Q&A: KU Shams on conference realignment
Sources are reporting that Mike Vernon is back on Streak Talk. Over the past week, Mike has become the de facto point man for the conference realignment brouhaha that’s happening right now.
“Just over here obsessing about something that doesn’t really matter,” Mike says over the phone from SF. While much of the conference realignment chatter is football-related, I had to know what it all could mean for KU basketball. We talked about that, Bill Self, why the NIL has athletic departments freaking out, Brett Yormark and more.
Follow Mike on Twitter, where he regularly host Spaces office hours to chat everything Big 12 and KU. Mike asked me to donate this week’s subscription revenue to Planned Parenthood, and I agreed.
If you’re KU basketball, what are you watching for here? Does the conference alignment stuff matter to them?
So two kind of different questions there. I think KU basketball cares. I think Bill Self cares—Bill Self obviously cares about the health of KU. I think that he gets pretty involved with the university. But I think if Bill Self could just snap his fingers and make something happen, KU is in the Big Ten. Yeah. And it matters also because of these programs, the Big Ten schools, are about to get paid in a crazy, huge way. So that's a really big deal. We're looking at strained athletic department budgets as fundraising is split between athletics and NIL now.
Donation streams are now split in two. One way is the traditional donating to an athletic department. The other is paying players for goods and services through NIL. I’m not sure if I would call those “donations.” But saying donation streams are split in two is an easier way to understand technically what’s happening to AD budgets.
So athletic departments are hurting now more than ever. That’s why USC made the jump. They were looking at a budget shortfall, it seems.
Is KU losing money?
I don’t know that KU is in that situation. I think KU seems to be really proactive here and has gotten its act together with the NIL. So that’s one huge implication. The other thing is going to be the schedule, who you’re playing, but we’re talking about the health of the athletic department and the ability to pay the support staff, pay the assistants, pay the ops and video people. As many people like that as you can have, KU wants. KU wants as many people employed to help basketball (and football) as it can possibly have.
I used to be fascinated with TV money in sports, in particular baseball, but now I’ve become really cynical about it. Are you tired of talking about TV money as the prime needle-mover? Or is there a fascinating tension you’re grappling onto? Where do things stand in 5-10 years?
A source told me, “The only thing the Big Ten cares about is football,” and I said, “This isn’t the Big Ten.”
LOL
The Big Ten isn’t making this decision for itself. The Big Ten can put its foot down a little bit about the academics, but this is a FOX decision. If this is a car, Fox is driving, the Big Ten is in the front seat, and basketball is with every other sport somewhere in the back, squished together. Maybe it gets its own seatbelt, so when this thing crashes, basketball is safe.
But am I tired of talking about it? Not really. This is a pretty good story of Fox and ESPN fighting each other and you can see it in real time. ESPN wants the PAC 12 nice and healthy to fill nighttime TV games, to have Saturday night TV and to sell high quality ads. So that is what ESPN wanted, and FOX just ripped that out—they totally blew up hours of programming for ESPN. So that's pretty interesting.
Now ESPN is pissed because it was gonna have an expanded playoff, a 12-team playoff and FOX got the PAC 12, the Big Ten and the ACC to align and not let the SEC and ESPN have that control. The SEC and ESPN were offering a guaranteed playoff spot for the PAC 12 and the ACC, probably the Big 12. I don't know about the Big 12, actually. But now that automatic spot is gone and the PAC 12 regular season doesn't matter.
These leagues have been played for a fool. FOX got the PAC 12 and the ACC, which is an ESPN league, to hang on and then just screwed them over. It’s just fascinating. I don’t know if these deals are going to end up making sense long term, and I’m sure Apple and Amazon will want to get in, which is kind of fun. I’m more into it for the drama of two huge networks battling it out for prime time or Saturday night, so they can sell ads and digital subscriptions.
I have no idea which contract will end up being the best in 10 years. I’m very entertained by it.
Is KU going to be in the Big Ten?
I don’t think during this round of realignment—which is the big football round—it isn’t looking like KU is heading to the Big Ten.
What have you heard about Brett Yormark? Is he a factor here or no?
I’ve asked quite a few people about this, and no one has given me an answer. Is it a coincidence that he was hired before the USC and UCLA left before the Big Ten? All these PAC 12 schools are saying they didn’t know. I spoke to one high-ranking person, not in the PAC 12 or not at Kansas, who was pretty surprised when the news broke. I tend not to think this was a coincidence, and that someone knew something was going to happen.
The Big 12 has been prepared. There’s a reason they’ve come out aggressively, even though there’s definitely been some “extensions of the truth” when it comes to the nature of that aggressive approach.
As for Yormark, I don’t think he’s the active commissioner for another month. But I’m sure he is involved. I don’t think it’s a coincidence he was hired when he was hired. For KU fans, I think it’s important to note that Girod was one of the few people involved with the hiring process. And the focus is on the Big 12 right now.
Everyone’s focus is on the Big 12… until someone better calls.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.