Quote:
Originally Posted by Saul Good
I doubt that the Big XII would have made an absolute promise to Fox that they would never lose a team throughout the duration of that contract thus opening themselves up to a lawsuit. I would imagine that there is some sort of contingency built into the contract for just such a circumstance.
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My understanding, and this just comes from a blog that I read, is that these contracts are written to the benefit of the network, not the conferences. While I suspect the networks would readjust the total amount of the contract while effectively guaranteeing the remaining schools the original cut, this still doesn't necessarily cover damages from the fact A&M is now no longer available to FOX, which means a market decrease in most cases which could affect their advertising negotiations.
Its just hard for me to imagine a school that had allowed an entity (the conference) to negotiate a new contract for them and then just walks away because it feels it can get a better deal somewhere else to the detriment of one of the parties isn't going to get off that easy. Last year, the 2nd tier rights were ending and the networks had already gotten some value for the 1st tier. This is a little different situation.