I have been reading articles about this ad nauseum. It combines both things I love - business. business strategy, and football in a big, big way. It seems to be general consensus by the pundits that there are a few critical points /themes emerging:
- There is no value left to squeeze. "No more water to extract from the rocks" was how it was described. How can that be? The value to pay for a school is not worth the money in the market to extract. It has to be net neutral to the other members to make a move and only Notre Dame brings that. Notre Dame will not move until their access to the championship is impacted. The SEC will ensure Notre Dame has access in order to prevent the Big10 from strengthening themselves any more so don't look for continued Big10 expansion because Notre Dame will remain independent. Further, it is not the school leadership, admins or ADs controlling the shots here. It is Fox & ABC/ESPN. If they want it then it happens, if they do not then it will not happen. See first sentence.
- The Big12 or the PAC12(10) likely cannot BOTH survive. It is universally believed that the Big12 has the upper hand because they are the most stable at the top. We can argue that but that seems to be the general consensus. The question then is can Kliavkoff get the conference off the mat? The Big12 has proven adept at that; the PAC12 is new to this. Faith seems to be in the Big12.
- Despite what has been said here, brand DOES NOT MATTER A DAMN here it seems. Blue Blood matters A LOT. General strong brand DOES NOT. Back to point 1 - it is the $$$ that can be extracted from the market. THIS IS WHERE UTAH HAS TO WORRY. BYU is already in the B12 and the Utah market for a B12 Network is already secured. You DO NOT pay 2X for something that you can otherwise have for 1X the cost. Utah's brand doesn't matter. Utah's TV sets matter and they are locked up already unless the PAC12 wins.
- ESPN was blindsided by Fox. ESPN has desire to relevel the playing field and add content to their platform and they have NO real presence out west. So, look for ESPN to broker something (the loose partnership) or get one of the the Big12/PAC12 conferences to "knee cap" the other and secure the survivors TV rights (at a big discount compared to the Power 2). There is no value to be extracted BUT THERE IS competition to be eliminated. This will literally be a death match between the Big12 and the PAC12(10).
