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Minnesota Senate gave final approval to Vikings new $975 million stadium (Star Tribune via Sports Business News)

Is Florida State heading to the Big 12 as conference roulette rolls on? (Yahoo, Orlando Sentinel)

Is Boise reconsidering its move to the Big East? (CBS Sports)

Fresh on the heel of the Lingerie Football League, we have the Bikini Hockey League (Bob's Blitz)

The USFL returns, but as a minor league on par with the NBA D-League (Sports Business Digest)

New York Times sells remaining interest in Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Red Sox and Liverpool FC (Yahoo)

ESPN is bringing back 30 for 30 for a new season of 15 documentaries starting this fall (NYT)

USA Today is out with its annual database of collegiate athletic finances (USA Today)

Why sports TV rights fees keep growing (Eric Crawford)

The Rick's blog is back as he humorously discusses what the Cards need to do in offseason (Rick Pitino)

ACC-Big Ten Challenge matchups announced featuring Maryland at Northwestern (ESPN)

Is Madison Square Garden ($MSG) a buy right now (Insider Monkey)

Here's a collection of links for your weekend pleasure.  If I have missed something that you've been reading, please pass it along, topped off by the final round of English Premier League action.
Do wins in college football translate into better fundraising for the school? (Birmingham News)

ESPN and ACC agree to new media rights deal through 2026 ( ACC Sports Journal)

St. Louis Blues being sold in a short sale (Forbes)

Cantor Fitzgerald takes on sports betting (Bloomberg)

The end of the mtn, the first college conference network (The Wiz of Odds)

Stop me if you've heard this before, Pitt sues Big East in hopes of leaving early for the ACC (ESPN)

Before I dive into the topic of the post, let me first say a word or two about the absence of recent posting.  I realize it's been a while and I want to apologize for that.  A combination of health issues, all now since resolved, thank you, and family matters have consumed my time for the last couple of months and I just haven't been able to devote any time to the blog.  However, with most of that behind me, I hope to resume posting on a much more regular basis.


In my absence, it seems that college athletics is engaged in another round of conference roulette, touched off, in part, by another ACC raid on the Big East, grabbing Pitt and Syracuse.  Has there ever been a more insecure conference commissioner than John Swofford?  This time, of course, the SEC joined in the fun early with Texas A&M longing to get out from under the huge shadow cast by its Austin rival, jumping from the Big XII.  The final shoe has yet to drop as Missouri is readying itself for a move to the SEC, with the Big XII then having to decide whether to just replace Missouri and stay at ten members or invite three schools and go back to 12.  By all reports, there is no consensus yet, although the Big XII presidents meet this week.

The Big XII decision has ramifications for the Big East, which is trying to salvage itself with a plan to expand to 12 football members by adding Boise State, Air Force and Navy for football and Houston, SMU and UCF for all sports.  Since Louisville and West Virginia are widely thought to be two of the three leading candidate to join the Big XII, all the Big East can do now is wait it out.

Aside from your favorite school may be playing next year or in 2013, there are two interesting undercurrents to all of this "ring around the rosey".  One is the unseen hand of ESPN; the other is the potential effect this maneuvering may have on the NCAA's and its members' tax exemption.  Let's take ESPN first.  To accept what I'm about to discuss takes a little bit of belief in conspiracy theories.  While I'm no usually prone to believing in them, this story has too many coincidences not to give at least a little credence.  First, a little history.  Within the past year or two,  three major conferences have signed new television agreements for football and men's basketball: the ACC, SEC and Big XII.  Both the ACC and SEC signed very lucrative long-term deals with ESPN, which created branded "ACC on ESPN", and "SEC on ESPN" networks among other enticements, like hundreds of millions of dollars.  The Big XII spurned ESPN and signed with Fox, its previous media partner.  Earlier this year, the Big East, in the final year of its existing ESPN contract, rejected an almost $1 billion contract in favor of negotiating next year, when all the other conference deals will have been completed.  Leading the charge to reject the contract was Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg.  The two conferences most adversely affected by all of the school movement so far:  Big XII and Big East.  One further bit of evidence is the comment by the ever lovable athletic director at Boston College, who, in discussing the admission of Pitt and Syracuse, said "It�s 85 percent football money. TV - ESPN - is the one who told us what to do."He later apologized and said he misspoke but what would you expect him to do?

The tax implications of the realignment game are potentially far more impactful than any monetary gain a new conference and new TV contract may provide.  For more than five years, Congress has been "interested" in the tax exempt status of the NCAA and the athletic programs of its member institutions.  For any number of reasons, members of Congress have thought that athletic programs sporting budgets  in the tens, and even hundreds in the case of Texas and Ohio State, of millions and making decisions based on business necessity not the welfare of the student athlete were being operated as businesses and should be taxed accordingly.  In 2006, the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the NCAA asking it to respond to various questions and justify its tax exemption.  While the issue has been on the back burner since, comments like these from our voluble friend at Boston College certainly don't help the NCAA cause.  When schools are jumping to leagues with questionable geographic and academic ties (see ACC or Boise State to the Big East) it becomes increasingly easy for the opponents of the NCAA to question its right to a tax exemption.

When the primary justification for a conference switch is to access a greater pot of TV money, or even to gain access to the BCS, without regard for the welfare of the student athletes who must do the far flung travel while also keeping up with classwork, can it honestly be said that such a move is furthering the academic mission of the university. Before you say football is only once a week and they generally charter planes at this level anyway, remember that most of these moves are all sports moves requiring the Olympic sports, which do not have the budgets enjoyed by basketball and football, to make the same trips.  Olympic sports generally travel commercial if they must fly and those are all day trips in both directions.  We all know how pleasant the commercial flying experience has become.  Athletic department actions which are so blatantly commercial, as jumping conferences for a share of TV money, may go a long way towards solidifying the argument that the NCAA and its member institutions are not engaged in activities that further the academic mission of the school, but are commercial enterprises that deserve to be taxed like ones.  Should that happen, not only would there be tax to pay, but donations to the athletic department would likely lose their charitable deduction, significantly decreasing the attractiveness of many season ticket packages.  As has been the case so often in the past, when it comes to college athletics, decisions are often made for all the wrong reasons or are not carefully thought through.  Athletics seems to attract emotional decision-making more than any other aspect of university life and, as a result, the entire enterprise of college athletics as we know it may be placed in peril.

The great conference realignment that college athletics has been undergoing over the last five or six years, triggered first by the ACC raid on the Big East and most recently by the Big Ten's decision to expand to twelve, has led to some interesting geographic permutations.  A legacy of earlier conference shuffling left the WAC stretching from Hawai'i to that decidedly western state of Louisiana, home of Louisiana Tech.  Similarly, the Sun Belt includes those noted warm weather locales of Denver and Bowling Green, Kentucky (OK, Kentucky is a southern state but Denver?).

However, some of the latest conference memberships really stretch the idea of geography to its limits.  With TCU's move from the Mountain West (you've seen the mountains in Ft. Worth right) to the Big East, we're now supposed to believe that Texas is in the east.  However, no school more represents the absurdity of certain conference memberships, and how far removed we are from the days when conferences represented regional associations, than the relatively new Division I Great West Conference.

The Great West is basically a collection of schools around the country who recently upgraded their programs to Division I and consists of schools located in California, Texas, Utah, the Dakotas, Chicago and New Jersey.  It began life as a football conference and now has ten members, three of whom are football only members.  All of the schools have relatively small athletic department budgets which are strained by the travel costs associated with playing in a conference that is not only this spread-out but also includes several cities not regularly served by nonstop airline routes.  It's college athletics' version of the high school losers table, and until one of the cool kids takes pity on them, the member schools are stuck with each other, absurd travel costs and all.  Such is the price of admission to the pot of gold associated with March Madness.

It's often said about departmental politics in colleges and universities that the politics is so brutal because the stakes are so small.  Maybe that's why the conference realignment game being played out among the Mountain West, WAC and West  Conference Conference seems to be on a whole other plain of duplicity and hard feelings than even the infamous ACC midnight raid on the Big  East.  At least in that raid, with the exception of the Boston College, there were no expressions of fealty to the league being abandoned before the jump was made.


The realignment dance out west began when the Pac-10(12) decided to explore expansion.  Shortly after the expansion discussions began, it became evident to BYU that it would not become a member of the PAC-10(12) and that Utah likely would.  At that point, it became clear to the leadership of the WAC that an opportunity was presenting itself to elevate the league's status to becoming the top non automatic qualifying conference in the land, by providing BYU with a spot for all of its teams other than football and working out an arrangement that would allow BYU to go independent in football, which is something that BYU had been exploring for years.  To that end, the WAC asked each member for a five year commitment to the league and each member agreed, whether that agreement was in writing and the nature of the agreement is going to be something that a court will likely decide but I'm getting ahead of myself.  


The Mountain West, now fearful of losing its two best programs, went searching for new members, other than Boise State who had jumped from the WAC before the discussions described above took place.  The league asked Utah State but the Aggies declined in solidarity with its WAC brethren and in reliance on its agreement with the other members.  It might end up paying a very heavy price for that choice.  The WAC then asked both Fresno State and Nevada, who each thought about their commitment to the WAC for about five seconds and jumped to the MWC, probably believing BYU was staying.  Now, Utah State, having been totally deceived by Fresno State and Nevada, wants a mulligan on the MWC decision and supposedly they are in discussions. 


Yesterday, BYU announced it is leaving the MWC to go independent and will affiliate with the West Coast Conference in other sports.  If that doesn't ring a bell, it is the wholly owned subsidiary of Gonzaga basketball.  BYU also announced an eight year agreement with ESPN for broadcast of its games across the ESPN family which justifies its decision.  In fact, it even has Southern Call at least thinking about taking the same route.  Who knows maybe Texas will take its Longhorn Network and go independent as well, although they have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages so I guess it wouldn't make much sense for them to leave the Big XII (X).

The WAC meanwhile is now scrambling to see if they can keep a league together.  The biggest loser in all of this may be Hawai'i who desperately needs a conference to ensure enough games for all of its athletes.  It's bad enough trying to schedule football when the visitor receives and extra game to make up the travel costs, but the Olympic sports have similar travel costs (admittedly the teams are smaller) but no way to make up the additional expense.  If Hawai'i can't count on a conference to fill out its schedule its participation in Division I could be in jeopardy.  The second biggest loser could be the only school that acted honorably in the whole mess, Utah State.  If the MWC doesn't extend membership to the Aggies and they are left with the other WAC schools trying to pull together a makeshift conference, they may just have to return to the Big West.


We would like to think of our institutions of higher education as places where our children go to learn the values that help govern our free society.  Based on the manner in which these schools conduct their business, the values that are being taught to out kids are the very values that embody the Wall Street mentality that put us in the Great Recession.  A college or university athletic department is first and foremost a reflection of, introduction to and manifestation of that particular college or university.  If this is the way that these universities wish to portray themselves to the general public, they should not cry too much when legislators cut the budgets of public schools and when public and private schools have a tougher time attracting donations.  Few people like to be associated with greed, duplicity and the callous disregard for general ethics.  College athletics in particular should be above this.

It's a slow Sunday here in the Bluegrass as not even yesterday's storms have been any help in relieving the oppressive 90+ temps and corresponding 85+ humidity, which has been with us seemingly every day this summer, as my latest electric bill shows.

Sorry for my absence from the blog this week.  I came back to the Bluegrass from a brief visit to Chicago to visit relatives and immediately upon returning to the Ohio Valley Steamroom was felled by some ailment caused no doubt by the thick layer of ozone that has been hanging over the Valley for the last couple of weeks.  I know the Northeast got 100+ days this week, but we've had something like 25 90+ degree days since June 1 with no end in sight. The humidity has been hovering around 90% and it's not safe for man or beast out there.


Enough complaining.  I'm finally returning to some semblance of a normal life so it's back to the blog.  I know you struggled through The Decision without me but I'm sure you managed better than Dan Gilbert did.  Someone must have taken his lithium away.  Good luck to the Heat - if they don't win a championship this year, there will be hell to pay in South Beach.

I haven't been able to keep up with much this week, so here's a few links to carry you through the weekend:

Why not a seventh Canadian team for the NHL, a TSN, Globe and Mail series (TSN, Globe and Mail)

Is there a sinister bias for calling fouls in soccer? (Paul Kedrosky)

ACC lands a new media deal with ESPN for about $1.86 Billion though 2022-23. The deal should double each school's current television revenue.  (News&Observer, ACC)

Fatwa issued in UAE against  vuvuzelas above 100 decibels (The National via Bloomberg)

How different are major league baseball stadiums - at least those without roofs? (Snippets)

On Sunday, the Big Ten Presidents met for four hours and discussed expansion for at least half that time.  What was decided, if anything, has not yet been announced, although it appears that no vote has been taken.  What is clear is that the deadline the Big XII gave Nebraska and Missouri has accelerated the Big Ten timeline.

Overcoming spirited bidding from Fox, ESPN landed the football and basketball rights contract for the ACC for the next 12 years.  That bidding by Fox drove the price up from an expected $125 million per year to $155 million per, still well south of the SEC's $205 million from its new CBS and ESPN contracts.  The new contracts take effect with the start of the 2011-12 season and represent a substantial increase from the existing contracts with Raycom and ESPN, paying the conference an average of $73-$75 million.  Each member school will go from earning about $5.6 million to an average of $12.9 million.

Although Sports Business Journal indicated that Fox helped drive up ESPN's bid, as mentioned above, according to ACC sports.com, Fox was not given a chance to match ESPN's bid, as the league decided that ESPN's reach was too broad to give up.  That may prove a problem for Fox as it looks to the Big XII and Pac-10 down the road.

The ACC has the misfortune of its contracts expiring with the end of the 2010-11 season and therefore being in a position of having to act now before the after-effects of Big Ten expansion will completely sort itself out. Whether the contract takes into account the possibility of future expansion of the ACC is not known, but if it does not also add an additional $13-$15 for each additional school added to the league upon expansion, then this contract will be a major hindrance to the league when it comes time to deal with the after the Big Ten announcement.  Since the ACC chose not to pursue the establishment of its own network when the option was presented to it by Comcast, it will be all the more vital that this contract have the flexibility to reward the league for improved numbers in the event of expansion.

 The NCAA recognizes schools each year for their exceptional work in the classroom as part of the its academic performance program. The Public Recognition Award is  given to each school that performs in the top ten percent in each sport on the APR. A total of 841 teams are being recognized this year.  

Famed WWE wrestler and former Georgia Bulldog football star Bill Goldberg headlines a class of seven inductees into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.  Also, headlining this year's inductees are Virginia Tech head basketball coach Seth Greenberg and US National Swim Team, and Beijing Olympic star Jason Lezak, he of the touch-up win in the thrilling 4x100 meter relay that kept Michael Phelps medal march intact.  In addition, the class consisted of female judo champion Rusty Kanokogi; Penn State women�s volleyball coach Russ Rose; Achilles Track Club founder Dick Traum; and former NFL offensive lineman Alan Veingrad.

Goldberg of course is an athlete and personality all his own and is rumored to be mulling a comeback to professional wrestling.  He would not address that preferring to focus on Celebrity Apprentice.  All by himself, he manages to destroy the stereotype of the shy, bookish and retiring Jewish weakling schoolboy, and an entire generation of Jewish youth will forever look up to him for that.