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The Pac-10 Comes Out Swinging, but Texas to the Big Ten Emerges

Submitted by on June 3, 2010 – 8:18 pmNo Comment
If Texas is on the move, the Big Ten is its logical destination

The huge news today, regarding conference expansion, didn’t involve the Big Ten.  No, Rivals reported that the Pac-10 conference, which had largely considered to be patiently waiting to see where the dominoes might fall, sent out invitations to six of the marquee teams from the Big XII.

Citing the standard “multiple sources close to the situation,” as it seems every newspaper, radio station, television outlet or blog has over the past few months, Chip Brown writes:

[I]t appears the Pac-10, which has its meetings in San Francisco starting this weekend, is prepared to make a bold move and invite Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to join its league…

The six teams from the Big 12 would be in an eight-team division with Arizona and Arizona State. The other eight-team division would consist of USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.

Now, we’re obviously not going to accept this report on face value. If every unverified column were true, the Big Ten would’ve already added UConn, and also Missouri, Nebraska, Syracuse, Rutgers, and Pittsburgh. Or maybe just Rutgers, Missouri and Nebraska. And maybe Notre Dame.  The Pac-10 would’ve welcomed Utah and Colorado, not the above listed 6.  In short, we’ve seen this movie before, Chip, and we’re going to take some convincing.

The thought is the Big 16 (or whatever they decide for the name) would start its own television network that could command premium subscriber dollars from cable providers on par with the Big Ten Network and pay out upwards of $20 million to each of the 16 schools in TV revenue.

Now, all indications are pointing to this being more than just mere fluff.  Colorado’s AD, Mike Bohn, hinted that this was more a probability than a done deal, but even so, the ramifications throughout the landscape of college football are evident.

Still, Charlie just wrote about the hurdles a potential Pac-10 Network would face, which begs the question: if Texas is going to move, wouldn’t it be to the Big Ten?http://dribbledrive.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/pac10.jpg

The Big Ten already has their Network up and running, and paying out more than $20 million dollars to each school based not just on BTN revenues, but also its hefty contract with ESPN.  If Big Ten expansion hits home runs rather than singles, and adding Texas would be a grand slam, that revenue would skyrocket.  The Pac-10 is hoping to pay out $20 million to each school, the Big Ten already does!  The BTN wasn’t financially successful until Comcast struck a deal with the Network, and that didn’t happen for more than a year.  Even today, not all cable carriers in the state of Pennsylvania carry the network, and I’m sure there’s more demand for Penn State than for Washington State or Arizona in their respective states.  Yes, it has been the trailblazer for future conference-run TV networks, but the fact is that demand isn’t there right now for a Pac-10 Network to be an immediately viable money maker.  And even if there was, the rocky path to a financial windfall would ensure that it would take years before any Pac-10 team could see $20 million from TV revenue.

But for the BTN?  Bringing in a Texas, and a Texas alone would mean at least another 2 million per school.  Considering Texas’ population (approximately 25 million), the school’s overwhelming popularity, and the fact that the Big Ten Network receives 88 cents per subscriber of states within the Big Ten footprint, the conference could stand to bring in over $20 million by adding Texas alone.  Add Rutgers, and you’ve got the New York City market cornered: another $20 million for the conference.  Throw in Nebraska to make things even, and you’ve got a superconference that dwarfs even the new Pac-15, not just in TV revenue, but in talent.

Even before expansion talk hit, conference officials expected Big Ten Network revenues to double over the next decade.  Sure, the Pac-10 might be able to offer $20 million–maybe, in a few years, down the road–but by joining the Big Ten, Texas could be looking at more than $40 a year by 2016!

That’s not even considering the college football fans all across the country who would buy in to the BTN just for the opportunity to watch the titans of the sport play on a weekly basis.  And once you’ve got close to 100 million households nationwide on the BTN, the Big Ten would have the chance to force even more money out of ESPN.  And if you’re ESPN, how could you pass up on the chance to broadcast some epic matchups? Texas-Ohio State is a national championship game, not a 3:30 start.  But in this scenario, it’s happening every week.  Penn State-Nebraska.  Rutgers-Michigan.  My pants just got tight imaging that.  Well, maybe not that last one.

Texas had been talking of starting up their own network–Longhorn TV–long before this revelation, because even though they’d earned the lions’ share of television revenue from the Big XII in its weighted sharing system, it still amounts to just over $10 million dollars.  Why go through the hassle when you’ve got the BTN waiting for you?  The same conundrum arises with this proposed Pac-10 Network–there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done, and, should things fall through, the members of the conference are only making between $8 and $10 million on their current TV deals.  Sure, adding all these teams would provide a boost, but not one as influential to any school’s bottom line as joining the Big Ten.

http://images.chron.com/blogs/sportsjustice/archives/young.jpgSo what would Texas even have to lose?  Sure, they’re a team that likes to schedule soft, and since they’d undoubtedly want to keep their rivalries going with Oklahoma and Texas A&M, it would mean sacrificing two out-of-conference matchups to keep the Red River Shootout a yearly tradition.  It’s also possible that the Big Ten would be forced, by the state of Texas, to bring A&M along for the ride.  Either way, Texas still comes out ahead by joining the Big Ten.

Or maybe Texas would just have to lose a rivalry–it happens.  I hate to bring up the example, but Penn State hasn’t played Pitt in a decade, and the world has gone on.  In the above article, it was suggested that Texas A&M had been approached by the SEC, which would, in effect, force Texas into the exact same boat they’d be in by joining the Big Ten.  So if you want to make the case that Texas would sacrifice the opportunity to be in the Big Ten because it would mean losing their in-state rivals, I wouldn’t be so sure.

Texas has always dodged SEC rumors by claiming the importance of academics. The US News and World Review ranks UT-Austin 47th, tied with our humble college in that regard.  While the Pac-10 boasts some solid institutions, in Stanford, as well as Cal, UCLA, and USC, the fact is that no other athletic conference operates such a powerful academic consortium as the Big Ten.  The Committee on Institutional Cooperation not only includes the Big Ten, with such prestigious universities as Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, but the University of Chicago as well, and the ability to share resources would open up Texas to even greater research opportunities.

Now, this rumor may well have legs.  The Big XII Commissioner, Dan Beebe, canceled his scheduled press conference at this week’s conference meeting,  probably so that he can verify these rumors before taking questions about them.  The Pac-10 may well have made the first move in conference expansion, and there’s no doubt they came out swinging.  They wanted to “revolutionize college athletics” and should this punch land, they’ll have done just that.   And we’d see the Big Ten picking at the remnants–Missouri, Nebraska, rather than devouring the Big East whole.

But when it comes to Texas, well, they’re just as likely to whiff.  If Texas is going anywhere, it should be North, not West.

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