Because it wouldn't. Same way the rose bowl isnt getting sued for anti trust for not having a Mac team invited or the Sunbelt isnt suing the big ten for not being in the BIG/ACC challenge in basketball. The antitrust case was about banning people from making money, not about equal money or access.
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
- Thread starter ISUcyclones11
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I believe I have been steadfast saying they wont break away and form a P2. They could break away with the P5 if they don't want to pay the other conferences playoff money.
Then it would be the P5 championship, not national championship. You can’t really call it the national championship if you restrict access to it.
It can be called whatever they want to be called.
Considering there has never been a champion in the BCS era or playoff era from a non P5 you aren't restricting anything.
The SEC and B1G aren’t working together. They are in a battle against each other trying to be the best conference. They aren’t going to shut out the P5 who legally has votes as do other conferences and independents. They aren’t breaking away together.
I'll agree, $7m probably isn't going to light a fire under anyone, but also isn't going to make much of anyone happy either. It'd be great if Yormark was able to move up our negotiating window to get a firm apples-apples comparison for anyone on the fence as well as different Big XII + 2/4/6 PAC schools in different configurations.
The PAC would probably hold together for a 5 year deal if the difference comes down to $7m per year. But if some members demand unequal revenue distributions, that $7m gap widens in a hurry and the PAC might have a lot of members to try to placate. Then the questions become, who would actually go to the Big XII (Stanford?)/how would the Big XII take (4? 6?), how much would it take to keep each school in the PAC, and how much would OR St, WA St and Cal agree to give up to keep the conference together? What it 7 schools demand $37m to be on par with the Big XII? Would the last three agree to less than $14m if the alternate is a conference that's essentially the MWC?
I could see OR, WA and Stanford wanting to keep the PAC together. A 5 year deal sets them up to do one more short deal before the ACC GOR comes up and all hell breaks loose again. They'll want to have their deals to sync with the ACC's.
What I'm not certain of is what the corner schools think their long-term options are. It would be surprising if the Big 10 didn't want additional West Coast teams to pair with USC and UCLA at some point in the future. Maybe that's in the next 5 years, maybe that's a little further down the road, but that would be the end of the PAC. So what's the advantage of sticking around when everything seems to indicate the conference is on borrowed time, particularly when staying means passing up a little more money?
OR, WA, and Stanford absolutely would want a 4-5 year GOR to set up their move to the Big10. I am very doubtful the corner 4 would accept anything shorter than 7-8 years (likely past the B1G media deal length) to ensure stability. It I were AZ/Colo and got say 7 mill more per year and a 7-8 deal to move to the B12 it would be a preferable move than staying in the PAC10 for 5 years and then see schools leave and left with 20 mill less in the future. Add in WA/OR want unequal revenue sharing and you have the reason the PAC10 instability.
The networks are failures if they get folded in. And the cable companies will stop carrying them if all they show is volleyball. And then we are back to failure status.
Unless you are secretly a Supreme Court justice, I dunno how you can speak so directly on this. None of us know this at all. The NFL example is not really on point, it would be more like if the Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots took the 8/12/16 most valuable franchises and left the NFL to hold their own season that no one else was invited to. Could the Jaguars have a case? None of us know
Agree with a lot of what you say here. I think they would all prefer to hang together, but if UW & UO want a bigger slice of the pie, it's going to be REALLY hard to keep them all together. Arizona already is apathetic, and Utah would probably be completely incensed. Think it would get ugly, fast.
Indeed. No one has ever found fault with the MLB championship being called the World Series.
There might be contractual issues with this, but not likely antitrust.
The big 10 and SEC absolutely could take their ball and be their own independent thing. They could freely decide to host events declaring that whoever wins that thing is 'national champion' (its up to whether people believe it or not, ultimately, which they probably would)
What they couldn't do, with antitrust, is abuse their power in the market to drive down the competition. Like they couldn't go to fox and espn and say "if you want to broadcast us, you can't broadcast the B12\PAC\ACC"
Sure you can. "national championship" is whatever people want it to be. Its not like the current one is inclusive of all football teams in existence. What matters is that people believe it.
Just to be pedantic, I am sure there is a host of lawyers dealing in antitrust law that would be highly expert, without being a SC justice.
I tend to agree that there wouldn't be antitrust issues around realignment, or refanoogaling of the CFP system. The CFP is just an organization sponsoring 3 FB games. All the Div3 schools in Iowa could do same, it's a free country.
True but unfortunately none are posing as Michigan State fans and posting on an Iowa State athletics message board.
This whole thread should be moved to ISR and forgotten about
I'm watching for the three Big 10 hopefuls to push for a 6 year deal running from the 2024-30. If the Big 10 still isn't expanding, they'd be set up to do another 6 year deal to run to 2036. This gets them synced up to the ACC GOR. Assuming the ACC GOR stays in place, that's the next date for massive realignment. If the ACC's GOR is broken, I'd wager other GORs could be broken as well.
The corner schools (including Colorado) are basically Colorado during the original Big XII breakup. They aren't the ones pushing for instability, nor are they the ones who will primarily benefit from realignment, but they might have an option to join a conference with more stability and a little more money.
I'm wondering if grant of rights deals will have contingencies built in, for cases like the ACC imploding, etc. So while binding, do have outs if the landscape changes radically.
