I am definitely in favor of expanding to 14, forcing the new kids to take pennies, and pocketing that cash before the bubble bursts. I truly believe UT and OU will bolt at the end of the GOR ends, if they can get a nickel more...and the money flow is going to slow down.
Breaking up the bundle? Dish relegates ESPN to an add-on (from @AP) http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:23655bda0baf4bd28d3bf185c876e215
I take the comments of Chuck Carlton's article not so much as they are just going to hop to another conference, but we need to see where TV is going. Because, if in 2007, you would have told me that on this day in 2016 that Blockbuster video was gone, Netflix has 50 million subscribers watching Friends reruns anytime you want, and I'd watch half of my TV shows on my cell phone before I go to bed, I would have called you crazy.
You've got Tim Cook out there telling people he's going to destroy the cable model as we know it, and you have Amazon, Netflix, and HBO streaming way better TV shows to you on demand without a cable subscription, and I spend most of my Saturdays on WatchESPN or Fox Sports Go and not in front of my TV. Where will we be in 2025? Is having a long term TV deal connecting us to a dying medium the best idea?
I mean it's possible they may leave. Or maybe Texas goes independent. Or maybe Texas goes to the Big Ten with Kansas and OU goes to the SEC. I have no idea.
But I do know there's a reason the Big Ten only signed six year deals with ESPN and Fox. And I'm betting that has to do with the fact that they don't want to be locked into a long term agreement, either.
“For (Big Ten commissioner Jim) Delany, the deal is a clear win,” wrote the SBJ’s John Ourand. “Not only did the conference pick up a significant increase in a down market, but the relatively short length of the deal means the Big Ten will be the first major college conference to renegotiate a new deal in what it hopes will be a more robust marketplace.”
The ACC needs that deal to be 20 years long because it's the only way they compete. OU and UT make big money. They don't need to be locked into that sort of deal in a rapidly changing economic environment. And, frankly, neither do we.
http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/2016/06/20/report-espn-pay-more-than-1-billion-big-ten-football-games/86133418/