College Football Conferences and TV Money

With the Bowl season behind us (told you Notre Dame was over rated) let's look at how the college football landscape will change for next season . Below are the conference members now and for the future. Below the chart are some thoughts on the role television plays in conference alignment.

                                 Conference Realignment for 2013

.	ACC Now	Future ACC		Big East Now	Future Big East
.	Boston College	Boston College		Cincinnati	Boise State
.	Clemson	Clemson		Louisville	Cincinnati
.	Duke	Duke		Pittsburgh	Connecticut
.	Florida State	Florida State		Rutgers	East Carolina
.	Georgia Tech	Georgia Tech		Syracuse	Houston
.	Maryland	Louisville		Temple	Louisville
.	Miami	Maryland		UConn	Memphis
.	N.C. State	Miami		USF	Navy
.	North Carolina	N.C. State			Pittsburgh
.	Virginia	North Carolina			Rutgers
.	Virginia Tech	Pittsburgh			San Diego State
.	Wake Forest	Syracuse			SMU
.		Virginia			Syracuse
.		Virginia Tech			Temple
.		Wake Forest			Tulane
.		*Notre Dame (sorta)			UCF
.					USF
.	Big Ten Now	Future Big Ten		Big 12 Now	Future Big 12
.	Illinois	Illinois		Baylor	Baylor
.	Indiana	Indiana		Iowa State	Iowa State
.	Iowa	Iowa		Kansas	Kansas
.	Michigan	Maryland		Kansas State	Kansas State
.	Michigan State	Michigan		Oklahoma	Oklahoma
.	Minnesota	Michigan State		Oklahoma State	Oklahoma State
.	Nebraska	Minnesota		TCU	TCU
.	Northwestern	Nebraska		Texas	Texas
.	Ohio State	Northwestern		Texas Tech	Texas Tech
.	Penn State	Ohio State		West Virginia	West Virginia
.	Purdue	Penn State
.	Wisconsin	Purdue
.		Rutgers
.		Wisconsin
.	C-USA Now	Future C-USA		MAC Now	Future MAC
.	East Carolina	Charlotte		Akron	Akron
.	Houston	East Carolina		Ball State	Ball State
.	Marshall	FAU		Bowling Green	Bowling Green
.	Memphis	FIU		Buffalo	Buffalo
.	Rice	Houston		Central Michigan	Central Michigan
.	SMU	Louisiana Tech		Eastern Michigan	Eastern Michigan
.	Southern Miss	Marshall		Kent State	Kent State
.	Tulane	Memphis		Miami (Ohio)	Miami (Ohio)
.	Tulsa	MTSU		Northern Illinois	Northern Illinois
.	UAB	North Texas		Ohio	Ohio
.	UCF	Old Dominion		Toledo	Toledo
.	UTEP	Rice		UMass	UMass
.		SMU		Western Michigan	Western Michigan
.		Southern Miss
.		Tulane
.		Tulsa
.		UAB
.		UCF
.		UTEP
.		UTSA
.	MWC Now	Future MWC		Pac-12 Now	Future Pac-12
.	Air Force	Air Force		Arizona	Arizona
.	Boise State	Boise State		Arizona State	Arizona State
.	Colorado State	Colorado State		Cal	Cal
.	Fresno State	Fresno State		Colorado	Colorado
.	Hawaii	Hawaii		Oregon	Oregon
.	Nevada	Nevada		Oregon State	Oregon State
.	New Mexico	New Mexico		Stanford	Stanford
.	San Diego State	San Diego State		USC	USC
.	UNLV	San Jose State		UCLA	UCLA
.	Wyoming	UNLV		Utah	Utah
.		Utah State		Washington	Washington
.		Wyoming		Washington State	Washington State
.	SEC Now	Future SEC		Sun Belt Now	Future Sun Belt
.	Alabama	Alabama		Arkansas State	Arkansas State
.	Arkansas	Arkansas		FAU	FAU
.	Auburn	Auburn		FIU	FIU
.	Florida	Florida		Louisiana-Lafayette	Georgia State
.	Georgia	Georgia		MTSU	Louisiana-Lafayette
.	Kentucky	Kentucky		North Texas	MTSU
.	LSU	LSU		South Alabama	North Texas
.	Mississippi State	Mississippi State		Troy	South Alabama
.	Missouri	Missouri		ULM	Texas State
.	Ole Miss	Ole Miss		Western Kentucky	Troy
.	South Carolina	South Carolina			ULM
.	Tennessee	Tennessee			Western Kentucky
.	Texas A&M	Texas A&M
.	Vanderbilt	Vanderbilt
.	WAC Now	Future WAC		Independents Now	Future Independents
.	Idaho	:(		Army	Army
.	Louisiana Tech			BYU	BYU
.	New Mexico State			Navy	Navy
.	San Jose State			Notre Dame	Notre Dame
.	Texas State
.	Utah State
.

  While the Big East scrambles to stave off its imminent collapse, whether it's by enticing Fresno State and UNLV to join up or begging UConn and Cincinnati to stay put, it can make no tangible promises because there's no TV dollars to back any such pledge.

Television money is the lifeblood of college sports - specifically college football, the second-most valuable property to television networks after the NFL. With the advent of DVRs and streaming services, sports is about the only thing left that can still deliver huge live audiences that advertisers crave. And that, in turn, brings in big bucks.

The Los Angeles Lakers signed a 20-year, $3 billion exclusive deal with the fledgling Time Warner Sportsnet, which commands a whopping $4 per subscriber fee and won a staredown with DirecTV. Just up the street, the Dodgers are expected to one-up that, with a new 25-year deal expected to be worth north of $6 billion. And then there's the mother of all monster deals - the NFL's next TV contract, scheduled to kick in for 2014, is worth about $5 billion annually.

College football has gotten in on the act, with the five major conferences each inking billion-dollar deals in the past two years. The annual payouts roughly go like this:

• Pac-12: $250 million ($20.83 million per school)
• Big Ten: $248 million ($20.67 million)
• Big 12: $200 million ($20 million)
• ACC: $240 million ($17.14 million)
• SEC: $205 million ($14.64 million)
• Notre Dame: $15 million

And please don't cry for the SEC, which is certain to renegotiate its current deal with CBS and ESPN before the next season and launch its own network by 2014. The new pact is expected to bring each SEC school more than $20 million per year.

So who's missing here? Yep, the Big East, the erstwhile member of the big boys' club that's about to get tossed out on its ear after the 2013 season.

The Big East was essentially done in by its own greed. In April 2011, the much-maligned former commissioner John Marinatto had a nine-year, $1.17 billion deal with ESPN on the table, which would've paid its full members about $13.8 million per season and the basketball-only schools $2.5 million. While it wasn't Big Ten money, it was more than commensurate with what the Big East was worth.

But the Big East presidents, including the ones in the "Catholic 7," rejected the deal, thinking they would be able to squeeze more out of it. Turns out, it was a gargantuan miscalculation that left the Big East in today's mess.

The Big East's current TV deal expires after this basketball season and the next football season. With the mass defections this past month, the value of that next contract is dwindling, and no network is all that eager to jump in to make a deal when more schools might abandon ship before long. The latest estimate has the conference getting about $40-$50 million per year - and that's assuming everybody stays put.

An optimistic model of $50 million yields a payout of about $4.17 million per year for the nine full members and $3.13 million per year for the four football-only schools (Boise State, San Diego State, East Carolina and Navy in 2015). It's dwarfed by the payouts in the major conferences, though it's still substantially more than what the Mountain West currently pays, which is around $1 million per school per year.

There is a tug-of-war between the remnants of the Big East and the MWC, vying to be the kingpin of the Group of Five in BCS 2.0. The Big East wants to continue to raid the MWC to pump up its value to potential TV suitors, while the MWC aims to lure Boise State and San Diego State back (though technically they haven't left yet). Both conferences would love to pick off BYU, but neither is likely to succeed because the Cougars are getting about $5-6 million per year from their own TV deal with ESPN as a football independent.

But the MWC apparently has gained the upper hand, according to reports Friday night. The conference's TV deal with CBS, which was to run three more seasons, is being redone as a make-good for the network's decision to shut down The Mtn. While terms of the new deal are undisclosed, its value would only increase if the Broncos decide to stay in the conference. That's why the MWC is now aggressively (re)-courting Boise State, which is clearly the kingmaker in the "Group of Five" universe though it must make a decision on its future soon.

As for the Big East, being demoted in the new BCS landscape is the lesser of its problems, as it's at risk to further disintegrate from more defections the longer it takes to lock down a TV deal. And if the worst-case scenario should happen - UConn and Cincinnati find new homes while Boise State and San Diego State get cold feet before next July - the Big East becomes Conference USA Lite, circa 2004. In that case, it should expect not much more than Conference USA money.

How much is that? C-USA signed its most recent TV deal in early 2011 with FOX and CBS, worth $14 million per year, total.

Reprinted from College Conference Realignment:The TV Money Game in 2013 by Samuel Chi in Sports Nation December 26, 2012