[alnorth]

Here's my reply to FSU:

1. Despite giving all 3 tiers to ESPN you still only come out with 17MM/yr. Compare that to 20MM/yr, without a CCG, and retaining tier 3 rights. Almost every school can get at least a couple million. You may be an equal share-conference, but you are sharing a pitifully small pie.

2. We are going to have a 13-year GOR. No one else is going anywhere. Tiers 1 and 2, which are the important tiers, are shared equally. By unequal share, he's only talking about T3. You might not match the Longhorn network, but you'll make more than you are now. You sure as hell aren't coming anywhere close to matching any of the SEC schools surrounding you in the ACC. If you stay, you'll descend into athletic irrelevance.

3. It won't be 2.9MM if FSU and another good football school joins. Those two will, at worst, goose the Big 12's contract enough to increase the value by another 2-3MM, and the CCG will be worth at least another 2MM. That is now a 7MM difference, and with FSU's ability to sell their tier 3 content, it would approach a 10MM difference, allowing FSU to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the SEC schools they compete with. Regarding travel costs, first I do not believe that you'll have to pay more than 3MM extra than you have to pay now, given that you are so far away from so many ACC schools now. Period, I flat-out don't believe it. Even if its true, the Big 12 could reimburse travel expenses to make everyone whole before splitting whats left.

Also regarding travel, if you are in a plane, another couple hundred miles don't matter. I really doubt that FSU's olympic teams are driving 700-800 miles up the coast. If you are, I guess that may be a valid point, but if you are going to fly to Virginia, it wont be much different than flying to Kansas. Planes don't have taxi cab fare meters that roll by the mile, the extra mileage will add more fuel costs, etc, but once you are going wheels up anyway, you've already paid a lot to take the plane the added miles don't mean much.

4. You aren't supposed to rely on rivals to fill your stadium, we sure as hell don't rely on them in the Big 12. FSU fans are supposed to fill the stadium, but it is difficult to do that when you roll out that laughably pathetic home schedule you've got for next season.

5. Why? The Big 12 will probably go to 8 OOC games. You wanna schedule them? Fine, go for it.

6. 2 things, first of all the Big 12 would probably help. They did give their newest 2 members an interest-free loan, which you blatantly ignored. Second, its hard for boosters to support a top-flight athletic program with such a terrible TV contract.

7. Every state is cutting university support, even in the Big 12. The difference is that most Big 12 athletic departments are self-sufficient, while you still have to rely on the FL government for help. The FSU athletic department can become self-sufficient in a conference that isn't stuck with a TV contract that is such a joke. As for "academically weaker", this is something that is seen as important by university faculty and no one else. It is some sort of weird inside-baseball ego-boost within academia, that no one outside of cares about, to brag about the academics of your conference. Here in the real world, the only conference that matters is ivy. If you are an ivy-leaguer, that means something. Employers don't care, at all, if you came from an ACC school, and you don't have a CIC like the Big 10. Being a member of the ACC does not help your academic budget, so the "loss of 25%" is not relevant here.