MaroonLantern

He had his chance in Buffalo, plus a few multi-game runs in Cleveland and NYG. He is a solid QB who does not turn the ball over, can get 1st downs with his legs in a pinch. But he is not the championship-level passer that every team covets - that will win games for you with their accuracy and savvy in the clutch. He is however a great backup because he will not lose games for you. Fields is actually the same guy - he was benched in favor of Russell Wilson after he performed ok in his first several weeks in Pittsburgh b/c Wilson at one time was an elite passer (when younger, and healthy, anyway); and the Bears traded him away based on similar conclusions. Fields will likely play well enough (better than their previous Qbs) to get them a few more wins, but probably not well enough to get to the playoffs, and probably well enough to keep Tyrod on the bench. My $0.02 anyway.

If there was only 1 transfer window, at the end of the season, then coaches would not be concerned about their players being put on display to be poached after the spring game. The second, post-spring transfer window needs to go away. It only makes sense, if players are getting paid. It is not an unreasonable stipulation to agree to if you are being paid for your services. But then, nothing makes sense in this era. It is all about maximizing your own narrow self interest, over the short term. That applies to players, coaches, programs, conferences, and the universities themselves. ** Edited by MaroonLantern at 2/21/2025, 10:59:39 AM

in the ACC.

the conference, to separate the magnificent 7 (plus a few others) from the rest to maximize the value of football and basketball match ups. And thereby raise the per-school payouts from the media deal, that would be much less diluted by matchups with the likes of WF and BC. But alas it was not to be.

I have been thinking a lot about how the Big10 and SEC have been behaving in the marketplace in the last 24 months, with the poaching of schools and the destruction of a weaker conference (PAC12) as a result. What really got my goat is their negotiating stance for the re-formatted playoff (before we get even one year under our belt in the first expanded playoff) - where they wanted guaranteed byes for their members as their opening position - and ended with a fallback position of them receiving disproportionately larger revenue shares, plus more guaranteed slots for their conferences. This felt to me like an anti-trust violation, but I am not a lawyer. I am a capitalist - I have no problem with the companies with the best products with the largest appeal leveraging their scale and appeal to increase their market share, which in the end will drive more value for consumers and the economy (despite what Lina Khan thinks). But what the Big10 and SEC are doing is not that. They are expanding market share through coercion, not competition. Not to mention, their behavior might also threaten the tax exempt status that college conferences enjoy - none of the BILLIONS of TV revenue is taxed - based on the fact they are "501(c)(3) organizations" that conduct business for the furtherance of an educational purpose. There is an argument that "the athletic department is the front door of the university" in a world that competes for students, resources, professors, etc., but that argument starts to fail when the scale of revenue reaches the heights it has, and the leaders of the industry are consolidating power for its own sake. Here is a link with some discussion of the tax exemption question. https://taxfoundation.org/blog/college-sports-tax-free-re... Back to the anti-trust question - lawsuits should be coming, based on how the last CFP negotiation went down. Who will bring them is the big question. Schools like us that want to be invited to the dance are not likely to be plaintiffs in the short term. In the near term it could be G5 schools, and the spurned schools of the Pac12. Below is a link with some discussion on this topic.

Hypothesis. if the following is all true / comes to pass: 1) there is no near term demand for FSU, CU, UNC from the P2 conferences 2) the net payouts for the football/public breakaway schools go up, but the net payout by ESPN for the totality of the 2 groups does not change 3) the football group agrees to lock up for a number of years, to give it some stability from poaching 4) ESPN can actually terminate the current media deal and initiate this reorganization as suggested.

the athletic department, they share control and ownership with the PE investors. It's an interesting idea; cover the $120M in exit fees with that invested capital, and then the PE investors would recoup that investment via some proportion of the incremental TV money they'd get from one of the super conferences. It would take a few years for the PE investors to recover their $120M investment, and thereafter then they'd get some cashflows from the FSU athletic department for as long as they are equity holders. In this scenario, FSU would be at a disadvantage competitively in terms of revenues relative to their brethren in the super conference they might join (because they have to pay the vig to the PE guys), but presumably ahead of where they are now. ** Edited by MaroonLantern at 8/5/2023, 1:55:02 PM