re: Thank You Mike Slive... The Texas Trainwreck.

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Heck some of the Texas fans I have seen push for a move to SEC argue that "once we are in we can clean it up from the inside!"

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That's some scary stuf right there. I feel confident that at least 3 SEC schools would protest them joining the conference based on past experience. They are conference killers and need to be kept on an island. Plus, their agreement with ESPN on the LHN would be a deal killer.

Dr. Loftin--a great Ag--is now calling shots at your fine university.
You can bet your last dollar that Mizzou would therefore protest any future burnt orange inclusion into the SEC.

Hey,

Just checking in. Are the sips STILL not getting it?

Summer of 2010 was conference realignment’s equivalent to Game of Thrones and as has been said, when playing the Game of Thrones, either you win or you die.

- Jim Delany and Missouri talking expansion from the USA Today in May, 11 months before the LHN deal is agreed upon by Texas

LINK

“It was reported last week that Missouri was discussing that potential of a move to the Big Ten.”

At this point, war has started. Missouri is actively looking to leave the Big 12. The problem with this is that Nebraska is looking around and not finding a soft landing spot. So, instead of just sitting back to see if the Big 10 would take Mizzou or not, Nebraska goes on the offensive. Tom Osborne and the Nebraska administration and boosters make joining the Big 10 a singular mission and when Mizzou falters around the idea of paying both signage fee replacement (Mizzou was going to be on the hook for replacing all of the Big 10 paraphenalia at member institutions) and having to take a smaller stake of the Big 10 TV pot the first two seasons. Nebraska didn’t blink at this and with the Fox deal for the Big 10 title game (24mill per year) basically paying for the 12th school, taking a program with the history of Nebraska football over the Missouri TV markets became easy to do.

Nebraska leaves the conference 8 months before the LHN is announced.

In the Summer of 2010, the Big 12 south schools are actively speaking with Larry Scott and the Pac-10 about migrating over and forming the Pac 16. With the Pac 10 renegotiating their entire TV package and wanting to create regional sports stations for their Tier-3 coverage, adding the Texas markets and a program the caliber of OU is incredibly enticing. But A&M has second thoughts due to stated concerns about travel but more importantly, about the possibility of going to the SEC. The is the first time since the early-90s that the SEC is back on the menu for A&M and they are not going to go to the Pac-10 when the possibility of the SEC exists.

The Pac-10 move is further complicated by the fact that the Pac-10 has no desire to take Baylor, a religious private school in a sea of Left Coast agnosticism. So, the Pac-10 gets aggressive and takes Colorado as a way of forcing the hand of the Big 12 south. But with A&M already not wanting to go and a desire to not leave Baylor behind, the transition falls apart and the Pac-10 takes Utah to get to 12.

Colorado leaves the conference 8 months before the LHN is announced.

Spring of 2011, Texas announces a 15 year, $300 mill dollar network with ESPN. The Big 12 had an agreement that each school controlled its tier-3 rights and in fact, up till the 2011-2012 school year, Kansas made more on its tier-3 rights than Tech, Texas and A&M COMBINED. This changes things and now A&M, who had previously said no to the idea of a Texas/Texas A&M network, is now left with egg on its face and money left on the table. This is important to remember because at this point, Sport Aggy still owes School Aggy $16mill in a loan that the Athletic Department needed because they were short of funds. In fact, when School Aggy asks Sport Aggy for the money back, the result is the firing of the school President. How dare she want to get paid back what School Aggy loaned? Ask Aggy fans on this board about the evaluation Mike McKinney made of their previous President. High comedy!

So, Bowtie Bowen Loftin emails Mike Slive about how “things have changed” and the result is A&M leaving the Big 12 about four months later.

If you want to blame Texas and the LHN for A&M leaving, please remember, it was A&M’s lack of vision that kept from enjoying the spoils of the LHN with us. They didn’t think it had any value and didn’t want to pay for the cost needing to get it started. We did and to the victors go the spoils.

Where is Mizzou in this now? Mizzou is still off in a corner watching Nebraska bang the girl they so desperately wanted. Mizzou gets a reprieve and gets an invite from the SEC who can’t find a solid 12th team and decides to take Mizzou’s TV markets and throw them into a geographic part of the conference that makes ZERO sense.

You want to blame Texas for killing the Big 12? Please. The Big 12 was dead by September 1st, 2010. Missouri, Colorado and Nebraska saw to that. I don’t blame them for acting in their best interest, that’s what they should have done. But don’t make it sound like they are blameless and the ONLY school still in the conference is the one solely responsible for killing it. That’s intellectually indefensible and you know it.

Still doesn't get it.

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If Texas wanted to join the SEC, it would be one phone call and a unanimous vote would quickly follow. To say otherwise is, again, intellectually dishonest.

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“It was reported last week that Missouri was discussing that potential of a move to the Big Ten.”

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When you actually follow those links, it was a speculative report from a radio host that was cited as a source for a newspaper article. It wasn't anything nearly as hard and fast as you pretend. Good revisionist history, though.

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The Pac-10 move is further complicated by the fact that the Pac-10 has no desire to take Baylor, a religious private school in a sea of Left Coast agnosticism.

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LOL. PAC cares a bit more about academics. OU offers little in that regards and Okie Lite is even worse.

When your friend gets divorced the first time, you think "maybe that girl was a bitch." The second time they get divorced, you think, "hmmm, my friend may be a shitty husband." And when the third girl runs away screaming in the middle of the night, there's really no longer any question.

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But A&M has second thoughts due to stated concerns about travel but more importantly, about the possibility of going to the SEC.

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Actually it was more like we didn't like being treated like a tag along. RC Slocum once told me that when A&M went to Powers and asked about the PAC 16 deal (once Chip leaked it), Power's answer was "Don't worry about it, we will take care of you."

Such a shining example of how easily Texas can be an equal partner.

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The Big 12 had an agreement that each school controlled its tier-3 rights and in fact, up till the 2011-2012 school year, Kansas made more on its tier-3 rights than Tech, Texas and A&M COMBINED.

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You read nothing I wrote obviously. The problem wasn't the money or the fact that the Tier 3 network existed.

The problem was that Texas agreed in a CONTRACT with ESPN provisions related to the LHN that were NEVER approved by other Big 12 members (like high school recruits being on there, or the LHN having more than one Texas football game). In fact it was made very clear in Big 12 meetings that Tier 3 networks would only have one football game, and Texas basically implied to everyone with that contract "frick what we previously agreed on, we get what we want."

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If you want to blame Texas and the LHN for A&M leaving, please remember, it was A&M’s lack of vision that kept from enjoying the spoils of the LHN with us. They didn’t think it had any value and didn’t want to pay for the cost needing to get it started.

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I am glad we didn't join. I will enjoy the SEC Network much more than any 70%-30% split Texas/Aggie Network.

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We did and to the victors go the spoils.

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This is where we agree 100%!

I hope you enjoy those spoils: major damage to the Texas brand, major damage to the respect of the Big 12 as a conference, Texas home schedules with TCU and WVU instead of Mizzou and A&M, losing control of a dominant position over A&M unlike any program had over its rival nationally, having three games a year be sent to a network with no national exposure, less than half the total number of viewers than A&M had last season, etc.

All of that for a network that provides less than 10% of the AD's revenue per year. Sounds like a bargain to me. You sips sure are good dealmakers.

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Summer of 2010 was conference realignment’s equivalent to Game of Thrones

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Whoa Nelly!! Back up a bit. You "forgot" to mention what Texas was doing.

LINK

Loftin: Let me take you back to June of 2009. I was interim president and within a few days of that time, I attended my first Big 12 board meeting in Dallas. Even though the presidents who were there were obviously civil and got along pretty well, it was clear there was some degree of difficulty within the conference then in terms of relationships. I call it the haves and have-nots. It was very clear which schools had money, and we were sort of in the middle of that pack. That’s where I first began to have some degree (of concern) on where the stance of the conference was. In the fall of 2009, we began to hear rumors about UT meeting and talking with the Pac-10. I was actually in Austin in December 2009 meeting with (University of Texas president) Bill Powers. At that point, I had asked everyone but him to leave the room so we could talk privately. I asked him if there was any conversation between him and the Pac-10 and his answer basically was, “I can’t talk about that.” The next month, he was in College Station, and we met in my office. I had the same question, and he gave me the same answer.

Go forward to the April (2010) timeframe…I got a call from (Pac-10 commissioner) Larry Scott indicating he wanted to come see me. Scott shows up here, and we have a meeting. Basically they had been working for months, and he had schedules of not just football but, basketball, soccer and baseball, and they had been working hard on this thing. He did a presentation for us on here’s how we are going to do this. I obviously began discussing this privately with the Board of Regents, and the basic direction I got from them was, “Look, we’ll probably get an offer from the Pac-10 to go join them along with five other schools in the Big 12.” The chairman of the board said to me, “One option is no option. You better figure out what things A&M could do besides follow Texas and other schools to the Pac-10.”