Maryland and Rutgers to Big 10?

[DistrictCyclone]

Those are mostly the exception to the rule. By and large money correlates extremely highly to success.

I don't think it's a linear relationship. The teams that have done well with shoestring budgets are exceptions, sure. But look at the Big Ten (and SEC teams like Tennessee); all of them are at the top of the revenue/expenses distribution, and the overwhelming majority of them have sucked *** lately. I think the lesson is that money has diminishing marginal value; it matters up to a certain point, beyond which no amount of money can fix what ails ya.

[DistrictCyclone]

Most powerful as in being the conference that's basically pulling the strings in all the realignment craziness. They make a move and the other conferences have to react to it. More powerful as in being the conference that teams are throwing themselves at to join.

Also, the BTN isn't driven by its ratings, which are actually quite low, it's driven by the subscriber fees they are able to generate because they have been able to get it included on the basic sports tier in large markets due to their extremely large alumni bases. These alumni bases aren't going away even if their football continues to struggle.

Yes, but that's just one small slice of the viewership pie (and one that they're not guaranteed to have an edge in compared to other conferences, either).

[Dryburn]

From Twitter:
Fran Fraschilla‏@franfraschilla BREAKING: SEC accepts entire ACC into SEC to form 26-team league. Auburn and Alabama to play every eight years. 13 bowls games lined up.

LOL Good one!

[everyyard]

its not viewers its subscribers.

[agrabes]

I'm positive Delaney already knows this. It's not a coincidence that the news of Marlyand and Rutgers going to the B10 was leaked around the same time Fox Sports bought 49% of the Yes Network. Maybe there's not enough B10 fans to get the BTN put on a basic cable tier, but there are a hell of a lot of Yankees fans in the NYC area, and if BTN becomes a packaged deal with YES then it's hard to imagine cable companies not signing up for it. Delaney knows what he is doing.

Buying a significant share in YES is a good move and makes it much more likely for this thing to work. You don't know until the chips fall though. I think it depends on what they have to give up to get the BTN. If it's a channel nobody cares about like SPEED, it will go off without a hitch. If they have to lose something like Comcast Sports Net or FSN, they might meet some resistance. Also, though there are a lot of Yankee fans in NYC, how many are YES fans? Plenty of Yankees games are picked up by other networks and living in NYC you could just as easily head down to the game. I'm not a Yankee (or baseball fan really) myself, so it also goes back to how important is YES to Yankees fans. To save either money or a channel they like, Yankees fans might be willing to dump YES.

I'm not saying it's not likely this will work out or that Delany didn't do his homework. It seems pretty clear that he did. However, something about forcing BTN on people who do not care in anyway about Big 10 athletics just makes me feel that there could be problems.

[DistrictCyclone]

its not viewers its subscribers.

Good point; the subscription fees that cable network channels are able to obtain from service providers depends on viewership, though. I think I read something once about how almost half the cost of a cable subscription comes from sports programming.

Here's a good article (from the BTN, curiously) that sums up the Big Ten's motivation for adding UMD and Rutgers:

Dienhart: Pros & cons to latest Big Ten expansion « Big Ten Network

[Cydkar]

Until expansion makes existing campuses warmer and more attractive this will not help the quality of the play in the little 10. Maybe enough money will be generated to put bubbles over the campuses.

[CLONECONES]

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank selling up to 1.3M shares - Baltimore Business Journal

Coincidence MD buyout fee from ACC is $50M?

[cyman05]

I just want to know if this will work out for the Big 10 in 10 years when cable goes a la carte and all of the sudden their money from the B10 network shrinks dramatically.

[CyDude16]

Making Iowa's path to the Big Ten Championship game even easier... Good work selling out Big Ten.

[jbhtexas]

I just want to know if this will work out for the Big 10 in 10 years when cable goes a la carte and all of the sudden their money from the B10 network shrinks dramatically.

Just curious what indications you are seeing that cable will go a la carte? A couple of years ago, I thought that streaming would cause this would happen, but with ESPN tying WatchESPN to a cable subscription and relegating ESPN3 to primarily small school stuff during the prime time slots, it looks like cable is moving the other direction. What incentive is there for cable networks to offer a la carte for live sports broadcasts?

[cyman05]

Just curious what indications you are seeing that cable will go a la carte? A couple of years ago, I thought that streaming would cause this would happen, but with ESPN tying WatchESPN to a cable subscription and relegating ESPN3 to primarily small school stuff during the prime time slots, it looks like cable is moving the other direction. What incentive is there for cable networks to offer a la carte for live sports broadcasts?

There is absolutely no incentive for the cable networks to offer a la carte. In fact both the content providers and cable companies themselves will fight it to the end.

But here is a quote from one article on Forbes interviewing the Dish Network CEO

I don’t think that [a la carte] is practical (in the near future). I think the consumers would like to see that. We could do it from a technical standpoint. There are some limitations. But the programmers are never going to do that. They’re going to bundle. Look at AMC. AMC has some good shows, original programming. But they force us to take We and IFC and Sundance, which nobody wants to watch. So I don’t think that’s about consumer choice. That’s a jam job.

So the near future is out. What about a longer timeframe, I asked — say, five years? Maybe, he said.

I think we’re going to get to a point at some place in time where we have pushed to consumer to two, three hundred dollars a month for programming. They’re not going to accept that, nor can they afford it. Then the industry will say “Oh my gosh,” and we’ll have to pull back and look at the model. When that is, I do not know.

So even he is admitting the costs of TV are skyrocketing. Can the average US citizen sustain seemingly exponentially increasing phone and cable bills? He admits that at some point in the future there has to be a breaking point. At what point does the average person just say, heck with it, I'll stream everything illegally or slingbox technology becomes so effective and cheap that you hook up 10 slingboxes to 1 cable TV and you have 10 people leeching off of one account? At what point does governmental regulation step in on behalf of the consumer.

I don't know the answers to those questions but I'd put money on the fact that one day way down the line TV delivery looks very differently than it does today as the cable bundle being the only option.

[besserheimerphat]

I am working on a Masters at Maryland, and the university president just sent out this email to all students/faculty/staff with the announcement.

November 19, 2012

Dear University of Maryland community:

Today is a watershed moment for the University of Maryland.

I am pleased to announce that the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland has endorsed strongly our application to join the Big Ten conference, starting in academic year 2014-15. The Council of Presidents of the Big Ten then approved our admission.

Membership in the Big Ten is in the strategic interest of the University of Maryland. It will ensure the financial vitality of Maryland Athletics for decades to come. It will enable us to reinstate some teams that were recently terminated due to budget deficits. We will have the capability to support better our student-athletes -- in the classroom and on the field -- and compete successfully at the highest levels.

Intercollegiate athletics is an integral part of our University. It must be aligned with our academic values and priorities. We will earmark some of the new resources to support our University-wide educational missions and help make college more affordable for our students. This represents nothing less than a new financial paradigm for intercollegiate athletics at the University of Maryland.

We wanted to join this athletic conference because we also wanted to join its associated academic consortium. The Big Ten institutions comprise the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. The extensive opportunities in the CIC for collaborations with our peer AAU and flagship universities in education, research, and innovation will boost the University of Maryland's ascendancy in academic excellence.

Since leaving the Southern Conference in 1953, where we were a member since its inception 30 years earlier, we have been a proud founding member of the ACC. Our long history has led to spirited sports rivalries and left indelible memories. More recently, the ACC has expanded into the Midwest. But our early ACC traditions will remain forever a treasured part of the Terrapin story.

I understand that many devoted Terp fans may be stunned and disappointed at this news. I recognize and regret the sadness they may feel at our leaving the ACC. It is the passing of an era. To them, I ask only this: please understand that I am doing what I believe is best for the University of Maryland and all of its stakeholders -- students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and sports fans. I made this decision after due diligence and confidential consultation with some of our key constituencies.

As president, my responsibility is to advance the good of the entire University -- our academic excellence and financial well-being as well as the future of Maryland Athletics. We are a premier land-grant and research university, situated in a vibrant metropolitan region next to our nation's capital. Our roots are in the mid-Atlantic, but our institutional reach and impact today is also national and international. Membership in the Big Ten and the CIC offers opportunities that match our strategic purposes. We cannot let pass these opportunities.

The 21st century landscape of intercollegiate athletics is being transformed by demographics, technology, and the economic realities of big-time sports. These forces are upending traditional boundaries. Change is difficult, but we are in front of these changes. As we begin a new chapter in our history, let us go forward together and create our future. We are all Terps. We are, proudly, the University of Maryland.

Thank you for your continuing support of the University of Maryland.

[M3MEPLEASE]

Making Iowa's path to the Big Ten Championship game even easier... Good work selling out Big Ten.

Iowa has to compete with Nebraska and Michigan every season for their division, not sure how you consider that "easy"

[ChiTownCYalum]

On the Score (WSCR - 670 AM) here in the Chicago area this afternoon, Boers and Bernstein were discussing the Big 10 adding MD and Rutgers. Bernstein said his Big 10 source indicated that Jim Delaney would like to ultimately add 2 more schools to have a total of 16 and that Texas is their main target. Boers noted that if there is one conference that could be ripe for the picking, it will be the Big XII. If this is true and it comes to fruition, I will be officially nervous. Just passing along what I heard today.