For the B10 if they have Miami adding USF does little to add $$$ whereas Ga Tech brings carriage fees fr the State of Georgia.
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MEGA Conference Realignment and lawsuits Megathread: Stories, Tales, Lies, and Exaggerations
- Thread starter OrangeBowlMagic
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Historically there is very very very bad blood between Notre Dame and the Big10. Goes back more than a century and has a lot to do with the conference (especially Michigan) being anti-Catholic and keeping ND out. That’s a key reason ND opted to affiliate with the ACC instead of the Big10 last time around. It would be interesting if ND was still holding a grudge and actually preferred the SEC over the Big10. Who knows - maybe ND+Clemson to SEC and FSU-UM to B1G
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To be clear, USF has always lagged in conference membership. They got a late start, and they have been playing from behind all along.
Also, to be clear, I have never said that USF "brings the Tampa media market" in the same way that Rutgers brought NY/NJ. But the comparison is terrible. If you honestly believe that NY/NJ and Tampa have the same level of college football fanaticism...well, that would be incorrect. Also, as pointed out, Tampa (and all of Florida) features WAY MORE Big 10 alums than in NY/NJ. I've been pointing out that adding USF would not be a linear increase (bringing solely USF fans) as much as a synergistic increase (bringing USF fans AND Big 10 alums).
I would also say that no one is going to watch a Miami vs. Minnesota football game. That statement is equally true to yours. But a Michigan-USF game would be standing-room-only, not to mention the top ratings draw for the week on the Tampa-area channel that carries the game.
And, again, the bigger the school...the more alums...the more that they will be lifelong purchasers of Big 10 merch, TV packages, and game tickets.
As of the 2022-23 school year, the 16 largest public schools were:
Arizona State
aTm
UCF
Ohio Taint
Illinois
FIU
UiF
Minnesota
Texas
Washington
Purdue
Michigan
Rutgers
Ped State
Michigan STate
USF
Over half of those schools (9) are Big 10 schools. Three are SEC schools.
And the only schools NOT in the Power 2 are UCF, FIU, USF, and Arizona State.
Just sayin'...
Empirical Cane
We are what we repeatedly do.
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I think the Brits and Irish could mediate between ND and B1G.
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I don’t think the big10 cares all that much about the Tampa market. The more important thing is Fox being able to charge all the OSU and PSU alum in Florida 25x as much to subscribe to Fox Sports. USF might be willing to work for peanuts just to get in the B1G , and it sounds like UM is unequivocally disinterested in joining a conference at reduced shares.
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While carriage fees are nice, it's not the only game in town.
You know, revenue equals price times quantity. The higher price is nice. The quantity out of adding USF (and the rest of the Big 10) in Florida (23 million population) miiiiight just exceed the quantity from adding GaTech in Georgia (11.1 million population).
Again, GaTech is a good choice, overall, but maybe not the best choice. Take a look at how I worded things, if the goal is to keep the ACC as "intact" as possible, then you can find at least one school (maybe more) that would be good choices that are not in the ACC. Notre Dame would be a grand slam. USF would be a solid double.
Canesfan1993
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And they may do a scheduling agreement in football if the ACC seriously weakens by losing 4 or so top brands (theres already contract language in their NBC deal for this with the Big10), but i do not see the big10 allowing them to house their Olympic sports there without adding football as a full member. Too many things at play against that scenario playing out (never say impossible in realignment), but I know for sure there have been conversations with the Big East (this was a few months ago so stuff could change) should ND need to move their olympic sports. But the scenario you laid out is completely possible especially if P2 squeeze on ND through NBC.
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I'm sure that the Big 12 would allow them to bring the Olympic sports too.
Basketball is, by far, the most important of these for revenue.
Canesfan1993
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In the Big12's dreams haha. ND will never associate itself with those schools. Snobbery in academics doesn't get enough attention when it comes to conference affiliation imo. Its why the Utah stuff is leaking out. Utah doesn't want to be there...
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Again, basketball is the only sport that involves significant revenue, and the Big 12 is very good in basketball. If more teams leave, all bets are off, but it could possibly work. Not saying that is ND's best or only option, but it gives ND maximum leverage and options.
Size of schools doesn't necessarily equate to viewership. This is 2023 "average TV viewers per game":
#7. FSU 3.58 million
#16. U of Florida 2.12 million
#22. Clemson 1.7 million
#32. Miami 1.33 million
#69. USF .463 (four hundred sixty three thousand)
No way that FOX has USF on their short list.
Ok we are getting a little off track with scenario 3 here but I will address that at the end. My main point was that there is no difference between scenario 1 and 2. The PE playbook is to buy with a mixture of debt and equity, pay down as much debt as they can so that their equity grows (they don't pocket profits as you said in another post, they use it to pay down debt) and then exit at a premium to their equity investment. You are right they don't pay down all the debt, they don't care what debt is still on the books, only that their equity has grown through debt paydown and/or company growth. The goal of scenario 2 is exactly the same as scenario 1, they aren't getting any additional payouts that aren't available in scenario 1 and they dont have any priority on the revenue that isn't available to any other equity investor. Any payout available to investors in scenario 2 is the same as in scenario 1. Their aim is an exit.
In terms of your situation, without knowing the details or who the PE firm is I can't really refute what you are saying. I work in the industry and can count on one had the number of times I have seen a PE firm put zero debt on a company. You are either in a super rare special situation or don't have insight into how the actual deal was strucutured. It is extremely rare for a PE-owned company to not have debt. Even if a company outperforms and pays down a signficant portion of the debt early, investors will just relever the company and take out a dividend. Saying that owning a business putting zero debt on it and then IPOing is its own seperate strategy is just not reality (again unless you are talking about a VC funding a tech start-up which is a completely different asset class). Maybe that is the situation at your company but I can guaratee if it is a well-known PE fund then their other transactions in their portfolio were done using debt.
In my eyes, Scenario 3 is just another lever to pull to increase returns while still aiming for a succesful exit. If you want to view it as its own seperate strategy that is fine, but I don't view it that way. Investors will juice returns by selling assets, operationls improvements, etc. anything to pay down debt and grow equity. Operational improvements, asset sales and debt are all just levers to pull, but the end result and goal are the same as scenario 1. Would you consider a PE fund that purchases a company and lays off half the workforce as its own seperate scenario too? Or if a PE fund merges its portflio company with another company and sells off the redundant assets is that another scenario? In my mind these are all just levers and the PE playbook is what I describe above. There are many tools at their disposal but at the end of the day it is all scenario 1.
I'm not here to defend Golden Gate Capital. It sounds like they entered into some bad leases as part of the sale leasebacks, but I think that was more incompetence on their part and market dynamics rather than things going exactly to plan. They technically came out ahead financially on the deal, but I am not sure that this was even close to a homerun for them and will hurt their ability to raise their next fund.
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Again, you are ignoring what I have said.
I didn't say they have massive viewership, in and of themselves.
What I did say was that USF had a massive student body. And once they have a power conference in which to play, you will see a growth in those numbers. The same thing happened to UCF. This isn't hard to fathom.
What I also said is that the central Florida market, particularly the west coast, is heavy in Big 10 alums. Other than Chicago, for many of the Big 10 schools, Tampa is their second-largest alum base OUTSIDE OF THE HOME STATE.
Open up your mind. I did not say to take USF over the Florida Big 3 or Clemson.
So circle back to my points, and stick to my points. I mentioned USF as an option IF IF IF the intention is TRULY to keep the ACC as intact as possible. And when someone mentioned GaTech as being such a slam dunk for carriage fees, I would simply point out that on YOUR LIST, GaTech is at #53 with 766K.
Come on, man, you should be better than this. You know that IF IF IF the Big 10 ever added USF, the increase in subscriptions for the Big 10 Network would be a force multiplier. You know **** well it would go beyond what USF would contribute to subscriptions if they joined, say, the Big 12 or the ACC.
If you can't see the synergy, that's on you. And for the record, I hate USF.
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Zero chance the B1G gives ND a sweetheart deal.
That's the same kind of non-starter realignment fantasy talk as FSU turning down the SEC to join the B1G.
ND either maintains its set up with a castrated ACC or orchestrates a similar arrangement with a permanently second-tier Big 12.
Period.
JMO
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Sure there are synergies ... everybody gets that. BUT there are programs that would bring a lot more to the B10 than USF. Heck, outside of people living IN the State of Florida most people haven't even heard of USF. USF for the ACC, OK, but the P2. No way.
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On one hand, I wouldn’t mind because they’re a good program and a road trip to Salt Lake City, though dry leads to a nice trip to go skiing if it’s late enough in the season, but it’s just not worth the bull**** of having to listen to all the people talk about the u versus theNo, keep Utah off our schedule, period!
as if they remotely the ******* same brand and just ****ing me off and getting boring while still feeling compelled to troll
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I'll make this short, I have no need to belabor this.
You're wrong. Just wrong.
You can believe "the PE playbook" all you want, it's how you make peace with what you do. Reality is completely different. I soooo appreciate the condescension about how I "don't have insight into how the actual deal was structured". Hilarious. Stop speaking in absolute terms. I never said that my company had "no debt", but we certainly were not levered by our PE for leverage's sake, and when we did borrow, we made multiple acquisitions of companies. So, no, the Finance Bros didn't dump a bunch of debt into my company to "finance" their own acquisition. But thanks for being so helpful.
Your apologist level around Red Lobster is quite profound. Once I debunked your "COVID Theory", you've now pivoted to "entered into some bad leases" and "incompetence" and "market dynamics". Sure. Whatever. The leases AT THE TIME were assessed as HIGHER THAN MARKET. Again, think about the idiocy of what you are saying. I get that Golden Gate received $1.5 billion to enter into HIGHER THAN MARKET leases for hundreds of restaurants for which they had no rent expense, due to owning the property. This is the core of your Finance Bro false equivalency, and is the difference between starting (or acquiring) a business to OPERATE it versus pumping a bunch of debt into a company to dump it 5-8 years later. You fake-claim that a PE (which asset-strips, which is not the goal of every PE, but you act like "the PE playbook" is consistent in every deal) is all about improving the operations of the company in order to sell it at a profit, but that's simply not true in all cases (and certainly not 99% of them).
As has been demonstrated, Golden Gate took a 71.4% return of capital within one month of acquisition in order to saddle all of the Red Lobster restaurants with above-market leases. You can call that "incompetence", but it sure as **** wasn't "market dynamics" in 2014, even though you tried to blame COVID in 2020.
But, sure, if you want to (falsely) claim that a full return of capital within 2 years, that was INDEPENDENT of six years of profit AND the amount realized on the sale of the other 75% was "technically came out ahead financially", then I don't know that we can converse any further. You act like it's a beneficent thing to "pay down debt", but why did Red Lobster need any post-2014 debt IF THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ANY REAL ESTATE. What was the "new debt" for, fancy new pots and pans? Golden Gate made a literally killing in their six years of "stewardship", and don't try to act like they didn't. Whether GG played leverage games ALSO is a separate issue from the $2.1 billion return of capital, the 6-year operating profits, and the eventual sale of the remaining 75%.
Unlike you, I won't cite any "PE playbook". Just the actual experiences and financial information from people who work within companies, not the me-first opinions of the asinine little Finance Bros who are constantly demanding their compensation every three months, even after their initial investment was returned within 2 years.
And for the record, you don't work in an "industry". That term is reserved for the real companies that you buy and sell with no regard for the long-term.
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Again, just listen to what I said, and stop making a big deal out of everything I didn't say.
Assuming that the Big 10 and SEC are afraid to fully kill off the ACC and Big 12, then it is not a strict ranking of "who brings a lot more to the Big 10 than USF". If the goal is to get into Florida, and UF and F$U are in the SEC (which was part of the premise I responded to), then USF is a very fair candidate. And, no, I'm not going to get into the "tallest midget" weeds.
There's a reason why I haven't said much about USF to the Big 10 previously. But in a world where my Google feed keeps telling me that KANSAS is destined for the SEC or that BOSTON COLLEGE is a lock for the Big 10 (if only they get AAU membership), then it's only fair to dispense with the "but we were in a Power 5 before you were" bull**** in order to have a start-from-scratch conversation about which markets/schools/teams make some sense in this ever-shifting argument.
Again. Working from the premise that the Big 12 and ACC would largely be spared....and the premise that the SEC and Big 10 might only take four schools...I put forth an option that both allows the SEC to reinforce its Confederate States of America footprint AND allows the Big 10 to get into Florida with 2 AAU schools. Which, when you take Fox and ESPN out of it, are really the primary goals of the SEC and Big 10.
Empirical Cane
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Mormon chicks put out.On one hand, I wouldn’t mind because they’re a good program and a road trip to Salt Lake City, though dry leads to a nice trip to go skiing if it’s late enough in the season, but it’s just not worth the bull**** of having to listen to all the people talk about the u versus the
Just saying.
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Time for a soak
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