reading this thread is kind of uncomfortable when you realize that the Wazu Board of Regents is approving a sports budget when they don't even have the numbers for TV money before them. It becomes even more uncomfortable when looking at the $11M deficit they had to cover this year... and even more so when you see that academics gets cut 6% while athletics gets a 6% bump.... and the TV deal has been kicked down the road for months now...
I have a feeling that other PAC schools may be having the same meetings, and the same questions... and face the same uncertainty. With USC and UCLA gone, where is the draw for TV money? And since TV money pays most of the bills, how can they budget without knowing numbers? Is the academic unit willing to take on the responsibility of covering the debt for athletics? Will athletics trim their budget if the numbers come in too low (which I am betting they will)? Will schools in the PAC, and in other conferences, have to trim teams, support staffs, etc to fit the new reality of the haves and have nots?
What does the future hold? Who knows... but these are large institutions that won't do well operating in the dark...
I foresee a P2 (SEC/B10) + M2 (ACC/B12) and the the rest. I could see an emphasis on playing non-con games between the P and M tiers with the Playoff coalition frowning at playing more than one game outside of that group. If that happens there will be a lot of teams looking in from the outside wondering how they will fund athletics. Fewer blood donors. Less relevance. Fewer opportunities to score real money through TV and bowls... this week may have been a glimpse into the future for these programs, and they cannot be real comfortable. Thank goodness we are in the SEC, no matter how competitive we are or are not, survival is not the first thing on our minds..
