Sports THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NBA draft coverage online
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2010
KANSAS
1
Where will your favorite Jayhawk end up? Kansan.com
Basketball managers
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Students audition to work for the team. PAGE 20
PAGE 19
The cost of keeping a conference together
BIG 12 BREAKDOWN
Kansas, Texas give different accounts when it comes to revenue
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
University of Texas president William Powers Jr. had a press conference the day before Lew Perkins held one last week. Both discussed conference realignment. Problem was, they said different things. Texas administrators and the Texas athletics department have not returned multiple messages left by The Kansan regarding the discrepancies. Kansas athletic director Jim Marchiony assured The Kansan that the deal guaranteeing Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M that they would hit a certain number in revenue (believed to be $20 million) was a reality.
KANSAS SAID...
"Those three schools, which we think are going to be able to do it on their own because we think we'll be able to do it on our own, but what we're saying to them is, 'If you don't make it on your own, out of our bundles, our basket, we will be willing to share with you some money that we earned.' "
Lew Perkins, Kansas athletic director
"We all signed an agreement that we'll be here 10 years."
- Perkins
TEXAS SAID...
Texas President William Powers, Jr.
"We do not have any guarantees from the league or our northern partners. There have been reports that there's going to be a special deal for some of us using penalty money or other money to guarantee Texas and possibly other schools particular value. We were not part of that. We have heard about that. We're not part of it. That was not part of our consideration and we oppose that kind of deal."
- Powers
There is a tremendous amount of trust among the presidents of these institutions and we all agreed that public, unequivocal statements of long-term commitment to the Big 12 was all of the protection that we needed."
WHERE DOES TEXAS' MONEY COME FROM?
Should the Longhorns earn the revenue that was guaranteed to them by the Pac-10, then no other schools owe them a dime.
Option 1: Self-generated revenue
Option 2: Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State, Missouri
Should the Longhorns not earn the revenue that was guaranteed them by the Pac-10, the five schools that would have been most hurt by their defection promised Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe that they would pool their resources and get their competition to the promised mark.
FROM THE MOUTHS OF STUDENTS...
I think its inevitable for people to be pissed off about the money they're getting because of how strong those Big 12 South teams are for basketball and football, but I'm happy it all gets to stay together."
Caleb Newberg, sophomore from Overland Park
"Yes, it's easy to say Texas holds the cards because of their huge TV following in football, but that shouldn't mean they have all the power when it comes to the conference staying together. What the Big 12 - or as I call it now, the Texas Ten - has done is put the athlete before the student and made it about competing for airtime rather than a trophy."
Adam Newman, senior from Prairie Village
"The thing that bugs me the most about it was how this has just been strictly based on money. Not education, or scholarships or anything like that. These are college athletes and these are also students. And that's just a small part of the student population."
— Kevin Meyer, senior from Lenexa
COMMENTARY
Football is king in conference alignment
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
All that mattered was Texas football. By a bizarre twist of fate - fate's not the right word; it was more by a bizarre twist of the economy - the future of Kansas' storied basketball program lay in the hands of decision makers at the University of Texas because Texas football, to put the situation in the simplest terms possible, is worth millions upon millions of dollars in revenue more than Kansas basketball.
It didn't matter that Kansas had won more basketball games than all but two programs in the history of the sport. It didn't matter that the school had been the home of James Naismith, Phog Allen, Wilt Chamberlain and Danny Manning.
It's not that the traditions of either outweigh the other, but with the absurd television revenue from football driving realignment talks, the Jayhawks were on the verge of being left in the cold. Take, for example, the football revenue against the basketball revenue from the Southeastern Conference, which tried to lure Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Texas, and was rumored to have some contact with Kansas. In the SEC, football made $150.5 million in 2008, in contrast to the just $58.5 million that basketball brought in for the league.
SEE COLUMN ON PAGE 20