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BachelorTrek

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  1. 15 minutes ago, Lidig8r said:

    You have echoed my point. 

    From the date Arkansas left the SWC, its rivalry with Texas was dead.

    When aggy left the Big 12, its perceived rivalry with Texas was dead.

    And yes, financially, CFB has exploded, thus proving the point that rivalries are NOT needed for the proliferation of the money grab in college football.

    It was Skippy McSkip who previously attempted to connect rivalries and geography with the golden goose. My reply indicated his statement was fallacious.

    College football is about Mr. Green.

    Dammit.. pay attention. 

    0672cec4-7435-4966-a40f-72667e8db450_text.gif.bc0a2608af5f2c07f7bd9d148ed0a06a.gif

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  2. 9 minutes ago, Smax said:

    Funny, I am in Houston visiting family and the subject tolls came up last night. When Txdot and Harris county were floating the idea of Houstons first toll road, beltway 8, they said that once enough tolls were collected to cover the construction cost it would be switched to a non toll road. Here we are 40 or so years later and

    https://abc13.com/archive/8671067/

    Tuesday, May 22, 2012

    HOUSTON

    The next time a politician asks you to vote on something, you might want to get all the fine print in writing. Don't you get sick of broken promises?

    It's another morning drive to work, and before this day is over, half a million of you will pay a toll just to get where you need to go.

    Doesn't that make you feel like you want to cheer? Well, we really did cheer when the West Belt Tollway opened in 1989. Of course, maybe that's because the girl band The Bangles were playing a live concert on top of the new highway.

    Steve Malouf now pays close to $200 a month in tolls.

    "Makes me angry, really angry," he said.

    Because Steve knows what we found downtown inside a building that looks on the outside like it should be torn down; newspaper accounts of the nasty political fight three decades ago over the idea of selling bonds to build toll roads. Seventy percent of you said OK, but all those cheering people...wonder if they'd be so excited today if they knew they had been scammed?

    "You feel scammed?" we asked toll road driver David Sartis.

    "Oh sure, of course," he said.

    We found this brochure from the early days of the Toll Road Authority, printed just after we OKed building the West Belt and the Hardy Toll Road. The promise was simple: "When both roads combined have covered their costs, the roads will become free public highways."

    "What'd you think would happen when we paid the roads off?" we asked Sartis.

    "Well, you would think they'd take the toll booths away, right?" he replied.

    Well, if you used the toll road today, you already know that didn't happen.

    But the promise is there in black and white. They used it get us to vote.

    "Well yeah, it does make you wonder well why they aren't free," one toll road driver said.

    We've already made back the money we paid to build the roads and then plenty more. Take the Hardy. Toll road construction costs $287 million. We made that back by 2004. You've paid a total in tolls of $617 million.

    "You sort of wonder what happened?" we asked another toll road driver.

    "Yes," she said.

    This stretch of the Sam Houston costs $72 million to build. You know how much you've paid in tolls? $865 million.

    "Do you feel cheated?" we asked Malouf.

    "Very much so," he said.

    "The construction of that road has been paid for 12 times?" we asked Harris County Toll Road Authority Director Peter Key.

    "It's one system, it's one system that funds all the needs out there," he said.

    I didn't see that in the fine print. Did you? But leave it to politicians to welch on a deal. It happened in September 2001 at a Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, way down on the agenda. Look at H, a bunch of gobbygloop about bond stuff and then "a resolution for pooling of a list of toll road projects as component facilities." Translation: you're going to pay tolls forever.

    If you were watching Eyewitness News back in 1983, you heard a prediction that was right on.

    "These projects will more than pay for themselves, in fact, have money left over at the end," former County Judge Jon Lindsay said at the time.

    "You guys are a cash cow," we told Key.

    "This agency does take in a substantially amount of revenue," he replied.

    "Take a guess," we asked toll road driver Devon Pedrick.

    "I don't know -- $1.5 billion," he said.

    "It's actually more than $5 billion," we said.

    "Wow," he responded.

    "Don't surprise me, fourth largest city in the nation -- sure, captive audience, it's awesome," Malouf said.

    So much money has been made, the Toll Road Authority has to give some of its extra cash to Harris County commissioners every years -- nearly $900 million so far, not to pay off debts, but to pay to fix up other roads. So when you pay a toll, you're not just paying for the right to drive on a special road, you are paying to fix up roads for other folks who didn't pay a dime.

    "Everybody should pay their own fair share and it seems like just a few of us are paying for what they should be paying for and it's just not right," Sartis said.

    During that road party in 1989, The Bangles taught us to 'Walk Like an Egyptian.' Twenty-three years later, 13 Undercover has taught you something else.

    "The whole free thing -- never going to happen?" we asked Key.

    "From practical standpoint, it's hard to imagine the road going free," he replied.

     

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  3. Just now, elfenix said:

    sec wanted texas at the same time as arky and scar.  aggy got wind of it and ran to the lege. 

    And Texas officials were waiting for the right time to do it ever since then, and that's why that Bullshit of running to the lege only works once.

  4. Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

    Has this been inevitable for about 30 years?

    is my timeline correct here-

    big 10 adds Penn st around the same time sec adds carolina and arky-1990ish

    big10 adds Rutgers and Maryland around the time sec adds missouri and  aggy 

    big 10 adds usc and ucla around the time sec adds Texas and ou

    big10 adds uo and uw.  Sec yet to respond.  Accelerated by demise of pacX.  
     

    Big east, acc, big12, pac, and others all affected downstream of these moves.  Killing the big east and now the pac12 while the big12 has done its best aac impersonation (or wac/cusa to a lesser extent) of cobbling together an orphanage that should provide for good entertainment value  

     

    You forgot, even Finebaum repeated this yesterday, that the SEC offered FSU to join in 1990 and Bobby Bowden said, "Nope!"

  5. 4 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

    At this point I genuinely want to be named Pac-4 commissioner. What a fucking clown show. As a human being who can breathe, walk, and chew gum at the same time I would be better than Kliavkoff. Seriously, somebody out west contact the 4 remaining university presidents and tell them Huckleberry from the internet is willing to take the job. 

    And you can haz an Archer AI be your manservant.  Lulz.

  6. 2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    And there it is, officially official.

     

    IMG_1902.jpeg

     

    And only 14 teams for baseball since IA St. and CU don't play baseball.

    That'll be a weird yearly conference baseball schedule to work out, and add to that the BYU series must start on Thursday since they won't play games on Sundays.

  7. 1 minute ago, Hank_Hill said:

    Well the stadium literally has/had cracks in it. I wouldn’t go to that shit hole either

    Yep, it really doesn't matter if that shithole area has gentrified or not, the same criminal elements tool around there on Scott & Elgin Streets, Wheeler Avenue, Cullen & MLK Boulevards and look at all the new buildings for a second before they look for their next mark.

  8. Just now, Okie State said:
    8 minutes ago, BachelorTrek said:
    And as soon as the ratings aren't what they hoped for (yes, they'll be your narcissists that watch so the ratings will be non-zero), the pie for the have-nots shrinks, and I wouldn't be surprised if that could happen during the contract since ESPN won't take a bath on this.

    If you're one of the haves, why would you even care about this? I don't get the obsession. We're irrelevant to you yet you can't help but hope we become...more irrelevant. Or something. Strange way to live.

    And you're on a TEXAS board complaining about it.  Lulz.

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  9. 1 minute ago, bullet said:

    Kentucky in the SEC reduced their stadium from 68k to 61k, which was below their usual attendance (mid 60s).

    Stanford about 20 years ago dropped from 90,000 to 50,000.

    I remember seeing pictures of the fault-line cracks in the Stanford stadium before the renovations, which now they have a tougher road to pay off since they've been..... Left Behind.

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  10. 1 minute ago, 'stache said:

    Then why are they paying $30M per school? It’s fine to say you won’t watch, but to say nobody will watch is stupid af. There are tens of millions of NFL fans who laugh at the thought of college football, and the average NFL game will double the ratings of the higher rated college games. Doesn’t mean “nobody” watches.l college football.

    And as soon as the ratings aren't what they hoped for (yes, they'll be your narcissists that watch so the ratings will be non-zero), the pie for the have-nots shrinks, and I wouldn't be surprised if that could happen during the contract since ESPN won't take a bath on this.

  11. 13 minutes ago, USC Traveler said:

     That includes games in the B12, which is going to be a really balanced league that's going to provide a lot of great games to watch.  

    Games like KSU-TCU, TCU-Baylor and BYU-Baylor (future conference game)were great last year.

    That's where we differ.

    I don't want to see B12 teams ever again, and I won't watch their games on TV. They aren't going to get NEAR the TV ratings people seem to think they'll get, but you'll soon find that out for yourself.

    A lot of us Texas olds hope those cockroaches that decided their season's success each year on whether they beat Texas or not, will just dry up and disappear.

    Not going to watch them on TV. Don't care. They can fuck off.

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