My Mom Said I Can Join Your Conference Early

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Happy Friday, folks.

Media rights are always a headache, but even by migraine standards, the Pac-12’s current bout of negotiations is a concussion.

The conference’s current contract with FOX and ESPN expires after this coming season, and it doesn’t seem that the current partners are interested in extending this agreement, at least unless the conference is willing to accept a military-grade buzzcut of a valuation as the new contract would no longer contain crowd-drawers USC and UCLA.

Negotiations have been lingering on for months, and unless you buy into the “look forward to consummating successful media rights deal(s) in the very near future” nonsense, it doesn’t appear that things are going the way conference commissioner George Klivakoff was hoping as the deadline rapidly approaches.

Most recently, CBS and Turner Sports are dropping out of the negotiations, a sign that the buyer pool is rapidly dwindling. At this point, the most likely buyer is Amazon, though there are rumors that Apple is checking the price tag. If no buyer emerges and games aren’t aired, there will still be as many viewers as most Washington State @ Cal games lol

The conference does have some appeal with the recent success of Oregon and Utah as well as the (hopefully) returning relevance of Washington. Plus, the conference isn’t staying quiet about its search for new talent as it flirts with San Diego State and SMU.

However, other conferences aren’t sitting by without assessing the interest of some of its more valuable teams (quack, quack, howl), and without the blue blood that is USC, things will be challenging for the Pac-12 and Snoop Dogg as he searches for a new West Coast school to avoid having to travel to Minnesota to root for the Trojans.

On the topic of money, the $EC’s revenue payouts for its fiscal year 2021-2022, which ended on August 31, were revealed. It’s safe to say that these programs won’t be relying on ramen.

In total, the conference distributed $721.8 million to its 14 (for now) member institutions, $698.5M for general distribution and another $23.3M to offset travel costs for bowl eligible teams. This money came from a combination of TV agreements (most of it), bowl game payouts, and NCAA basketball appearances. Sorry, Ags…

For you English majors, that comes out to $49.9M/school, a massive number which is expected to grow to between $60M and $70M under the new deal with ESPN kicking off after this coming season, even with Texas and OU entering the conference. And you wonder why they decided to move.

Despite what CFB Twitter might tell you, the purpose of this money isn’t to genetically modify embryos to supply Bama with running backs or Georgia with linebackers but rather to support coaching staffs, player training and nutrition, academic counseling, medical care, mental health support, and even life-skills development.

It also benefits the jersey-wearers in the student section, too. Athletic revenue is often used to support the construction of academic buildings, the provision of academic scholarships, and the backing of department programs and budgets. Who said they didn’t come here to play school?

Two major developments in the NIL law space from arguably the two most important states, Florida and Texas.

The Gators have some higher ups in the state legislature looking out for them as the state is nearing passage of a new rule allowing college coaches to actively facilitate NIL deals for players. This means that for enrolled players (still no high schoolers), Billy, Mario, and Mike can tell their offensive linemen about the local BBQ restaurant that reached out about wanting to do an all-you-can-eat commercial.

This was not previously allowed, and while it might not be massively impactful, it does allow for coaches to have a more meaningful role in the use of NIL and its impact on their locker rooms, something which could have been useful in avoiding the Rashada contract situation which was almost completely outside of Head Coach Billy Napier’s control.

It’s also an example of how even states that have been reluctant to move forward with NIL-friendly policies are being forced to adapt in order to stay competitive. With the appeal of NIL being a strong selling point for rival states like California and Louisiana, even the hotbeds of recruiting talent are recognizing that they need to stay modern to keep up.

Further evidence of this trend comes in from the Lone Star State where it is now legal for 18 year olds, even if they’re in high school, to be compensated for NIL. The case study as it relates to Texas is quarterback Quinn Ewers who infamously graduated a year early from high school to enroll at Ohio State after being offered a million dollar NIL deal.

The new rule will likely prevent these scenarios from playing out, though it would have been nice had the state passed the law a few years earlier. Not only could this have prevented what was arguably a wasted year for Ewers, but the number one player in the entire country for 2024, Dylan Raiola, is another star quarterback who moved out to Arizona a few seasons ago, in no small part because of the restrictive rules in Texas.

I got some positive feedback on the NIL deal of the week section, so this week, we’ll take to the high seas. Enjoy some shuffleboard, sweet ocean views, and of course, the endless buffets as you set sail on the CougConnect BYU Players Cruise.

Fans can purchase tickets for this four day trip to Mexico through the collective’s website where they’ll get to enjoy the traditional cruise line entertainment offerings and with the additional purchase of the “player package,” they’ll also be able to experience dinner, mini golf, and interviews with BYU football players FB Masen Wake, LB Max Tooley, RB Miles Davis, and WR Keanu Hill.

The competition for headlines in the NIL space will only continue to lead to creative offerings such as this one. Hopefully, Cougar Cruise Nation enjoys the Tex-Mex cause they’re about to be exposed to it far more often with annual trips to Lubbock, Waco, and Fort Worth.

So long, football season. And hello, March Madness.

Don’t get caught going all in on that 2-seed to win it all right before it goes and loses to 15-seed North Central Oklakota A&M Tech in the first round. Particularly in a season that has been as wild and wide open as this one, stay up to date on everything you need to know about college hoops with The Field of 68 Daily.

The civil war for the state of Texas is imminent.

Just a few weeks after reports that negotiations between the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12, and the SEC had “broken down” (see: bargaining smoke screen), it appears that the higher ups at Fox didn’t like the aesthetics of “Texas @ Houston” and were motivated enough to get this thing moving.

Now, we only have to deal with a single year of Oklahoma flying to Provo. The Big 16 will be short-lived as the Horns and Sooners are headed to the SEC in 2024.

This will coincide with a host of massive changes in the sport with the moves of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, and more importantly, with the expansion of the College Football Playoffs to 12 teams. Rippin’ off the band-aid, I see.

It was an expensive band-aid, though. The combined buyout agreements to get out a mere year early came out to more than $100 million. The majority of this money will go to the Big 12’s 8 holdover teams to compensate them for the revenue that will be lost with the departure of the conference’s money makers.

Some of this money was also sent over to the private jets at FOX to compensate them for the loss of 7 UT/OU games which the network would have broadcast, and further, a home and home between Texas and the University of Michigan in 2024 and 2027 were flipped so as to send the Horns to Ann Arbor in the first match and the Wolverines to Austin a few years later.

UM is double dipping in the Red River Rivalry dip as it also has a H&H locked in with the Sooners sandwiched in the two years between its UT matchups. With the first two of these four matchups now being in the Big House, this ensures that FOX retains the rights to these blue blood matchups before ESPN takes over the latter two as part of its exclusive new deal with the SEC.

The value that the Big 12 is losing has to go somewhere, and surprise surprise, that would be the SEC. While the Pac-12 is just looking for someone to offer a Big Mac (sorry, double-double), the country’s best conference has a new media rights agreement with ESPN and ABC that will kick in after this year and pay out $300M annually.

More importantly, at least according to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the new deal will provide the conference with the kind of wider exposure that will invaluably strengthen the conference’s national brand. Apparently, winning 16 out of the last 19 national championships wasn’t enough to do that.

He does have a point, though, in that with the new contract, the conference is now able to schedule its typical 3:30 primetime kickoff as well as both a prime slot before and after. It also provides the conference access to the live streaming behemoth that Disney has been able to construct with ESPN+, something that will become even more important now that the conference has so many attractive matchups that it will overflow these three prime kickoff windows.

As if the conference needed even more appeal from a national recruiting perspective, the move ensures that even kids from the West Coast can grow up watching Georgia and Alabama play on Saturday mornings. You know. If they can’t find anything else to do given how much LA has to offer.

A few other interesting comments made by Sankey were that the conference will now be home to “the two greatest music cities in America” with both Nashville and Austin. Encouraging away game travel is also a point of emphasis, and he spoke optimistically about the appeal of traveling to new host cities like Austin and Norman/OKC.

Of course, most importantly, the two teams passed the conference’s “Just Means More” test… lol

One of the primary reasons that Texas A&M (and Missouri) left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012 was the growing frustration with Texas’ Longhorn Network which clashed with the conference’s media rights agreement, reducing the payout to other schools.

Luckily for everyone, the failed network will be going the way of the dodo once the Horns enter the SEC. All of the team’s packages will be shipped to the SEC Network which has flourished after ironically being inspired by the LHN. TBD whether horns down is still punishable by death penalty.

Most people just care about the schedule plan for the SEC, and though many wanted an 8-game conference schedule that would allow some of the conference’s weaker teams (like UT and A&M) to schedule cupcakes to ensure bowl eligibility, this plan would only include 1 protected rivalry per team with the other 14 teams being cycled every other year.

Unlikely as the conference would never bring in the Horns (whose primary rival would be Oklahoma) and not let them play A&M ever year. Other major rivalries would be restored, too. The two newbies, A&M, Arkansas, and Missouri were all part of the former Big 8 Conference.

Enter the 3-6-6 model like what the Big Ten is leaning towards. This would be a departure from the division model which has dominated the CFB landscape for the last couple of decades, but it’s one that is becoming an increasingly attractive choice to make, and frankly one which is better for competition. The Pac-12, ACC, and Big 12 have already made the move. This would ensure that the two best teams, regardless of division, would make the SEC Championship Game.

A number of potential rivalry packages have been floated, and we’re likely to have more concrete information over the next few months now that the UT and OU early departure has sped up the timeline. Though it’s lofty (at least by NCAA standards…), the conference hopes to finalize this by the time Spring Meetings roll around in a few months.

How long this decision holds up is up for question, too. Sankey has refused to rule out further expansion should other conferences (@ B1G) continue to aggressively pursue adding members.

This threat might be considerably lower now that Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren has left for the Chicago Bears, but we don’t yet know who his replacement will be, and if it is UCLA AD Martin Jarmond who has been rumored to be a candidate, he has proven himself to be more than willing to disrupt traditional conference ties.

Still, the rivalry between the SEC and B1G is approaching that of the US and China. While the two watch the other intently, daring their counterpart to make the news, they exchange shade online like when Sankey recently pointed out that the longest trip for the new-look SEC will be the one from Austin to South Carolina, which is “actually shorter than what will be the shortest trip for the L.A. schools when they move to the Big Ten.” No sightings of spy balloons. Yet.

As for the ex, Big 12 Conference Commissioner Brett Yormack claimed that the Conference had been unwilling to agree to the early withdrawal unless it would be in the entire conference’s best interests. Now, he can focus on what comes next. That means a conference with less star power, though a ton of parity.

Even despite TCU’s magical run last season, there’s no clear conference power anymore. A case could be made for just about any of the conference’s remaining schools, or it might be that every year is a toss up. Though it means less money from the gridiron, there’s also a chance that the conference leans into its reputation as the best basketball conference and aggressively promotes its hoops scene.

On this note, the conference isn’t content with 14 teams. They are interested in adding an Oregon or Washington to boost its football product. There has been even more smoke around adding Gonzaga, a clear sign of its basketball ambitions.

College football is just a metaphor for life, really. Always changing. Full of highs and lows. Marked by weird traditions like throwing goalposts into rivers and barking at scared children in airports.

Cheers to another day,

Trey