That's a lot of money, but as a Tech grad too, this saddens me. Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field had a great ring to it.
The Athletic: Rutgers Infrastructure is Way behind
- Thread starter rutgersal
- Start date
When has an even playing field ever been a goal in college athletics? It has always been unfair, and the schools with the advantages, which are the biggest brands, will never willingly give up those advantages.
Right…it’s still more fun being a fan of the perennial loser in a big boy league with a few championship caliber teams than coming in third place in the big East after all the good teams left and being in a bowl that wasn’t nationally televised
Even the Yankees have a uniform advertising patch now. Nothing that can be sold is sacred anymore if an extra dollar can be had. As a fan I hate it, but it's only going to get worse
Thanks Al...but the point is Delaney brokered a deal that screwed us out of money, then according to someone here, inferred we were far behind others who have made fistfuls of money more than us.....no duh on that bit of deductive reasoning.
the deal was the same for Rutgers as it was for Nebraska years earlier.
The revenue share you begin to receive, and gradual increase until full share, is based on your previous conference's payout.
Nebraska didn't receive a full share when it joined, but received share based on what B-12 paid out.
Maryland's base revenue sharing was for what the ACC paid out which was higher than the AAC payout Rutgers beginning revenue share was based on.
Delaney just brokered the standard entrance deal and Rutgers got screwed only because the AAC's revenue share was low.
5000 people giving $20,000 each? I doubt that happens anywhere. It's the big donors who are key.
Nebraska's deal was far sweeter than Rutgers. They received $14 mil. while the conference was only making $28mil.. They got credit for a conference deal they were never a part of, their buy in also escalated like Rutgers. Rutgers wound of paying ten's of millions more to enter. Seems Nebraska got credit for being the 12th team and adding the Championship game, but Rutgers got 0 credit for bringing the NY/NJ media market. By the way Nebraska has no media market, without the Championship game B1G member schools would have had to take less.
Rutgers and Maryland's deals were the same just structured different. They received more up front, we received more on the back end of the 6 yr. buy in. Like you stated they also got a $50 mil. loan to get out of the ACC.
Last edited:
The amount we receive was negotiated. We could have easily said No. but the $2M we were going to get from the American conference wasn’t so appealing.
We’re lucky to be getting a $70M payday, despite not having invested as much as our conference peers. UConn could have easily taken the bid had they been in Stamford and not Storrs, because their athletic department is far more successful. In the end, location was our saving Grace. And yes, everyone benefited. That’s what you call a mutually beneficial relationship.
UConn could have blah blah blah
If my grandma had balls.......
Zero luck
Zero risk
We were basically a guarantee to make the Big Ten money.
Otherwise we wouldn't have been invited.
You said it yourself: The Big Ten isn't a charity
Aren’t we about to have the #1 (or close to it) basketball recruiting class in the nation? Which other BIG school has had the #1 recruiting class in recent memory.
Stop feeding the trolls.
Stop feeding the trolls.
#Facts. @SantaFeScarlet hates facts. He is Santa Claus Scarlet to UCLA and USC, but he is the Grinch when it comes to Rutgers and Pikiell.
Slight diversion.
How did you like Metallica?
Night 1- traffic was a crap show-- missed half of Pantera.
Night 2- Ice 9 Kills needs to be killed. An emo band doing a cheap imitation of Alice Cooper.
Metallica was outstanding both nights.
...but give USC and UCLA full share from the get go? Then say how far Rutgers is behind PSU, OSU, etc.....when you (Delaney) put them in the hole..
They bring more to the table. USC is a storied program in football. UCLA is a storied program in basketball. Their fans have invested millions in both programs, and USC is about to incveat millions more in the best football facility money can buy. This is why their programs are worth more, and they will get more.
This is why they get a full share.
I don’t think anyone should be complaining about the BIG payout to us, we are so much better off than the alternative. But if you are going to obsess and complain, you should blame Rutgers and its leadership. The BIG doesn’t owe us anything, at the end of the day they offered what they offered, our leadership wasn’t able to negotiate a better deal and couldn’t come up with a better alternative.
Thanks for the well thought analysis Al. I realize that. Once and for all, as I have wasted enough on this....Delaney put Rutgers behind everyone else, then turns around and makes a statement that Rutgers is lagging. See the issue here? Good night..I'm done with this.
Rutgers was buying into a partnership, in this case, a share of the Big Ten Network. Maryland was doing the same.
You seem to be struggling with the idea, that Rutgers doesn’t bring the same value to the table, as the other programs that have been brought aboard. Rutgers does not own the NYC market like USC owns the LA market.
That’s why our terms weren’t as favorable.
USC and UCLA increased the value by our media deal so much, that it wasn’t necessary to give them a reduced share. Oregon and Washington are getting reduced shares, though not as small as Rutgers, because they bring more to the table.
Nevertheless, our terms were the same as Marylands, which was quite generous as Maryland’s football program has been more successful.
It’s all water under the bridge because we’re full members now.
USC, and to a lesser degree for football, UCLA bring both the market AND the brand. Unfortunately, RU only brought the market (albeit the #1 market). Our brand would have been a much bigger factor 2006-2011.
The luck part was just based on location. If all other things were equal, but our campus was in PA instead of NJ, we'd have never seen an invite. Our location had nothing to do with the efforts or success of the athletic department over the past many decades. If Queens College had been established in Easton instead of New Brunswick in 1766, we would not have even been in the discussion for Big Ten expansion.
I don't think this responds to @LETSGORU91's central point, which is that it's unfair for Delaney to criticize Rutgers for lack of investment when (thanks in part to him) Rutgers got so much less money in the first place. I don't totally agree with that, but there is more merit to it than you are giving him credit for.
RU only was able to bring the #1 market as part of the B1G. The B1G was only able to bring the #1 market with RU. We both needed each other to do this.
If RU could “bring the market” by itself, then we should have formed a Longhorn Network of our own.
RU was in a unique position but it was not a zero risk proposition for the B1G. It took a lot to convince the existing members to vote yes for us. Even today we are constantly berated with media hit pieces saying we were the worst addition ever.
As was said above, it’s all water under the bridge. We were at a temporary revenue disadvantage but that’s behind us now. The whining about our entrance deal is childish and pointless.
If RU could “bring the market” by itself, then we should have formed a Longhorn Network of our own.
RU was in a unique position but it was not a zero risk proposition for the B1G. It took a lot to convince the existing members to vote yes for us. Even today we are constantly berated with media hit pieces saying we were the worst addition ever.
As was said above, it’s all water under the bridge. We were at a temporary revenue disadvantage but that’s behind us now. The whining about our entrance deal is childish and pointless.
The value you bring to a partnership has no impact on the price paid for that partnership.
If we brought less potential value, then we should only be purchasing a partial membership of the partnership.
That is not the case with Rutgers. We were full members from the beginning.
We were not receiving a full profit share because we opted to use future profits to pay for our share.
Alternatively, we should have been able to say "how much does buying the share cost? Ok, we'll write you a check now" and receive full profit shares immediately.
But we were full members from the beginning. We bought into a full share of the BTN partnership. Same share that Maryland was purchasing at the same exact time.
The price of the share should be the same for all people purchasing at the same point in time.
The value of a 1/14th share of the BTN partnership is that it is.
It doesn't change depending on who is purchasing it.
The problem is that the share of the BTN partnership isn't being given a concrete value - leading to different purchasers paying different amounts for the same share at the same time.
Would it have been nice if the existing schools gave Rutgers a stake in the Big Ten Network for Free? Of course it would have been nice. But that is not the deal that was struck.
The central point ignores that Rutgers was getting so much less because they were buying into the Big Ten network. No one forced Rutgers to agree to these terms.
Delaneys expectation is that Rutgers alumni and the school invest in the football program just as Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan alumni have invested in theirs. This is where we have fallen short in the past.
This is where you’re wrong. The existing partners get to determine the price that newcomers must pay to enter the partnership. The other stuff is irrelevant.
I think you are still missing @LETSGORU91's point. Let's agree for the sake of argument that phasing in Rutgers was fair. What's not fair is to criticize Rutgers for failing to invest when it wasn't given as much money in the first place. One can only invest what one has. But I won't belabor the point.
Thank you for understanding my simple point. Sometimes the density is amazing here. Here's one last try for Al. I dont care at this point what the deal was to get us in. But I find it very ironic the person who made the deal to give us less money (Delaney) is now making comments that we are lagging behind many others in the conference who reaped benefits multi fold over us during the same time. Understand Al?? Delaney was instrumental in causing the very problem he is critical of.
If I recall, the deal with NU and with RU were structured very similar. Both schools would receive however much their previous conference payout would be for year 1. NU was slated to get $17mil from the Big 12 but had to pay a $7mil exit fee so the Big 10 paid that and NU got $10mil. From that point the schools would get increased revenue from the conference annually to buy into the BTN till they got a full share in year 6 I believe. The other schools got what they would have even if others hadn’t joined(they refused to give up their own revenue from conference payout) and in NU’s case the $25mil that the Big 10 received annually was used to pay them and the rest was divided amounts the other schools. Year 2 of the deal NU got $22mil of the $25mil so they didn’t get to split much. RU got an increase annually too based off of the last year of what the BE payout was going to be. I’m assuming RU got their share from carriage fees and then what was left went to the other 12 schools.
The Big 10 was getting $.10 per box before NU and RU joined In the NYC market. At that time the Big 10 owned 100% of the BTN. They need to expand production abilities and also want to start the BTN2go stuff and in order to have enough revenue to do that they needed $1.00 in carriage fees. The cable companies said no thanks. So the Big 10 got with Fox and sold off 39% of the BTN and future channels, streaming, ect. To Fox. Fox then tried for $1.00 carriage fees and got rejected but the cable companies agreed to up to $1.50 if fox added FS1, FS2 and a couple others along with the BTN. They wouldn’t take BTN alone. Fox and the cable folks agreed on $1.50 for all the channels and BTN got $.49 of that and fox got the rest.
A few years later when the Big 10 wanted to add BTN2go they had to sell more of the BTN to Fox which gave Fox a 51% stake in the networks. They launched BTN2go.
Then after carriage fees began to drop because some cable companies dropped the BRN from basic packages in the NYC area and with significant cord cutting the Big 10 decided to up the production and content on BTN2go and changed it to BTN+. Fox again had to help financially and now has a 61% stake in the BTN networks. The Big 10
And Fox went back to the cable companies many time trying to get back on basic service and got rejected with all their proposals so that was a huge ouch for them to launch BTN+.
When USC and UCLA were invited it was a Fox push period. They wanted the LA market for the limited(carriage fees) but to have the streaming stuff that coming to be first in LA and California. Since Fox had the PAC 12 too and they were in TV rights negotiations Fox knew if they could pull USC and UCLA out of that negotiation and move them that they had the upper hand on negotiations with the remaining schools taking the 2 biggest away. They knew the conference could survive but at an extremely lower $$$ amount. Eventually all their deals with remaining schools fell through. USC and UCLA got full shares because that’s the deal Fox made with them and it could be paid by carriage and streaming fees and by not paying the PAC 12 as much. USC and UCLA weren’t going anywhere without full share.
Now that Oregon and Washington have bolted the PAC 12 and others left for the Big 12 Fox has control of the entire west coast and made the conference’s look like the bad guys.
That’s my read on it. TIFWIW.
The Big 10 was getting $.10 per box before NU and RU joined In the NYC market. At that time the Big 10 owned 100% of the BTN. They need to expand production abilities and also want to start the BTN2go stuff and in order to have enough revenue to do that they needed $1.00 in carriage fees. The cable companies said no thanks. So the Big 10 got with Fox and sold off 39% of the BTN and future channels, streaming, ect. To Fox. Fox then tried for $1.00 carriage fees and got rejected but the cable companies agreed to up to $1.50 if fox added FS1, FS2 and a couple others along with the BTN. They wouldn’t take BTN alone. Fox and the cable folks agreed on $1.50 for all the channels and BTN got $.49 of that and fox got the rest.
A few years later when the Big 10 wanted to add BTN2go they had to sell more of the BTN to Fox which gave Fox a 51% stake in the networks. They launched BTN2go.
Then after carriage fees began to drop because some cable companies dropped the BRN from basic packages in the NYC area and with significant cord cutting the Big 10 decided to up the production and content on BTN2go and changed it to BTN+. Fox again had to help financially and now has a 61% stake in the BTN networks. The Big 10
And Fox went back to the cable companies many time trying to get back on basic service and got rejected with all their proposals so that was a huge ouch for them to launch BTN+.
When USC and UCLA were invited it was a Fox push period. They wanted the LA market for the limited(carriage fees) but to have the streaming stuff that coming to be first in LA and California. Since Fox had the PAC 12 too and they were in TV rights negotiations Fox knew if they could pull USC and UCLA out of that negotiation and move them that they had the upper hand on negotiations with the remaining schools taking the 2 biggest away. They knew the conference could survive but at an extremely lower $$$ amount. Eventually all their deals with remaining schools fell through. USC and UCLA got full shares because that’s the deal Fox made with them and it could be paid by carriage and streaming fees and by not paying the PAC 12 as much. USC and UCLA weren’t going anywhere without full share.
Now that Oregon and Washington have bolted the PAC 12 and others left for the Big 12 Fox has control of the entire west coast and made the conference’s look like the bad guys.
That’s my read on it. TIFWIW.
You are misinterpreting Delany’s statements.
First, the statements are not recent. They were made shortly after RU was admitted to the B1G.
Second, he was not criticizing RU for not investing in facilities. He was simply saying that until we have had time to invest in facilities, which would take longer than 5 or 10 years, we would be at a disadvantage in the conference. He was correct in this assessment.
His point was that in the long term (greater than 10 years) Rutgers would become competitive in the conference. And that the decision to add Rutgers was a strategic, long term decision. He was basically calling for patience when looking at Rutgers athletic performance.
My bad. Yes, I didn't read it and was only going on how people were interpreting Delaney's words. I also didn't know it was back from almost 10 years ago. Thanks for clarifying.
I'd like us to redistribute funds to men's & women's BBall and let football be what it is- maybe catch lightening in a bottle and be competitive 2 out of 10 years in football. Follow the Purdue & Indiana model.
We will never catch up in the BiG football arms race. Michigan, Penn State and now Oregon are the sports equivalents of the US, Chinese and Indian armies and we're like Finland. We're never going to catch up, no matter how much we try to spend.
We will never catch up in the BiG football arms race. Michigan, Penn State and now Oregon are the sports equivalents of the US, Chinese and Indian armies and we're like Finland. We're never going to catch up, no matter how much we try to spend.
So what. USC has higher TV ratings because they’ve been the better football team most of the time’s
We caught up in basketball as the APC on Livingston made it easier to recruit. We need a similar type facility for football.
We caught up in basketball because we have a coach who can coach up talent and make headlines. Our arena, above all, is nowhere near the big boys.
And we’re going to keep it that way because it’s our competitive advantage. Schiano does the same. It takes longer to show progress on football because OL need time to develop.
