Post by elp525 on Oct 26, 2011 8:08:18 GMT -5
Wednesday October 26, 2011
by Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the last few days, West Virginia Athletic Director Oliver Luck has been labeled as "loony" by a respected Syracuse newspaper columnist and an "idiot" by a veteran ESPN play-by-play man.
Say what you will about Luck, but the second-year WVU athletic chief does what he says he is going to do, damn the consequences.
The Mountaineers are headed to the Big 12 Conference, leaving behind the Big East, where the future is really not about realignment, but survival.
It was little more than five weeks ago when longtime West Virginia foes Pitt and Syracuse announced they were leaving the Big East for the ACC, starting the latest round of major college musical chairs.
Reacting to that, Luck said, "No matter how the college athletic landscape changes, there is no doubt WVU is and will remain a national player."
He's helped assure that, tying together his athletic backgrounds in the Mountain State and Lone Star State.
So, the Mountaineers will be traveling to Waco and Ames rather than Piscataway and Storrs, but they'll also share a conference tie with Oklahoma and Texas rather than Central Florida and SMU.
As forecast here first last month, the linchpin for WVU fortunes would be Missouri. Once the Tigers played their hand, West Virginia was going to know for certain whether it needed a Mayflower truck.
Luck and WVU President Jim Clements were playing three hands in this high-stakes poker game, with the Big East, Big 12 and SEC.
Mizzou is following Texas A&M to the SEC. For the Big East, with WVU following the rival Panthers and Orange out the door, may find that Bowl Championship Series "AQ" stands for "awfully questionable" rather than "automatic qualifier."
It says here that West Virginia comes out a winner, and it's expected to become official today when Big 12 Conference bigwigs show up on the Morgantown campus for an official welcome.
No couch burning, please. It's OK to fire off a musket round or two.
WVU could have taken the easy way out and stayed as the beast of the Big East, but how meaningful would that have been?
The Mountaineers had to go now, because if they didn't, Louisville would have ... again, diminishing the Big East.
WVU will find football success harder to come by in the Big 12, but not as difficult as trying to get to the BCS or second- or third-tier bowl in the SEC.
West Virginia chose stability (BCS and otherwise) - and money - over geography.
It's going to cost West Virginia more in travel costs to play in the Big 12, but the Mountaineers are going to bring in more revenue.
Let's run some numbers.
The closest drive to Morgantown in the Big 12 is Iowa State, about 870 miles.
WVU received $7.049 million in Big East revenue sharing last school year, and that includes TV, bowls, NCAA basketball units, Olympic sports success, etc.
In the Big 12, with its ESPN deal that runs through 2016 and a secondary deal with Fox through 2025, the average annual payout from telecast rights alone could reach $15 million per school in a 10-team configuration.
Tack on bowl and NCAA Tournament hoops bucks on top of that. And when the first-tier deal is up for renegotiation in a few years, that $60 million for the conference annually will grow substantially, as TV dollars have in the Pac-12, Big Ten, SEC and ACC
The Big East doesn't have a TV deal beyond 2013 - and what it might land without the football defectors won't compare to the pot WVU will share.
While WVU might have fit better in the ACC and SEC when you're holding a map, the former wasn't interested. The SEC would have been a tougher competitive (and dollar-matching) challenge in football.
The Big 12 would like the Mountaineers in the fold ASAP - like next season. Big East Commissioner John Marinatto has been repeatedly vocal about holding teams to a 27-month exit rule, so WVU may end up negotiating its way to the Dallas-based league by paying more than a $5 million departure fee.
(Marinatto's stance is foolish. It's the typical basketball-first Big East thinking. Does he want a WVU, Pitt or Syracuse winning the Big East title in 2012 and/or '13, and taking a BCS bid away from one of the teams staying in the league ... and have a good BCS standings number move to the Big 12 or ACC for future computations?)
There are numerous matters and ramifications to be sorted out, such as scheduling. The Big 12 would like West Virginia to take over Missouri's conference football schedule, as TCU is filling the Texas A&M void.
If that happens, WVU could have Oklahoma, Kansas State, TCU, Baylor and Kansas at home next season, and visit Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech. A home game every season against the Sooners or Longhorns is a major step ahead, especially if the "Backyard Brawl" continues as a non-conference series.
If the conference switch happens immediately, WVU will need to drop a 2012 game among Marshall, Maryland, Florida State and James Madison (at FedEx Field). You can envision future Mountaineer football schedules of nine Big 12 games, Pitt, Maryland and an FCS opponent.
The move returns WVU football Coach Dana Holgorsen to where he cut his major college coaching teeth, a league where his spread grew its roots. It brings men's basketball Coach Bob Huggins back to Kansas State, where he wouldn't have left had it not been for an offer from his hometown school and alma mater.
Bowls, you ask?
The Big 12 has Fiesta (BCS roots), Cotton, Alamo, Insight, Holiday, Meineke (Texas Bowl) and Pinstripe. The Big East has a BCS at-large, Champs Sports, Belk (Charlotte), Pinstripe, Compass (Birmingham) and Beef O'Brady's (St. Petersburg).
Big edge, Big 12.
While WVU loses the attraction of playing the Big East tournament in Madison Square Garden and Big East hoops have been superior to the Big 12, the three-team loss to the Big East will be significant. Just ask Louisville's Rick Pitino.
Besides, the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City is a great event, and when you're playing basketball in a league with a storied Kansas, and Texas, K-State, Oklahoma State and Baylor, you're playing in more than the degree of difficulty of Phog Allen Fieldhouse.
And there's also this floating around in the college realignment stratosphere ... The ACC and Big Ten won't take Notre Dame unless the Fighting Irish give up football independence.
If ND no longer wants to stick with a Big East that has lost lots of its oomph, well, the Big 12 is said to be considering the Irish as a potential 11th member (with Midwest roots), keeping the football number at 10 schools.
Don't know if or when that flies, but if it does, it's another point of attraction for WVU in the Big 12.
I hear the worry among WVU faithful, that six years down the road Texas or Oklahoma will get the itch to move to the Pac-20, the SEC West or Cancun or Guadalajara. Then what's the Big 12?
You can't worry about that. A lot of the moves already made in realignment don't make a lot of sense, but they make a lot of dollars. No one can predict what might happen in college athletics in six months, much less six years.
WVU is trading Manhattan (the island) for Manhattan, Kan. It's a much better deal for the Mountaineers than the Indians got from the Dutch for $24 in beads.
And Luck has proven one thing again - he's a mover.
by Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the last few days, West Virginia Athletic Director Oliver Luck has been labeled as "loony" by a respected Syracuse newspaper columnist and an "idiot" by a veteran ESPN play-by-play man.
Say what you will about Luck, but the second-year WVU athletic chief does what he says he is going to do, damn the consequences.
The Mountaineers are headed to the Big 12 Conference, leaving behind the Big East, where the future is really not about realignment, but survival.
It was little more than five weeks ago when longtime West Virginia foes Pitt and Syracuse announced they were leaving the Big East for the ACC, starting the latest round of major college musical chairs.
Reacting to that, Luck said, "No matter how the college athletic landscape changes, there is no doubt WVU is and will remain a national player."
He's helped assure that, tying together his athletic backgrounds in the Mountain State and Lone Star State.
So, the Mountaineers will be traveling to Waco and Ames rather than Piscataway and Storrs, but they'll also share a conference tie with Oklahoma and Texas rather than Central Florida and SMU.
As forecast here first last month, the linchpin for WVU fortunes would be Missouri. Once the Tigers played their hand, West Virginia was going to know for certain whether it needed a Mayflower truck.
Luck and WVU President Jim Clements were playing three hands in this high-stakes poker game, with the Big East, Big 12 and SEC.
Mizzou is following Texas A&M to the SEC. For the Big East, with WVU following the rival Panthers and Orange out the door, may find that Bowl Championship Series "AQ" stands for "awfully questionable" rather than "automatic qualifier."
It says here that West Virginia comes out a winner, and it's expected to become official today when Big 12 Conference bigwigs show up on the Morgantown campus for an official welcome.
No couch burning, please. It's OK to fire off a musket round or two.
WVU could have taken the easy way out and stayed as the beast of the Big East, but how meaningful would that have been?
The Mountaineers had to go now, because if they didn't, Louisville would have ... again, diminishing the Big East.
WVU will find football success harder to come by in the Big 12, but not as difficult as trying to get to the BCS or second- or third-tier bowl in the SEC.
West Virginia chose stability (BCS and otherwise) - and money - over geography.
It's going to cost West Virginia more in travel costs to play in the Big 12, but the Mountaineers are going to bring in more revenue.
Let's run some numbers.
The closest drive to Morgantown in the Big 12 is Iowa State, about 870 miles.
WVU received $7.049 million in Big East revenue sharing last school year, and that includes TV, bowls, NCAA basketball units, Olympic sports success, etc.
In the Big 12, with its ESPN deal that runs through 2016 and a secondary deal with Fox through 2025, the average annual payout from telecast rights alone could reach $15 million per school in a 10-team configuration.
Tack on bowl and NCAA Tournament hoops bucks on top of that. And when the first-tier deal is up for renegotiation in a few years, that $60 million for the conference annually will grow substantially, as TV dollars have in the Pac-12, Big Ten, SEC and ACC
The Big East doesn't have a TV deal beyond 2013 - and what it might land without the football defectors won't compare to the pot WVU will share.
While WVU might have fit better in the ACC and SEC when you're holding a map, the former wasn't interested. The SEC would have been a tougher competitive (and dollar-matching) challenge in football.
The Big 12 would like the Mountaineers in the fold ASAP - like next season. Big East Commissioner John Marinatto has been repeatedly vocal about holding teams to a 27-month exit rule, so WVU may end up negotiating its way to the Dallas-based league by paying more than a $5 million departure fee.
(Marinatto's stance is foolish. It's the typical basketball-first Big East thinking. Does he want a WVU, Pitt or Syracuse winning the Big East title in 2012 and/or '13, and taking a BCS bid away from one of the teams staying in the league ... and have a good BCS standings number move to the Big 12 or ACC for future computations?)
There are numerous matters and ramifications to be sorted out, such as scheduling. The Big 12 would like West Virginia to take over Missouri's conference football schedule, as TCU is filling the Texas A&M void.
If that happens, WVU could have Oklahoma, Kansas State, TCU, Baylor and Kansas at home next season, and visit Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech. A home game every season against the Sooners or Longhorns is a major step ahead, especially if the "Backyard Brawl" continues as a non-conference series.
If the conference switch happens immediately, WVU will need to drop a 2012 game among Marshall, Maryland, Florida State and James Madison (at FedEx Field). You can envision future Mountaineer football schedules of nine Big 12 games, Pitt, Maryland and an FCS opponent.
The move returns WVU football Coach Dana Holgorsen to where he cut his major college coaching teeth, a league where his spread grew its roots. It brings men's basketball Coach Bob Huggins back to Kansas State, where he wouldn't have left had it not been for an offer from his hometown school and alma mater.
Bowls, you ask?
The Big 12 has Fiesta (BCS roots), Cotton, Alamo, Insight, Holiday, Meineke (Texas Bowl) and Pinstripe. The Big East has a BCS at-large, Champs Sports, Belk (Charlotte), Pinstripe, Compass (Birmingham) and Beef O'Brady's (St. Petersburg).
Big edge, Big 12.
While WVU loses the attraction of playing the Big East tournament in Madison Square Garden and Big East hoops have been superior to the Big 12, the three-team loss to the Big East will be significant. Just ask Louisville's Rick Pitino.
Besides, the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City is a great event, and when you're playing basketball in a league with a storied Kansas, and Texas, K-State, Oklahoma State and Baylor, you're playing in more than the degree of difficulty of Phog Allen Fieldhouse.
And there's also this floating around in the college realignment stratosphere ... The ACC and Big Ten won't take Notre Dame unless the Fighting Irish give up football independence.
If ND no longer wants to stick with a Big East that has lost lots of its oomph, well, the Big 12 is said to be considering the Irish as a potential 11th member (with Midwest roots), keeping the football number at 10 schools.
Don't know if or when that flies, but if it does, it's another point of attraction for WVU in the Big 12.
I hear the worry among WVU faithful, that six years down the road Texas or Oklahoma will get the itch to move to the Pac-20, the SEC West or Cancun or Guadalajara. Then what's the Big 12?
You can't worry about that. A lot of the moves already made in realignment don't make a lot of sense, but they make a lot of dollars. No one can predict what might happen in college athletics in six months, much less six years.
WVU is trading Manhattan (the island) for Manhattan, Kan. It's a much better deal for the Mountaineers than the Indians got from the Dutch for $24 in beads.
And Luck has proven one thing again - he's a mover.
