SEC accepts Texas A&M unanimously

[Dossenator]

Well, the Bix XII voted and all schools allowed Texas A&M to leave the Big XII. Today the SEC said that all 12 schools voted unanimously to have Texas A&M to join the SEC.

According to the SEC: "The SEC received written assurance from the Big 12 on Sept. 2 that it was free to accept Texas A&M as a member, Machen said."

However, today one school in the Big XII has withdrawn their consent. The report says it is Baylor. So legal action could slow the process, and the SEC said they would not accept any school under contract obligations with another conference.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story ... elays-move

[Dossenator]

The reports now say several schools in the Big XII are threatening to sue Texas A&M. Not sure anything will come from it. First, the official letter sent to the SEC from the Big XII stated that the 9 schools had voted and would allow A&M to leave the Big XII. And now they are changing their minds. Jeff Long the Arkansas AD said today in a news conference that the Big XII contacted him directly about joining the Big XII. Seems strange they would sue A&M but they think it is ok to contact schools in other conferences.

If Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas St (the schools threatening a lawsuit) want to be mad at someone it should be Texas. Texas destroyed the Big XII when they decided to have a Longhorn network, etc. And am I remembering correctly that revenue is not shared equally in the conference with a majority going to Texas and OU? (am I remembering that correctly). If anything they should be doing exactly what Nebraska, Colorado, and Texas A&M have done or are doing. Find a conference where they don't have to ride the coat tails of the Longhorns. I understand why they are threatening a lawsuit. They know they will be left out of a major conference if the Big XII implodes. If that happens then Baylor will know how SMU, and TCU felt when the SWC disbanded and they were left out of the Big XII.

[WoVeU]

I have to assume that even conference games are contracted with some kind of buyout...to me this as much leverage as these schools have, though that could be sizable. But this, I don't feel, is the crux of the situation. They are just brandishing a gun and now they have friends shining up their 9mm's as well. It is a threat of war looking for an olive branch before it ever begins. They are saying, "...hold the Heck up with this insanity...my hinder-part isn't going to be left out in the cold."

I think they are wise and I think within the next week or perhaps just a bit more there will be a "Come to Jesus" meeting on this. A phone conference could be going on right now, and likely will before the weekend with all 6 BCS conference presidents, key staff members, and some AD's. The new NCAA football landscape is about to be carved out!

[Dossenator]

I think you are right. And I don't think the Big XII survives. I do believe Texas, OU, Ok St, and TT will bolt for the Pac-12. I think Texas A&M and Missouri end up in the SEC (as well as two other schools to be determined: maybe West Virginia, etc). Teams like Baylor, Kansas, Iowa St, and Kansas St. will more than likely have to settle for a non-BCS conferences or play in conferences that are way out of their region (for example the ACC may look to add Kansas because of their basketball history but that does not fit regionally). I am with you that these lower level Big XII schools do not like the idea of being left out in the cold. Maybe the Big 10 and ACC will pick up a couple of teams but I do not see all the current teams associated with BCS conferences being able to stay in one of the big conferences. Too many teams and not enough slots.

However, what I don't understand is that all the Big XII schools sat down last week and voted on Texas A&M leaving. It was unanimous that they would allow them to leave without recourse (that was my understanding anyway). The Big XII then sent this very statement in an official letter to the SEC. If you remember the SEC said they would not allow A&M to join if they were still obligated to another conference and if legal action could be taken. The letter the Big XII supplied satisfied the SEC to the point where they voted and unanimously decided to extend an offer to A&M to join the league.

We will have 4 super conferences sooner, rather than later....even if that's not the best thing for the sport or the student athlete....or the fans for that matter.

[WoVeU]

I am still picking up tremors on the Longhorn Network problem. Several think Texas won't go West and likely no where else and will go independent. But my gears are turning on this. Notre Dame, they have a TV thing, not a network but a nice contract. So they could do as Notre Dame...which we might here initially. But if they want to go about this whole thing a little different...I see other possibilities. First, if the Longhorns don't go to any Super Conference, there is a small problem. BCS contract, as it stands, they are out in the cold right now, they don't have an ND exclusion. And they could get one in the future, but it would get really muddy with not only ND but also having Boise State throwing muscle around outside of the BCS. (Now, the talk I hear from Stoops sure sounds like they are planning life without a Texas rivalry.) If I had to bet they are married up with A&M and are going SEC, regionally they can have them Ark and LSU as new rivalries...thus replacing Ok. St. and Texas. (Check into some of Stoops statements and see if this sounds farfetched.) And if Oklahoma and A&M go SEC, Texas won't go PAC-16 and won't go Big 10 or SEC either, no with the Network and wanting to be more like ND...The Big Dog. Their dog gets much smaller in either move. Further, they then get to cut Oklahoma out of their portion of the TV deal!!!

I think a few landmines are coming...a not so super conference with 2 superegos. The new Big 12. If they partner with ND, Texas leads one side of the conference and ND gets the other. They could add Boise State and BYU to cement more BCS legitimacy. Then they could fill the other 10 spots with middling and lower talent and, I think, still leverage BCS bid. ANd in all of this they take care of 4 school's concerns. Because nobody say a 12 team conference has to play the other side of the conference X amount of games. It is their "New Big-12" they can make the rules. ND could play the other 5 schools...and I'd bet Navy would be one. (Check for ND history) Then another could be Air Force (Check for ND). Then Army could be another (Check for AF and Navy.) So ND could play 5 schools on their side of the conference, then in OOC, add Michigan, Michigan St., BC, and Purdue and still have 3 other games...likely 2 (or 1) from the other side of the conference. If the new Big-12 also has Baylor, Houston, USM, and UTSA...Texas gets a cheap travel schedule and gets to be the big dog, and have their network too. Like,

--South--
Texas
Boise St
Baylor
Houston
USM
UTSA

--North--
ND
BYU
Air Force
Navy
Army
Iowa State -or- Colorado St

Just throwing my wrench in, but giving the schools I have put in there, "They all win!" Not super sized, but super in many rewards. Scheduling for Texas, they play their side plus ND and BYU and an Oklahoma and Texas Tech in OOC, they have a contending schedule.

Especially if the Big East would suck up Kansas, K St., and Missouri or Villanova. If it is Nova then reforming the landscape only leaves Missouri out there as an attractive team. Assuming the PAC-12 takes Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. I think the Big-10 takes Missouri and can add a smaller school from the MAC or Marshall to balance at 14. Then you have the PAC-14, Big-10, and the SEC all at 14 teams. Then the ACC, Big East, and Big-12 are at 12 teams. Things could sit pat like that for a year or two, I think you would see all of them filling out to 16 teams from the better of the remaining schools. And in the end, there are 6 - 16 team school in the BCS . Not 4 and not 5. (And not a really bad balance, SEC still really tough w/ the Big-10 and PAC-14 right behind them. But the other BCS schools would still secure bids...they have a Championship game and room to flesh out the schedule for their purpose...an NC run or watered down for wins!)

[Spence]

Not that it is something I would like, but I am hearing Texas and Notre Dame to the B10. I know there have been discussions between Texas and Ohio State about how the revenue sharing works in the B10. This isn't a move that has much to do with sports it is about schools who can get around 300,000,000 in research money. The B10 has several right now, Texas would be another. Notre Dame isn't a fit in the B10 at all, that move is purely about sports and football. I'm not a fan of conferences going into 16 teams, but there is a reason the new big ten logo looks like this (B1G) with the G finishing the word big and looking like also B16.

[wvjohn]

WVU An Attractive Option For SEC

There’s nothing but talk at this point, and the old saying would have you believe talk is cheap. But multiple reports Tuesday indicated West Virginia could be on the radar to join Texas A&M as new members of the Southeastern Conference.

It all started with a simple tweet from CBSSports.com’s Dennis Dodd at 5:57 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday evening: “Latest on SEC No. 14 West Virginia/Missouri.”
The fact that SEC presidents were reportedly already planning to meet Tuesday night to vote on issuing an invitation to Texas A&M only added to the intrigue.

Dodd’s tweet gained further traction, when David Sandhop, publisher of Aggie Websider (the A&M Scout.com site), reported not only that the Aggies had received the needed votes to make the jump to the SEC, but that the league’s presidents had given commissioner Mike Slive the authority to negotiate with both Missouri and WVU to possibly join as well.

Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com added his own voice to the chorus not long after, tweeting similar information to Sandhop’s. Brown, who covers Texas athletics but was ahead of the curve nationally during realignment talks in 2010, said the Mountaineers are “squarely on the SEC radar as a potential 14th member.”

The reports set off a series of debates among national sports media figures and fans of some schools as to the merits of the potential additions.

Chadd Scott, an Atlanta-based sports radio personality, chimed in: “I don’t believe for a second SEC interested in WVU,” he said on Twitter. “Mizzou or staying @ 13 far better choices.”

But that opinion would seem to be a relatively uninformed one -- at least when it comes to the idea of the SEC “staying at 13.”

NCAA Bylaw 17.9.5.2 (c) would make that a nightmarish scenario because of the SEC’s pre-existing conference championship game in football.

The bylaw reads that for such a game to be held, it must be played “between division champions of a member conference of 12 or more institutions that is divided into two divisions...each of which conducts round-robin, regular-season competition among the members of that division.”

The important portion there is “round-robin.” If the SEC stayed at 13 teams for even one year, it would be a scheduling nightmare. One division would have seven teams, the other six. The NCAA bylaw would require each to play round-robin style -- meaning those in one division would have six divisional games and those in the other would have five.

Thus, the SEC will need to add a 14th member to avoid such issues. And if Texas A&M’s own “Dear John” letter to the Big 12 Conference is to be believed and that institution will withdraw from the Big 12 next summer (meaning it would start SEC play next season), the SEC needs that 14th member in a hurry.

Simply put: West Virginia might be the path of least resistance for that league.

Other potential choices that have been bandied about for weeks have major hurdles to clear: Florida’s disdain for the idea of adding Florida State; Virginia Tech’s political entanglements within its commonwealth’s borders; Missouri’s oft-discussed preference to join the Big Ten.

WVU has no such issues. Politically, the move would be a slam-dunk in the Mountain State. There are no regional competitors within the current SEC framework who would try to block the move to protect their turf.

Scott and several others who publicly condemned the idea of adding the Mountaineers to the SEC pointed to Missouri holding St. Louis within its borders, and the sizable TV market that would bring to the league. Their argument indirectly indicated West Virginia lacked in that area.

But the numbers might not be so skewed in the Tigers’ direction as many might think. In Nielson’s most recent data on the size of local television markets, St. Louis ranked 21st with just over 1.25 million TV homes.

But Pittsburgh, about an hour north of WVU’s Morgantown campus, was not far behind at 24th on the list (1.16 million TV homes). WVU also would bring the Charleston-Huntington market, ranked 64th on the list. Arguments could be made as to the Mountaineers’ reach into the Washington, D.C., market as well (No. 9 nationally).

For comparison’s sake, Lexington, Ky., (home of current SEC member Kentucky) comes in 63rd on the list. The Wildcats also reach deep into the Louisville market, but that city is only 50th on the list.

Other metrics indicate the passion of West Virginia fans is at least on par with that of most other current SEC schools and Missouri.

The Collegiate Licensing Company’s most recent rankings in terms of royalties on merchandise sold placed WVU at No. 15.

That’s ahead of SEC schools like Arkansas (17), South Carolina (19), Ole Miss (37) and Vanderbilt (64). It is also better than the program that is apparently the conference’s newest member, as Texas A&M came in at No. 20. And it outranks the Mountaineers’ reported competition for an SEC bid, Missouri (18).

As things stand currently, even without the benefit of a TV contract on a scale most other BCS conferences enjoy, WVU’s football program is the 24th most profitable college athletics program in the country, according to data compiled by sports business guru Kristi Dosh.

That data indicates the Mountaineers bring in almost $29 million per year in football revenue -- more than $4 million per year better than Missouri.

WVU athletic director Oliver Luck has also pointed to television ratings as a way of showing the power of his football program’s brand.

“We've had the most-watched Thursday night ESPN game [a 2006 loss at Louisville, ESPN’s fifth-highest rated college football game ever as of 2010] ...” he said back in June 2010 after taking the AD job, when the first reports of major realignment were still simmering.

“Those aren't folks just within our state boundary; that's across the country, so obviously, people care about Mountaineer football, and this conference realignment, by and large, is being driven by football.”

And then there is West Virginia fans’ penchant for traveling to road games and bowl contests in droves, something that has been cited time and again by bowl executives as one of the things that is most enticing about the Mountaineers when December and January roll around.

On the field, of course, WVU has a pair of BCS bowl wins over traditional powerhouse programs in the last half-dozen years -- including an SEC champion (Georgia in 2005-06) and a Big 12 champion (Oklahoma in 2007-08). The program has averaged 10 wins a season over the last six years.

All this isn’t to say there aren’t potential roadblocks.

Various academic rankings still put WVU far behind other possible SEC additions, and conferences have at least given the appearance of caring about such things thus far.

And the possibility exists that the very public expression of interest in West Virginia is little more than a political play by SEC commissioner Mike Slive, hoping to pressure Missouri (or whoever else that conference might otherwise want) into making a move sooner rather than later, lest the proverbial ship sail in the form of an invitation to the Mountaineers.

The fact that WVU is in the conversation at all may surprise some. If the SEC’s interest is real and such a time comes to pass, Luck, University president James P. Clements and other officials will have to put on an impressive sales pitch if they hope to secure an invitation.

But the facts support the notion that, at the very least, the Mountaineers are a competitive option when their full resume is considered next to that of Missouri or any other school on the SEC’s radar. Whether such a move occurs remains to be seen and depends on multiple factors at conferences and schools across the country.

[Cane from the Bend]

A&M is being blocked; and it's Oklahoma's fault . . . Indirectly.

This is what's happening. Eight of the nine schools have retracted their consent of Texas A&M from leaving the Big Twelve conference.

Oklahoma, being the odd man out, is the sole institution voting in favor of the Aggies leaving.

So, what happened?

Well, the Big XII schools want to stay together and pursue BYU as their 10th member to replace A&M.

Oklahoma, however, is unsure as to what Texas' intentions are, and thus, have not committed to staying with the conference, yet.

As such, the other 8 members of the Big 12 are suing as a prevention of breaking up the conference, keeping Oklahoma from leaving.

Apparently, sometime within the next two weeks, there is going to be a meeting to discus what action to take. Oklahoma is going to have to make their declaration of intent, which could determine the follow through, or with draw of said lawsuit by the other schools. Texas will make their decision there after.

This is getting kind of murky. But, if Texas is one of the schools involved in this lawsuit, and right now they are. Then you have to assume that UT has drawn their line in the sand, and decided to stay put.

That being what Oklahoma wanted to hear; then, my guess is the Big 12 will resolve this matter by drawing up a contract that does not include Texas A&M, then proceed in courting BYU.

And they will cut the Aggies free to make their SEC mistake.

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.

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[Dossenator]

AD Luck during the rain delay during the WV game said that he would seriously listen if the SEC calls. I happen to believe WV will be #14....I think Missouri is in the mix as well.

Everything I have heard is OU to the Pac 12. Who knows?

I read somewhere today that the SEC has contacted Notre Dame and ND is listening. I don't see this happening.

[Dossenator]

Cane...but the Big XII all ready voted and all schools gave their approval for A&M to leave. How can they now go back and change their mind? If lawsuits are filed I don't see it getting very far.

[Spence]

Cane...but the Big XII all ready voted and all schools gave their approval for A&M to leave. How can they now go back and change their mind? If lawsuits are filed I don't see it getting very far.

I read where six teams didn't give permission.

[GoBoilers]

This is getting so convoluted that a National Convention is in order. Schools like TCU traveling 2000 miles out of their geographic locale makes no sense. Let the 70-80 schools fight for re-drawing everything. Some will be happy some won't. There can be some kind of criteria academically to pare some down. Tradition and some kind of power rating will cull some. Then let them make their deals as that is what is already going down. Then tyhe lawyers will have plenty of work but, they are already going to have lawsuits so have at it!

There is some way of doing that will make more sense than not.

[Spence]

It is gerrymandering at it's worst.

[Dossenator]

Cane...but the Big XII all ready voted and all schools gave their approval for A&M to leave. How can they now go back and change their mind? If lawsuits are filed I don't see it getting very far.

I read where six teams didn't give permission.

Well, the SEC did receive a letter from the Big XII saying that A&M was free to leave the Big XII (on September 2nd). I guess now they are saying that the letter can not be used to take away each schools rights to legal action.

This story explains it.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... as-a38m-/1

[Spence]

It is going to happen anyway. I'm not sure why they would waste the money in a lawsuit, unless it was civil.