companies unwilling to pay the .40 cents per subscriber and ESPN pouring money down this B.S. Enterprise; which was basically started to keep the Texas from leaving last year...it was pieced together at the last minute by ESPN and big money guys.....

I didn't see it but read on one of the OU boards that Larry Scott was on ESPN this morning and was basically giving UT the backhand slap by saying " it came down to money vs principles, and we chose principles".....

drunkoski;575278 said:

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so why not let every team own their own network if they want? when did the pac-12 become a communist organization (i kid i kid)?

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Why does the NFL insist on pooling the TV rights for every franchise in the league?

Answer: because it benefits everyone and the league benefits from the stability.

drunkoski;575278 said:

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so why not let every team own their own network if they want? when did the pac-12 become a communist organization (i kid i kid)?

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Because conferences basically are a sort of commune, in which individual schools band together so that they are more stable and powerful than they would be individually. So having everyone on the same terms from a TV-rights standpoint is a good idea.

I think Big 10 schools get around 7M each and they only own half the network (either 49% or 51%, dont remember), so if we owned the entire network, you're looking at 15-20M per school/year in the next five years I would say at least 10M.

philly1121;575276 said:

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But scibear - why should Texas have been let in under some special condition - regardless of how miniscule it might have been. My thought is that the Pac 12 wouldn't let any team in that seeks to have preferential treatment. And allowing Texas to keep LHN - it opens the door for other teams to do the same. Then you have anarchy.

As far as Tom's advice - you know - the Godfather lost Sonny in that deal. :p

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I completely understand why you wouldn't want UT to have their own special deal, but I viewed it as a face-saving gesture for Texas -- they really weren't keeping anything of significant value but they could at least represent to their fanbase that they won something at the negotiating table.

To me, the upsetting piece of this is that the Pac is not moving more aggressively to at least lock up Oklahoma and OSU to make ourselves a better football conference. It seems terribly unlikely that OU is going to be there waiting for us in 5 years -- we'll instead be forced to hold our nose and pick up leftover schools like UNLV, Air Force, Nevada and New Mexico to get to 16.

And hey, the way I remember it, the Godfather got shot 6 times because he didn't take Tom's advice!

drunkoski;575339 said:

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it appears to me that the big 10 network has a lot mroe games on it than the pac-12 network is suppose to have.

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actually, it's the complete opposite.

BT Net gets the scrap games after the networks choose the best.

Pac 12 will have the rights to the best games certain weeks of the season. They will have some kind of draft with ESPN/FOX for content.

Both conferences have the same number of teams nominally hence the same number of games - though P12 has one more conference game (higher quality) while BT has more home cupcakes due to the 8 game conference schedule.

As for the LHN, I don't have a moral problem against it. It's fair to pool football rights and money, but LHN is tier 3 only. They are going to be showing secondary sports (so will Pac12) and part of it is that they want to produce it and control content themselves. Those event wouldn't even garner attention at other schools, but Texas wants them on TV. OK so ESPn vastly overpaid for the network... that's where the shadiness comes about. ESPN moving B12 games from ESPN to LHN is absolute BS (though it's on also the Big12 for non having the correct rules to stop that) - they are essentially making non Texas schools subscribe to LHN and pay UT to see their own games.

I do feel that the p12 complete sharing doesn't reward teams for giving the network value added content. CU with their 14 sports gets paid the same as Cal and Stanford with 29+ sports. That content is not equal. Even more of a glaring difference is that USC gets paid the same for playing Notre Dame as Cal would for playing a school like Presby. One gets the league and the TV networks tens of millions of dollars, one is good for jack. Teams should definitely be rewarded for OOC risks that create value for the networks. Not saying there should large differences in payouts, but there should be some incentives.

Another huge issue with folding LHN network in with P12 network is that P12 is not just third tier. There is lots of 1st tier stuff on it. Consider that BT gets $1 per sub, but ESPN wants $.40 for LHN. If the agreement to bring in texas kept the LHN with P12 content mandated, they would actually OWE the p12 money to show p12 national content. P12 cannot give that to LHN for free because it most definitely will drive up the carriage fee ESPN can charge. P12 doesn't want an additional network either - it doesn't work as well if LHN and P12 exist in Texas, both asking for sub fees. It's entirely more complicated than Texas keeps it $15mil per year from ESPN.

drunkoski;575348 said:

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right, but you are talking about 2 or 3 games a season where the pac-12 network will get good games right? otherwise we are talking about cal/presbyterian.

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Once the conference season starts up, not really. Then they will show games between Pac-12 teams. In the early season, yeah, you'll see a lot of Pac-12 vs. random cupcake.

For example, looking at the Big Ten Network schedule at a random October weekend last year (Oct 23rd), it showed Purdue-Ohio State and Indiana-Illinois, not exactly junk games (especially the OSU game, which can usually be expected to have a fairly big audience). This is even with ESPN/ABC getting the first picks.

drunkoski;575348 said:

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right, but you are talking about 2 or 3 games a season where the
pac-12 network will get good games right? otherwise we are talking about cal/presbyterian.

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early season there will be a lot of bad games, sure. But Pac 12 teams need a waiver to have OOC games after week 4, so that's when the desirability picks up. Michigan vs directional Michigan is sure a popular event for the Big Ten net in weeks they are not playing ND.

Details:

Pac 12: ESPN/Fox get 44 games.
Big Ten: ESPN/ABC get 41 games.

Pac 12 Net will have 3 less conference games over the season (might be 2 since I'm not sure if CCG game is counted for BT).

sycasey;575363 said:

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Once the conference season starts up, not really. Then they will show games between Pac-12 teams. In the early season, yeah, you'll see a lot of Pac-12 vs. random cupcake.

For example, looking at the Big Ten Network schedule at a random October weekend last year (Oct 23rd), it showed Purdue-Ohio State and Indiana-Illinois, not exactly junk games (especially the OSU game, which can usually be expected to have a fairly big audience). This is even with ESPN/ABC getting the first picks.

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BigTen Net may have better content due to the nature/following of the Big Ten. That's a different argument and is probably correct.

But Pac12 will have 'better' games relative to the other games that week in comparison to the Big Ten.

Here's the interview with Larry Scott on ESPN this morning:

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7001284

ColoradoBear1;575384 said:

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BigTen Net may have better content due to the nature/following of the Big Ten. That's a different argument and is probably correct.

But Pac12 will have 'better' games relative to the other games that week in comparison to the Big Ten.

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Totally. The point was that even with the BTN's agreement to only get the games that ABC/ESPN doesn't pick, they still wound up with some decent games on there. With the P12 Network actually getting first pick in some weeks, it should be even better.

youngbear1992;575397 said:

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Here's the interview with Larry Scott on ESPN this morning:

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7001284

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thanks...I missed it.....good to hear principles trumped money for once...

Cal_Fan2;575448 said:

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thanks...I missed it.....good to hear principles trumped money for once...

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I'm glad you came around to that viewpoint calfan2.