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Realignment talk not going away


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1 hour ago, DeadArmadillo said:

Indeed

 

Jones Stadium, or a nearby team hotel is easier to get to than almost any B1G school's facility.   It might even be easier than any of them.  It's literally about a ten minute bus ride from an airport that can land a 747.  I don't know where people come up with crap like this 

Lubbock only has direct flights to PHX, Denver, Vegas, Austin, Bush & Hobby, DFW & Love.  Sure the fb and bb team will just charter direct but their less profitable sports fly commercial, and that means they’ll have to have 2 connections instead of just 1.

Tech would have fit well in the PAC with PHX/DEN, but not so much in the Big Ten.

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56 minutes ago, bullet said:

Its really up to ESPN.  They can keep the ACC whole financially while stripping it of parts.  No damages.  The ACC isn't going to fight ESPN to keep the rights of schools ESPN is trying to move.  Not if they want to survive in 2036.

But does it make financial sense for ESPN?  Everybody in the business is working those numbers.

 

Does helping break the ACC’s GOR in order to give more in network coverage for the SECN with NC/VA and more high profile inventory with FSU/Clemson allow them to make more money from advertisers than they lose from the ACC, and does it allow for the Big Ten and FOX to scoop up other value programs/markets?

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16 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

Lubbock only has direct flights to PHX, Denver, Vegas, Austin, Bush & Hobby, DFW & Love.  Sure the fb and bb team will just charter direct but their less profitable sports fly commercial, and that means they’ll have to have 2 connections instead of just 1.

Tech would have fit well in the PAC with PHX/DEN, but not so much in the Big Ten.

Isn’t the flight situation better than anything aggy has?

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From Clemson's side of the ball:

ACC-Pac 12 alliance should equate to a Clemson exit

It’s time for the Tigers to leave a league that can only get them left behind if they stay

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After the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, college football still figured out a way to have a season. Travel was not as easy as it was in years past due to the COVID restrictions that were in place.

Most conferences eliminated non-conference games, keeping everything in house. That cut down on travel expenses and allowed conferences to keep the virus contained within it is member schools at a minimum.

That made it very difficult for Independents, such as Notre Dame, to play football. The Irish eventually worked out a deal—if that is what you want to call it—to join the ACC as a full-time member for one year only so Notre Dame could have a football season.

The ACC finally had what it wanted. Notre Dame needed a home and with it already tied to the ACC in every sport except football and hockey, it could not go anywhere else.

The ACC could have forced the Irish to permanently join the league as a football school, but it did not. Instead, it allowed Notre Dame to go into an arrangement where the ACC gave a lot to the Irish, but the Irish gave very little in return.

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It was reported earlier this week that the ACC and the Pac-12 are talking about some kind of an alliance that would allow them to go into a joint TV deal with ESPN. This plan, which is supposedly coming from the ACC, sounds corny and desperate at best.

It also shows that ACC schools have expressed their desires to possibly leave the ACC if Commissioner Jim Phillips and the conference do not ease their concerns and find a way to compete for television revenue with the SEC and Big Ten.

Phillips has reportedly met with the league’s athletic directors and presidents on several different occasions this past week. I can tell you Clemson is not sitting idly by and waiting.

Clemson’s Board of Trustees met on Friday to discuss several action items that had nothing to do with the ACC or conference expansion. However, as The Journal’s Riley Morningstar reported, the BOT, did go into executive session to discuss the items outlined on the announced agenda, as well as “to receive legal advice related to matters covered by attorney-client privilege.”

It seems obvious that Clemson is putting, or already has, a plan in place.

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Remember, if the ACC opens negotiations up with ESPN and the Pac-12, then Clemson and any other ACC school that wants out of the conference will have their window of opportunity to jump ship.

And in my opinion, if the ACC tries to align itself with the Pac-12, especially with all the traveling that might be involved for its non-revenue sports, then Clemson needs to get out and get out fast. Nothing good will come from an ACC and Pac-12 partnership, at least not anything that will compete with what the SEC and Big Ten are going to do.

 

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6 hours ago, UDontKnow said:

Bobby heard rumblings of the B1G trying to get TCU, Stanford, and Oregon with Notre Dame.  

 

It would be hilarious if the Big Ten went from only AAU schools to adding a small private school that does almost no research and does not have dog academics to attempt to make up for it. 

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11 minutes ago, Texas Wahoo said:

It would be hilarious if the Big Ten went from only AAU schools to adding a small private school that does almost no research and does not have dog academics to attempt to make up for it. 

The B1G will ride the “pursuit of academic excellence” horse until it becomes financially untenable to keep up that ruse. If TCU was a clear value add (it’s not) for the B1G, they’d be added tomorrow.

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1 hour ago, ATXbronco said:

Do families not drive to their son's game in nearby states anymore?
Crazy to think of California school's joining a conference they'll have to drive through a couple states to get to.

I think the kids will make enough money to buy airfare for their parents. 

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1 hour ago, SimonBolivar said:

Sure, but parents don't bring in any money so they don't matter.

Parents influence the recruits. Once they realize going to Big Ten schools means paying higher taxes on NIL earnings (no CR), it’s gonna be a tough sell. The cold winters don’t help either. 

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3 hours ago, Satchel said:

Isn’t the flight situation better than anything aggy has?

Not really. College Station has direct flights too, but even if we ignore that…

Hobby and ABIA are about 90 minutes from College Station and they only take single connection from most Big Ten schools. Lubbock requires 2 connections.  Roughly, each connection adds about 3 hours to your trip, so you’re trading 3 hours in the airport for half that time on a bus. Add in that teams can stay the night in a larger city  before/after the game(s) with more food/entertainment options and it’s pretty clear that aggy has a better travel situation that tech.

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Parents influence the recruits. Once they realize going to Big Ten schools means paying higher taxes on NIL earnings (no CR), it’s gonna be a tough sell. The cold winters don’t help either. 

I’m gonna guess the average parent of a recruit is an average American who would never think that far ahead to even worry about the tax implications of anything to do with NIL.
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The Big 12 should've hired me as their Commissioner years ago, and it wouldn't be in this shape now.  HaHa

A post of mine on the shag 7 years ago, and a sample of the responses...IMG_20220710_172744.thumb.jpg.0a3644e8d7b8693dc6330bcf53c938d0.jpg

IMG_20220710_165945.thumb.jpg.8d717a8dbad4da90c4b4631cde43511f.jpg

IMG_20220710_161514.thumb.jpg.1a314746d830471b4e1b3b53ab558b6f.jpg

My post was about the time of the AT&T buyout of Direct TV, so there were some lengthy posts responses how the buyout would fix the carrier issues for the PACNET, which led to my own lengthy posts explaining why the buyout wasn't the magic wand most assumed it was. AT&T wasn't coming in to roll over, since they had all the leverage., And Scott was too arrogant to admit his master failure of a plan, needed a lifeline. He'd hadn't budged with the other National carriers, so I didn't see him doing so with his last hope either.

IMG_20220710_191331.jpg.d2e69dd120c65692aa846873d572914f.jpg

Then after more lengthy posts breaking down the numbers if there was a deal struck between AT&T and the PAC, with the PAC getting 100% of what they wanted, even IF AT&T went beyond that and added it to their basic pack required for service, and forced all customers to have it, they would still fall way behind the others, so either way, AT&T wasn't saving them. 

There are a bunch of posts I made back then, and even further back to when the PAC let Texas, Texas Tech, OU and OSU slip away. But (I think) most of me going on about the PAC going to come unravelled starts around page 935 of the realignment thread, if anyone wants to verify my posts on archived web pages.

 

I pointed out that for the PACNET to get anywhere close to the projected numbers Scott was pushing, it needed the Texas market  as a bridge to the east.  And not securing it was likely a fatal mistake.  One person understood the $ value I pointed out, but no one understood why I thought it went way further than that.

IMG_20220710_190246.thumb.jpg.314451a4edc73835879e7538e4ac43cf.jpg

The PAC dickweeds really took offense to the notion someone called Scott either an idiot or a con. So I'll admit I had some drunken disagreements.  Like this one.  Most didn't understand how ESPN torpedoed the PACNET at the time of this post, or why I thought PAC whiffing on UT/OU/TT/OSU meant doom, in more ways than just market money,  but a lot of people did figure it out, slowly but surely.IMG_20220710_201121.thumb.jpg.a1e2cb89384d2643450f1d975c3a3922.jpg

...like this guy most recognize.  Granted, it took a couple of years, literally.IMG_20220710_204532.thumb.jpg.e5048ab59f5e0da066ea29d23cb44f7a.jpg

And my response...  Note.  I consider PACs miss on UT/OU/TT/OSU a mistake, but a mistake none the less. But the biggest blunder of all realignment was the PAC telling OU/OSU to piss off. That was the golden ticket to undo their fatal mistake...  Funny thing about it, Stanford was at the center of either stalling, giving ESPN the time to slide in behind them and slit their throat, and for telling OU to fuck off, without considering we would've followed them before long. The Stanford AD fucked up BIG TIME by not understanding the overall picture and killed the PAC. Just like the BIG 12 Commissioner didn't see the big picture of how far the BIG 12 was going to fall behind the BIG/SEC this new revenue contract would be an issue. The Big 12 schools might be okay with being the 3rd highest paid conference even if it is 6-8-10 million a year less, for the most part.  BUT, UT and OU didn't fall in the most part group and were not going to be content with letting the revenue train leave the station without them. Third highest paid conference is not a good thing the big fish 

I posted this little gem 7 years agoIMG_20220710_171346.thumb.jpg.da822f13d2c0f56f477545b919f0d51f.jpg

NOTE. I didn't say the B12 and ACC would merge, I said it wouldn't surprise me if they did, because they would lose their workhorses if they didn't do something to protect themselves.  B12 lost UT/OU, PAC lost USC/UCLA, and now Clemson/FSU/ect are on the clock.  Stay competitive in football, or try to compete with half the others budget.  

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27 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

Not really. College Station has direct flights too, but even if we ignore that…

Hobby and ABIA are about 90 minutes from College Station and they only take single connection from most Big Ten schools. Lubbock requires 2 connections.  Roughly, each connection adds about 3 hours to your trip, so you’re trading 3 hours in the airport for half that time on a bus. Add in that teams can stay the night in a larger city  before/after the game(s) with more food/entertainment options and it’s pretty clear that aggy has a better travel situation that tech.

Where can aggy sports teams take direct flights to out of College Station?

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6 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Lubbock only has direct flights to PHX, Denver, Vegas, Austin, Bush & Hobby, DFW & Love.  Sure the fb and bb team will just charter direct but their less profitable sports fly commercial, and that means they’ll have to have 2 connections instead of just 1.

Tech would have fit well in the PAC with PHX/DEN, but not so much in the Big Ten.

2 connections?

How many schools are served by airports without flights to PHX, DEN, DFW or IAH?

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1 hour ago, Satchel said:

Where can aggy sports teams take direct flights to out of College Station?

They can charter out of the College Station airport, but for commercial they can’t, they have to go to DFW.  much like Lubbock.  The point was that it takes 3 hours per connection and only 90 minutes to bus it to Austin/Houston where they can take many direct flights.  Which isn’t something tech can do.

33 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

2 connections?

How many schools are served by airports without flights to PHX, DEN, DFW or IAH?

I love airplane travel justifications that sending a Midwest team to Lubbock via PHX is better a good thing…

How many? No idea and I don’t really care to look it up but back when I was flying to these universities for work I remembered that most had me connect through ORD to get back to Austin (to be fair ABIA was smaller back then).  The point was simply that travel to tech isn’t a selling point over aggy.  I could easily look up commercial travel times and prove the point but it seems so obvious that it would just be a waste of time.

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5 hours ago, Sir Ulrich said:

Tin foil hat time. The TCU bit was leaked to let a&m know the Big 10 was interested in the Texas market and have them get fomo. The aggies could then pass it off as a win because they'll be making more money and the will be only Big 10 school in Texas. 

You must not work with/live by/know any aggys. They would rather shove Reveille into traffic than leave the SEC. 

Edited by billfromlaketravis
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6 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

They can charter out of the College Station airport, but for commercial they can’t, they have to go to DFW.  much like Lubbock.  The point was that it takes 3 hours per connection and only 90 minutes to bus it to Austin/Houston where they can take many direct flights.  Which isn’t something tech can do.

I love airplane travel justifications that sending a Midwest team to Lubbock via PHX is better a good thing…

How many? No idea and I don’t really care to look it up but back when I was flying to these universities for work I remembered that most had me connect through ORD to get back to Austin (to be fair ABIA was smaller back then).  The point was simply that travel to tech isn’t a selling point over aggy.  I could easily look up commercial travel times and prove the point but it seems so obvious that it would just be a waste of time.

Charter to charter is a wash, College Station vs Lubbock.

Commercial vs commercial favors Lubbock.

Poster upthread made it sound like travel to Lubbock was some negative factor for Tech.  It isn't.

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9 minutes ago, Okie State said:

Wasn't ESPN broke just a few years ago? Why do people keep saying they'll just make everyone whole on GOR? How would that work?

ESPN is still getting dumpload trucks of money.  Its just fewer than before.  They are a MASSIVE cash cow.

ESPN moves a couple ACC schools to the SEC, makes a ton on advertising to offset paying them more, while keeping the payout the same on the ACC.  ACC is already well under market until 2036.  They would probably double their contract if they could take it to market.  Every indication is the nB12 gets a pay raise from its 6 year old contract.  The ACC's is ultimately a dozen years old, although its been adjusted.

 

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5 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

You must not work with/live by/know any aggys. They would rather shove Reveille into traffic than leave the SEC. 

I'm from ETX I know/work with/live by way too many but this was mostly satire. But i bet they could do the mental gymnastics to get there if the school branded it like this. 

1. With the addition of the Cali schools amd ND they would make more money (at least at first) per year than Texas. 

2. Being an AAU exclusive conference they would sell it as a move that proves they are in the intellectual elite now. 

3. They'd be the only Big 10 school in the state. Something the big bad SEC broke their promise on. 

4. Then they'd say the SEC and Alabama/Texas had it out for them and the Big 10 was always a better fit for their university. 

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14 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Lubbock only has direct flights to PHX, Denver, Vegas, Austin, Bush & Hobby, DFW & Love.  Sure the fb and bb team will just charter direct but their less profitable sports fly commercial, and that means they’ll have to have 2 connections instead of just 1.

Tech would have fit well in the PAC with PHX/DEN, but not so much in the Big Ten.

Now do Lincoln NE, Manhattan KS, Lawrence KS, Iowa City, Ames, Waco, College Station, Tucson, Eugene, Columbia MO, Fayettville, the State of Mississippi, the State of Alabama, Knoxville, whatever podunk town in west Virginia that VA Tech is in.

Lubbock is has more flight options and more convenient airport-to-campus than ANY of those towns.

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1 hour ago, closetohumping said:

Well yea no shit.  It was dumb to commit for that long but now how do we get out of this?

They could have maybe done a centralized GOR without that GOR being assigned for a kajillion years. Then could have been up for new contract negotiations is 2024 dame as everyone else. It would have msde breach more possible, but I think some liquidated damage clauses would have helped. I guess in the end they did get what they wanted: stability. I don't think FSU, Clemson, etc get out of it. Even if somehow ESPN guaranteed equal payouts to existing teams, it would still be worth litigating for those left behind.

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Here is a supposition- people talk about English soccer style relegation; what if it wasn’t a national football division managing relegations, but instead conferences managing relegation? The SEC and B10 could have senior divisions (that received the biggest media payments) and junior divisions. The juniors would receive media money like the current B12 gets, but with an opportunity for more money if they get a performance based promotion to the senior division. (I’m thinking $75M per year for the seniors and $25M for the juniors). 

It will be interesting if the B12 dissolves and the SEC and B12 offer left out schools a place in their junior divisions. What’s in it for the B10 and SEC? Their media partners would like it (keeping the conference strong) and it would be a way to manage and supervise the local upstarts.

Edited by statsman
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I don't get the need to reinvent the wheel here. The SEC and Big Ten appear to be done adding teams. Both will get massive TV contracts. 

The ACC has a contract with ESPN through 2036. 

The Big 12 is back to 12 teams, and should get a decent TV deal. 

PAC can probably stay at 10 and get a respectable deal with one of the Big Tech companies. 

I hope realignment brings everybody to the same table to get a 8-12 team playoff done quickly. If everybody has a place at the table, there's no need for further realignment. Big Ten and SEC get two spots each, PAC gets one, Big 12 gets one, ACC gets one, 1-5 at large spots. 

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11 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I don't get the need to reinvent the wheel here. The SEC and Big Ten appear to be done adding teams. Both will get massive TV contracts. 

The ACC has a contract with ESPN through 2036. 

The Big 12 is back to 12 teams, and should get a decent TV deal. 

PAC can probably stay at 10 and get a respectable deal with one of the Big Tech companies. 

I hope realignment brings everybody to the same table to get a 8-12 team playoff done quickly. If everybody has a place at the table, there's no need for further realignment. Big Ten and SEC get two spots each, PAC gets one, Big 12 gets one, ACC gets one, 1-5 at large spots. 

I think the next domino that could drop once things settle is that the conferences will see that a conference championship game is counterproductive. If you have two teams in the top 12, one of those will be knocked out. The payout will be far bigger if they both go to the playoff vs if they play a CCG. 

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22 hours ago, closetohumping said:

Writer seems to think there’s an easy way out of the GOR.  Doesn’t seem to be the case

Allegedly there is a way out of the GOR's if enough teams leave the conference and they dip below a certain number of members(including ND). Don't know the exact number but there is a way, allegedly.

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Since USC, Texas and OUSux are leaving maybe they should just say thanks but no thanks and form a conference with the following teams

East: Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, UVA, Duke

Midwest: Texas, OU, TCU, OKST, Iowa St, Kansas

West: USC, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona St

It would contain just as many blue bloods as the SEC and better set of teams than B1G and the away games would be more varied and in better locations than the SEC. The coup would be adding Notre Dame to the mix and saying they can get paid more than the rest and kicking out Kansas or Iowa State or Duke.

The difference in this proposal is that in this conference only football is a national sport. All other sports play a regional schedule against the other 5 regional folks plus whom ever they can find with no regular season champion. Winning percentage decides conference seeding and a tournament decides conference champion in all other sports. This does not have to happen now it could happen in 2036 when teams in the west are tired of going east for all sports and we are tired of the cheating and low academic standards in the SEC.

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TCU should be sending Bobby Bonilla-style commission checks to LaDanian Tomlinson and Coach Fran for giving TCU this fake image of sports prestige. They are athletically average, academically below average, and don’t have an alumni base comparable to most P5 schools. They were just lucky to fall into aggy’s spot in the Big 12. 

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47 minutes ago, DanTheHorn said:

Since USC, Texas and OUSux are leaving maybe they should just say thanks but no thanks and form a conference with the following teams

East: Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, UVA, Duke

Midwest: Texas, OU, TCU, OKST, Iowa St, Kansas

West: USC, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona St

It would contain just as many blue bloods as the SEC and better set of teams than B1G and the away games would be more varied and in better locations than the SEC. The coup would be adding Notre Dame to the mix and saying they can get paid more than the rest and kicking out Kansas or Iowa State or Duke.

The difference in this proposal is that in this conference only football is a national sport. All other sports play a regional schedule against the other 5 regional folks plus whom ever they can find with no regular season champion. Winning percentage decides conference seeding and a tournament decides conference champion in all other sports. This does not have to happen now it could happen in 2036 when teams in the west are tired of going east for all sports and we are tired of the cheating and low academic standards in the SEC.

So your solution is to have USC, UCLA, Texas, and OU pull out of their freshly signed conference deals with ongoing or upcoming media rights negotitations, then do something that no conference has done in persuading Notre Dame to join a conference and give them an unequal revenue share (something people pointed to causing the B12 to destabilize). Then dissolve the ACC with their aforementioned grant of rights, and also dissolve the B12 and P12 by scooping up 4 more teams from each of those conferences? And you also want Kansas in this football only conference?

Seems fairly straight forward to me. Where do I sign the petition?

Edited by Vertigo
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4 minutes ago, Murfdogg21 said:

TCU should be sending Bobby Bonilla-style commission checks to LaDanian Tomlinson and Coach Fran for giving TCU this fake image of sports prestige. They are athletically average, academically below average, and don’t have an alumni base comparable to most P5 schools. They were just lucky to fall into aggy’s spot in the Big 12. 

Supposedly that was Deloss just letting the poor saps in the conference Know who’s in charge

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1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I don't get the need to reinvent the wheel here. The SEC and Big Ten appear to be done adding teams. Both will get massive TV contracts. 

The ACC has a contract with ESPN through 2036. 

The Big 12 is back to 12 teams, and should get a decent TV deal. 

PAC can probably stay at 10 and get a respectable deal with one of the Big Tech companies. 

I hope realignment brings everybody to the same table to get a 8-12 team playoff done quickly. If everybody has a place at the table, there's no need for further realignment. Big Ten and SEC get two spots each, PAC gets one, Big 12 gets one, ACC gets one, 1-5 at large spots. 

I think the biggest obstacles to settling down are 1) ND having enough money via the status quo to continue competing, and 2) Phil Knight (net worth $40B) accepting Oregon's fate.  (I don't get the sense that Stanford or Washington care as much about finding a PAC exit ramp.)

If ND could get someone to offer them $10-12M per home game after their NBC deal expires, then they're probably set.  Oregon though, cannot really solve its situation short of leaving the PAC.  One of the most powerful men in the world (let alone sports) is flexing financial muscle on their behalf.

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