I appreciate your treating realignment like the business deal that it is. As opposed to some who while rightly hating Texas and everything they are, were, and ever will be; may not be willing to accept that Texas is most likely the key to us moving up.
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Who ever told you we don’t want to make a deal?
uta and atm have teamed up to screw us over and over. So no we don’t want to get screwed again. We do want to make a deal. A deal that make sense to everyone. Did uta want a deal including uthouston? You decide. We all know better. The fact is and history backs it up. uta will make deal only to extinguish us. That was the goal with uthouston. That is the goal with their new energy program. They will never accept that we can rival them either in academics or in sports. These are undeniable facts.
We are ready to deal. Are they? You decide.
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And, while we are on the subject - - has uta sold that land yet - you know, the land they bought from, and greatly benefited some of their big-time donors, where they were going to build the new UT-H? Thought not!
Believe me - they INTEND to build that new university in Houston, whether they ever sell that land or not!
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Their price was too high last time (ut-h? Hump that bleep!) I don’t know if we can ever play nice with those guys if that’s the price we have to pay.
No, win and win big. Bust a nut on that college football playoffs and…
A. Negotiate with ANY other P5 or
B. After having finally broken into the CFP, continue to build the American brand and monies.
We really need to stay away from anything ut. Some people just can’t get along and hump it y’know. I think we’ll be better for it.
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Fair enough, if you want to stay away from UT, find alternatives. I believe that for better or for worse our future will be more likely to be linked to/dependent on UT than to any Pac program.
Personally, I believe Pac and ACC are just pipe dreams. Pac is a slight possibility, but not enough that we can afford to snub UT. Plus there is a risk that instead of expanding, the PAC comes to some kind of scheduling arrangement with the Big 12, something I think is far more likely.
We all know UT-H is not something that the UT system can negotiate its way into getting. But I am sure Khator and the UH brain trust can come up with other sweeteners for UT.
One example I can think of is that UT is desperate for content for the LHN. The Coogs could agree to make all Coog owned content involving UT available for the LHN. Also UH could agree to let LHN broadcast 1-2 football, some basketball, and baseball games etc.
Of course UH would be compensated for appearing on the LHN. This would be in direct contrast to Tech, which has categorically stated that it will never let any Tech owned content appear on the LHN. Heck a few years they threw a hissy fit when the LHN was going to broadcast their game at Texas State.
So, even without giving up on opposition to the UTH, UH can no doubt offer a lot to UT.
I imagine that if offering our content to the LHN was one of the preconditions, that we would have already done that. However, that’s an ESPN call, since they own the LHN. UT could care less about what gets put on the LHN since they make the same no matter what.
UT-Houston wasn’t part of any deal. That was just a UT alum trying to get out from under some land, McRaven getting a thought, and them pushing forward thinking that since they are UT, they get whatever they want. It wasn’t included in any Big12 deal because the northern schools, and FOX, weren’t going to allow UH in this time around. UT has posted the land for sale officially, although, it hasn’t been sold yet.
Problem with this whole line of thinking is that UH has nothing that UT wants, and, if UH did, UT would just take it as they always do. Even UT-Houston came down to Tilman having Abbott’s ear and the governor telling McRaven to stand down. If Tilman hadn’t been on our side, that campus would be going up right now. Even still, do UT alums really just spend their days wishing they could get a campus in Houston? Maybe those in real estate, but probably not many outside of that. If there had been a huge groundswell of support for a UT campus in Houston, I imagine it would already be done. They have the Medical Center already and I doubt many care if anything else comes to pass. It isn’t as if UT supporters care much about UTSA, UTA, UTEP, etc.
Academically, UT and UH do work together with partnerships in the medical center and with trying to extract funding from the Texas legislature. Fenves and Khator are reportedly allies and have met often to talk strategy as expected from colleagues within the same state. Until this whole UT-Houston thing, there really wasn’t much animosity between the two sides academically…again, the blame for that mostly goes on McRaven. Even McRaven came out publicly in support of Houston to the Big 12.
There just isn’t much that can be done with UT to help our cause anymore. It’s why those up top have moved on and are working on other avenues.
I agree that it’s smart to keep all avenues as open as possible. I would be very surprised if Khator et al, aren’t talking to ACC and Pac regularly, in addition to B12.
I don’t agree that UH has nothing UT wants. I have been involved in corporate negotiations where at the beginning no one could see a anything that one party needed/required that the other (usually smaller/weaker) party could offer. Yet after a lot of hard work, examining of interests and long term goals, common ground can invariably be found, and solid negotiated deal struck.
The LHN - UH deal was just an example I created to show what may by possible to strike a deal. You could do many other things too. The worst thing UH could do is give up, or try to undermine UT by trying to play other B12 programs against UT. Not saying UH is it doing, or planning to, do that, just that it would be a seriously bad idea if it ever did.
When B12 expansion comedy fest was taking place, I discounted any words of support for UH coming from UT administration. My heart sank then Texas politicians began publicly supporting UH, I knew then it was all dead in the water. No way the non-Texas 6 (NT6) Big 12 schools would support adding a program under political pressure from Austin. It would have been more productive if the politicians had applied pressure behind the scenes, only gone public after UH had been added.
Currently the Big 12 needs 8 members to support expansion. That means political pressure from Texas pols can come into play in favor of UH (provided its applied in a smart way). However it’s very easy to reduce the votes needed to just 6. UT and the other Texas programs can then be “ignored”. Of course the Big 12 will never make any move not supported by UT. The voting change would be just a way for UT to say to the politicians that UT could no longer control the outcome of expansion.
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I agree with everything you have said.
At this point the only thing that matters is that we win big. We need to have spectacular wins especially against P5 opponents. Sold out every game in all our major sports. Get the Med School going and do whatever we can to be attractive to the SEC, BIG 10 and PAC 12. I do not discount the ACC but our location does not play in our favor.
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If Big 10 takes any program from Texas, it’ll be UT. The SEC is not likely to want another program in Texas, particularly since A&M already carries the Houston market for them.
The best bets are:
- Big 12 With or without UT/OU
- Pac
- ACC
If I am handicapping where we will be over the next 10 years:
AAC - 75% -with more TV money $12mill per school
PAC 12 - 10%
Big 12 without UT/OU - 10%
Big 12 with UT/OU - 2.5%
ACC - 2.5%
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Your odds seem reasonable. However I would double what you have for the Big 12 with UT/OU and triple without.