AAC Can Become a Part of Autonomy Group, Commissioner Says

[Drew]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/ucf-knights/os-american-meetings-0528-20150527-story.html

Also notes that the TV deal should be done within a 3 year time frame. Big 3 goals according to the article are 1. land a better TV contract, 2. schedule and win marquee games, 3. hire quality coaches. AAC teams have actually done a fairly good job at the last two items, notably Tulane getting home games with Oklahoma and Ole Miss recently and the football coaches hired this offseason by Tulsa, SMU, and Houston.

 

[epark88]

About half of the yearly TV money covers Aresco's salary.

He needs to get cracking on that first item, like yesterday...

 

[Adios]

The only way to legitimize the conference is win. Done that in basketball. Need to do it in football more. Besides, aren't we out of the AAC eventually? Unless we want to be the Texas/Michigan of the AAC...

 

[Marty Jackson]

Interesting point. That might be what gets uconn to the next level.
Right now uconn is a value play for ESPN. They get an entire conference for a little moe than what uconn alone could bring.
At some point, if the conference gains too much value, ESPN might step in and just pluck out most of the value (ie uconn). Uconn is bundled into a p5 deal, and the AAC is once again a value play. It's the big east playbook from Espn's perspective.

 

[coachcap]

As far as renegotiating the tv contract, ESPN holds all of the cards. After the NBC Sports lowball offer, the AAC was forced to accept ESPN's right of 1st refusal matching offer. What makes Aresco think that he can wrangle a better contract from the Mouse? Does he think that FOX will play ball to inflate the Conference's worth? I'm skeptical that he can get more than pennies on the dollar.

 

[whaler11]

You can be anything you want when you grow up, Mom says.

 

[Kolumbo]

I don't see how the AAC will ever get a tv deal close to what the cartel gets. If the best program(s) get an invite, it helps the cartel and hurts the AAC. Even if there are no invites forthcoming, the playing field will never be level enough to compete long-term.

 

[CL82]

I don't know about you guys, but I think that this Aresco guy is absolute genius!

We need a better tv deal? Wait, you mean that apparently god awful deal that we got last time wasn't really good because of exposure? I must have misunderstood what he's been telling us for the last year. It's a good thing we got a tv guy, because that level of insight is well worth the money we pay him. More money is a good thing? Genius.

We need better coaches? Why who would have thought that was important? I mean it's not like they actually play or anything, but Aresco sees past that to realize that coaching is important! The man is visionary.

We need to win games? I don't know about you, but I've always felt that as long as the kids have fun winning didn't matter, but not Aresco. He see value in winning. Winning makes our product more watchable and thus more valuable. That kind of "strategery" doesn't grow on trees!

Mike Aresco - Renaissance man.

 

[Sea Goat]

Aresco once again reprising his role as Monty Python's Black Knight...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ikssfUhAlgg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[WestHartHusk]

Why has he already committed to negotiating only with ESPN?! This guy is a disaster.

Aresco said he hopes to have a new deal struck with espn within 3 years. He also alludes to the timing of our previous deal and that we are under paid. He also said we are striving for autonomy status. That still doesn't give us a shot at the championship before the current contract expires.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/uc...story.html

 

[The Funster]

Simple premise: win more

Schedule and beat P5 teams.

I sure would like to know what the end game of the current ESPN deal looks like. I hope there isn't a matching clause because that kind of hamstrung us last time. If there is a look in on the current deal and ESPN knows we can be free and clear when the contract expires they may be willing to pony up if the AAC is improving it's profile. If it wants to pay the money to the AAC, they will. If they don't want to pay the money to the AAC they'll broker UConn, Cinci and more into other conferences and sweeten the pot a little rather than having to sweeten the pot a lot.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

There is no rational explanation for why the #66 college athletic program gets roughly 10% the TV revenue that the #65 team gets. If someone is not willing to rattle some cages over this, than nothing is going to change.

In terms of the right of first refusal, the only counter move I can see would be to threaten to dissolve the TV deal and invite the individual schools to negotiate their own deals. If the AAC does not have a conference TV contract, then there is nothing for ESPN to match. No matter what the alternative, it is better than what we have.

 

[huskypantz]

Simple premise: win more

Schedule and beat P5 teams.

I sure would like to know what the end game of the current ESPN deal looks like. I hope there isn't a matching clause because that kind of hamstrung us last time. If there is a look in on the current deal and ESPN knows we can be free and clear when the contract expires they may be willing to pony up if the AAC is improving it's profile. If it wants to pay the money to the AAC, they will. If they don't want to pay the money to the AAC they'll broker UConn, Cinci and more into other conferences and sweeten the pot a little rather than having to sweeten the pot a lot.

I thought there was no matching clause - that was really the key to the deal. I can't find it on google. Hopefully we're not around to witness the negotiations.

 

[Chuck]

What is Aresco going to be selling to TV stations? He has an okay product, but it's unstable. "Give us a big 5 year contract and you'll get to televise perennial-Champion UConn, traditional power Cincinnati, big population Houston/UCF/USF." All would leave before the check gets to the table.

I'm fine with UConn not being all in with the AAC. I haven't heard any talk of a grant of rights for the conference. That being said, if the marquee teams are using the conference as a purgatory waiting room, it's hard to imagine there will be any tv success.

 

[pnow15]

There is no rational explanation for why the #66 college athletic program gets roughly 10% the TV revenue that the #65 team gets. If someone is not willing to rattle some cages over this, than nothing is going to change.

In terms of the right of first refusal, the only counter move I can see would be to threaten to dissolve the TV deal and invite the individual schools to negotiate their own deals. If the AAC does not have a conference TV contract, then there is nothing for ESPN to match. No matter what the alternative, it is better than what we have.

Free enterprise system?

 

[pnow15]

We are the Domino Pizza Bowl of college conferences. Our mission is to supply football for addicted gamblers on the nights when all of the serious conferences aren't playing. Plus basketball. Unfortunately, no one watches the other networks. So, if we leave ESPN, we become even more irrelevant. No one is screaming for a UConn/USF game these days. Not even UConn fans. So, ESPN can offer more money for us than their competitors and less money than we would get it the conference was not the one step ahead of the Ivy League. The league needs to develop an identity, almost an impossibility with
UConn lobbying every janitor in the B1G for their last spot. The fact is that if it weren't for basketball, we would be asked to leave. AAC is a Southern league with a Yankee carpetbagger. The B1G and ACC are aware that we have no place to go.
So, neither is in a big hurry to incorporated us. We are the fat girl sitting by the phone waiting for a prom date.
Our life line. Ollie. He needs to turn this program into much see tv.

 

[upstater]

Why has he already committed to negotiating only with ESPN?! This guy is a disaster.

Aresco said he hopes to have a new deal struck with espn within 3 years. He also alludes to the timing of our previous deal and that we are under paid. He also said we are striving for autonomy status. That still doesn't give us a shot at the championship before the current contract expires.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/uc...story.html

This is better for UConn. Exposure.

The other teams may want to get paid more (but the upside is peanuts). UConn benefits because ESPN gives it more exposure than the other schools.

Any UConn fan should see the big danger in the AAC going with a network other than ESPN. If I were Tulane, I'd want $2m more a year to go with NBC Sports. Why? Because ESPN doesn't show my school much anyway, so I might as well get paid. But for UConn, $2m more to be buried on NBC would be a killer.

So thankfully Aresco is sticking with ESPN, which is best for UConn.

 

[Kolumbo]

There is no rational explanation for why the #66 college athletic program gets roughly 10% the TV revenue that the #65 team gets. If someone is not willing to rattle some cages over this, than nothing is going to change.

In terms of the right of first refusal, the only counter move I can see would be to threaten to dissolve the TV deal and invite the individual schools to negotiate their own deals. If the AAC does not have a conference TV contract, then there is nothing for ESPN to match. No matter what the alternative, it is better than what we have.

More of an indictment is the fact that a top 15 team earns 10% that a # 116 earns.

 

[Kolumbo]

We are the Domino Pizza Bowl of college conferences. Our mission is to supply football for addicted gamblers on the nights when all of the serious conferences aren't playing. Plus basketball. Unfortunately, no one watches the other networks. So, if we leave ESPN, we become even more irrelevant. No one is screaming for a UConn/USF game these days. Not even UConn fans. So, ESPN can offer more money for us than their competitors and less money than we would get it the conference was not the one step ahead of the Ivy League. The league needs to develop an identity, almost an impossibility with
UConn lobbying every janitor in the B1G for their last spot. The fact is that if it weren't for basketball, we would be asked to leave. AAC is a Southern league with a Yankee carpetbagger. The B1G and ACC are aware that we have no place to go.
So, neither is in a big hurry to incorporated us. We are the fat girl sitting by the phone waiting for a prom date.
Our life line. Ollie. He needs to turn this program into much see tv.

That conference needs UCONN, Temple, Cincy, and Navy more than it needs some of the other programs. Regardless of the state of the football program, it is lucky to have UCONN.