Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Media & Entertainment Law Blogs -> Sports Biz

Media & Entertainment Law

: Sports Biz

Texas Turns Down Pac-10; Big XII Survives

The Great Conference Realignment appears to be a small shift by three schools at least for now.  With Nebraska going to the Big Ten, Colorado to the Pac-10 and Boise to the Mountain West being the only moves for the time being, armageddon in college sports has been avoided and everyone can thank TExas for that.  As had been widely predicted all along, Texas was indeed the key to wholesale realignment and when UT turned down an invitation from the Pac-10, the other schools in the Big XII South followed suit and thee league survived to play another day.

That survival did not come without a cost however.  Texas negotiated is now clearly the top dog in the conference and the league will continue to distribute revenues unevenly.  Texas also won the right to retain local media rights, which the Pac-10 was unwiling to give it.  This will allow Texas to pursue its idea of a University of Texas network, an idea which it has been considering  for some time.  The Pac-10 needed all schools local media rights to facilitate its launch of a Pac-10 network modeled on the Big Ten Network. 

Based on preliminary discussions, Big XII Commissioner Dan Beebe believes Fox is willing to pay substantially more for its television rights when the current contract is up for renewal, even with the defections of Colorado and Nebraska.  Now, that will only be true if ESPN bids for them and if the departure of Nebraska really is that meaningless, two contingencies I don't really believe.  Nevertheless, on those assumptions and assuming a successful launch of the all Texas, all the time network, the Longhorns should be taking home between $20-$25 million per year in media income, or roughly what the Pac-10 would have been paying.  So Texas will get roughly the same amount of money, in a league with no championship game and with only Oklahoma to contend with on the field.  I don't think they had to deliberate too long about this one.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).