Delany out next June 2020
- Thread starter Tegray1
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unfortunately the damage has already been done.
expansion made the conference unworkable for football, and revenue gains Delany wanted to attribute to expansion can never be proven to have anything to do with expansion.
the revenue gains would have come, expansion or not, as they have with all major conferences and other major sports leagues, because the added revenue was based in pay tv/internet dynamics, not expansion.
in fact, all revenue gains during his tenure were plain and simple due to pay tv dynamics.
on the bright side, he hasn't yet killed off the ACC and B12, which was a big goal of his.
in addition, the B10 could have had a CCG in football yrs before they did, but Delany didn't pursue it because he wanted to leverage his expansion agenda with the fball CCG.
whether one sees that as a positive or negative, depends on if they see the fball CCG as a plus or not.
he's been an absolute disaster for the legacy schools in the conference.
expansion made the conference unworkable for football, and revenue gains Delany wanted to attribute to expansion can never be proven to have anything to do with expansion.
the revenue gains would have come, expansion or not, as they have with all major conferences and other major sports leagues, because the added revenue was based in pay tv/internet dynamics, not expansion.
in fact, all revenue gains during his tenure were plain and simple due to pay tv dynamics.
on the bright side, he hasn't yet killed off the ACC and B12, which was a big goal of his.
in addition, the B10 could have had a CCG in football yrs before they did, but Delany didn't pursue it because he wanted to leverage his expansion agenda with the fball CCG.
whether one sees that as a positive or negative, depends on if they see the fball CCG as a plus or not.
he's been an absolute disaster for the legacy schools in the conference.
Just think these people still stay on too long. Let new innovative leadership rise. Even this announcement he's there until June 2020! Hardly even news right now. Hope they get a dynamic new leader just for the sake of new eyes/ears willing to take a look at things.
Didn't Delany's formation of the B10 Network get the IU
Athletic Dept. out of the red?
What is really screwed up is the two football divisions. Some might suggest that it is soar grapes because IU is in the toughest division year in and year out. With that said, consider as well the fact that schools like MSU, Michigan, theOSU and Penn State have to slug it out against each other making it extremely difficult to emerge 3-0 against these opponents to get to the league championship game. Not an ideal task for the big boys.
Delaney’s term in office when he leaves will be 31 years. He replaced Wayne Duke who served 18 years. Duke followed Bill Reed who was in office 10 years. Kenneth “Tug” Wilson preceded Reed as Commissioner and served 16 years. The office of Big Ten Commissioner was established in 1922 and the first Commissioner was Major John Griffith who served 22 years.
Big Ten facts few people know:
1. The Big Ten is one of the oldest sports associations , professional or amateur, in the United States.
2. The Big Ten is the only sports association or conferences, professional or amateur, to never have a member voluntarily leave to join another association or conference.
3. The Big Ten operated the administrative functions of the NCAA out of its offices until the late 1940’s. Commissioner Tug Wilson also ran the NCAA and his assistants , Bill Reed and Walter Byers performed public relations and statistical operations for both the Big Ten and NCAA. Legend has it that in the postwar period the decision was made to create a separate office for the NCAA. Reed and Byers flipped a coin to see who would stay with the Big Ten and who would operate the NCAA. Reed won the flip and chose the Big Ten and Byers moved to Kansas City bad setup the NCAA offices. Byers’s first employee was a young University of Iowa graduate named Wayne Duke who became Commissioner of the Big Eight Conference and was named to succeed Reed in 1971 after his death at age 55.
4. In 1972 the Big Ten’s television package for basketball consisted of ten Saturday afternoon games on the Hughes Sports Network (HSN). The ten member schools each received $10,000 a year from the television contract. In 1973, the late Eddie Einhorn, founder of TVS took the contract away from HSN with a ten year contract starting at $200,000 a year doubling the previous per school income to $20,000 annually. Einhorn has the rights to the first live nationally televised college basketball game between Houston and UCLA in the Astrodome in 1968. Indiana alum Dick Enberg handled play by play of “The Game of the Century.”
5. The Big Ten was founded in 1895 when Purdue President James Smart convened a meeting at the Palmer House in Chicago of peer schools interested in normalizing rules for intercollegiate sports. The original name was the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives and the confetence remained in control of the faculty for almost 100 years until the Council of Ten, as the conference’s President’s organization was known reorganized and took control of operating the conference.
6. The Big Ten is the only major college conference with not just an athletic, but also an academic component. The Academic component dwarfs the athletic side. The following outlines the scope and
magnitude of this alliance
https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/research-data/at-a-glance_2016btaa.pdf?sfvrsn=4e7c4cf3_2
IU's athletic department has always been self sustaining. The BTN money has allowed for all the facilities improvements and soaring salaries.
Not according to the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/...27/ncaa-athletics-finances-michigan/28037519/
https://www.goacta.org/news/most_ncaa_division_i_athletic_departments_take_subsidies
No, IU AD received subsides until recent years and has been returning the favor since then.
Then I stand corrected. That was never my understanding, but I'm sure you're far more plugged in than I am.
Subsidies started in 1960’s. Indiana legislature made an Indiana exception allowing the AD to give in-state tuition to all Intercollegiate athletes. Bill Orwig was a masterful AD and politician and it may have been granted because of the impact of the Dicken’s sanctions on the athletic department finances. Oldtimers may recall that IU’s Olympic sports all flourished during that period. The tuition benefits were still in effect when I worked at the Big Ten in the early ‘70’s but discontinued soon afterwards.
BTN wasn't Delany's project, it was News Corp/Fox's.
they offered the concept to both the B10 and The B12.
iirc, UT blew it up for the B12.
iirc, Fox guaranteed the B10 6 mil a yr till it got going, which was significantly more than Disney/ESPN was offering for that tier.
once they got going to the point the league's percentage cut exceeded the guarantee, the league would then take the percentage cut rather than the guarantee. (but still, the BTN money was far less than tier 1,2 money)
it was a can't loose deal for Delany, as he was guaranteed significantly more than Disney was offering for that tier, and provided greater exposure and reach.
we could credit Delany for not turning it down, but do we laud praise on lottery winners for their financial brilliance in accepting the money.
Delany was in the right place at the right time.
shortly after he took office, Directv and Dish Net came along, then several yrs later, UVerse.
prior to DTV and Dish Net, content owners were stuck with whatever the cable companies offered, as there was no one else to sell to.
once there were 3 buyers of your product that you could leverage against each other, rather than 1 "take it or leave it offer", the value of major sports content went through the roof.
in the late 90s and early 2000s, most cable also went digital, (DBS was digital from the start), which allowed for a lot more channels. thus niche channels like BTN.
the meteoric rise in the value of all major sports content is a function of pay tv dynamics, not the brilliance of commissioners.
ever since cable went from 12 channels in the late 70s, to 36-41 channels by the mid 80s, including ESPN, to today, every contract has been worth significantly more than the last.
when tv went from one cable provider in any area to 3 cable or satellite providers in the 90s, then 4 by the 2000s, that increase in the contract values just expanded that much more.
the B10 and SEC usually lead the collegiate pack, because they have by far the best metrics as far as fan base and viewership.
Delany's tenure at the B10 started right before Directv and Dish Net came alone, and continued through the channel expansion that came with analog to digital conversion.
perfect timing to be selling "must have" content. (game rights, bowl game rights, whatever).
as a bonus, when BTN launched, Directv was owned by News Corp/Fox, thus BTN was guaranteed coverage on at least one provider from day one, which lead to their having far more leverage in negotiations than they other wise would have.
that said, BTN demanded too much the first yr, thus was carried by almost no big cable companies the first yr, even in B10 states and cities. (so the 6 mil guarantee came in handy, as revenues wouldn't have justified that).
only when BTN dropped their out of market demands the 2nd yr, did BTN get picked up by cable.
BTN was News Corp/Fox's invention, not Delany's. (and Fox owns controlling interest today, not the league.)
the explosion of major sports content values was a function of pay tv dynamics during his tenure.
Delany timed it perfect to be there for the ride.
he was not the reason for the tv revenue explosion. he was the merely the beneficiary who was at the right place at the right time.
and don't even get me going on the expansion clusterfk.
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not my wheelhouse in the slightest, but i'm guessing IU's accounting practices probably have a lot to do with who was subsidizing who.
and while improvements have been ongoing, relative to total revenues, the new stadium, 17th st fieldhouse, Assembly Hall, the new outdoor track, swimming pool, was a lot of massive capital projects in the 60s to early 70s.
IU AD used to receive subsidies from the university.
Now they don't, and in fact provide some funding back to the university.
Hope that helps.
Thanks. I was taking AD to mean Athletic Director rather than Athletic Department.
With all due respect, a bit of oversimplification that ignores the historical reality of the evolution of sports broadcasting and contracts. The first was the Wrigley family purchasing the Cubs about 100 years ago and recognizing that that new fanged device , the radio, and the game of baseball could prove to be a great marriage to promote the family business which was chewing gum. Radio broadcasts brought the bane of baseball into the living rooms of millions of upwardly mobile Americans who found automobiles, motion pictures and radio to be top consumer items for their new found discretionary income.
Slowly small rights fees were expected changed and the game was carried throughout the eastern United States on networks of stations promoting the major league teams all located east of the Mississippi. By the late 1930’s night baseball had arrived and 50,000 watt stations like WGN, WHO, KDKA and others brought games to Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and others.
After the war television arrived and teams televised home games, but road telecasts were cost prohibitive. Income from radio and television was inconsequential. Gate receipts and concessions and parking were the primary sources of income for professional and also college sports.
In the mid 50’s a guy named Dick Bailey, who had worked for UPI realized that telephone lines were too expensive for one time only users, but if you leased the lines by the month, the costs were very reasonable. He started SNI, Sports Network, Inc., and bought the Big Ten TV basketball rights and also started leasing lines annually and subleasing them to TV stations which started covering home and road games in baseball. Stations like Channel 4 in Indianapolis started televising Purdue and Indiana basketball on the Chesty Potato Chip Network of stations. Rights fees were small and stations made good money. Schools considered the money like miscellaneous income. Pro teams had no idea what the value of their products were.
What changed? It sure wasn’t TV executives voluntarily offering higher rights fees to professional or college teams. Bright guys like former University of San Francisco SID and Los Angeles Rams PR guy Pete Rozelle became involved in administration and handling of broadcast and marketing. The true pioneer in college sports was Michigan’s former track coach Don Canham who became a millionaire while coaching track and operating a sideline business selling training videos and equipment. There was a serious shortage of business acumen in sports and guys like Rozelle, Canham and began to fill the void. When CBS bought the Yankees in the 1960’s it was considered a dumb move for the Network. The only money the network made on the deal was when they sold the team to a group headed by George Steinbrenner.
Now most folks think Rozelle pioneered revenue sharing in sports when he became Commissioner in 1960. However, the credit really should have gone to the Big Ten which embraced revenue sharing on ticket receipts, Bowl revenues and broadcasting income. Meanwhile, Walter Byers prevented a wild, Wild West battle over televised college football games by convincing the NCAA, which he headed, to agree to limit telecasts to initially, one, and later two national games a week. How many realize the first live telecast of an NCAA Championship game did not take place until 1964? Prior to that year the game was take delayed for telecast after the game was over.
NBC’s Big contract for the AFL in the mid 1960’s paved the way for the merger of the AFL and NFL, opened the door for the Super Bowl and soon made pro football America’s game. That spawned Monday Night Football and the rest is history. When I joined the Oilers in 1979 the per team share of the NFL TV contract was $2 million annually. When I left 2 1/2 years later to work in MLB the new contract netted teams $5 million. Eight years later when I returned to the Oilers the new TV contract was worth $25 million per team.
In 1980 , Bill Veeck, who knew nothing about the TV business, sold the rights to 50 White Sox games a year to WGN-TV for $10,000 a game, or $500,000. Six months later he sold the team for $20 million to Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. Suddenly a baseball team had a broadcasting insider on the other side of the table. Einhorn read the contract, called the Tribune Tower and told the WGN owners he was not going to honor the contract. He then called St Louis and talked to the folks at Budweiser. He negotiated a five year contract to have Budweiser be the exclusive beer sponsors on 75 free, over the air games on a station that was unknown at the time, 75 pay TV games in a outlet not yet in existence, on all radio broadcasts and on a huge, color Diamondvision screen at Comiskey Park that did not yet exist. The TV advertising portion of the contract alone totaled $40,000 a game. He then went to WFLD-TV and negotiated a contract for 75 live telecasts reserving 10 minutes of in game ads, with open and closing credits, for the White Sox with exclusivity for Beer, soft drink and domestic auto. WFLD paid the White Sox $3.5 million a year for the telecast rights. A similar deal was negotiated with a 50 watt radio station for more than $1 milion a year.
White Sox broadcast income, which was $1.2 million when Veeck sold increased to $6.5 million in the first year. Within four years Miller took the beer contract away from Budweiser for a 50% Premium.
Soon Reinsdorf owned the Bulls and a young Michael Jordan. Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys, a flood of new owners entered professional sports and hired broadcast and marketing people for multi year contracts with salaries exceeding what once were salaries of superstars like Banks, Mantle and Williams.
The genius of Rozelle, Einhorn, Reinsdorf, Canham and many others who became involved in professional and college sports in the last 30 years changed the landscape of sports and television. The leverage which the broadcast industry once held in negotiations was gone forever. The cash cow for TV was gone. But the monster they created remained because walking away was no longer an option. Why did the Tribune Company, once fueled by 100 years of news advertising profits, buy the Cubs in 1982? To insure they could continue to have Cubs’s baseball as a programming staple for six months of the year. Why did they sell? Because the digital Age destroyed the newspaper industry in less than 20 years.
To suggest that Jim Delaney did not seize the opportunity and hire the people as employees and advisors that helped elevate the Bjg Ten brand into an enterprise worth billions is naive and shortsighted. If Delaney, as you suggest, merely got lucky and was in the right place at the right time , ignores the misfortune that has brought the Pacific 12 conference to their knees and is wreaking devastating effects on their major programs. It fails to explain how the rust belt dominant Big Ten has thrived more than any conference including the SEC and sits on a 49% Interest in a billion dollar plus enterprise.
You approach the Delaney Era like a sociologist dissecting every scandal, misstep and costly move Walt Disney made in evolving from a cartoonist to the founder of the world’s most successful entertainment, hospitality and real estate empire ever known. Yes, Walt let the Southern California restaurant and hotel industry to get rich off Disneyland. But he did not repeat his mistakes in Orlando. When your book debunking Jim Delaney’s genius is published better take all the money you can up front. It sure will not make you rich on sales.
Excuse any mistakes. I will edit after a good night’s Sleep.
still waiting to get rich off my posts.
a nice piece you did, but has virtually nothing to do with what i said, nor did you dispute anything i said.
you just seem perturbed that i said it.
the difference is, the difference between how much a school could make selling seats to the game, vs how much they could make if the school had no way to force spectators to pay for seats, and could only make money selling advertising in the stadium.
in the history you summarize, media revenues are always limited to how much can be made on the advertising alone.
in the history i summarize, one makes not only the ad sales money, but also are able to charge for the content itself, which far out outpaces ad revenues.
sorry, but as much as you would like to believe otherwise, the increase in B10 and other major sport leagues' media revenues the last 20 yrs is 99 plus percent due to the dynamics of the pay tv/satellite/internet industry, not wizardry by the league commissioners.
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A couple of really good reads for the morning coffee. Thanks to you and Des both. I see both aspects.
The other revolutionary milestone in the evolution of sports boroadcasting and financial strategy was a handful of IU grads who wanted to hear Don Fischer in Texas after graduation...what was that thingy they harnessed?
From the time of those first radio broadcasts through the 1980’s professional and college sports organizations sat back and took what the broadcasting industry gave them and said thank you for the crumbs. Those days ended and regardless of the delivery system, today the league’s, the conference’s and the schools understand their product, it’s value and how to creatively package media, in game and stadium elements to maximize revenues.
I would hope you regret your flippancy in comparing Delaney’s role to the luck of buying a winning Powerball ticket. I prefer the story of how Peter Uberroth became a household,d name and a marketing and organizational maven for the 1984 Los Angles Olympic Games when he turned a tidy profit of about $100 million which was an absolutely unheard of accomplishment in an era of hundred million dollar deficits. His nameless lieutenant, who like all good soldiers just did his job, remarked in the glow of the aftermath of the Los Angeles games, “I just told Peter I would jump in front of him and take spears and arrows from critics, I would take the blame for any failures, I would march to the ends of the earth to amplify his genius and would get the job done regardless of the obstacles and I only ask for one consideration. Never, ever ask me how I did it!”
Delaney met the test. In the interest of full disclosure, I have never especially been a big fan of CJD, but I think he has done a remarkable job of positioning the Big Tem to remain the preeminent conference. Now if you were talking about an evaluation of Roger Goodell you would find me to be a willing advocate for your views.
Wasn't U of Chicago still a member for quite a while after they dropped athletics?
In the interest of full disclosure, I have probably worked directly or indirectly, or had a personal relationship with more major sports commissioners than just about anyone alive today. I have known four of the five Big Ten Commissioners, been a close friend of three and worked for two. I have known and/or indirectly worked with three of the six men who served as Commissioner of the NFL. I have known and/or indirectly worked with two of the four NBA Commissioners and known and/or indirectly worked for five of the ten Commissioners of MLB.
They stopped participating in football in 1939 and withdrew from the Big Ten in 1946.
They stopped participating in football in 1939 and withdrew from the Big Ten in 1946.
very interesting that you knew lots of commissioners, and i'm sure that was very interesting for you.
but irrelevant to the discussion.
and while there are things you know about, there are also things i know about.
as for my "flippancy" regarding Delany, sorry, but while i'm sure he's a sharp guy and all, he is not the reason the B10's or all the other major sport leagues' and franchises' revenues have grown like crazy the last 20 yrs.
Delany has been commissioner since 1989.
look at the difference in revenue between 1989 and today.
the commissioner didn't change.
what changed, was the pay tv/satellite/internet landscape.
what changed, was depending on advertising alone for revenue, to being able to charge for content, the big revenue producer, and still having the ad revenue as well.
Delany nor Goodel nor any other commissioner had absolutely anything to do with gaining the ability to charge for the content itself.
that just fell into their lap, cause they were in the right place at the right time.
gaining the ability to charge for the content itself, not just depend on ad revenue, was a game changer.
going from 1 monopsony buyer of your product who to a great deal dictated price in a semi regulated industry, to being able to leverage 4 providers against each other in a now largely unregulated industry, was a game changer.
what changed, was being able to leverage a $9.95 mo cable bill in the mid 80s, to being able to leverage a $190 mo cable/internet bill today.
the explosion in major sports rights' revenues is all about the pay tv/internet landscape dynamics, not the commissioners.
and again, don't even get me going on the expansion clusterfk.
Except Delaney seized the moment as you would expect from the Commissioner of the oldest and most dominant association of academic and athletic institutions and with that headstart put the schools who employ him in the proverbial “Catbird Seat.” You instead keep suggesting the biggest moment in the evolution of sports was akin to the evolution of football from no helmets to leather helmets to plastic helmets to the latest Riddell Speedflex model. Hitler has better scientists and a huge technological advantage in bit the development of jet engine aircraft and nuclear weaponry. He did not lose the war because of inferior technology. He lost the war due to his own human failings. Woody and his protege, The General, both stressed the ” You win with people” philosophy and in the end both failed to fulfill their highest potential largely because of interpersonal relationship and self control failures. That coming from someone who admired both greatly.
so did Jed Clampett.
couldn't make heads nor tails of the rest of your post.
if you feel you can actually discredit so much as one thing i said, go for it.
you certainly haven't yet.
it's not your debating skills or knowledge base.
it's that you're trying to argue something that just can't hold up to scrutiny.
wanting Delany or any commissioner to be the rainmaker in the explosion in value of sports' rights, doesn't make it so.
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