Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which can’t wait for tomorrow’s game against Flori– damn.
Oh, what might have been with WVU and the Seminoles in Tallahassee, surely on national television, on the second Saturday of the season. Instead, No. 6 Florida State is at home as a 10 touchdown favorite against Savannah State. No. 9 WVU is idle (Note: It’s not a bye week. A bye advances you in a tournament.) and $500,000 poorer.
I mention that financial component not to pick at scabs, but because I found today’s real news to be quite apropos. WVU had to beg out of the Florida State game because of the Big 12 schedule and, let’s be candid here, because the Seminoles were too steep a risk to take on the schedule.
Today the Big 12 announced it’s $2.6 billion media rights deal that promises WVU $240.2 million (it’s not $260 million … I’ll explain). Getting rid of the FSU game, removing a landmine from a potentially super regular season and ensuring next week’s payday at FedEx field remains in place will cost WVU 1/480th of the revenue it can expect from the Big 12 contract.
Not too shabby.
I’ll pick this thing apart below and then later in print, but what grabs my attention is the Tier 3 stuff and how much freedom it gives schools. One football game, four men’s basketball games and potentially all other contests can go to the Tier 3 package WVU eventually institutes.
Not only that, but WVU can sell a game back to the Fox network and that, for example, might interest Fox Sports Atlantic when WVU plays Towson. Or, whatever. Just trying to illustrate it. Lots of possibilities there and the Mountaineers can choose their own adventure in a lot of ways when it picks its partner.
Word about this TV deal got out last night. I was watching Pitt v. Cincinnati before flipping over to what I was really watching — you don’t want to know — and I started to think about something. WVU’s cost for leaving the Big East and accepting the Big 12’s conditions for entrance is going to be around $35 million in money paid/not earned. Thirty-five million dollars!
I see $15 million in the settlement (I know it was a $20 million settlement, but WVU is ultimately responsible for “just” $15 million). Big 12 schools will reportedly get $20 million annually, but WVU is a partial member the first three years.
So I see $10 million left behind as a 50-percent partner in the Big 12 revenue this year, $6.6 million left behind next year as a 67-percent partner and $3.2 million left behind as a 84-percent partner in the 2014-15 athletic year. That’s $19.8 million.
Now we’re at $34.8 million. Add the half-a-mill for buying out FSU, which, again, was a move necessitated by taking on a larger conference schedule as a Big 12 member, and you’re definitely over $35 million.
Scary part is that you haven’t even taken into account the changes in coaching salaries across the athletic department, which is merely the biggest of many like changes. I wouldn’t put that in the same canister as the aforementioned. The former is the cost of the move. The latter seems more like the cost of doing business, and I think it’s the necessary cost of doing business. But it adds up. This is entirely unresearched and non-scientific and simply me spinning numbers in my head last night and this morning, but I’m thinking the changes in coaching salaries — Dana and his assistants and their salary pool, as well hiring and upping the salary for as Randy Mazey — to meet the Big 12 standard is more than $1 million. And none of that accounts for the added travel expenses, which I’m told will be similarly steep as well.
That’s a lot of brown paper bags.
I supposed that, today, you can say it’s all worth it. The sun is shining and and the forecast does’t look to be changing, so why worry? And I don’t see a need to put a stopwatch on this because, to me, time shouldn’t expire as much as time should be enjoyed. Never mind that WVU won’t start turning a profit on the overall cost/investment until 2015, when it gets its final partial-member share of the Big 12 revenue ($10 million this year + $13.4 million next year +$16.8 in the following year = $40.2 million, which is greater than $35ish million).
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, pay attention to detail.
Mr. M said:
GOOD: outscoring the opponent in the first quarter (13-0).
We only did that twice last season (no, not against Marshall — or even Norfolk State but to Bowling Green and Maryland). Probably not a very meaningful statistic, but one that common sense dictates carries some significance.
No, no. I agree. I want to see it happen a few times, though. I’ll never understand that an offense as seemingly simple and liberating as is WVU’s could sputter like it did early in games last season. WVU will be very hard to beat if it gets two touchdowns in the first quarter.
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