New article from Washington Post

[Hoya]

A good look at Georgetown's history with the Big East and how we see the conference moving forward. Of particular note to fans here was this:

DeGioia is tight-lipped about the contours of the conference that’s taking shape, acknowledging that it likely will consist of 12 members though may expand to 10 initially. According to others close to the process, the three to five new members need not be Catholic schools. And though its boundaries may extend west of the Mississippi, some “geographical coherence” is expected.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/co ... ory_3.html

[yorost]

They will also have to agree to surrender their media rights to the conference for a significant number of years — possibly the life of the league’s first TV contract, whether that’s five, seven or 10 years. The Big East’s failure to extract such a commitment, as the Pacific-12 Conference did of its members before signing its recent TV deal, proved the league’s Achilles’ heel. Football-playing Big East schools pledged allegiance to the Big East one day, then bolted for a richer league the next — the $10 million “exit fee” amounting to small change compared with the riches dangled by the ACC, Big Ten and Big 12.

That is an interesting development, if true.

[Moliva]

^^Please explain what that means to the ignorant among us.

[Edrick]

It means the League handles all levels of distribution not the individual schools (sort of the opposite of Boise State's MWC deal). The policy is less flexible to the schools (especially locally) but is a large reason the league will be able to draw such a comparatively large total of money.

[yorost]

The Big 12, B1G, and Pac-12 all have some form of a grant of rights agreement. The Big East did not. If you leave with that in place, the new conference can't sell your media. It's one sentence, so what it really entails who knows. It's just an interesting mention since it makes the conference look more all-in for the bigger name schools.

If our new conference had it Georgetown would have a much harder time leaving were the ACC to came calling. It's a sign of stability, so long as no conference has theirs shot down in court.

[podcast411]

It also means you give up your media rights for the period of the contract regardless of what league you go to. So say for example a team was to leave and join the ACC - their media rights would still remain with the new C7/12 league. This makes you unattractive to any other conferences during that period of the contract. The Big 12 put this in place after MU and Texas A&M left - this agreement helped them secure a very lucrative TV contract and is why they went from almost falling apart to now one of the top 3 conferences stability wise.

[Eight Legger]

I would assume that it means if you're in the C7 and the new TV contract is for, say, 10 years at $3M per year per school and you leave after 3 years, you owe the league either $21M – or possibly your full share of TV money from whatever new league you go to for the next 7 years if that is greater than $21M.

They're trying to guard against signing a big 10-year TV deal then watching a few of the key teams exit after a couple years for more money elsewhere, thereby rendering the contract either void or less valuable.

[yorost]

I would assume that it means if you're in the C7 and the new TV contract is for, say, 10 years at $3M per year per school and you leave after 3 years, you owe the league either $21M – or possibly your full share of TV money from whatever new league you go to for the next 7 years if that is greater than $21M.

Effectively, something like that, but they're technically different as I understand it. The new conference just doesn't have the right to sell your school's media rights, while the old conference does. I suppose it could make both conferences and the school loser's in a switch. The school no longer gets media money. The new conference doesn't get anything but an extra mouth to feed. The old conference would probably still need to renegotiate a media deal since the in conference is presumably devalued.and who knows what value an out of conference and non-cooperative school retains.

I kind of hope one of the FBS schools test it just to see what happens.

I've also read that existing grant of rights don't cover all media rights, just the most valuable ones the conferences negotiate with. A grant of rights with no other information could be anywhere from a slap on the wrist to excessive punishment. The point seems to be having them in the excessive range.

[Dew]

Is there really a risk of one of the C7 bolting to another league? If that is the point of assigning media rights to the conference doesn't that imply there is a risk?

[yorost]

There's always a risk, even the B1G has talked about protecting Penn State.