whammer33024
Well-Known Member
such as?
Miller: Dollars and Sense of Big 10 Expansion
- Thread starter JonDMiller
- Start date
SDK46
Well-Known Member
olivecourt
Well-Known Member
Great write-up, Jon. Two questions: First, will the Big Ten Network go right into the basic package everywhere they expand, or will there be another series of fights with cable operators? That's my hesitation with Maryland... yes, there are tons of TVs there, but how many of them really care enough about Maryland sports to pressure their cable companies to add BTN? Tons of eyeballs, but you're fighting with the Redskins/Ravens, Orioles/Nationals, Georgetown basketball, Caps hockey, etc. Let me know if this has already been resolved... I sort of tuned out the BTN soap opera after awhile.
Second, why, given this criteria, would the Big Ten even think of inviting Nebraska? They would contribute very little in the way of TV revenue but still get 1/14 or 1/16 or whatever. Sure, you could say the same about Iowa, but that's exactly why I think Barta and Mason would be wary of letting the Huskers in. We've got a great thing going with a small population but huge revenues. Do we want to compete and share with another school that has the same profile?
Second, why, given this criteria, would the Big Ten even think of inviting Nebraska? They would contribute very little in the way of TV revenue but still get 1/14 or 1/16 or whatever. Sure, you could say the same about Iowa, but that's exactly why I think Barta and Mason would be wary of letting the Huskers in. We've got a great thing going with a small population but huge revenues. Do we want to compete and share with another school that has the same profile?
homes
Well-Known Member
What's with your infatuation with all things "red" anyway? So Iowa plays Nebraska. BFD. There's no justifiable reason they don't play each other now, if it was that critical. It's not, so they don't. I've always respected and admired Nebraska's football program; I guess I have to hate them now? I've never felt the need to settle any score with Nebraska. They've had good football teams over the years, but they've always just been this school in the Big 12 (8) that I've never been that concerned about. Needing to play Nebraska smacks of a bit of an inferiority complex that some Hawkeye fans must have, a sentiment I do not share.
I realize expansion is going to happen, but, personally, I'm not in favor of it. Splitting up the schools into these new divisions is very distasteful to me. (Look what it did to the Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry.) I know I'm in the vast minority here. Eventually, I imagine I'll get use to it.
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Ha hah ha hah!! Okay sour puss! The B10 will be national, there are plenty of recruits for everyone. I know I know, when PSU came they thought the same think too. Nebby has more of a natural recruiting base than Iowa right?
When this happens over the long haul, Iowa will be better off. ISU will become even more irrelavant and Iowa will have a even large instate fanbase and with that more contributions, merchandising, etc.
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BLKNGOLD48
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the laugh.
TecmoSuperHawk
Well-Known Member
There will be fights. That's been my caution about adding Rutgers. Everyone assumes they will bring all this money. The reality is they won't bring as much as people think.
Cablevision, Comcast and others that serve the NY, NJ and Philly markets will not just give in and move the BTN to expanded basic cable and start paying out 70 - 80 cents per subscriber. In fact, Philly is already exempt from this, even though they are in the 8 state home footprint.
The Big Ten will probably be lucky to get 40 to 50 cents per subscriber in that market. Remember the YES Network fought heavily for distribution in that market and that was so people could watch the Yankees!
As far as your Nebraska question. Read this, it explains that Nebraska can help drive revenue, mostly through advertising (which this author claims to be more valuable than the subscriber fees) higher than even Notre Dame.
The Value of Expansion Candidates to the Big Ten Network FRANK THE TANK’S SLANT
hawkeyescott
Well-Known Member
Why didn't you just sign up over here as UNIGuy4Cy like at cyclonefanatic? Could it be so your brothers at cyclonefanatic don't see how stupid you are being over here?
Aren't these quotes pretty much the same as what you just wrote: And will it be ND or Nebraska that swallows up the success Iowa has built up over the years?
And this from a thread you started just today:
Iowa/Nebraska - CycloneFanatic
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bws258
Well-Known Member
whammer33024
Well-Known Member
i don't remember any of them being considered to join the big 10?
Obviously, only the football playing Big East members would be attractive to the ACC. The BB-only playing members? Attractive to no one...and will form a bb-only conference, like the A-10.
woodyk1
Well-Known Member
Come on. The ACC has Duke already.
SDK46
Well-Known Member
Correct....my bad...I wasn't clear with my question.
Any expansion (swallowing) into meg-conferences will eventually involve non-FB schools. Just wondering how having two distinct conference line-ups for different sports would work.
I find all this interesting. I'm old enough to appreciate change and how and why it happens. However, somewhere back in my "old school brain" I cannot help but think that we are all whores when it comes to $$$$$. We will go to any extent, use any rationale and forsake what we have held dear in order to justify this change. I'm not saying this is bad...I'm just saying...........
tiggerhawk
Well-Known Member
The fatal flaw in your extended summation of athletic budgets, television markets, etc, Mr Miller, is that the entire analysis seems to rest on assumptions that are lacking seriously in proportion.
Start instead with the most basic, fundamental controlling facts and the most obvious (usually explicitly stated) purposes of the players involved.
1. Most critical, the Big Ten is primarily a consortium of major research universities. It has made in clear repeatedly in the most explicit language that in any expansion the most important, essential criterion would be that a potential candidate for membership would be that it is a major researh university.
2. Mizzou is NOT one. Neither is Nebraska. (Ironically, Iowa State IS). It could not be more of an obvious political fact of life that NEITHER Mizzou or Nebraska will have a political climate any time in the near future where n the state legislature would reverse years of neglect of education (particularly post-secondary ed) to appropriate the billions of dollars necessary to bring either school un to the level of research facilities, programs, capabilities required by the BT of any new member.
3. The very reason why the Big Ten presidents will decide this summer to put possible expansion on their agenda definitely rules out Mizzou or Nebraska--or Syracuse, or Notre Dame, or Boston College, or just about any school not named Rutgers, Pitt or Texas. Necessarily, the BT presidents have remained discreetly silent on the subject of expansion...other than the announcement last Fall that the BT staff was going to gather further info and opinion on expansion, a statement that directly linked the prospect of the BT moving expansion ahead on the timetable because of the likelihood that the scope, scale & pace of federal funding of university-based research will likely accelerate post-passage of national health reform legislation.
One exception to the silence of the BT presidents has been Iowa's own Sally Mason: several months ago she participated in a forum at Penn State as the lone BT president in which BT expansion was debated (the forum subsequently was aired several times on the Penn Status weekly campus programming on BTN). Mason had to be discreet in her remarks, which were mostly generalities--but she made the point that the reason why expansion might be on the agenda soon was the anticipated significant increase in federal funding, and the understandable priority of the BT to position itself as favorably as it could both as a whole and as individual institutions in the competition for the greater federal contracts, grants, etc.
4. The huge sums of money you mention is TV & media contracts attendance, bowls, etc are significant, dwarf our imaginations...But they need to be viewed in accurate PERSPECTIVE.
A. The athletic budget at NO Big Ten school is much more than five percent--1/20th--of the total budget. It is about ten percent--1/10th--of the research budgeting. At out own U of Iowa, this past fiscal year, THREE researchers at the U of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics together brought in more funding than the ENTIRE athletic dept budget.
B. The essence, the far & away most significant amount you are referencing in regard to BT athletics, is the less than a quarter-billion dollars in television revenue shared by the Big Ten schools. That is a lot of moolah, no question about it. But again, PERSPECTIVE: that is about five percent--1/20th--of the research funds coming now to the BT & its member schools. It is about five percent--1/20th--of what the Big Ten hopes to receive as a lion's share of increased federal funding of university-based research.
C. However fascinating internet folk and the media find those large $$$$$$ of TV money for football, bowls, conference & NCAA hoops games & tournaments, etc...it nonetheless ought to be evident to anyone who glances at the comparative numbers to understand why the Big Ten is more interested (as example) the potential funds that Pitt, with its strong medical facilities, research capabilities, patents & contracts can bring to the BT consortium than a possibly more lucrative TV contract resulting from adding Nebraska.
It is the difference between millions of dollars, and billions of dollars. It is the difference between vast gains in the academic & research capabilities of the BT and its member schools--AND the greater prestige and access to further foundation, corporate & govt financial support that results--compared to some marginal improvement in its competitive situation relative to other athletic conferences.
Not suggesting that a forum like this whose purpose is to enhance our discussions of Hawkeye athletics ought to cvoncern itself instead with academic & research aspects of the U of Iowa...just that we should conduct our debates with an awareness of what the real parameters of Hawkeye sports are. And that means IMO as the absolute minimum a proud awareness of just how unique and dominant the Big Ten is compared with other merely-athletic conferences.
Start instead with the most basic, fundamental controlling facts and the most obvious (usually explicitly stated) purposes of the players involved.
1. Most critical, the Big Ten is primarily a consortium of major research universities. It has made in clear repeatedly in the most explicit language that in any expansion the most important, essential criterion would be that a potential candidate for membership would be that it is a major researh university.
2. Mizzou is NOT one. Neither is Nebraska. (Ironically, Iowa State IS). It could not be more of an obvious political fact of life that NEITHER Mizzou or Nebraska will have a political climate any time in the near future where n the state legislature would reverse years of neglect of education (particularly post-secondary ed) to appropriate the billions of dollars necessary to bring either school un to the level of research facilities, programs, capabilities required by the BT of any new member.
3. The very reason why the Big Ten presidents will decide this summer to put possible expansion on their agenda definitely rules out Mizzou or Nebraska--or Syracuse, or Notre Dame, or Boston College, or just about any school not named Rutgers, Pitt or Texas. Necessarily, the BT presidents have remained discreetly silent on the subject of expansion...other than the announcement last Fall that the BT staff was going to gather further info and opinion on expansion, a statement that directly linked the prospect of the BT moving expansion ahead on the timetable because of the likelihood that the scope, scale & pace of federal funding of university-based research will likely accelerate post-passage of national health reform legislation.
One exception to the silence of the BT presidents has been Iowa's own Sally Mason: several months ago she participated in a forum at Penn State as the lone BT president in which BT expansion was debated (the forum subsequently was aired several times on the Penn Status weekly campus programming on BTN). Mason had to be discreet in her remarks, which were mostly generalities--but she made the point that the reason why expansion might be on the agenda soon was the anticipated significant increase in federal funding, and the understandable priority of the BT to position itself as favorably as it could both as a whole and as individual institutions in the competition for the greater federal contracts, grants, etc.
4. The huge sums of money you mention is TV & media contracts attendance, bowls, etc are significant, dwarf our imaginations...But they need to be viewed in accurate PERSPECTIVE.
A. The athletic budget at NO Big Ten school is much more than five percent--1/20th--of the total budget. It is about ten percent--1/10th--of the research budgeting. At out own U of Iowa, this past fiscal year, THREE researchers at the U of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics together brought in more funding than the ENTIRE athletic dept budget.
B. The essence, the far & away most significant amount you are referencing in regard to BT athletics, is the less than a quarter-billion dollars in television revenue shared by the Big Ten schools. That is a lot of moolah, no question about it. But again, PERSPECTIVE: that is about five percent--1/20th--of the research funds coming now to the BT & its member schools. It is about five percent--1/20th--of what the Big Ten hopes to receive as a lion's share of increased federal funding of university-based research.
C. However fascinating internet folk and the media find those large $$$$$$ of TV money for football, bowls, conference & NCAA hoops games & tournaments, etc...it nonetheless ought to be evident to anyone who glances at the comparative numbers to understand why the Big Ten is more interested (as example) the potential funds that Pitt, with its strong medical facilities, research capabilities, patents & contracts can bring to the BT consortium than a possibly more lucrative TV contract resulting from adding Nebraska.
It is the difference between millions of dollars, and billions of dollars. It is the difference between vast gains in the academic & research capabilities of the BT and its member schools--AND the greater prestige and access to further foundation, corporate & govt financial support that results--compared to some marginal improvement in its competitive situation relative to other athletic conferences.
Not suggesting that a forum like this whose purpose is to enhance our discussions of Hawkeye athletics ought to cvoncern itself instead with academic & research aspects of the U of Iowa...just that we should conduct our debates with an awareness of what the real parameters of Hawkeye sports are. And that means IMO as the absolute minimum a proud awareness of just how unique and dominant the Big Ten is compared with other merely-athletic conferences.
I've tried to state the academic side of this expansion thing before
but this does a much better job than I did.
However, I expect no one or not many will truly understand it.
Let me simplify:
athletic $ = spam
academic $ = filet mignon
athletic success of candidates will be a factor but will
be waaaay down the list.
