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The Elephant In The Concession Stand

Pounder

Active member
Please excuse me as I’m still trying to find more metaphors to mix in here.

But you know what happened. Oregon State and Washington State stopped flailing and locked down four Mountain West schools. They seem to be targeting Memphis and Tulane, and they appear to want UNLV… without Nevada. They’re telling us 9 is good for now.

In response to this, Sacramento has launched an effort to push Sacramento State to the Mountain West… or the new Pac. I didn’t say Sacramento State launched that, the city and other leaders have done that.

Sigh.

It would really be interesting if Portland could fashion a response, and if anything, the MWC needs bigger markets. But crickets.

I’m sitting here partly thinking “c’mon guys, do something.”

But there’s a problem. To be competitive in FBS, you. Need. Money.

The Pac was getting something like $20 million per school per year from TV, made massive mistakes with the Pac-12 Network, wasn’t coming close to getting consistent daytime slots on Saturdays, and that’s a lot of the reason for that realignment mess. Oregon and Washington will get $30 million/year as half-shares in the B1G until the next contract in 7 years. The b12 schools are supposedly getting $30 million a year (but watch that number not grow in seven years). Stanford and Cal are getting partial shares (I think $10 million) from the ACC, with the promise of full shares in 10 years while the future of that conference is in question, except what people are overlooking is that Disney/ESPN is not incentivized to let ACC schools jump to the b12 (to which they have a more than 50% say) and certainly not the SEC (now fully controlled by Disney) where an increase would happen. Not that Florida State and Clemson can spiritually last long there anymore.

The rumor is that the new Pac will get no more than $12 million a year per school, probably $11M. I didn’t think they’d clear $10M, but the credible rumor is starting to hit. The remaining Mountain West… kind of disheartening when you see a couple pundits starting to say that their TV contract would essentially be zero. Heck, I’d think $1.5-2 million (currently $3.5 million, except Boise State gets $5 million), and compare to $800,000 for each Conference USA school, and maybe zero is more metaphoric than actual. But if you’re ready for a shock, price a trip out west right now. Heck, that can’t be a decent balance sheet for Big Sky schools.

Yet if the Montanas are able/want to make the jump, do you wanna be in the Sky?

It’s one thing to wonder what Portland State could be doing. It’s another when I remind some people that when the MWC formed, they landed a contract north of $7 million per school per year. Networks barely want to pay for G5 schools now… will they pay for the MWC? So in the end, it almost seems like the Kobayashi Maru, no? I don’t just mean that for Portland State… I wonder how Sac makes a go of this.
 
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