"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."
So... as far as Hamrick knows, re-negotiations aren't scheduled... but implicitly,
that possibility exists... and sensibly, the networks aren't going to bother to start re-negotiating until everything is pretty much locked in, which it can't really be until the BCS revenue structure is set in stone...
Anyone want to bet that the partners like the new Conference USA so much that they're willing to continue to pay CUSA-level money for the right to broadcast games between these Sun Belt level schools?
Hamrick is paid to put on the best face, but honestly... is there anyone who can't see through that? Wait... don't answer that... yeah, there probably is...
It gets worse though.
Earlier, we'd been led to believe (...from Landon?... I don't recall...) that the exit fees were ~$6 million each.
Hamrick confesses it's $500K.
Hey quarter-fullers... did you catch that? That windfall of $5 mil or so that we were supposedly going to get? Not happening.
But, he says, they'll have to make up the difference if our next contract is less than our current one.
Which truly is great.
That is, it's great as long as the networks don't mind paying steak prices for hamburger, and thus, as long as there is no re-negotiation.
But conventionally speaking, they won't feel so charitable and will want to pay hamburger prices for hamburger... and if they pay Sun Belt-level prices after that renegotiation... about $200K per school per the AL.com analysis, and then the contract after that even
doubles to $400K per school... then, that difference is $200K x 14 schools... leaving the defectors with a grand total bill of $2.8 mil to divide between the six of them.
If you just said "wow" to yourself, you aren't alone.
So, not only does Marshall end up going from expecting a ~$5 mil payday from the defectors to a ~700K payday... about 15% of what we'd been led to believe... but the defectors that so many quarter-fullers had been laughing at because of that $6+ mil fee they were supposedly paying?... nah... they're probably out somewhere between $500K and $1 million.
If that smelling salt doesn't do it for you, you might not have a pulse.