I think a lot of lawyers for all ACC schools have been working overtime to see how ironclad the entire GOR agreement is.
USC, UCLA to join the Big Ten in 2024
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I think a lot of lawyers for all ACC schools have been working overtime to see how ironclad the entire GOR agreement is.
Two generations ago, the Pac-8 was all a-goggle about expanding to (gasp!) 10 teams!
Today, a 10-team league is a small-potatoes league.
Today, a 10-team league is a small-potatoes league.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
So to put my cards on the table here, I spent many years as a research administrator at a major University (no reason it needs to be a secret I guess, it was the University of Chicago). In that capacity I helped departments and faculty members through the maze of administrative, contractual, legal, and more often than I liked (or was qualified for frankly) financial issues relating to the seeking and administering of research grant funding. The lion's share of my work was with corporate entities and state and local governments, which is a much smaller part of the pie than federal grants, but is growing and presents some unique challenges vs the generally one-size-fits-all nature of federal grant administration. I now do broadly similar work for a non-profit, in case you're wondering.
All of that is to say, the process and methods of acquiring research dollars is a world I know intimately, it's been the majority of my professional career.
Which is prologue to the answer to your question: there isn't one.
At the basic broadest level, when it comes to performing research, Universities are a collection of faculty members who act in a way analogous to independent contractors. That's not strictly legally true, they are employees, but they dictate the terms of their work and the direction of their research and their choice of collaborators with a degree of input from their faculty leadership (departmental deans and chairs and the like) but functionally none from main campus.
And the research belongs to these faculty members. If the professor leaves Illinois and goes to Texas, the grant travels with the faculty member. So there is a very competitive marketplace for rainmaking faculty who have existing big grants and the connections to the federal granting agencies (and others) to continue to bring in more.
I don't know how else to say it other than that athletics and conference affiliation has zero to do with this. The Big Ten Academic Alliance (formerly the Committee on Institutional Cooperation) makes for a lovely talking point, but there's no there there. They'll hold conferences between the purchasing departments, the facilities management departments, staff essentially, networking events, share best practices, that sort of thing. I recall that U of C had a license to a certain software program used for screening against internationally sanctioned parties (that stuff does come up, these Universities do projects all over the world) that was a group rate the Big Ten put together with the company. A nice little savings, and perhaps something other conferences don't do (I have no idea), but this is the smallest of possible potatoes and has nothing to do with research.
You don't have to take my word for this, go look at their website.
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The stuff they do is incredibly small bore and not meaningful for big-dollar research.
(EDIT: As an aside, there are similar ad-hoc groupings of schools that do similar staff collaborations and the like unrelated to sports. In addition to the Big Ten stuff, U of C was a part of an "Ivy-plus" group, a Chicagoland group, these are all just email listservs that get together in a hotel ballroom every year more or less)
A consortium that structured or forced research collaboration doesn't exist and couldn't exist, in the Big Ten, Ivy League or anywhere else. That's not how the system works, it's antithetical to how the system works.
Anyway, that's my spiel which I felt compelled to give due to the specificity of that question. There are all sorts of interests at play (financial, personal, all sorts) in this conference drama, and it's not as if academics plays no consideration when so many power players are University presidents. Universities are unruly, disorganized entities, they do lots of things for conflicting or unclear reasons. But I don't want people here to think that there are big federal grant dollars at stake in these decisions, that is outside the scope of anything that's happening.
Fundamentally this a battle of athletic departments for TV dollars, and always has been from the day the Supreme Court opened the bidding for TV rights in 1984.
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As someone who also works in research, this isn't true. Awards are granted to the institution, the institution has to relinquish the award to the new institution. In almost all cases it's customary to relinquish the award, but it doesn't always happen.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Sure, that's true, and of course sometimes there are multiple PI's on something within an institution, sometimes there's physical stuff (or data, or the existence of patients in the medical field) that's pertinent to a given project, it's not always cut and dried.
But generally speaking projects travel with faculty members.
No doubt, and given the lack of action on that front I think we have our answer. I remember the sentiment at the time it was created was "I can't believe Clemson signed that".
I gotta tell ya, I've been chewing on this situation for days now, and given the apparent reality that the ACC is frozen into a below market deal until the mid-2030's, the remainders of the Big 12 and Pac 12 are just screwed. Any which way you arrange it it just doesn't pencil out.
JJE
- Bethalto, IL
He's in the know way more than me, but one thing I know is that money talks. Money>allegiance
Now we're in my wheelhouse, I can tell you we don't know what the lawyers think about this because it hasn't gotten to that point. If there's an "out" here, it's not getting used until a school leaves the ACC. And it doesn't need to be ironclad. In reality, the way this will work is that the school will announce its intention to leave the ACC and will begin negotiating a monetary settlement with the ACC. The strength of the GoR or any legal theories to invalidate the GoR will drive the settlement value. I think it would be very unlikely that this would end up being decided in court. The school will want to be able to leave without a lengthy court process, and the risk for the ACC is greater. If a court were to rule the GoR invalid, then it's a free-for-all.
As for what legal theory would actually invalidate the GoR? The big one I've heard is lack of consideration. For something to be a valid contract, there has to be something of value (called consideration) given by each side. For example, I give you a widget, and you give me a dollar. In this case, the schools are giving up their media rights, but what consideration is the conference giving the schools? The money itself is coming from a TV network, not the conference. So it would have to be something else of value. I'm sure there are good answers but its enough of a grey area that it might be enough for a school to leave and force the ACC to negotiate an exit fee rather than enforce the GoR.
Wow. If the plan is really to add only USC and UCLA—for no other reason than they could, apparently—and then just sit back and DM wink emojis @ Notre Dame while the rest of it burns, I will admit my uninformed read on this situation was completely off. I also just don’t understand it. So much packaging will be left on the table. I’ve been thinking about LucasFilm. If Disney just wanted to produce and distribute underwhelming Star Wars sequels, they could have done that without spending $4 billion to acquire the entire LucasFilm property. The real prize was access to the diaspora of Star Wars fanatics across the globe who thereinafter would be required to enter all kinds of relationships contractual and otherwise with the Disney corporation for the rest of their lives. That’s how Disney made back their investment in six years. To me, intuitively, that’s the purpose in forming superconferences. Right? If you’re a college football fan, we (the superconferences) will be getting percentage points in perpetuity off your interest. You want to opt out of that arrangement? Have fun following Toledo and Fresno State. If that’s not their evil plan for world domination, then what is really accomplished by suturing the LA schools onto the B1G torso like a superfluous third arm? Ok, TV money, I get it. But that’s just such small-time 1990s thinking. I’m shocked that the limit of their ambition is first dibs on the udder when they could own the whole cow.
Epsilon
M tipping over
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It’s hard to imagine what the significance of such a ‘championship’ game would be, beyond a bowl game between the best of each of these two conferences. So I guess this would be like the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl on steroids. Perhaps replacing the historical Orange and / or Rose Bowls for the two conferences’ participation. Unless this ‘championship’ game comes before the bowl games, this (meaning giving up putting their best teams forward for the already well established Rose and Orange bowls) seems a bit short-sighted to me.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Consideration would include access to conference affiliated bowl games, which is no small thing.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Which is what was said when Texas and Oklahoma left for the SEC, and lo and behold they appear to be seeing out the entire GoR.
When this is all about revenue, spending money on a settlement to earn money in a new conference is robbing Peter to pay Paul, it doesn't make sense.
For a year or two left on a deal, maybe there's a number that can leave everybody happy. But 14 years? The money involved in the dispute is bigger than the amount of money they have to gain by leaving. That will change eventually as years tick off the ESPN deal, but not before the next round of TV contracts ends, at the earliest.
Nevermind the professional services involved with seeking and managing the TV relationships, the idea is that the parties to the agreement have more leverage in the marketplace if they provide that future certainty to the conference. Securing the grant of rights from all the other members is the value to each individual member, and I'm sure the contracts are structured as such.
The idea is that everything outside the Big Ten/SEC duopoly withers away, and their relative position as power players increases vis a vis a declining landscape. The move ends any competition outside the little ND subplot, that was the point.
It is not growth-minded thinking. People in the 90's thought about creating things from time to time. That's not our world anymore. Party's over, grab the spoils while you can, winter is coming. A self fulfilling prophecy.
The various parties are just bandying about brainstormed ideas at this point. None of it moves the needle. There's no way to generate enough big football telecasts to be split among few enough mouths to feed to compete financially with the big two.
I may be off in my understanding, but I was under the impression other agreements existed to govern such things. I do not believe the GoR agreement governs the all the terms of membership in the conference.
Do you deep down the ACC or ESPN would welcome re-negotiating the TV-contract? Does the ACC have an "out" clause to ask to re-negotiate?
I'm sure ESPN wants to stick to the current deal. ND is locked in (until lawyers find an out), and with other networks negotiating with conferences for a hefty 9 or 10 figure sum, ESPN will happily pay (comparative) peanuts to the ACC.
If the ACC is raided and implodes? No worries. ESPN will always have a chair when the music stops.
I'm sure ESPN wants to stick to the current deal. ND is locked in (until lawyers find an out), and with other networks negotiating with conferences for a hefty 9 or 10 figure sum, ESPN will happily pay (comparative) peanuts to the ACC.
If the ACC is raided and implodes? No worries. ESPN will always have a chair when the music stops.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Gotta run into meetings this afternoon but this article looks promising…
I think the Big 10’s interest in academic and/or institutional fit is overstated, but also not nothing. It is a consideration, but not THE consideration.
The Big 10 has an interest in stability and sees having a like-minded group of institutions all pulling the same direction as the way to do it.
The reason the Big 10 picked Rutgers and Maryland when it expanded East instead of - for example - Syracuse and West Virginia, 2 schools with similar athletic and geographic profiles, had a lot more to do with endowments, research facilities, academic reputation, etc. than it had to do with anything happening between the lines of any sporting events.
The differing institutional values between the SEC and the Big 10 means that from here on out, while they’ll be competing for dollars, TV eyeballs and championships, the SEC and Big 10 are quite unlikely to be competing for the same expansion candidates, with the notable exception of UNC.
Here's the Grant of Rights agreement in full. That stuff about conference affiliated bowl games isn't in there. The agreement actually says what the consideration to each party is in the whereas statements.Gotta run into meetings this afternoon but this article looks promising…
"Whereas, the execution and delivery of this Agreement enhances the stability of Conference Membership, confirms the commitment by each Member Institution to the other Member Institutions of the Conference, and thereby provides valuable benefits to each Member Institution of the Conference."
Per this document the consideration given by the Conference is stability. Essentially, "it is valuable to you, Universities, that I be powerful enough to keep you all bound together." That's it. I don't think that's rock solid, personally.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
The Big Ten is not one person, close as Jim Delany may have come to making that happen.
The league office operates on its own, but needs the approval of the University presidents to make major decisions. There are differing opinions and different incentives between and among those groups. And those opinions and incentives change over time.
I mean critically though they don't have similar geographic profiles. Rutgers and Maryland are within the NYC and DC media markets, and the entire purpose of that expansion was putting the BTN on basic cable in those markets so the conference could collect $1 per month from every grandma and Bhutanese immigrant who never has or will watch a football game in their life for as long as cable TV lasted.
Jim Delany at that moment had the absolute trust of his constituents, and he delivered what was promised with that move. What was promised was bad and dumb, but the mission was accomplished.
Is there a level of academic misfit where a sheer gross-out factor would have hypothetically led the Presidents to say no to what Jim Delany said was the economic necessity for the conference? Probably, I admit. Is West Virginia below that line? I'm dubious but maybe. Boise State probably would be, something like that, not to pick on them.
Still, considered in the aggregate, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland as the B1G's modern additions makes crystal clear that burnishing the academic esteem of the conference as a whole is absolutely not an imperative of this process. The whole AAU canard has made for a nice PR talking point to hide the ball on that.
Just to say it out loud: the SEC wants Notre Dame too and I wouldn't bet too much of my money against that eventually happening.
It's crazy, it's totally irrational, but the ND administration and donor community are deeply irrational people. Even when and if they join a conference they will consider themselves above and outside of it, a momentary financial convenience. "Fit" is not the way they think about things.
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I think the bolded qualifies for the 'Understatement of the Year Award'... At a minimum it is definitely a primary candidate for it...
I know “competing” is the word I used, but I’m not sure it’s the right one to use with an irrational actor like ND. They will leave money on the table. They’ll take action out of spite.
They propped up the Big East way beyond the point of it being a functional conference and then entered a mutual suicide pact with the ACC, all to get to say they still have an “exclusive” tv deal with an obsolete, irrelevant over-the-air television network that’s paying them in loose change while freaking Hoosiers football is about to start making quadruple what ND is in television dollars.
The SEC is gonna SEC and ND is gonna ND, and if that results in ND joining the SEC, there’s not a whole hell of a lot the Big 10 can do about it.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Thanks for looking that up. But stability does have value, which is monetized through those media agreements, right?
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Right. I'll be somewhat surprised if ND opts for the SEC. But I won't give a damn.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
This is correct, and why I do not want Notre Dame in the B1G. I understand the logic of it, in several different directions, but I still don't want it.
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