Exactly. I haven't seen anyone outside of Houston actually say "Houston." I sense a lot of hope from the UH faithful. I'm just looking for hard evidence not wishful thinking.
The UH community is incredibly positive about their situation. It's wild to watch. I'd be like super-Van-Gundy-cry-baby pessimism mode 24/7. They just get rolled on by tractors... perpetually... and always greet the day with a smile.
You want me to post the quotes from June? Those have already been posted... back in June. I posted Boren's comments about the deregulation vote and the future of the Big 12... because this is the Big 12 expansion thread.
Longhorn Extra, Texas All Access, They got VY, Ricky for gameday Plus Home Plate , the food show with the baseball coach 99ers never lie
That's an interesting article. So, it comes down to will UT do what's best for the Big 12, or will they keep doing what they do.
That depends on whether UT believes a conference network will solidify the conference for good and whether that is worth $225M. One thing UT will always have in their back pocket is going independent like ND so unless a new network deal matches or at least comes close to what LHN will get them, I don't see them walking away from that kind of cash for the sake of the conference. And I don't think any school in a similar position would do the same either.
There's little to no chance UT will care about anyone besides themselves. No one should hold their breath waiting for them to do the right thing.
Going independent is a terrible idea in a playoff world. It's partly while ND is dipping its toes into the ACC. The playoff rules put substantial value on a conference title, and put any non-conference-winning team at a significant disadvantage - and none of the conferences have any reason to change that. If you look at the LHN in isolation, sure, it makes a lot of money. But every school in the Big10 - from Northwestern to Ohio State - makes more money in total than UT off of TV revenues, both due to their conference network and the fact that they didn't run off their good schools due to short-term selfishness. LHN has not remotely worked out financially for UT and Boren is right - getting 12 teams and a legit conference network would do wonders for everyone, including UT over the long haul.
This is what I've been saying for the last few years. I'm not sure why UT just doesn't do this. They have their own network, and they can still schedule games against teams like Oklahoma, Baylor, TCU, etc. OU would be left with nothing in terms of the Big 12 though, but I'm sure any of the other conferences would love to have OU, especially the Pac-12.
They are not doing it for the same reason Notre Dame is slowly dipping its toes into a conference despite a long history of independence and that BYU is always seeking out a conference. The economics don't remotely work and you're penalized heavily in a playoff era. And unless you're a national title contender, you become completely irrelevant in the greater college football world. Notre Dame just extended their TV contract with NBC and gets $15MM/yr. Purdue gets like $35MM for being in the Big10. Pretty good article on the hubris of it all: http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...ke-more-tv-money-than-texas-notre-dame-072314 ... The Longhorn Network is the least successful network launch in ESPN history and the SEC Network is the most successful network launch in ESPN history. That's not a coincidence. It's the games, stupid. The SEC Network will have more football games in its first two weeks than the Longhorn Network will have in its first five years. That matters. The Longhorn Network was all hat, the other conference networks are all cattle. You can get a tripleheader of football on the SEC Network every weekend. You can't even get three football games on the Longhorn Network all season. The result is simple and painful for Longhorn fans -- Texas is trying to apply a 1991 business plan to a 2014 cable and satellite universe, the equivalent of running an offense that can't throw the football in today's spread offensive era. The Longhorns gambled that individual brands mattered in a conference era. They were sorely mistaken. As a result the fleeing members of the Big 12 -- Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M and Missouri are going to end up making more money off the Longhorn Network than Texas is. If Texas doesn't start the Longhorn Network all of those schools probably stay in the Big 12 and make much less money. Instead, they bolted and will end up better off than Texas will.
Well it remains to be seen how penalized ND or another independent like Texas would be. If ND would have beaten Stanford their last regular season game, I'm not so sure the committee wouldn't have jumped them ahead of Michigan State. All of this is conjecture though but ya you are probably right. Is this right? From what I've read, SEC schools made $34M per member this past year versus $25.3M per member in the Big 12. But add $15M for the LHN and Texas is making $40M+...I may be missing something though. http://www.cheatsheet.com/sports/the-5-most-valuable-conferences-in-college-sports.html/?a=viewall
I think the SEC number is still going up with the ramp up and expansion of the SEC Network. But for the other schools that didn't have an LHN (A&M and Mizzou), they ended up in a better situation. For Texas, the comparison would be what it would be making with a better TV deal if Nebraska/Colorado/A&M/Mizzou were still in the conference along with a B12 Network. It's likely a wash at best, with better exposure around the country and less threat of your network being ignored by ESPN as a money-pit. You can be sure ESPN is making more effort to build their SEC Brand than their LHN brand given the finances.
I've felt the Big 12 is an increasingly irrelevant, dying conference. I don't understand UH's desire to join it. I think the PAC 12 or the ACC make much more sense for the UH and for those conferences as well, particularly in recruiting and TV.
