Houtexjhawk

No, it really shows how important getting the right head coach. In that regard, UT, KU and Nebraska are something in common. UT was a perennial Top 10 program and have made two questionable hires for head coach and now struggle to make the Top 25. NU was a consistent, remarkably consistent 9-10 win program in both conferences, has made a couple bad hires and now struggle to get to bowl eligibility. KU was consistently a break even program under Mangino and made three increasingly bad hires in a row, and just completed, perhaps, the worst decade any Power 5 team has ever had going back to post-WW2. Perhaps Tom Herman, Scott Frost and Les Miles will move the programs back to previous levels. Initial results are not promising

If that is the case, Jeff Long just gave away $8-10M per year to sign the ESPN+ deal.

No one ever confirms the Tier 3 numbers and often lumps them with radio and marketing promotional rights. In these message boards, the numbers get more and more inflated. I had heard a number of around $6M per year. However, this was signed away in the ESPN+ deal which also included the right for ESPN to broadcast three Big 12 conference championship games that Fox no longer wanted. When you subtract an assumed value of the conference championship games, the Tier 3 rights come out to no more than $2M/year per school. OU and UT did not give up its Tier 3 rights in the deal, but KU did. No one has really talked about this so there may be details I am not aware of. Maybe KU was not getting as much money for its Tier 3 right as has been speculated. As bad e previous AD was at KU, Jeff Long has made a couple of missteps in his first year at KU.

In the ESPN+ deal with the Big 12, all schools except UT and OU but gave up its Tier 3 rights for next to nothing. It makes me question how much money a school like KU was really getting for its Tier 3 rights.

I understand and do not blame Nebraska for leaving the conference, but you have to admit, it hasn’t quite worked out as planned. Some of the Nebraska fan I know thought Nebraska was going to assume the role as one of the power brokers of the conference when, in fact, they really operated at a much lower position. From a football standpoint, they are clearly mid level in their division which is not a strong division. I do think, rivalries can be developed with Iowa and Wisconsin, but as long a Nebraska is mediocre, the rivalry will not be that intense compared to the rivalries in the Old Big 8. The Big 10 really screwed NU when it came to get conference distributions for media rights. Long term, NU will be better off financially in the Big 10 compared to the Big 12 and, I guess if that is the measuring stick, then NU should be happy. Personally, I miss the rivalries with the exiting teams of the Big 12, particularly the old Big 8 schools.

The four schools are finding that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but none are coming back. The move has probably worked out best for A&M. Maybe there is a better cultural fit with Colorado, but they moved to a conference that is worse off financially and that is pretty much ignored by most of the rest of the country. Colorado football got more national exposure in the Big 12. NU and MU are now making a lot more money, but are pretty irrelevant within their conference. Nebraska has become a mid tier program in the Big 10. MU is a disaster, but has money now to pay for its bad coaching decisions. Missouri is in a division with schools it has nothing in common with. Do you thing South Carolina or Florida cares about MU? At least in the Big 10, NU can and probably has developed rivalries with Iowa and Wisconsin. I do like a ten team conference better than a 14 team conference. I bet there some teams in the SEC West that hasn’t played a football game in Columbia yet.