Interesting take from Kevin Sherrington in Dallas Morning News today:
Now that Bob Bowlsby has gone Network and essentially declared he’s not going to take ESPN’s money anymore, a ploy sure to play well in Waco and Lubbock and Lawrence and Ames, the question remains:
If the Big 12 is to survive long term, who’ll pay for it once its media contracts are up in 2025? Fox? CBS? Amazon? Hulu?
Because as fun as it was to see ESPN called out for its excesses, you’ve still got to pay the bills. The unholy partnership has always necessitated a certain quid pro quo. Like when ESPN made the Big 12 take West Virginia over Louisville. Or told Boston College to block UConn’s move to the ACC. This is the way TV suits do business. The mafia isn’t a silent partner, either.
Of course, encouraging the American Athletic Conference to poach Big 12 members in an effort to hasten its demise — thus freeing Texas and Oklahoma to join the SEC sooner, and without $80 million in penalties — is downright diabolical. Bowlsby minced no words in spelling out exactly those charges.
My favorite: “articulation of deception.” Sounds like ‘50s film noir.
ESPN issued a second round of denials Thursday, this one only a bit more illuminating than the last.
Given that former ESPN President John Skipper told Dan Le Batard and Friends it was a “logical sequence of events” to assume that ESPN was smack-dab in the middle of the Texas/OU move to the SEC, I’m fairly certain Bowlsby could back up his claims, if not in a court of law, certainly in the court of public opinion.
But can he win on a football field?
If his endgame here is to play to the masses, well, he could probably get elected king of college football, at least everywhere but the Deep South. College football fans in general are disillusioned with ESPN, mostly for its perceived SEC favoritism. You could argue the validity of those claims, but it compromises your case when you allegedly incentivize a league to kneecap a rival.
Ben Koo, owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing, has been tracking fan resentment of ESPN for years. In 2019, he wrote that it could even inform Fox’s strategy as it tries to grab a bigger piece of the college pie.
With Fox’s influence in college football snowballing, ESPN for the first time must deal with the reality that their tight grip over college football has loosened to the point where Fox has a viable, albeit outside, shot of overtaking them (particularly in some specific areas) in the next decade. I’m not sold such a changing of the guard is realistic or would be good for the sport, but this has been one of the hardest-fought fronts in ESPN’s history. And it seems like we’re early on in an escalating turf war for America’s most tribal sports fans.
Given Koo’s two-year old take, I asked him Thursday if he thought Fox might be ready to move from semi-partner to full-blown media rep of the Big 12 once ESPN is out, and if that assurance might have emboldened Bowlsby.
“My thinking is that Bowlsby doesn’t have anything in his back pocket,” Koo said. “I think if Fox was really smitten with the Big 12, they would have pushed the league to expand or would have kept the conference championship game, which they moved on from. I don’t think they have anything really set up, so they’re just really trying to have this play out as much as possible, hoping for a better outcome rather than letting ESPN have its way.
“I think it’s the right call and maybe the only card to play here.”
No, it doesn’t seem like Fox would have much interest in a Big 12 minus Texas and OU. But what’s a “better outcome” for the Big 12 at this point? Force Texas and OU to stick it out for four more seasons? Let them go but hang together, allowing the leftovers to keep the defectors’ grant of right money? Add a couple of schools to enhance dwindling prospects for long-term viability?
Hard to plan a future with such uncertain financial stability. Without Texas and OU, the Big 12 is a mirror image of the AAC. Maybe not even that attractive. Maybe Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Kansas would reach the same conclusion. They could join a league that not only has a contract with ESPN through 2031, it might pay a premium for 16 teams.
Not even a premium would pay former Big 12 members as much as they’ve made and are entitled to through the ‘24 football season. But once that deal’s up, who’s paying them next?
Not ESPN, that’s for sure.
Maybe Bowlsby ratted everybody out so fans would know the good guys from the bad. Mike Aresco, the AAC commissioner, gets a bad rep if he was doing ESPN’s bidding. Then again, it’s not as if the Big 12 isn’t above poaching a few AAC members.
The moral is, there’s no honor among thieves or commissioners. Greg Sankey, the SEC boss, worked alongside Bowlsby on a four-person committee that studied and recommended a 12-team playoff, hoping to get it implemented before the College Football Playoff contract is up in 2025. All the while, Sankey was picking Bowlsby’s pocket.
Not only did Bowlsby go public with his outrage, so did the Pac-12′s new commissioner. George Kliavkoff told The Athletic that, in effect, Sankey’s duplicity makes the advent of expanded playoffs before 2025 a non-starter.
Think of it like this: The selling point was to open the playoffs to more leagues, and now everyone knows that Sankey was improving his odds on the sly and trying to get it approved before anyone found out.
In case you were still wondering, there’s no such thing as collegiality in college athletics. Maybe there never really was. Officials made certain of it, though, when they sold out to TV. Swim with sharks long enough, you’re bound to end up dinner.
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/t...nvite-texas-and-oklahoma-into-the-conference/
Now that Bob Bowlsby has gone Network and essentially declared he’s not going to take ESPN’s money anymore, a ploy sure to play well in Waco and Lubbock and Lawrence and Ames, the question remains:
If the Big 12 is to survive long term, who’ll pay for it once its media contracts are up in 2025? Fox? CBS? Amazon? Hulu?
Because as fun as it was to see ESPN called out for its excesses, you’ve still got to pay the bills. The unholy partnership has always necessitated a certain quid pro quo. Like when ESPN made the Big 12 take West Virginia over Louisville. Or told Boston College to block UConn’s move to the ACC. This is the way TV suits do business. The mafia isn’t a silent partner, either.
Of course, encouraging the American Athletic Conference to poach Big 12 members in an effort to hasten its demise — thus freeing Texas and Oklahoma to join the SEC sooner, and without $80 million in penalties — is downright diabolical. Bowlsby minced no words in spelling out exactly those charges.
My favorite: “articulation of deception.” Sounds like ‘50s film noir.
ESPN issued a second round of denials Thursday, this one only a bit more illuminating than the last.
Given that former ESPN President John Skipper told Dan Le Batard and Friends it was a “logical sequence of events” to assume that ESPN was smack-dab in the middle of the Texas/OU move to the SEC, I’m fairly certain Bowlsby could back up his claims, if not in a court of law, certainly in the court of public opinion.
But can he win on a football field?
If his endgame here is to play to the masses, well, he could probably get elected king of college football, at least everywhere but the Deep South. College football fans in general are disillusioned with ESPN, mostly for its perceived SEC favoritism. You could argue the validity of those claims, but it compromises your case when you allegedly incentivize a league to kneecap a rival.
Ben Koo, owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing, has been tracking fan resentment of ESPN for years. In 2019, he wrote that it could even inform Fox’s strategy as it tries to grab a bigger piece of the college pie.
With Fox’s influence in college football snowballing, ESPN for the first time must deal with the reality that their tight grip over college football has loosened to the point where Fox has a viable, albeit outside, shot of overtaking them (particularly in some specific areas) in the next decade. I’m not sold such a changing of the guard is realistic or would be good for the sport, but this has been one of the hardest-fought fronts in ESPN’s history. And it seems like we’re early on in an escalating turf war for America’s most tribal sports fans.
Given Koo’s two-year old take, I asked him Thursday if he thought Fox might be ready to move from semi-partner to full-blown media rep of the Big 12 once ESPN is out, and if that assurance might have emboldened Bowlsby.
“My thinking is that Bowlsby doesn’t have anything in his back pocket,” Koo said. “I think if Fox was really smitten with the Big 12, they would have pushed the league to expand or would have kept the conference championship game, which they moved on from. I don’t think they have anything really set up, so they’re just really trying to have this play out as much as possible, hoping for a better outcome rather than letting ESPN have its way.
“I think it’s the right call and maybe the only card to play here.”
No, it doesn’t seem like Fox would have much interest in a Big 12 minus Texas and OU. But what’s a “better outcome” for the Big 12 at this point? Force Texas and OU to stick it out for four more seasons? Let them go but hang together, allowing the leftovers to keep the defectors’ grant of right money? Add a couple of schools to enhance dwindling prospects for long-term viability?
Hard to plan a future with such uncertain financial stability. Without Texas and OU, the Big 12 is a mirror image of the AAC. Maybe not even that attractive. Maybe Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Kansas would reach the same conclusion. They could join a league that not only has a contract with ESPN through 2031, it might pay a premium for 16 teams.
Not even a premium would pay former Big 12 members as much as they’ve made and are entitled to through the ‘24 football season. But once that deal’s up, who’s paying them next?
Not ESPN, that’s for sure.
Maybe Bowlsby ratted everybody out so fans would know the good guys from the bad. Mike Aresco, the AAC commissioner, gets a bad rep if he was doing ESPN’s bidding. Then again, it’s not as if the Big 12 isn’t above poaching a few AAC members.
The moral is, there’s no honor among thieves or commissioners. Greg Sankey, the SEC boss, worked alongside Bowlsby on a four-person committee that studied and recommended a 12-team playoff, hoping to get it implemented before the College Football Playoff contract is up in 2025. All the while, Sankey was picking Bowlsby’s pocket.
Not only did Bowlsby go public with his outrage, so did the Pac-12′s new commissioner. George Kliavkoff told The Athletic that, in effect, Sankey’s duplicity makes the advent of expanded playoffs before 2025 a non-starter.
Think of it like this: The selling point was to open the playoffs to more leagues, and now everyone knows that Sankey was improving his odds on the sly and trying to get it approved before anyone found out.
In case you were still wondering, there’s no such thing as collegiality in college athletics. Maybe there never really was. Officials made certain of it, though, when they sold out to TV. Swim with sharks long enough, you’re bound to end up dinner.
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/t...nvite-texas-and-oklahoma-into-the-conference/
