Topic: Ouch. It gets worse. What will be the excuse this time?

[_sturt_]

Me:

Hi, Mitch.

There is some uncertainty as to how to interpret Mike Hamrick's quote in your recent column:

"Our TV package is solid for the next three years," Hamrick countered. "As far as I know renegotiations aren't scheduled. Our TV partners like the new Conference USA teams and markets.

"Also, the exit fee for the [departing] schools is a flat $500,000. But the schools must also pay the difference if the next contract is less than the current one. I'd be surprised if the next contract is less, but if it is, the former schools have to collectively make up the difference."

Previously it had been widely reported that the exit fee for each departing school was $6.6 million. This, however, seems to indicated that the fee is $500K plus any difference between the TV revenue in the next contract as opposed to the current one.

Based on the entirety of your conversation with Hamrick, and knowing the specific questions you posed to him, can you help clarify this? Are we correct to conclude there would not be any additional fee beyond the $500K if there is no difference between this TV contract and the next? And, accordingly, is it accurate to assume that any money collected from the departing schools beyond that $500K is money that had already been anticipated, realignment or not, and would have received anyhow--but that, now, instead of receiving it strictly from the networks, some part of it would come from the departing schools?

I'm confused, as are several others of my Herd friends. Thanks in advance for any informed input you can lend.

Vingle:

Thanks for the email. I double-checked with Hamrick and he said whatever reports you saw of $6.6 million as an exit fee per departing school were incorrect. ("I wish," he said.) It's simply $500,000 per school, plus the difference between TV contracts. If there is no difference, it's just $500,000 per school. Hope this clears it up.

[_sturt_]

Leave it to sturt to spin a positive comment into a negative one.  ::)

[_sturt_]

Entire premise of the thread is based on bad information. 

[_sturt_]

I tend to take things at face value, not twist words and read between the lines.

[_sturt_]

You read it wrong... Feel free to twist it any way you want...These are the facts as we know them.  Good night and have a great Easter!

[IM4DHERD]

Interesting, and disheartening.  Odd that Landon would report:

C-USA alone will realize $6.63 million apiece from Memphis, UCF, SMU and Houston when they leave to join the Big East after the 2013 basketball season, according to C-USA assistant commissioner for public affairs Courtney Morrison-Archer.

and the Orlando Sentinel would report:

If the Knights ultimately decide to join the Big East, Conference USA officials told the Sentinel that UCF would have to pay an exit fee of about $7 million. Schools leaving C-USA must pay their annual share of television revenue under dual contracts with Fox Sports Network and CBS Sports for five years and an additional one-time $500,000 fee.

These both specifically say that CUSA officials outlined the details and amounts.  What is even more strange is that if this has changed it hasn't been reported, particularly when you consider that it seemed Marshall, UAB, So Miss, Rice and UTEP were all to expect almost $13M.  

[IM4DHERD]

No need to crow...The information you just posted was not available at the time of the earlier conversation.

[Thundering In MD]

So if it is only $500k plus the difference in TV revenues, why are we still in this conference?

[_sturt_]

You mean THIS information?...

"Also, the exit fee for the [departing] schools is a flat $500,000. But the schools must also pay the difference if the next contract is less than the current one. I'd be surprised if the next contract is less, but if it is, the former schools have to collectively make up the difference."

Oh, it was available.

You just had to resist reading between the lines, and twisting words to accommodate what you wanted to hear.

Now, in truth, I get it that you were trying to synthesize Hamrick with everything else that's previously been reported... no problem with that... in fact, I acknowledged the possibility that you were correct to do that... and for Marshall's sake, hoped that you were right.

MY PROBLEM with you, IM4, and with others who do the same thing, is just that--the chronic insistence that there are no other options other than the options you've specified.

[_sturt_]

So if it is only $500k plus the difference in TV revenues, why are we still in this conference?

God help us, and more specifically, help Kopp... maybe we still might not be.

[_sturt_]

If the Knights ultimately decide to join the Big East, Conference USA officials told the Sentinel that UCF would have to pay an exit fee of about $7 million. Schools leaving C-USA must pay their annual share of television revenue under dual contracts with Fox Sports Network and CBS Sports for five years and an additional one-time $500,000 fee.

What Hamrick reports and what the Orlando reporter said might not be incongruous. In reality, UCF might actually end up paying all that... but only to replace what Fox and CBS would have paid out if not for the realignment... so yes, it's effectively a penalty to the defectors, but the beneficiaries are actually the networks who don't have to pay out everything originally promised out of their own back pocket... they're going to get some help.

Landon? It appears he just leaped to an assumption. (Like that's never happened before, eh?)