Yeah, it might not. Depends on what the BE is worth going forward and frankly that is hard to assess from the couch. Media folk have their prism, sometimes they over pay for a loss leader to anchor their platform and sometimes they operate on conservative value oriented metrics. Where the BE lands in this next contract is difficult to say at this hr. Need the P12 situation to resolve itself.
Trying to quantify what would be “enough money” to justify a move to the big 12, I came up with this:
1) Best likely scenario for big east broadcast rate revenue in the new contract: $8M
2) Herbst said that by moving to the big east, we saved approximately $2 million a year in travel costs. Let’s assume that that would be the same as travel cost of the big 12, although it may be more.
3) Assuming the above points are correct a basketball only broadcast rights distribution in the big 12 of $10 million would be breakeven for any current Big East schools.
4) No school would move for breakeven, so the big 12 would have to be offering some significant amount above that to induce schools to move. Let’s assume that the lowest amount which would maybe make the move worthwhile is $12M. It may well need to be more than this.
5) Based upon Notre Dame’s deal with the ACC. The basketball only portion of a broadcast rates deal is worth no more than 20% of the whole.
6) In order to pay former big east conference schools $12 million as a basketball only, without diluting any schools existing shares, the big 12 would have to be earning $60 million per school in broadcast rights. It isn’t.
So, unless they find a media partner who is willing to pay the big east schools, more than fair market value, or unless the existing big 12 schools agree to take a reduced share to bring in the big east schools, the numbers don’t appear to work.
(It is possible, though that ESPN or fox might be willing to pay the top Big East schools a premium over FMV, because it will be cheaper than paying the entire conference 8 million per school.)