There was no legal analysis offered; just factual correction: "that Baylor's lawsuit"... there is NO Baylor lawsuit. None. At all. And there will not be a Baylor lawsuit if Oklahoma, independent of A&M and/or the SEC, consents to stay in the Big 12. This has nothing to do with A&M anymore.
it doesn't put expansion on hold. the only way any other university even has a claim is if expansion already happened and A&M was added to the SEC. there's no injunctive relief for this, most likely, because to win an injunction you'd have to show you have no other adequate remedy at law....those schools would have an adequate remedy at law: they could get a judgment against the SEC for their damages. if this is a frivilous claim, it will not stop them at all. even if it's not frivilous, they may still take the risk anyway (or ask A&M to indemnify them if it comes about) and make the invitation because they feel it's worth it.
Let's step out of the courtroom... You're being sued for presumably poaching another school. Are you suggesting that, in the middle of that, they'd willfully offer and/or accept additional invites for more schools to join their conference? That seems wildly implausible and downright reckless and arrogant to me. It might not *legally* endanger them - but an unsettled lawsuit pending would open the floodgates for the soon-to-be poached conferences, no?
ahhh..got it. what i'm suggesting is that for there to be a lawsuit they would have already had to have expanded by adding A&M. but i get what you're saying...you're talking about beyond merely adding A&M.
Right, right - the what will almost certainly be a race to 16 teams. If Baylor sues them, they could end up on the outside looking in - I mean, this damn is going break any second now.
Just so everyone is aware how stupid getting so upset over the Longhorn Network is, this link pretty much lays out why selling third tier rights and keeping the revenue is nothing new. http://longhornnetworkanddelusion.tumblr.com/ Money quotes:
The whole problem is that TLN doesn't appear to be limited to 3rd tier rights. No one complained about it televising the Rice game. But Kansas, Tech, BYU are/were all games that would be considered by the Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers How did TLN get access to *those* games, especially when programming decisions are often not made until 1-2 weeks before gameday? If Texas and Kansas end up top 10 teams by some bizarre miracle, that game would be on ABC national prime time TV - but somehow, TLN pulled rank and got rights to it. That's where the concern lies, I believe. TLN doesn't seem to have an ordinary "we can televise whatever no one else wants to" agreement.
http://texas.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1263009 EQUAL REVENUE SHARING IN B12? Desperate times call for desperate measures, and eight of the nine remaining members of the Big 12 appear to be in agreement to have equal revenue sharing from the Tier 1 (ABC/ESPN) television contract that runs through 2015-16, multiple sources said. The move, which is being supported by Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds, according to sources, is aimed at trying to hold a beleaguered conference together after a week of intense acrimony. Messages left for Dodds Friday were not immediately returned. The Big 12 has never had equal revenue sharing from its Tier 1 television rights in the 16-year history of the conference. In a gesture of unity, the Big 12 agreed in April to equal revenue sharing from its second-tier television rights with Fox upon signing a 13-year, $1.17 billion deal. Unequal revenue sharing in the Big 12 has long been a complaint among the schools with the smallest athletic budgets in the conference. Currently, the unequal revenue sharing in the Tier 1 rights allows the schools who appear on TV the most to collect the most money. But that would change under the new proposal, sources said. The sources said there appears to be consensus among eight of the nine remaining schools in the conference to share Tier 1 revenue equally. Oklahoma has yet to weigh in on the matter, sources said.
That's pretty much exactly what it has. The LHN is allowed to play Tier 1 and 2 games that the Tier 1 and 2 holders decline. See the article: If Tier 1 and Tier 2 holders decline it's either PPV or no TV. The LHN adds a third option for some fans to watch the game. How is this a problem? Edit: I also seriously doubt if UT and KU were Top 10 when the matchup happened that the game would remain on LHN.
That's what it is in theory - but in practice, that's not the case. But because ESPN owns the other rights, they have a conflict of interest. Tier 3 games are games no one else wants - but they are putting these games on LHN before the Tier 1/2 providesr are required to decide. They tried to put the Tech game on it - there's no way in hell that's a Tier 3 game and it certainly would have been televised elsewhere, but they tried anyway and ESPN even tried to threaten Tech's other games if they wouldn't accept it (but still failed). In the Kansas situation, they took it before FOX got rights to it (Tier 2) - FOX doesn't have to decide until 2 weeks before gameday whether they want it and yet it's already on LHN. BYU was on ESPN2, yet they were going to move that to LHN if the Kansas deal didn't work out - that's clearly and definitively not Tier 3 because ESPN had already picked it for the national TV. But when ESPN owns both sets of rights, the whole thing gets convoluted.
So, the 7 schools that would benefit from equal revenue sharing are in agreement (duh). And Texas, who really doesn't want the conference to fall apart, is in agreement. But the school that everyone is trying to convince to stay - and who would lose out with the equal revenue sharing - hasn't said anything. The 8 schools they got were the easy ones. The only one that matters is the one that hasn't agreed (yet).
i think at worst if they were trying to move those games (have we seen any actual proof of this), at worst it was to try to force the issue with the cable/satellite providers. i still don't see what the big issue is. it's nothing more than a convenient excuse.
On proof: yes - the Tech Chancellor talked about it. And yes - the goal was to force the issue with cable providers. But it does confirm the fact that, for whatever reason, LHN is clearly not restricted to Tier 3 games.
Fairly straightforward, IMO: Texas is taking the largest chunk of change from the tier1 TV deals *and* collecting a fat, oh by the way non-shared check for those same games they're forcing onto their own network.
