TMC
2011-10-11 22:02:46 UTC
http://www.cbssports.com/story/15715357/did-espn-fuel-big-easts-demise-you-can-bet-big-east-thinks-so
By Gary Parrish
College Basketball Insider
Oct. 10, 2011Tell Gary your opinion!
PrintEmail a FriendFacebook12Twitter5RSSShareThe ongoing story of
conference realignment has been fascinating to follow because it
changes by the day, because it touches practically every relevant
athletic department on some level, and because it's just plain crazy.
We've already seen the Big 12 remove Dan Beebe as its commissioner,
TCU decide to pay $5 million to leave one league for another league
before it ever even started competing in the previous league, and now
a conference with the words "Big" and "East" in its name has only six
football-playing members and is considering increasing that number by
adding a school with a campus located just a few hundred miles from
the Pacific Ocean.
Seriously.
The whole thing is nuts.
Men who have known each other for decades and labeled themselves
friends have spent months lying to and backstabbing each other, and
they do it with no apologies and few regrets. Everybody is out for
themselves. A kill-or-be-killed mindset has taken over.
The resulting stories have been eye-opening -- none more than a report
in this weekend's Boston Globe that featured the following quote from
Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo on the subject of the
ACC's decision to poach Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East: "We
always keep our television partners close to us. ... TV -- ESPN -- is
the one who told us what to do."
Is this surprising?
Absolutely not -- because there's been speculation for months that the
Big East sealed its fate last May when it rejected a nine-year, $1.4
billion television contract from ESPN. Long story not so long, the Big
East decided it would rather open up bidding to NBC and Fox than
accept that deal from ESPN, meaning the Big East was probably going to
sign a deal with NBC or Fox, meaning NBC or Fox likely was on the
verge of gaining a relevant share of the college sports landscape, and
that's not something ESPN (or anybody in ESPN's position of power)
would have liked.
The only way ESPN could ensure NBC or Fox wouldn't gain a relevant
share of the college sports landscape was to make the Big East
irrelevant, and, in case you haven't heard, the Big East is suddenly
really close to being irrelevant because the ACC took Syracuse and
Pittsburgh to get to 14 members. That led to the Big 12 taking TCU to
get to 10, which could lead to Louisville and West Virginia exiting
the Big East, too.
"ESPN is the one who told us what to do."
Again, those words aren't surprising -- they're just surprising to
hear on the record from an ACC athletic director. Meantime, it should
be noted that ESPN and the ACC have both denied DeFilippo's remarks in
statements to the New York Times, but what else would they do? It's
not like the ACC can say ESPN assured it of a better television
contract if it would take Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East,
and it's not like ESPN can say it stood to benefit in a variety of
ways from the ACC being strengthened at the Big East's expense.
But these two statements cannot be debated:
• There is no denying that the ACC will receive a better television
contract with Syracuse and Pittsburgh involved.
• There's no denying that the Big East being greatly diminished makes
the league less attractive to NBC and Fox.
They're accepted facts.
So did ESPN help destroy the Big East?
I guess I can't say for sure.
But I bet the folks at the Big East office feel that way.
And if they do, well, I think most people could understand why.
http://awfulannouncing.com/2011-articles/october/did-espn-force-accbig-east-realignment.html
Written by Matt Yoder | 11 October 2011
It's impossible for me to view the monopoly ESPN has over the sports
world and the unthinkable amount of money that comes in and out of
Bristol without thinking of Gordon Gekko. As more and more is
revealed about the way ESPN does business at the very top level of the
company, the classic "greed is good" philosophy comes to the
forefront. If one is wary of the evils of big business, perhaps
ESPN's dominance troubles you immensely and you're thinking about the
first steps to Occupy Bristol. If you believe in the virtues of the
capitalist ethic, perhaps you applaud ESPN for successfully building a
multi-billion dollar empire from scratch.
As time goes on though, and reporting gets better about television
rights deals and what happens behind the scenes, we read more and more
stories about the power and infulence of ESPN away from Chris Berman's
annoying schtick, Pardon the Interruption, SportsCenter, and what we
see and hear from ESPN. There's the ESPN that we love as sports fans
in terms of their top notch sports broadcasting. There's the ESPN we
don't love as much with Skip Bayless shouting and Tim Tebow talked
about ad nauseum. Then, there's the corporate ESPN that we just don't
know too much about as sports fans, but are beginning to learn more
about. Networks are becoming increasingly focused on rights deals for
televised sports as prices skyrocket and the value of broadcasting
live sports dramatically increases. The Russian Roulette game of
college football realignment has highlighted the high stakes
involved. That's where perhaps the most alarming example of ESPN's
greed and power was unveiled.
One quote from a Boston Globe story on Boston College and realignment
of the ACC and Big East from BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo has
hit the blogs. In a nutshell, Boston College supposedly blocked UConn
from being one of the new additions to the ACC to protect their New
England turf. (Evidently New England isn't big enough for the both of
them, because, ya know, the Northeastern United States isn't big
enough for the BC and UConn football programs.) One of the best
college football writers, Pete Thamel of the New York Times, also had
the quote and broke down the story:
“We always keep our television partners close to us,” DeFilippo told
The Globe. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent
football money. TV — ESPN — is the one who told us what to do. This
was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.”
There's several levels at play here, but the sentiment that ESPN TOLD
US WHAT TO DO is stunning for an athletic director to admit publicly.
Now, what exactly did ESPN tell BC or the ACC to do? Did they tell
the ACC which teams to poach from which conference? Did they advise
BC to focus on football? Did they simply inform the conference that
football dollars were the major player here... or was there something
a bit more unseemly happening? More from Thamel in the New York
Times:
DeFilippo’s comments give credence to the popular theory that ESPN
encouraged Pittsburgh and Syracuse’s exit from the Big East in the
wake of the Big East’s turning down ESPN’s billion dollar television
deal in May during an exclusive negotiating window. ESPN has a billion
dollar deal with the A.C.C., making that move either savvy business or
collusion, depending on one’s perspective.
The ACC and ESPN both denied the claims of DeFilippo, who obviously
said way too much... but keep in mind this is the same network that
also told us "Bruce has resumed his assignments." Is it too hard to
believe ESPN is instructing conferences on which team to poach? Is it
too hard to believe ESPN is in on all these realignment meetings and
discussions? Is it too hard to believe ESPN and the networks are
moving the chess pieces of realignment around the board...
Duh! Of course not! Follow the money!
Let's be real, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Money runs
everything and ESPN has the most money. Therefore, ESPN has a lot of
power in these negotiations, conflict of interest or possible
collusion be damned. (See: Longhorn Network) I'm no legal expert,
but something doesn't sit well when ESPN has a television contract
with the Big East and the ACC and may or may not be instructing
certain schools to leave one conference for the other.
The departures of Syracuse and Pittsburgh has maybe even set the
wheels of the Big East's demise in motion. Now, TCU isn't coming to
the league after all and is instead going to the Big XII in another
Houdini act of survival from that league. The Big East would
theoretically be down to six football playing schools - West Virginia,
Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville, South Florida, and Connecticut.
Several of those schools are being mentioned as possible recruits for
other conferences. Navy, Air Force, and East Carolina have been
schools tossed out as possible replacements. Basically, the Big
East's football conference may be dying a slow, painful death before
our eyes, and ESPN's money is at the heart of it.
ESPN's influence in NCAA football is perhaps greater than any other
sport. Discussion on the network and hype can drive rankings
positively or negatively. Overwhelming pressure from ESPN in covering
scandals can persuade public opinion for or against a certain school
(ahem... right Ohio State?...). With college football such a
subjective sport, ESPN's driving of the daily conversation is
significant on so many levels.
The element of this story that jumps off the page is the Big East
turning down ESPN's billion dollar deal earlier this year. Ask
yourself, is this scenario imagining an angry ESPN putting their foot
on the throat of the Big East plausible...
1) Big East turns down billion dollar offer from ESPN
2) Big East explores rights deals with other networks
3) ESPN gets mad... really mad
4) ESPN strikes preemptivey to take teams away from the Big East and
move them to the ACC (who they do have a billion dollar TV contract
with)
5) The Big East becomes less attractive to other networks. Therefore,
top caliber live sports are kept off ESPN's competitors
6) ESPN wins another battle in advancing their sports empire
In fact, you can even make the argument that the landscape in college
sports started changing thanks to hardline negotiating by ESPN execs
in the first place. Several years ago, then ESPN Executive VP of
Programming Mark Shapiro lowballed Jim Delany and the Big Ten. Delany
threatened to start his own network. He did. It's been a huge
monetary success. Now, other conferences and even teams are trending
towards that model.
At this point, the major questions of ESPN and their possibly shady
dealings with conferences is largely on the hypothetical level.
Unless we see an e-mail from George Bodenheimer or John Skipper with
the title "Kill Big East Football" or tangible evidence of the like,
then there isn't a true smoking gun. ESPN and the conferences will
deny stories like this and hope athletic directors keep a tighter lid
on what's going on behind the scenes in realignment. However, these
type of questions are only going to increase thanks to ESPN's eroding
trust - see the Longhorn Network, Craig James, Bruce Feldman, etc. It
should concern college football fans that the fate of their team or
their conference may be decided by suits in Bristol, Connecticut.
But, at the end of the day, there's one rule at play in conference
realignment.
Greed is good.
UPDATE: Nothing to see here...
By Gary Parrish
College Basketball Insider
Oct. 10, 2011Tell Gary your opinion!
PrintEmail a FriendFacebook12Twitter5RSSShareThe ongoing story of
conference realignment has been fascinating to follow because it
changes by the day, because it touches practically every relevant
athletic department on some level, and because it's just plain crazy.
We've already seen the Big 12 remove Dan Beebe as its commissioner,
TCU decide to pay $5 million to leave one league for another league
before it ever even started competing in the previous league, and now
a conference with the words "Big" and "East" in its name has only six
football-playing members and is considering increasing that number by
adding a school with a campus located just a few hundred miles from
the Pacific Ocean.
Seriously.
The whole thing is nuts.
Men who have known each other for decades and labeled themselves
friends have spent months lying to and backstabbing each other, and
they do it with no apologies and few regrets. Everybody is out for
themselves. A kill-or-be-killed mindset has taken over.
The resulting stories have been eye-opening -- none more than a report
in this weekend's Boston Globe that featured the following quote from
Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo on the subject of the
ACC's decision to poach Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East: "We
always keep our television partners close to us. ... TV -- ESPN -- is
the one who told us what to do."
Is this surprising?
Absolutely not -- because there's been speculation for months that the
Big East sealed its fate last May when it rejected a nine-year, $1.4
billion television contract from ESPN. Long story not so long, the Big
East decided it would rather open up bidding to NBC and Fox than
accept that deal from ESPN, meaning the Big East was probably going to
sign a deal with NBC or Fox, meaning NBC or Fox likely was on the
verge of gaining a relevant share of the college sports landscape, and
that's not something ESPN (or anybody in ESPN's position of power)
would have liked.
The only way ESPN could ensure NBC or Fox wouldn't gain a relevant
share of the college sports landscape was to make the Big East
irrelevant, and, in case you haven't heard, the Big East is suddenly
really close to being irrelevant because the ACC took Syracuse and
Pittsburgh to get to 14 members. That led to the Big 12 taking TCU to
get to 10, which could lead to Louisville and West Virginia exiting
the Big East, too.
"ESPN is the one who told us what to do."
Again, those words aren't surprising -- they're just surprising to
hear on the record from an ACC athletic director. Meantime, it should
be noted that ESPN and the ACC have both denied DeFilippo's remarks in
statements to the New York Times, but what else would they do? It's
not like the ACC can say ESPN assured it of a better television
contract if it would take Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East,
and it's not like ESPN can say it stood to benefit in a variety of
ways from the ACC being strengthened at the Big East's expense.
But these two statements cannot be debated:
• There is no denying that the ACC will receive a better television
contract with Syracuse and Pittsburgh involved.
• There's no denying that the Big East being greatly diminished makes
the league less attractive to NBC and Fox.
They're accepted facts.
So did ESPN help destroy the Big East?
I guess I can't say for sure.
But I bet the folks at the Big East office feel that way.
And if they do, well, I think most people could understand why.
http://awfulannouncing.com/2011-articles/october/did-espn-force-accbig-east-realignment.html
Written by Matt Yoder | 11 October 2011
It's impossible for me to view the monopoly ESPN has over the sports
world and the unthinkable amount of money that comes in and out of
Bristol without thinking of Gordon Gekko. As more and more is
revealed about the way ESPN does business at the very top level of the
company, the classic "greed is good" philosophy comes to the
forefront. If one is wary of the evils of big business, perhaps
ESPN's dominance troubles you immensely and you're thinking about the
first steps to Occupy Bristol. If you believe in the virtues of the
capitalist ethic, perhaps you applaud ESPN for successfully building a
multi-billion dollar empire from scratch.
As time goes on though, and reporting gets better about television
rights deals and what happens behind the scenes, we read more and more
stories about the power and infulence of ESPN away from Chris Berman's
annoying schtick, Pardon the Interruption, SportsCenter, and what we
see and hear from ESPN. There's the ESPN that we love as sports fans
in terms of their top notch sports broadcasting. There's the ESPN we
don't love as much with Skip Bayless shouting and Tim Tebow talked
about ad nauseum. Then, there's the corporate ESPN that we just don't
know too much about as sports fans, but are beginning to learn more
about. Networks are becoming increasingly focused on rights deals for
televised sports as prices skyrocket and the value of broadcasting
live sports dramatically increases. The Russian Roulette game of
college football realignment has highlighted the high stakes
involved. That's where perhaps the most alarming example of ESPN's
greed and power was unveiled.
One quote from a Boston Globe story on Boston College and realignment
of the ACC and Big East from BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo has
hit the blogs. In a nutshell, Boston College supposedly blocked UConn
from being one of the new additions to the ACC to protect their New
England turf. (Evidently New England isn't big enough for the both of
them, because, ya know, the Northeastern United States isn't big
enough for the BC and UConn football programs.) One of the best
college football writers, Pete Thamel of the New York Times, also had
the quote and broke down the story:
“We always keep our television partners close to us,” DeFilippo told
The Globe. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent
football money. TV — ESPN — is the one who told us what to do. This
was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.”
There's several levels at play here, but the sentiment that ESPN TOLD
US WHAT TO DO is stunning for an athletic director to admit publicly.
Now, what exactly did ESPN tell BC or the ACC to do? Did they tell
the ACC which teams to poach from which conference? Did they advise
BC to focus on football? Did they simply inform the conference that
football dollars were the major player here... or was there something
a bit more unseemly happening? More from Thamel in the New York
Times:
DeFilippo’s comments give credence to the popular theory that ESPN
encouraged Pittsburgh and Syracuse’s exit from the Big East in the
wake of the Big East’s turning down ESPN’s billion dollar television
deal in May during an exclusive negotiating window. ESPN has a billion
dollar deal with the A.C.C., making that move either savvy business or
collusion, depending on one’s perspective.
The ACC and ESPN both denied the claims of DeFilippo, who obviously
said way too much... but keep in mind this is the same network that
also told us "Bruce has resumed his assignments." Is it too hard to
believe ESPN is instructing conferences on which team to poach? Is it
too hard to believe ESPN is in on all these realignment meetings and
discussions? Is it too hard to believe ESPN and the networks are
moving the chess pieces of realignment around the board...
Duh! Of course not! Follow the money!
Let's be real, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Money runs
everything and ESPN has the most money. Therefore, ESPN has a lot of
power in these negotiations, conflict of interest or possible
collusion be damned. (See: Longhorn Network) I'm no legal expert,
but something doesn't sit well when ESPN has a television contract
with the Big East and the ACC and may or may not be instructing
certain schools to leave one conference for the other.
The departures of Syracuse and Pittsburgh has maybe even set the
wheels of the Big East's demise in motion. Now, TCU isn't coming to
the league after all and is instead going to the Big XII in another
Houdini act of survival from that league. The Big East would
theoretically be down to six football playing schools - West Virginia,
Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville, South Florida, and Connecticut.
Several of those schools are being mentioned as possible recruits for
other conferences. Navy, Air Force, and East Carolina have been
schools tossed out as possible replacements. Basically, the Big
East's football conference may be dying a slow, painful death before
our eyes, and ESPN's money is at the heart of it.
ESPN's influence in NCAA football is perhaps greater than any other
sport. Discussion on the network and hype can drive rankings
positively or negatively. Overwhelming pressure from ESPN in covering
scandals can persuade public opinion for or against a certain school
(ahem... right Ohio State?...). With college football such a
subjective sport, ESPN's driving of the daily conversation is
significant on so many levels.
The element of this story that jumps off the page is the Big East
turning down ESPN's billion dollar deal earlier this year. Ask
yourself, is this scenario imagining an angry ESPN putting their foot
on the throat of the Big East plausible...
1) Big East turns down billion dollar offer from ESPN
2) Big East explores rights deals with other networks
3) ESPN gets mad... really mad
4) ESPN strikes preemptivey to take teams away from the Big East and
move them to the ACC (who they do have a billion dollar TV contract
with)
5) The Big East becomes less attractive to other networks. Therefore,
top caliber live sports are kept off ESPN's competitors
6) ESPN wins another battle in advancing their sports empire
In fact, you can even make the argument that the landscape in college
sports started changing thanks to hardline negotiating by ESPN execs
in the first place. Several years ago, then ESPN Executive VP of
Programming Mark Shapiro lowballed Jim Delany and the Big Ten. Delany
threatened to start his own network. He did. It's been a huge
monetary success. Now, other conferences and even teams are trending
towards that model.
At this point, the major questions of ESPN and their possibly shady
dealings with conferences is largely on the hypothetical level.
Unless we see an e-mail from George Bodenheimer or John Skipper with
the title "Kill Big East Football" or tangible evidence of the like,
then there isn't a true smoking gun. ESPN and the conferences will
deny stories like this and hope athletic directors keep a tighter lid
on what's going on behind the scenes in realignment. However, these
type of questions are only going to increase thanks to ESPN's eroding
trust - see the Longhorn Network, Craig James, Bruce Feldman, etc. It
should concern college football fans that the fate of their team or
their conference may be decided by suits in Bristol, Connecticut.
But, at the end of the day, there's one rule at play in conference
realignment.
Greed is good.
UPDATE: Nothing to see here...