Big 10 Conference revenues rise 33% in one year

[RU#1fan]

Temporary condition. Shortly we'll be getting more than Maryland for a little while.
Who cares? Our pay day is coming and it is going to be bigger than we hoped.

Who Cares ? Any reasonable Rutgers fan should care !!!
This puts RU at an immediate, greater financial disadvantage than our B1G "partners". Hurts us in paying for competitive staff salaries, facilities, Recruiting budgets, team travel expenses, etc. Makes us less competitive on the sports fields.
Only a short term 5 year problem ...Yes. Will this impact our ability to be competitive in the short -term ... Yes sir.

 

[Caliknight]

Someone please send this to Paul Tagliabue. I bet he was charging a few grand an hour in consulting fees only to offer the worst advice and predictions ever.

Tranghese had so much, but was so incapable. A pure follower if there ever was one. Guy had no vision, even with the game obviously being changed.

The worst commissioner in the history of the NCAA.

 

[Upstream]

Someone please send this to Paul Tagliabue. I bet he was charging a few grand an hour in consulting fees only to offer the worst advice and predictions ever.

Tranghese had so much, but was so incapable. A pure follower if there ever was one. Guy had no vision, even with the game obviously being changed.

The worst commissioner in the history of the NCAA.

I believe Tagliabue was providing free advice to the Big East as part of his role at Georgetown. I guess the Big East got what they paid for. But he wasn't protecting the interests of the BE, he was protecting the interests of Georgetown. It is interesting to note that when ESPN came in with their low-ball offer, only Rutgers, Notre Dame, and Georgetown initially balked at it. Those were the 3 Big East schools with leaders (Pernetti, Swarbrick, Tagliabue) who had independent expertise in sports media.

In fairness to Tranghese, he was a basketball guy who never really understood the dynamics of football. He knew that the Big East needed to add football in order to satisfy the schools that sponsored football (Pitt, Cuse, BC), but he never figured out how to balance a league that was half BB-only schools and half FB/BB schools. And he didn't have the vision to realize that unless he negotiated a workable split, the conference would always be unstable.

In edit: yep. Tagliabue was an unpaid consultant to the BE. He did a great job disparaging the value of Rutgers (http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/tagliabue-has-stern-words-for-big-ten/?_r=0), but now we know that Rutgers and Maryland added $50MM in TV rights to the Big Ten, plus more in BTN dividends. This October's RU-Minn game should be called "The Battle for Paul Tagliabue's Tennis Racquet".

 

[RUich]

As for our negotiations with the BIG, I agree that we were at somewhat of a disadvantage being in the AAC, but they also always wanted Rutgers too. Better we wait our turn to really get onto the cash cow than waste away in a mid-major league with no serious hope of being more than it already is. That said, I still think it would be a nice gesture to slip us some more cash than expected as a thank you for the significant bump the league got.
Meanwhile, Syracuse's situation if football is pretty bad even by its own people! I live in CNY and there was a sports show with Cuse's announcers and they are pretty much throwing in the towel for football and they even think once they lose their MBB coach, recruiting will also drop off there too. This was discussed while they were talking about the decision to put a real roof on the dome instead of trying to build a brand new facility. They just felt that a new facility would not pay off due to the lack of fans for football. Good thing the BIG didn't buy into their "we're NY's team" crap.

 

[eceres]

People should realize some if that $50m is just any warm body and not NY / DMV metro success. Adding teams probably resulted in an incresse from ESPN as it's started many contracts from ESPN had built in increase for additional teams.

 

[PaKnight]

I believe Tagliabue was providing free advice to the Big East as part of his role at Georgetown. I guess the Big East got what they paid for. But he wasn't protecting the interests of the BE, he was protecting the interests of Georgetown. It is interesting to note that when ESPN came in with their low-ball offer, only Rutgers, Notre Dame, and Georgetown initially balked at it. Those were the 3 Big East schools with leaders (Pernetti, Swarbrick, Tagliabue) who had independent expertise in sports media.

In fairness to Tranghese, he was a basketball guy who never really understood the dynamics of football. He knew that the Big East needed to add football in order to satisfy the schools that sponsored football (Pitt, Cuse, BC), but he never figured out how to balance a league that was half BB-only schools and half FB/BB schools. And he didn't have the vision to realize that unless he negotiated a workable split, the conference would always be unstable.

In edit: yep. Tagliabue was an unpaid consultant to the BE. He did a great job disparaging the value of Rutgers (http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/tagliabue-has-stern-words-for-big-ten/?_r=0), but now we know that Rutgers and Maryland added $50MM in TV rights to the Big Ten, plus more in BTN dividends. This October's RU-Minn game should be called "The Battle for Paul Tagliabue's Tennis Racquet".

That was also the case for all of the BE commissioners, they were looking out for the interest of Providence and the rest of the basketball schools.

 

[koleszar]

Who Cares ? Any reasonable Rutgers fan should care !!!
This puts RU at an immediate, greater financial disadvantage than our B1G "partners". Hurts us in paying for competitive staff salaries, facilities, Recruiting budgets, team travel expenses, etc. Makes us less competitive on the sports fields.
Only a short term 5 year problem ...Yes. Will this impact our ability to be competitive in the short -term ... Yes sir.

Completely agree. The longer we are at a disadvantage the more we will struggle. The longer we struggle, the tougher that hole will be to climb out of. I've been shot down on this point by several. People are quick to forget history and how long we struggled to become respectable, simply because we weren't willing to spend. Do the same here and history will be destined to repeat itself. It's great there's a pot of gold at the end of the road, but the journey to get there could be a rocky road.

 

[rurichdog]

Maybe all the Big Ten schools can chip in and buy out Harbaugh's contract for the good of the conference's sake.

 

[Scarlet Jerry]

I love the idea of a Minni/Rutgers Tagliabue Tennis racket trophy.

Here are some other great predictions by sports journalists:

http://www.nhregister.com/sports/20...-rutgers-over-uconn-just-gets-more-perplexing

http://stholeary.blogspot.com/2014/03/rutgers-is-big-tens-biggest-mistake.html

http://www.thegazette.com/2014/03/30/uconn-doesnt-cede-new-york-to-big-ten

http://www.thesportsnotebook.com/2016/05/big-ten-expansion-may-11-2016/

-Scarlet Jerry

 

[Upstream]

I love the idea of a Minni/Rutgers Tagliabue Tennis racket trophy.

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but someone else suggested it on this board a few years ago.

 

[Caliknight]

Tagliabue is a dick.

 

[delaynomore]

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but someone else suggested it on this board a few years ago.

Call it the Long Island Bowl.

 

[jason21psu]

Completely agree. The longer we are at a disadvantage the more we will struggle. The longer we struggle, the tougher that hole will be to climb out of. I've been shot down on this point by several. People are quick to forget history and how long we struggled to become respectable, simply because we weren't willing to spend. Do the same here and history will be destined to repeat itself. It's great there's a pot of gold at the end of the road, but the journey to get there could be a rocky road.

From reading these boards I know there is an aversion whether perceived or real to the school financially supporting athletics but y'all won the lottery. If I was your AD and felt to wait five years for full payout was going to detrimental to the hole I had to climb out of I would borrow the money from the school. You take out a loan for whatever you need to fund whatever needs to be fully funded. The I have to wait to get full B1G payout mantra wouldn't even be a thought to me. Now I wouldn't blow money for the sake of blowing money but if there are projects that are being held up that would have a positive return to the program I wouldn't be waiting to get that ball rolling.

One thought I've had is there was a lot of consternation about taking UMDNJ into Rutgers and the financial impact that had but do you think taking UMDNJ was done with the B1G in mind? Most if not all B1G schools have a medical school and the research $$ they generate as part of the CIC is a big deal. I don't know what your numbers were research $$ wise without a med school but it may have been a stipulation of the B1G or done with the intent to look more like a B1G university? Any validity to this line of thinking?

 

[Scarlet Shack]

Guys

You don't walk into the 100 year old country club where everyone has been friends for decades and expect they will pour you a scotch

The big ten has been more than fair with us. And we (ru and md) are gojng to completely justify our membership when the final numbers come out...and eventually will be very competitive on the field.

It's up to our leadership to plan to make this work...and pat is doing exactly that

 

[RURod]

Love this.

Will the meth heads (and UCONN and Cuse groupies) who thought adding RU was a BIG mistake man-up and admit they don't know their arse from a hole in the ground? Not holding my breath.

 

[ruready07]

Guys

You don't walk into the 100 year old country club where everyone has been friends for decades and expect they will pour you a scotch

The big ten has been more than fair with us. And we (ru and md) are gojng to completely justify our membership when the final numbers come out...and eventually will be very competitive on the field.

It's up to our leadership to plan to make this work...and pat is doing exactly that

If I'm going to be making them tons of money, Id expect my drink to never be empty. Im sure osu and wisconsin will be sending purdue and minnesota to fetch our drinks, but still our cup should never be empty.

friends and money.. no such thing

 

[sherrane]

I believe Tagliabue was providing free advice to the Big East as part of his role at Georgetown. I guess the Big East got what they paid for. But he wasn't protecting the interests of the BE, he was protecting the interests of Georgetown. It is interesting to note that when ESPN came in with their low-ball offer, only Rutgers, Notre Dame, and Georgetown initially balked at it. Those were the 3 Big East schools with leaders (Pernetti, Swarbrick, Tagliabue) who had independent expertise in sports media.

In fairness to Tranghese, he was a basketball guy who never really understood the dynamics of football. He knew that the Big East needed to add football in order to satisfy the schools that sponsored football (Pitt, Cuse, BC), but he never figured out how to balance a league that was half BB-only schools and half FB/BB schools. And he didn't have the vision to realize that unless he negotiated a workable split, the conference would always be unstable.

In edit: yep. Tagliabue was an unpaid consultant to the BE. He did a great job disparaging the value of Rutgers (http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/tagliabue-has-stern-words-for-big-ten/?_r=0), but now we know that Rutgers and Maryland added $50MM in TV rights to the Big Ten, plus more in BTN dividends. This October's RU-Minn game should be called "The Battle for Paul Tagliabue's Tennis Racquet".

History will not view Tranghese well. I don't think he didn't understand the dynamics of football, I think that he just didn't care. The media day for football was in Rhode Island, where there were no teams, while the media day for basketball was in NYC. To me, this adequately demonstrated they did the least they could possibly do for football, which is why all the schools left the league. Oh, and the football schools were ingrates for leaving the league. None of it was the league office's fault. We're in a much better place now, but I still have some bitterness remaining. May they rot in hell.

RU-Minn game should be called "The Battle For Long Island", in my opinion. EDIT: I just saw delaynomore's "Long Island Bowl", which it like as well. My suggestion was based on Tagliabue's statement that nobody on Long Island would watch the game, hence, the battle for Long Island TV sets.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

History will not view Tranghese well. I don't think he didn't understand the dynamics of football, I think that he just didn't care. The media day for football was in Rhode Island, where there were no teams, while the media day for basketball was in NYC. To me, this adequately demonstrated they did the least they could possibly do for football, which is why all the schools left the league. Oh, and the football schools were ingrates for leaving the league. None of it was the league office's fault. We're in a much better place now, but I still have some bitterness remaining. May they rot in hell.

RU-Minn game should be called "The Battle For Long Island", in my opinion.

The Big East was passive aggressive towards the football schools, that's for sure. The Big East tried to get rid of its football division a few times even. The idea was to have the Big East football schools play football in the ACC and everything else in the Big East. They tried this TWICE but the ACC didn't want Football only members.

The irony is that the ACC raided the Big East and practically merge with them anyway. The only two Football 1st schools, Rutgers and West Virginia ultimately ended up in better conferences with Rutgers really hitting the jack pot with the Big Ten.

 

[sherrane]

The Big East was passive aggressive towards the football schools, that's for sure. The Big East tried to get rid of its football division a few times even. The idea was to have the Big East football schools play football in the ACC and everything else in the Big East. They tried this TWICE but the ACC didn't want Football only members.

The irony is that the ACC raided the Big East and practically merge with them anyway. The only two Football 1st schools, Rutgers and West Virginia ultimately ended up in better conferences with Rutgers really hitting the jack pot with the Big Ten.

Yes, I do remember that. One of the arguments Tranghese made was that the ACC could have a conference championship game if they accepted the football schools. The problem was that the ACC was also a league who emphasized basketball, so you could make the case the Big East leadership group convinced the ACC to raid the conference.

 

[srru86]

Who Cares ? Any reasonable Rutgers fan should care !!!
This puts RU at an immediate, greater financial disadvantage than our B1G "partners". Hurts us in paying for competitive staff salaries, facilities, Recruiting budgets, team travel expenses, etc. Makes us less competitive on the sports fields.
Only a short term 5 year problem ...Yes. Will this impact our ability to be competitive in the short -term ... Yes sir.

That logic holds if you start from the premise that the B1G had to take us. In hind sight it was clearly a win for everybody. Before the offer came we could make a real good argument that we would pay off, and luckily Delany understood that. But in hindsight to assume it was a foregone conclusion for them to take us is a little presumptuous. There are plenty of examples of people and organizations making decisions despite facts and reason because of emotion or ignorance. As Western Union said to Alexander Graham Bell "Who wants a talking box? You don't understand, we're in the telegraph business."

 

[Scarlet16E]

I believe that when media reports revealed that the B1G was considering Rutgers as a potential member, the people in the Big East offices suddenly realized that losing Rutgers (even the possibility of losing Rutgers) would cause the other football school dominos to tumble and would quickly lead to losing the lynchpin of the Basketball conference (Syracuse). Their only hope was to convince the B1G that Rutgers had no value (could not capture the NY market). That's when they hired Tagliabue, who's primary focus was to make public statements disparaging Rutgers. That was his job.

As it happens they were right. The B1G's dalliance with Rutgers (even though they chose to add Nebraska in that round) caused Syracuse, Pitt, WVU, and Louisville to quietly begin talks with other leagues. The conference fell apart even before the B1G finally did invite Rutgers. The strategy to save the conference by defaming Rutgers and publicly disparaging our value had failed.

 

[koleszar]

From reading these boards I know there is an aversion whether perceived or real to the school financially supporting athletics but y'all won the lottery. If I was your AD and felt to wait five years for full payout was going to detrimental to the hole I had to climb out of I would borrow the money from the school. You take out a loan for whatever you need to fund whatever needs to be fully funded. The I have to wait to get full B1G payout mantra wouldn't even be a thought to me. Now I wouldn't blow money for the sake of blowing money but if there are projects that are being held up that would have a positive return to the program I wouldn't be waiting to get that ball rolling.

One thought I've had is there was a lot of consternation about taking UMDNJ into Rutgers and the financial impact that had but do you think taking UMDNJ was done with the B1G in mind? Most if not all B1G schools have a medical school and the research $$ they generate as part of the CIC is a big deal. I don't know what your numbers were research $$ wise without a med school but it may have been a stipulation of the B1G or done with the intent to look more like a B1G university? Any validity to this line of thinking?

Nice post Jason.
On your 1st point yes there has been a real aversion to the school financially supporting athletics to levels needed. Now I don't blame them the subsidy is huge, but our accounting tactics are not in line with other schools. For example why does RU swimming have to rent the swimming pool from the school. Free tickets for students are counted in the subsidy as well as maintenance fees for buildings. Thus they have used the subsidy as a crutch.

That subsidy has squashed all talk of our AD borrowing against future revenue. Many on here have advocated for this exact strategy with interest rates the lowest we're ever going to see. Basically the mantra has been you want new things, find the money yourselves. Fundraising is where we are delving into uncharted waters as our new AD has raised twice as much money in 5 months on the job, then all of last year. It's a great start but were so far behind the 8 ball we need all the revenue we can get.

Your last point about UMDNJ. This was a state run Medical facility and like all state gov't they basically screwed the pooch. They ran huge deficits and Chrisite wanted it off the books. RU saw an opportunity and hired Barchi for this very reason. I must say the man did a wonder job as all cost projections for the merger came under budget. But it was still a huge deficit RU took on. RU has always been huge on research, probably even before psu was built in that cow pasture(I kid). I'm not sure you can stipulate a school to take on a hospital in order to join a conference. You can't just pick one of these up at a five and dime, but who knows.

In conclusion, things are getting better. The purse strings have been loosened ever so slightly with our new found riches just on the horizon, but it's not enough to make us competitive in infrastructure or coaching salaries. Our AD is going to have to find the money himself and he's off to a great start. It all harkens back to the subsidy as we reduce that we will be able to spend more. It truly is the crutch we're propped up on right now and will be until the full boat comes in, not just the life raft the B1G sent us.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Nice post Jason.
I'm not sure you can stipulate a school to take on a hospital in order to join a conference. You can't just pick one of these up at a five and dime, but who knows.

Just wanted to point out that the hospital was not part of the deal and is not part of Rutgers. It was sold by the state and is privately own now.