re: Foxsports looks into the LHN

The big 12 is so disappointing in terms of delivery. They could be the steak of college football if they could have had a plan. I know bama gets their way a lot but thank God the SEC had foresight to not play favorites.

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Shaggy melt down starts here

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Wow at the replies on there. I was starting to forget how entitled those morons were. They think people outside of Austin care about that shite network

[img]Laughing so hard my sombrero falls off and I drop my taco[/img]

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Nice reminder of how happy I am at our great escape

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But but but your ceiling is Texas's floor! Dodds said so!

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ESPN was thinking ahead. They con'd Texas into wanting a 15 mill per year disaster knowing it could push the Aggies to the SEC where ESPN could make hundreds of millions per year.

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I'm doubting they actually knew that in advance, some Texas grads at ESPN got the LHN ball rolling there, I expect they "hoped" to make money on that deal like all the others.

The SEC didn't have to go to ESPN for a network partner, it just made it a little easier with existing contracts and nobody had to "con" bevo into wanting a deal for their own net.

another sore-labia bevo fan!

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The launch of the Longhorn Network was such a disaster that ESPN used it as a road map for what not to do when they launched the SEC Network. The result? The SEC Network was the most successful channel launch in cable history; the Longhorn Network remains the least successful cable launch in ESPN history.

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Reading the shaggy bevo comments make me laugh.

"Well, I have th sec network, but I don't watch it, don't care about it" blah, blah, blah, etc. Idiot. He's still paying for it, and for that wsay thank you. : lol:

Nice reminder of how happy I am at our great escape.

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yea Semo, they're just gonna say "well you're paying for the LHN too,, so haha" thing is the numbers don't lie, the LHN will be looked at as a "freebie add on" anywhere outside the lone star state when they see that no one is actually watching it.

Assuming no more expansion, the SEC will have all those customers plus 10 more states worth. Yes we should thank Dodds for the egotistical stupidity to think we would be happier to stay in their shadow than to move on to a much brighter situation. The Aggies leaving was a dagger but CU, NU and us leaving was a twist of the knife.

I am a Texas alum and fan, and yes, right now we are not good. We have no QB, we recently fired our basketball coach and our baseball coach has one foot out the door and the other in the grave. I have no love for the LHN, BUT I always love this topic when Mizzou and A&M fans come out of the woodwork to revise history and I just can’t help myself but jump on this.

For the fans on here who don't care about the machinations of the Big 12, here is a quick timeline all to support the point that the idea that Texas killed the Big 12 is absurd. The Big 12 was the best thing to happen to Texas since we hired Darrell Royal. And remember, the entire point behind the creation of the Big 12 was that the flyover states needed Texas TV sets to get a worthwhile TV deal in the wake of SEC and Big 10 early-90s expansion. That’s it.

1) The Big 10 announces expansion exploration plans on 12-16-2009. LINK

Missouri immediately drops panties faster than a fat chick at prom hoping to lose her cherry to the QB. You had the President of Missouri issue an almost immediate statement declaring Missouri's interest in the 12 spot for the Big 10.

2) Tom Osborn and Nebraska, still smarting over 1 second in the Big 12 title game and just the general degradation of their program over 15 years, throws Nebraska's hat in the ring for that 12 spot. So, now you have a Nebraska vs Missouri battle for one spot with Nebraska selling 50 years of football tradition and Missouri selling TVs, an arena named after a plagiarist and a bunch of meth

3) One June 11th, Nebraska joins the Big 10.

Rumors circulate that the only reason the spot went to Nebraska and not Missouri is because Nebraska agreed to pay the $4+ mill signage change cost that adding the 12 member would create. So, this makes Missouri the pantiless, fat chick at the prom who finds religion when the QB wants to go raw.

Sucks to be Mizzou.

4) At the same time with the rest of the conference, Texas, Baylor, A&M, Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are all being wined and dined by the Pac 10 because the Pac 10 needs/wants a new massive TV deal and adding TV sets is historically the way to do this.

In Dec. 2009, Derrick Roland breaks his leg in a game against Washington that didn't start until 10pm CST, a game A&M loses and in which the team doesn't get home until 5-6 in the morning. A&M AD Bill Byrne is critical of the entire thing and this leaves a bad taste in Aggy mouth. Combine that bad taste with an Alabama homer Board of Trustee member in Gene Stallings, and A&M blocks the Pac-10 expansion later that summer.

While A&M is hemming and hawing, the Pac 10 doesn’t want to take Baylor – a religious fundamentalist school in an ocean of white wine liberals ain’t going to fly – so the Pac 10 offers Colorado and the Buffs jump on it.

5) Now, you have a Big 12 sans Nebraska and Colorado, a Missouri wondering if she made the wrong decision not getting raw dogged and an A&M fan base with a SEC fascination.

6) ESPN had approached Texas and Texas A&M about a regional TV station, with revenues that would be split evenly. Texas wanted it, A&M didn’t as Bill Byrne didn’t think there would be enough interest to justify the cost to get it built.

Remember, the A&M athletic department circa 2010 owed Texas A&M University more than $16mill dollars. The joke was that Sport Aggy owed Book Aggy money because Sport Aggy was left holding the bag with Fran’s buy out at a time when A&M was crap and the economy was in the tank. So, $Bill as he was affectionately called, didn’t want to pay $2.5 mill of the $5mill facility that was going to be needed for ESPN.

The offer was 20 years for $300mill, which was to be split 50-50 between the two schools for 3rd tier rights. Please keep that offer in mind because it comes up later.

7) The Pac-10 deal dies on the vine because neither Texas nor Texas A&M had any great desire to leave Baylor behind and because the division format was going to be too unwieldy with CU, the Big 12 south minus Baylor and the Arizona schools in an 8 team division.

8) In spring of 2011, Texas announces the LHN with ESPN for…20 years, $300mill for 3rd tier rights. So, two schools were originally approached, one school said no and apparently, that school wasn’t worth a dime to ESPN.
A&M goes all kinds of crazy, emails between Aggy President Bowen and Mike Slive start firing off and the drumbeat for A&M to the SEC gets louder.

9) A&M pulls the trigger in late summer 2011, Missouri gets a pity offer and rather than wait another 12 months for the Big 10 to come back around (and they would have), Missouri decides that that being the 7th East team, a team more west than most of the other West teams, is the best deal they can get.

10) Now, everything I have said has nothing to do with Texas. Remember, all the LHN did was monetize the 3rd tier rights for Texas, something Kansas had already done to the tune of about $10mill per year. Funny, nothing went to hell when KU did it, I was shocked that 3rd tier rights became such a big thing when Texas wanted to do it too.

Again, I know our programs right now are not good, but the idea that we somehow killed this conference is a joke. We had nothing to do with Missouri and Nebraska. Colorado has a disproportionate number of west coast alumni but more than that, they had a fear of getting caught without a chair when the music stopped. I don’t blame them for leaving at all, to thine own self be true.

But with A&M and Missouri, you have a classic case of two bottom feeding schools who have been underachievers FOREVER, but who have TV sets a time when TV sets are the currency of the realm. The hilarious thing is that both fan bases really believe they were wanted by the SEC as if Mike Slive woke up one day with a hard on for two schools that haven’t won a conference title since 1998.

I don't fault A&M for joining the SEC, it was probably the right move to make. After having spent 100+ years in the shadow of Texas, they needed to do something to differentiate themselves and maybe this will do it. Maybe not.

I think the LHN ultimately dies and with it, so does the Big 12. I do look for Texas, Tech, OU and Ok State to eventually join the Pac-12 and move to podded divisions.