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Jim Host is gone and they burned the bridges when they moved to ACC country. Alabama and Kentucky were the last ones you would think would ever leave, yet they were the first to split from IMG. I agree about Dish, but that further supports my thinking, with old SEC ties cut - say Dish was sold to Comcast, and the old ties killed off - would Dish have the same relationship? These are individual schools dealings, and not the whole conference yet, but for the 2 lead dogs to switch that seems pretty big.

Hard to say. Even though Ergen retired as CEO a few years ago, he still has ~90 percent of the voting shares and IIRC is still chairman. His successor as CEO is from Kentucky (if that tells you anything) and it doesn't look like Ergen has any intention of allowing Dish to ever leave his family. If it maintains over the years, it will probably wind up like Johnson&Johnson and family held for generations. And as you know, the Haslam's Pilot Corp will very likely stay in-family as well.

With regard to UK and BAMA leaving, they have the brand to do as they please and lately it's not unprecedented. UT and Notre Dame just left Addidas for Nike after many years - they were the CFB gems for Adidas because of their national brand footprints and both remained top national brands and sold extremely despite recent down years which is of course exceptionally important because these are usually very long contracts. They were also extremely well compensated.

It was thought we'd never switch to Nike because our deal was so lucrative. Well Nike decided to go all out this time to win the contracts with both ND and UT and won both contracts. The long-term/consistent durability of the brands had to play a major role in the decision since we are paid top dollar rather than in terms of our shorter term record. BUT we are also one of the few schools that has both football and women's basketball as iconic brands as well as a large basketball brand which is far better than our men's bball program.

UK is second to none in men's basketball and BBN is incredibly loyal to UK football despite the overall program history - it's a national brand and fan base that is very large. BAMA, OTOH, has obviously been a juggernaut in CFB lately, has a fantastic program history, fans who are also insanely loyal and a national brand.

It's a seller's market for teams in this position. I don't know the details of your deals but I'd be shocked if the split from IMG wasn't due to IMG getting outbid and/or a rival company offering more. IOW, the Benjamins.