When that did not age well
Pardon me for not have the foresight in knowing that the Presidents and Chancellors of the Pac12 schools were living in a fantasy land and totally out of touch with reality.
I've stated all along that as the B1G and SEC suck in more and more of the TV broadcast rights $$, there would be less $$ available for the other conferences.
ESPN approached the P12 in extending their contract for around the same amount the B12 ended up getting per school.
That made sense as ESPN already had the South and Texas/Oklahoma locked up with the SEC and ACC, so the P12 offered different markets as opposed to the B12 which overlapped a good bit with the SEC, and to a lesser extent, the ACC.
But the powers that be
rejected that offer and countered with a ludicrous
$50 million per school counter offer.
Even if USC and UCLA had still been in the fold, the P12 would have been lucky to even get close to that no, but without them, no chance they get anywhere near that.
So, ESPN ended up walking away from the table and basically offered the same deal to the B12 schools which they wisely accepted.
If the P12 had accepted that deal (probably would have been able to negotiate a little more $$, maybe $35 million per school), we'd be having a very different discussion with the P12 intact and the B12 scrambling for some kind of deal with Apple, etc.
The B1G had no intention of taking other P12 schools at the time, but once CU bolted with UA having a foot out the door, that's when the B1G reopened talks with Oregon and UDub.
I also stated this...
Both UDub and Oregon are flagship state schools with strong FB programs and local fan bases (unlike BC and GT) and they (on their own) still wouldn't bring in enough revenue w/o having to reduce each slice of the revenue pie.
Schools like UDub and Oregon probably will eventually get an invite b/c USC and UCLA don't want to always be playing the Sat late nite game, and with added WC schools, the B1G can add a revenue stream with a Fri late nite game.
.
The B1G ended up taking UDub and Oregon at heavily reduced shares.
That wouldn't have happened if the P12 had just accepted ESPN's offer.
What's interesting is how much the Domers have been pushing for the ACC to add Stanford and Cal (shows how weak the ACC is when ND, which isn't even a full member, has this much say/sway),
Adding Stanford and Cal (much less SMU) does little, if anything. in making the ACC more attractive to broadcasters/networks, etc.
Sure, by giving up a big chunk or all of its share (in the case of SMU), there will be a short-term financial bump, but not anything that would make up the gap between the B1G/SEC and the ACC.
The reason why the Domers are pushing hard for the Bay area schools is that ESPN has the right to renegotiate its deal with the ACC if the no. of schools fall below a certain amount (think it's 15).
So, if FSU and Clemson at some point decided to go for broke and leave, then the rest of the ACC schools would be in a dire situation.
By adding the Bay area schools, it would help ensure the viability of the ACC and that's what the Domers want - a place to park their Olympic sports and Stanford and Cal are Olympic sports powers.
