Not much meat here but more fodder to chew.
August 16, 2021
STILLWATER – A couple of weeks ago, after listening to ESPN’s Tom Lugenbill on national radio talking about conference realignment, I text him and asked if he could see any scenario where Oklahoma State would not end up being a member of a power conference? Lugenbill’s answer was, “likely, yes.” It was not a definite, but at the time I took it as a positive.
Since then, more rumors and likely some real information has surfaced. Conference realignment is raging as the SEC tries to figure out how to get Texas and Oklahoma in their league sooner than 2025. The ACC tries to figure out how to become more profitable before their long television deal is up in 2036. The Big Ten and Pac-12 both look to see if there is anything out there that could increase their value before negotiating new television contracts? The remaining eight schools in the Big 12 try to figure out what the next move is, either as a group or as a single institution.
It is a constant topic on the sports landscape in the dog days of this summer. The result is pretty critical for each school as to their future in college athletics.
“There’s no doubt about it and I think that the reason we get ahead of ourselves is because we fail to realize that, sometimes, there are grant of right issues here, television rights issues here,” Lugenbill said of the current situation. “There are things that would prohibit program shifts from various conferences. I know the discussion over the weekend was the apparent alignment with the ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12 conferences. What could that mean? What could that mean for the Big 12? The one thing that I truly study in all of this because I believe this to be the case is we’re going to embark in the next five-to-eight years on a different medium by which we consume our content. It’s not going to be just cable boxes and satellite dishes and we’ve got ESPN and FOX, but you know that there is a Netflix, there is an Apple, there is an Amazon. People are going to be consuming there content on there phones, their laptops, and iPads more than ever before. That is going to change the landscape as well.”
Arizona State University Athletics
Tom Lugenbill and his father, Al Lugenbill.
Lugenbill is the son of longtime college football coach Al Lugenbill. He grew up watching his father coach as an assistant at Arizona State and as the head coach at San Diego State. Tom Lugenbill won a national championship in junior college at Palomar Community College in California and then started at quarterback at Georgia Tech and finished his career at Eastern Kentucky. He is a college football recruiting expert, sideline reporter for ESPN, and a radio host for several national satellite radio platforms.
Lugenbill has an understanding of how this works. He grew up watching the workings of college football and college athletics.
“The powers to be, are going to be looking to see how they are going to change the landscape and grow their product or expand their conference,” Lugenbill added. “They are going to look for branding and look at revenue producers and how much revenue schools bring in. Who produces revenue within their athletic programs? There is a lot to peel back here with the layers and a lot that we don’t know. One thing that I see as a complete fallacy in all of this is that the Big 12 would ever want to team up with the American Athletic Conference.”
Pat Kinnison - Chief Photographer
Tough to afford a big stadium and video board on a G5 budget.
No kidding. That’s a drop in conference and television revenue from somewhere around $37-million in the Big 12, at least this past year with COVID-19 lowering some of the conference championship revenue, to down to roughly $5-million in Group of Five conference like the AAC. Schools can’t afford that drop.
“Everybody is going to have to end up somewhere,” Lugenbill set up. “It will come down to when the music stops, who doesn’t have a chair?”
Told that the team of administrators that are navigating Oklahoma State through this chapter of conference realignment are paying close attention to the football program and doing about anything they can to give this Cowboy team the best chance to succeed.
“And they should be, it is your greatest revenue producer,” said Lugenbill. “I’ve always admired the administrators and Dan Radakovich (athletic director at Clemson) is one to point at in this regard. There are others, Alabama, not withstanding but I think the administrators that point to athletics and say ‘this is what we’re investing in and this is what is going to drive the bus of this university.’ When that happens commerce increases, small business increases, application for enrollment and enrollment overall increases. Many board of regents, presidents, chancellors, a lot of administrators are hesitant to do that because they don’t want the public backlash.”
I can guarantee they can’t afford to be left out.
ESPN's Tom Lugenbill Weighs In on Conference Realignment
By Robert AllenAugust 16, 2021
STILLWATER – A couple of weeks ago, after listening to ESPN’s Tom Lugenbill on national radio talking about conference realignment, I text him and asked if he could see any scenario where Oklahoma State would not end up being a member of a power conference? Lugenbill’s answer was, “likely, yes.” It was not a definite, but at the time I took it as a positive.
Since then, more rumors and likely some real information has surfaced. Conference realignment is raging as the SEC tries to figure out how to get Texas and Oklahoma in their league sooner than 2025. The ACC tries to figure out how to become more profitable before their long television deal is up in 2036. The Big Ten and Pac-12 both look to see if there is anything out there that could increase their value before negotiating new television contracts? The remaining eight schools in the Big 12 try to figure out what the next move is, either as a group or as a single institution.
It is a constant topic on the sports landscape in the dog days of this summer. The result is pretty critical for each school as to their future in college athletics.
“There’s no doubt about it and I think that the reason we get ahead of ourselves is because we fail to realize that, sometimes, there are grant of right issues here, television rights issues here,” Lugenbill said of the current situation. “There are things that would prohibit program shifts from various conferences. I know the discussion over the weekend was the apparent alignment with the ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12 conferences. What could that mean? What could that mean for the Big 12? The one thing that I truly study in all of this because I believe this to be the case is we’re going to embark in the next five-to-eight years on a different medium by which we consume our content. It’s not going to be just cable boxes and satellite dishes and we’ve got ESPN and FOX, but you know that there is a Netflix, there is an Apple, there is an Amazon. People are going to be consuming there content on there phones, their laptops, and iPads more than ever before. That is going to change the landscape as well.”
Arizona State University Athletics
Tom Lugenbill and his father, Al Lugenbill.
Lugenbill is the son of longtime college football coach Al Lugenbill. He grew up watching his father coach as an assistant at Arizona State and as the head coach at San Diego State. Tom Lugenbill won a national championship in junior college at Palomar Community College in California and then started at quarterback at Georgia Tech and finished his career at Eastern Kentucky. He is a college football recruiting expert, sideline reporter for ESPN, and a radio host for several national satellite radio platforms.
Lugenbill has an understanding of how this works. He grew up watching the workings of college football and college athletics.
“The powers to be, are going to be looking to see how they are going to change the landscape and grow their product or expand their conference,” Lugenbill added. “They are going to look for branding and look at revenue producers and how much revenue schools bring in. Who produces revenue within their athletic programs? There is a lot to peel back here with the layers and a lot that we don’t know. One thing that I see as a complete fallacy in all of this is that the Big 12 would ever want to team up with the American Athletic Conference.”
Pat Kinnison - Chief Photographer
Tough to afford a big stadium and video board on a G5 budget.
No kidding. That’s a drop in conference and television revenue from somewhere around $37-million in the Big 12, at least this past year with COVID-19 lowering some of the conference championship revenue, to down to roughly $5-million in Group of Five conference like the AAC. Schools can’t afford that drop.
“Everybody is going to have to end up somewhere,” Lugenbill set up. “It will come down to when the music stops, who doesn’t have a chair?”
Told that the team of administrators that are navigating Oklahoma State through this chapter of conference realignment are paying close attention to the football program and doing about anything they can to give this Cowboy team the best chance to succeed.
“And they should be, it is your greatest revenue producer,” said Lugenbill. “I’ve always admired the administrators and Dan Radakovich (athletic director at Clemson) is one to point at in this regard. There are others, Alabama, not withstanding but I think the administrators that point to athletics and say ‘this is what we’re investing in and this is what is going to drive the bus of this university.’ When that happens commerce increases, small business increases, application for enrollment and enrollment overall increases. Many board of regents, presidents, chancellors, a lot of administrators are hesitant to do that because they don’t want the public backlash.”
I can guarantee they can’t afford to be left out.
