Big XII becomes the Sports Bubble Ten

If Kyle Whelliston is right about the “Sports Bubble” — basically, the idea that sports (and “sportz“) are massively overvalued right now, and it’s all gonna break, and soon — I wonder if we’ll look back on yesterday’s events as the crest of the bubble’s rise, to be followed by a gradual, and then accelerating, decline as the bubble bursts.

At a minimum, it was certainly a red-letter day for Sports Bubble aficionados. At one point, I tweeted at Kyle, “If there was a tornado siren to signal Sports Bubble alerts, it would be blaring REALLY REALLY LOUDLY right now.” That seems truer and truer as more details emerge:

The Big 12 was able to stay intact thanks to the promise of an extended media deal from FSN and assurances from ESPN that it would not demand a lower rights fee with two fewer teams. No FSN deal has been signed, and nothing is expected for several weeks at the earliest. But sources say FSN has told Big 12 officials that it would increase its annual payout to as much as $130-$140M per year. It currently pays $19.5M per year for the cable TV rights, a deal that ends following the ’11-12 season.

As part of its proposed deal, FSN has asked to take control of the conference’s third-tier rights that are currently controlled by rights holders IMG, ISP and Learfield, sources said. These rights include radio, local media, third-tier TV rights, corporate sponsorships, and in-stadium and arena signage. It is not known when these rights will be available.

Another important component to the Big 12’s decision involves ESPN. Big 12 schools were concerned that ESPN would demand a lower license fee, since the conference lost two of its marquee schools — Colorado and Nebraska. The Big 12 approached ESPN and received assurances that the network would not seek a rebate from its current $60M per year deal that runs through ’15-16 …

[Sources say] the new Fox deal will “last for 18 years — well beyond the typical stretch for a TV rights deal” … [Sources also say that] FSN and ESPN “reacted with concern to Pac-10 plans to add major schools in Texas and Oklahoma and place them on a conference TV network” … Sports media consultant John Mansell believes that Big 12 schools “could see [Dan Beebe’s] projections being reached because of ESPN/ABC’s and/or Fox’s desire to not have to compete with a Big 12 Network.” … Maestas said projections that UT, Texas A&M and Oklahoma could earn $20M annually are “too high, just not realistic”

Gee, ya think?

Pardon my French, but Fox’s move here seems completely fucking insane, or if you prefer, “wolf-face crazy — the kind of decision you make when you are drunk, and on cocaine, and on deadline, and on fire.” I mean, really?!? $130-$140 million per year, for Texas and Oklahoma and the eight dwarves, for eighteen years, in an extraordinarily unstable climate in which the structure of the conference, and college sports generally, could seemingly come apart at the seams at any moment, at the merest whim of the Dark Lord Delany?

As for the schools relying on Fox’s valuations to determine their athletic and institutional futures, well, maybe they’re just doing what everyone else seems to be doing these days: getting boatloads of money locked in while the getting’s good, before the Bubble bursts. Of course, with no signed contract, it’s not actually “locked in” yet. Personally, if I were Oklahoma or Texas A&M or whomever, I would have wanted to see a signed contract for those “$130-$140M per year” before I gave Larry Scott the middle finger. And I’d want to carefully scrutinize that contract to see what “outs” it has for Fox — outs that might explain why Fox’s stance isn’t quite as wolf-face crazy as it initially seems, but which would make the schools’ reliance on Fox’s magical money all the more ridiculous.

But, in any case, if those schools really think this house-of-cards, fuzzy-math deal is going to save the Big Twelve Minus Two, or college athletics as a whole, I think they’re being, at a minimum, foolish and naive. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe these people know what they’re doing, and I don’t have a clue; maybe Kyle’s completely off his rocker, and everything’s hunky-dory, and there’s no Sports Bubble, and this is all totally sustainable. Also, housing prices will always keep rising, Pets.com is a can’t-miss investment opportunity, and the Titanic will never sink.

In any case, I think these developments should add a new term to the Mid-Majority lexicon. If Lucas Oil Stadium is “Sports Bubble Stadium,” then I’d say the Big XII is now “Sports Bubble Conference” — or, as the title of this post suggests, the “Sports Bubble Ten.” Now there’s a #BetterB12Name I can get behind.

UPDATE: Kyle, after retweeting this post, tweeted: “Please keep in mind that Superconferences are not only dependent on full economic recovery, but also represent a long bet on no more fluctuation, ever.”