Jafus (Thinker)
Well-Known Member
"Frustration and Temptation." A Q&A with Mizzou AD Mike Alden
http://www.tigerextra.com/news/2009/dec/20/frustration-and-temptation/?sports
Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden is concerned that the Big 12 is falling behind competitors such as the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference because of its football TV contract and revenue-sharing plan. He says he would prefer to stay in the Big 12, though.
By Joe Walljasper
Sunday, December 20, 2009
For as long as the Big Ten Conference has hinted about expanding, Missouri has been mentioned as a candidate to switch allegiances from the Big 12. But that back-burner issue has heated up recently,
with the Big Ten publicly stating it will consider expanding and MU’s frustration with the Big 12 at an all-time high.
For three straight years, the Tigers have been sent to a bowl game lower on the conference pecking order than their record warranted, and the Missouri soccer team didn’t get an NCAA Tournament bid despite winning the Big 12 regular-season title. Among MU’s other complaints is that the Big 12’s football revenuesharing formula — half the television money is split evenly, and the other half is distributed based on TV appearances — is causing a class divide in the league and led to the conference sitting on its hands while the Big Ten and SEC signed better TV deals.
On Thursday, Tribune sports editor Joe Walljasper spoke at length with Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden about the possibility of defection to the Big Ten.
Q: What are some of your frustrations with the Big 12 or why isn’t it working the greatest for Missouri?
A: I don’t know if I would approach it saying, “Not working the greatest.†I think the challenges we face as a league — and they do impact Missouri — are our television contract and our ability to have equal revenue distribution. I don’t think there’s any question that if we don’t get to that level at some point, we’re going to continue to find ourselves further and further behind the Big Ten, the SEC and probably the ACC, as well as behind Texas and Oklahoma, in particular, and maybe Nebraska in our league. Our hope would be that the league would continue to push harder in those areas, for a new television contract for more exposure and for equal revenue distribution.
Another thing that probably is frustrating a little bit for Missouri — and that’s not to disparage any other programs, because there are really fine academic institutions in our entire league, they all are — but academically our student-athletes have done a great job and they’ve really performed at a high level. I think that the perception of the league has to continue to grow because if that doesn’t happen, that doesn’t help Missouri. We’re somewhat of an outlier with how our kids are doing academically. The affiliation with a league that is perceived to be really strong academically is really important to our institution.
Q: What is the difference in the football television revenue Missouri made this year vs. Texas?
A: Mizzou has been pretty fortunate the last few years. We’ve been on the higher end. We’ve been in the top four schools in our league for the last four years in television revenue for football. But still the difference in television revenue with us and Texas would be about $3 million. Mizzou may get approximately $9 million in television revenue, all things being equal, and Texas would be about $12 million. Then Baylor would be around $7.5 million.
That gap is there, but more importantly, let’s take a look at Illinois. We’re not only competing against our league, we’re competing against Illinois. The question is, what is the difference between what Illinois is getting in revenue distribution from the league — that’s television, basically — and what Mizzou is getting? Ours is $9 million. Illinois’ is $21 million.
Q: Why doesn’t the Big 12 have a better television deal?
A: Because when we had the opportunity to do that, which we did three years ago, and it was brought to our attention that we could start our own Big 12 Network and a couple of other things — that was actually presented to us in New York City, I believe three years ago — we couldn’t get consensus among 12 institutions to say this is what’s best for the league. When we couldn’t get consensus on that, nobody could make a decision. And then the Big Ten went forward and did their deal, the SEC did their deal with ABC and ESPN and took up a bunch of money there, and the Big 12 Conference was behind both of those leagues on that.
Q: What was the sticking point for the Big 12?
A: It had to do with revenue distribution and fear of the unknown. The unknown being that a network had never been done with college athletics before. We had heard rumors about the Big Ten getting ready to do it. So various voices in the room were concerned that we were going into uncharted waters. We have this pretty good contract with ABC, ESPN and Fox, and why would we want to give up a sure thing for a speculative deal? By us backing away from that, the Big Ten went forward with that. It was fear of the unknown. We had the same presentation at the same time by CSTV. CSTV had talked to us at the same set of meetings about starting our own network based upon the theory of ESPN Classic. When ESPN Classic was started, everybody said, “Who’s going to watch this? Old video of teams that used to play, 24-7? How is this going to be successful?â€
The same people that started ESPN Classic came to us as a league and wanted us to use a similar model to start our own network, based upon this pro forma that had been shown. And we couldn’t come to a consensus. It was pretty frustrating. So we stayed the course and continued the same direction we were, and what we found is we found today that the SEC contract is worth $205 million per year, the Big Ten contract is worth $190 million per year — and both of those leagues share equally — and the Big 12 Conference contract is worth $80 million per year and we don’t share equally. That is a significant gap. Not only is that a significant difference in our league, between appearance fees and not sharing it equally, but when we’re recruiting against Illinois, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Indiana, schools like that, we’re in the hole as far as resources are concerned. ...
http://www.tigerextra.com/news/2009/dec/20/frustration-and-temptation/?sports
Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden is concerned that the Big 12 is falling behind competitors such as the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference because of its football TV contract and revenue-sharing plan. He says he would prefer to stay in the Big 12, though.
By Joe Walljasper
Sunday, December 20, 2009
For as long as the Big Ten Conference has hinted about expanding, Missouri has been mentioned as a candidate to switch allegiances from the Big 12. But that back-burner issue has heated up recently,
with the Big Ten publicly stating it will consider expanding and MU’s frustration with the Big 12 at an all-time high.
For three straight years, the Tigers have been sent to a bowl game lower on the conference pecking order than their record warranted, and the Missouri soccer team didn’t get an NCAA Tournament bid despite winning the Big 12 regular-season title. Among MU’s other complaints is that the Big 12’s football revenuesharing formula — half the television money is split evenly, and the other half is distributed based on TV appearances — is causing a class divide in the league and led to the conference sitting on its hands while the Big Ten and SEC signed better TV deals.
On Thursday, Tribune sports editor Joe Walljasper spoke at length with Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden about the possibility of defection to the Big Ten.
Q: What are some of your frustrations with the Big 12 or why isn’t it working the greatest for Missouri?
A: I don’t know if I would approach it saying, “Not working the greatest.†I think the challenges we face as a league — and they do impact Missouri — are our television contract and our ability to have equal revenue distribution. I don’t think there’s any question that if we don’t get to that level at some point, we’re going to continue to find ourselves further and further behind the Big Ten, the SEC and probably the ACC, as well as behind Texas and Oklahoma, in particular, and maybe Nebraska in our league. Our hope would be that the league would continue to push harder in those areas, for a new television contract for more exposure and for equal revenue distribution.
Another thing that probably is frustrating a little bit for Missouri — and that’s not to disparage any other programs, because there are really fine academic institutions in our entire league, they all are — but academically our student-athletes have done a great job and they’ve really performed at a high level. I think that the perception of the league has to continue to grow because if that doesn’t happen, that doesn’t help Missouri. We’re somewhat of an outlier with how our kids are doing academically. The affiliation with a league that is perceived to be really strong academically is really important to our institution.
Q: What is the difference in the football television revenue Missouri made this year vs. Texas?
A: Mizzou has been pretty fortunate the last few years. We’ve been on the higher end. We’ve been in the top four schools in our league for the last four years in television revenue for football. But still the difference in television revenue with us and Texas would be about $3 million. Mizzou may get approximately $9 million in television revenue, all things being equal, and Texas would be about $12 million. Then Baylor would be around $7.5 million.
That gap is there, but more importantly, let’s take a look at Illinois. We’re not only competing against our league, we’re competing against Illinois. The question is, what is the difference between what Illinois is getting in revenue distribution from the league — that’s television, basically — and what Mizzou is getting? Ours is $9 million. Illinois’ is $21 million.
Q: Why doesn’t the Big 12 have a better television deal?
A: Because when we had the opportunity to do that, which we did three years ago, and it was brought to our attention that we could start our own Big 12 Network and a couple of other things — that was actually presented to us in New York City, I believe three years ago — we couldn’t get consensus among 12 institutions to say this is what’s best for the league. When we couldn’t get consensus on that, nobody could make a decision. And then the Big Ten went forward and did their deal, the SEC did their deal with ABC and ESPN and took up a bunch of money there, and the Big 12 Conference was behind both of those leagues on that.
Q: What was the sticking point for the Big 12?
A: It had to do with revenue distribution and fear of the unknown. The unknown being that a network had never been done with college athletics before. We had heard rumors about the Big Ten getting ready to do it. So various voices in the room were concerned that we were going into uncharted waters. We have this pretty good contract with ABC, ESPN and Fox, and why would we want to give up a sure thing for a speculative deal? By us backing away from that, the Big Ten went forward with that. It was fear of the unknown. We had the same presentation at the same time by CSTV. CSTV had talked to us at the same set of meetings about starting our own network based upon the theory of ESPN Classic. When ESPN Classic was started, everybody said, “Who’s going to watch this? Old video of teams that used to play, 24-7? How is this going to be successful?â€
The same people that started ESPN Classic came to us as a league and wanted us to use a similar model to start our own network, based upon this pro forma that had been shown. And we couldn’t come to a consensus. It was pretty frustrating. So we stayed the course and continued the same direction we were, and what we found is we found today that the SEC contract is worth $205 million per year, the Big Ten contract is worth $190 million per year — and both of those leagues share equally — and the Big 12 Conference contract is worth $80 million per year and we don’t share equally. That is a significant gap. Not only is that a significant difference in our league, between appearance fees and not sharing it equally, but when we’re recruiting against Illinois, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Indiana, schools like that, we’re in the hole as far as resources are concerned. ...
