The Big 10 and the myth of the money. This is just a list of ideas and possibilities, I’m not going to say this is concrete or inevitable; I just want to address the ppl who act like all that glitters is gold. The Big 10 offers amazing incentives, but there is a price to all of them. That is the meaning of this thread. This will be predominantly about money, I don’t want it to get too lengthy. We all know the ramifications to other sports. We know about the weather, the loss of Conference Championship games in Texas, driving to road games, loss of state rivalries, and the unending loss of things we take for granted that will be lost with a move to the Big 10. We don’t play hockey and such, the big 12 is a powerhouse in other sports like track, swimming, golf, tennis, baseball, etc… So on to the money. The 10 million dollar question – Other TV possibilities – First an foremost when looking at this 10 million in TV revenue, in order for this to be an asset we must assume that the Big 12 network is an impossibility or that that it will be a failure, we must also assume that no TV network will work a deal with the Big 12 and increase the revenue to the conference. Let me remind you that this flies in the face of the fact that the SEC and Big 10 had similar or lower paying contracts than the Big 12 before their deals were reworked. This wasn’t the stone ages, but more like 2-3 years ago. TV ratings misconception – Population = ratings. This is tantamount to saying that by being tall you are automatically going to be a great basketball player. You really need to understand viewer demographics to understand this. The Big East (football only) has the largest population base, it’s actually a lot bigger than even the Big 10, yet their TV deal is one of the worst. In spite of the fact that they have a 20 team conference in basketball and have one of the best contracts for BB, when you add it to their awful football TV contract, they bring in near the least all the BCS conferences. You really need to understand that a UT – Texas Tech game might get a higher rating in Chicago than a Northwestern – Indiana game. It is about matchups. If you can accept this you will start to understand why the highest rated regular season game in 2008 was the Texas – Texas Tech game, the year before the highest rated game was the Kansas – Missouri game. You see TV watching doesn’t begin and end with magical state boundary lines that cover this country. People suddenly don’t just stop watching Texas because they aren’t in the state. I have to hammer it home that a team like Alabama with a population of 4 million is a ratings king while Syracuse and the 19 million people in NY are not. Nebraska with a measly population base of 1.8 million is in the top 10 in ratings every year, how is that possible? Maybe the fact that Nebraska has more national championships in the last 20 years than the entire Big 10 has something to do with it. Viewer demographics are the key, I need to say it over and over, forget population. Nebraska, Texas, and OU are every bit the national players that OSU, Michigan, and Penn St. are. The Big 12 has a very strong brand, and it’s a very large leap to say we can’t work a great TV contract. ESPN, CBS, NBC, and Fox have room and would all love a shot at us. To say that there isn’t any room is ridiculous. ESPN air the SEC games over 3 channels, yes ESPN has more than one channel. NBC air I believe only home ND games. If there are 3 spots a day, and they only use 1 every 2 weeks that would leave 5. What is there to say about Fox, or the myriad of other cable networks? There is no Big 12 network in existence I’m sure we can find room for our games on this completely new network. All the odds that face us now were the same when the Big 10 created its network. The Big 10 network was the biggest gamble of three TV possibilities yet they did it and are reaping the benefits.10 million dollars to cover travel costs – Travel costs would be negligible… Not so fast my friend. Lets take a look at Football alone and ignore the other 18 or so athletic sports that The University of Texas offers. First of all, lets get some obvious facts that some people skip over or flat out don’t know. Its cheaper to drive than fly I think we can all accept this. However one thing about our flights that we don’t’ realize is the total cost and how we arrive at those costs. First of all The University of Texas chartered 20 flights last year, and each of those charter flights cost were calculated on a per hour basis. Meaning that if it takes 39 minuets to fly to Dallas and 4 hours and 20 minutes to State College, we can figure out that the State College Charter will cost 666% more than the flight to Dallas. Let me explain this to you and you don’t have to trust me you can look anywhere on the internet, ask any travel agent, or anyone who has booked a charter flight, they charge by the hour, that is a fact. Sorry people “Frank the Tank” isn’t as informed as his name would lead you to believe. For example, tOSU chartered 2 flights to fly its football team and entourage to LA for the USC game, the two flights totaled $346,000. That’s not negligible… The Link According to my calculations, the distances to the 11 Big 12 schools are on average a flight distance of 509 miles. The 11 Big 10 schools are on average a distance of 1016 miles. So you can see the mileage distance is virtually double what we currently fly. That would mean double the hourly rate and double the time spent in the air. In addition to this we would have 2 extra flights a year seeing that we don’t even fly to Waco or College Station, we would be forced to fly to every Big 10 game. Considering flights, hotels, and meals, it could be an additional $500,000 to one million dollars in savings every year, for those two games alone. Since the mileage would double, one could make the assertion that that the travel costs would double from the 6.99 million we currently spend to almost 14 million dollars. I wont say that it will, but it its certainly possible, especially when you consider these facts. For the flights that we try to save money by flying commercial, the cost of fuel goes up every year. Austin Bergstrom International Airport does not have direct service to a single Big 10 city, save Chicago. Let me reiterate, there are nonstop flights to only one city in the Big 10. When you add in stops you add in time, and all the sudden your 4 hour 20 minute flight to State College just turned into 8-12 hours because of that layover. Now instead of spending one day you are spending 3. Charge up the card for the hotel and food, and tell your students they can forget about class/work/etc. Check Expedia, flight times average about 8-12 hours for Penn. Think about this, Bill Byrne of A&M was quoted as saying “During a recent women's basketball midweek conference road game, the total expense for a charter flight, hotel, and meals was almost $49,000. If we had flown commercial, it would have cost about $20,000, but our athletes would have missed three days of class instead of one day when chartering.” That’s 49,000 for a single in-conference women’s basketball game. What about Baseball, Softball, Mens BBall, and the countless others? Is it not conceivable that the majority of the 10 million dollars would be consumed by travel costs alone? The Link THE CIC The CIC and its grants that most assuredly will go to Texas Football research – j/k The CIC is perhaps the best reason to join the Big 10, but far and away the most misunderstood. The way the CIC is funded is about as understood as how the Federal Reserve is run. I just want to say for the record that joining the CIC would be a dream for Texas, a dream in every way. I have nothing but respect for Big 10 academics and believe that the first and foremost goal of a University is education and research. The research that is put out by the CIC helps Americans and the people of the world every day by enriching their lives through advancement of technology and knowledge. But lets get to the reality of the money. It is said that 6 billion dollars according to the CIC website, is grated to them in research dollars, and 3.5 billion of those dollars come from the Federal Government. Their website also claims that 12% of all federal dollars go to these 12 schools(remember U of C) and the rest is divided up among the other schools of the country. That is an impressive stat, and humbling at first glance. When we acknowledge the fact that 15% of all PhDs granted in the country are granted by the Big 10 we begin to realize that the money is not so disproportionate. Meaning it’s not like the unity of the CIC grants them dollars that they do not deserve. If in fact they are granting the most doctorates and doing the most research than in fact they deserve that money. There is no direct evidence to the idea that CIC Universities receive additional grants merely for existing. That is to say Michigan receives roughly the same amount of federal funding regardless of whether it is a CIC member or not. The Link The value of the CIC lies not with this mythical grab bag of federal money, but in the cooperation of its members. If you read this history of the CIC written by Herman Wells former Chancellor of Indiana, you will see exactly what I am talking about. Nowhere in this document is a claim that the CIC will get a certain amount of discretionary money to do with as they please. They specifically claim in this and in other areas of their own website that collaboration is the goal and the value of the CIC. The primary goal is to advance learning through “sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs.” Not through gaining large amounts of Federal dollars. This is not to say that the CIC doesn’t have grant advantages. If a member institution is competing for a similar grant of another institution outside the CIC, the abundant resources and sharing of knowledge might put them over the edge and win the grant in the end. However in the end, that scenario and its money are infinitesimal. Shared purchasing through member colaboration is the foremost monetary benefit that saves Big 10 schools money, not some secret government slush fund. The Link The idea that Penn St. receives money with no stipulations and that this money is granted to them merely for being a CIC member is absolutely 100% not true. I used to work with grant writers as a grant specialist myself. Let me make this clear, a grant writer or teams of writers may take months to write a specific grant where all aspects of the money and its use are described. If Penn St. is given a million dollar grant, generally around 500,000 will be used by the institution and the other half will be used specifically for research that has been described in the grant. When the Federal government gives you money they want results and I can guarantee you for every dollar dispersed there are 10 people checking on how it is being used and telling you what you can and can’t do with it, that my friends is called over head. We are all about bureaucracy. I suppose it’s the half that the University takes that some believe is going to create new gleaming towers of gold and produce new football stadiums, let me tell you that is a pipe dream. The vast majority of that money goes to infrastructure, while some in the end can be spread around and used at the universities discretion this is very small in relation to the total. At The University of Texas, Kevin Haggerty, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for UT has stated, “indirect cost funds [from research] are used to cover all of the infrastructure costs associated with the conduct of the research, that is, debt service on research facilities, repair and renovation, utilities, libraries, administration, accounting, purchasing, environmental health and safety, compliance, etc.” There is no pot of money. This is the big misconception I keep hearing. The CIC receives 3.5 billion Federal dollars a year and that divided by each intuition is $291 million. Therefore Texas is going to get an additional $291 million or whatever number they have concocted in their mind, its usually around $500 million. This is poppycock, nonsense, foolishness, baloney, gobbledygook, hogwash, and just plain not true. The rationalization and logic used to push this idea is just silly. 500 million? Why? What is the basis? Maybe it’s the super CIC grant that you receive at the initiation ritual… Federal money is dispersed through grants not at the whims of Internet posters. This is in relation to Federal dollars. Now I’m not going to sit here and tell you that private funds at times don’t get shifted to places the really don’t deserve them and that the home team sometimes gets more than its fair share of the spoils however, there is not a shred of concrete evidence to prove it. Furthermore the only kind of favorable private grants granted by patrons of CIC universities surely would go to Texas last. What is the reasoning? I can see a Midwest based company thinking, “We are a Midwest company that wants to see our dollars go back to friends and family of our region, here you go Texas??????” No. Its collaboration, not Federal grant dollars. Its collaboration that is the gold mine of the CIC. There is no pot of gold.
Excellent posts, TJack and Shark. Question, what are UT's approximate revenues for a non-conference game with U LaLa and then the same if we play tOSU?
This is an excellent thread with many great points brought out. I know it is mainly about money but the thing is it would open up even more competition with recruits. The teams that stay in the Big 10 would get exposure playing Texas Tech, Baylor and A&M. By playing us the other Big 10 schools would get exposure and open up even more recruiting competition. We don't need to help the Big 10 with exposure as far as recruiting goes.
The issue that is not raised or discussed by Texas Jack... or Full Flask, or other Big XII proponents is.. why is it in Texas' long term financial, athletic, academic and overall best interest to stay in the Big XII? It would appear as if the Big XII is going to change in some form or fashion. Colorado is already weighing the financial penalties for "early out" to the Pac 10. IF the Big 10 comes calling to Missouri, they will be gone. All that has been written is.. well... the Big XII need to simply get a new television contract.. but.. no specifics are set forth. How is staying in the Big XII academically better for Texas than going to the Big 10/11 and becoming part of the CIC (Keeping in mind that the CIC universities share approximately 80 MILLION volumes of books and learned treatises... Texas alone would add an additional approximate 8 million to that total) Besides saying, "well, we have these great rivalries now and those would be lost" (We dont. We have Baylor, Tech, aggy and OU who we played every year before the Big XII.. and that's it) So... again. why is it in Texas' best interest... financially, athletically, academically and overall.. to remain in the Big XII versus the Pac 10 or Big 10/11...
flood makes a good point here. I am in houston and also already have the BTN. you are assuming a total gain of all texas subscribers, but how many already have the service. I would bet a decent proportion of subscribers already have the service so you won't see as big of an increase as projected.
The best number I can get you is 4MM cable subscribers in 2007 with 18MM in the same service area and general income bracket. That comes from last year's PUC telecom report. The rate of increase has held steady at about 50-60% each year since the late 90s, but was projected by a few other industry sources to slow down. If you cut the lowest rate of increase in half, there are approximately 6MM cable subscribers now. If you assume the lowest historical rate of increase, there are 9MM cable subscribers now.
FullFlask, Your arguments are half-empty Financial- To say that the Big XII will ever equal the Big Ten is WAYYYYYYY off. The Big XII is far behind in the television contract with Texas and an unequal payout favoring Texas; the Big Ten is $10 million ahead without Texas. How far will they be ahead with Texas? The CIC will be very helpful financially and help get the faculty on board. Texas is not like OU ("We want to have a university our football team can be proud of"). We are already a world class university and this just helps that much more. Academics is way ahead for the Big Ten. Fans will not be involved in this decision, because Dodds understands the Big XII is unstable. He and the other powers-that-be will make the best decision for Texas, regardless what the fans want. BIS mentioned that he has concerned about Texas losing recruits. I think it will be just the opposite. We will easily start recruiting nationally and still be able to get all the Texas players we want. OU and A&M will weaken with Texas in the Big Ten. Think about how much better our recruiting got in basketball when we got into the Big XII after the SWC died. It was because Texas was now playing in a good BB conference.
besides, everyone will hate you in the big10 too. the same arguments will be made, you have the richest talent base in teh nation, you make the most money, etc, etc. it's not like you are going to be loved in the big10. some of you went to the tOSU game right?
Kramer has it right. No loyalty to those who show us no loyalty and may have cost us a NC in 2008. Those who say that the Big Ten will hate us are also wrong. Sure they will not like us because we will be routinely beating them, but these are large state schools of high quality. It isn't the penis envy of State, university, money, and prestige that is the case with the Big XII.
I have no problems with fans. They do what they do. It is the stupid ADs and coaches who do whatever they can to keep Texas from succeeding, such as voting us down in polls and helping another conference to succeed over us. In that they are stupid, because if Texas does bolt, they will be a much lower tiered school. The Oklahoma people have it right to be afraid, very afraid.
Great thread guys. I do want to point out that sports like golf, track & field, tennis, swimming & diving, etc...where Texas is strong would really not suffer much by joining the Big 10. These sports play lots of non-conf opponents already and tournament play is common. League schedule may be weaker in the Big 10, but that just means we would have to continue to schedule the top ranked teams in the country for our non-conf schedule. Lots more titles too
The Snake Charmers are the ones who think that the Big XII with 70% the population is going to come up with anywhere close to the same amount that the Big Ten can come up with with Texas in the Big Ten. Again I ask, what is the love affair with the Big XII? Do they have some compromising photos on you guys, or what?
Well something has to be off. Is the $112M/yr correct? Assuming the max subscriber number of 75M and the per subscriber charge of 70 cents, you only get to $52.5M/yr. Trying to understand the discrepancy.
