Simple solution. Force Mizzourah to stay. The SEC has no legal standing as to harm done by them not coming in 2012. Tell Mizzourah and the SEC that if the current TV deals get voided they are on the hook for them. This is the same strategy that delayed A&M from announcing because of lawsuit threats from Baylor. If Mizzourah breaking their contract can be shown to cause the breakage of the TV deal, they can be held responsible. While we can't technically force mizzourah to stay, voided TV contracts are in a much different financial category than buyout clauses.
WVU vs The Big East....getting ugly
- Thread starter isuno1fan
- Start date
The Big East can't make WVU honor the performance of the contract.
They can make them pay damages for breach, but nothing more unless some court decides to get the military involved.
I'm really not sure how this has gotten to this point.
They can make them pay damages for breach, but nothing more unless some court decides to get the military involved.
I'm really not sure how this has gotten to this point.
I would be very surprised if WVU is not competing in the Big XII next season, but things are going to be cutting it close schedule wise.
Mizzou having to play another season in-conference would be entertaining. One more shot at the Telephone Trophy.
Mizzou having to play another season in-conference would be entertaining. One more shot at the Telephone Trophy.
What if the damages are ridiculously excessive?? Like $100M excessive?? Then what? A federal court could rule in favor of an injunction which would prevent WVU from departing until all legal matters are cleared.
I thought I read we green lighted Mizzou to leave so I don't think we can go back on that at this point. The big difference is the BE never said WVU had the green light to go and it was just a matter of negotiating buyout. That is the case with Mizzou and not WVU. If the B12 sued anyone, it could be WVU for putting us in a position to let Mizzou go but then not holding up their end of the bargain to play in the B12 in 2012.
Think about it, WVU could really take it in the keester here.
Really interested to see what ends up happening.
Yeah. From my limited understanding the BE bylaws basically said 'pay 5 mil liquidated damages, and must give 27 mo notice'.
That doesnt mean WVU can't leave, that seems to be a clause of, 'if you want to get out free and clear, give the required notice and cash'. However, WVU is just opting to take a quicker path, a path that exposes it to damages greater than the 5 mil max that they'd pay if they'd given notice, but still a path that should be legally available.
nickcyv has it right I believe. Their request for an injunction is in the RI court, judge there is waiting on the WV judge to accept case first, which he appears likely to do. The WV judge has denied the BE request to dismiss and we now go into discovery. The BE will not like this as all private emails, phone calls and correspondence is fair game. This should be settled in WV court and even if the RI judge rules, he has no means or power to enforce since WVU is the state land grant university and afforded the same exemptions as the state in out of state court settlements. The only possibility is if they force this somehow in a federal court.......and that, as well as any injunction, is very slight. The BE knows we saved their bacon for several years and don't want to release us, unless it is for a very large sum. That is the odds on favorite for what will happen........the only question is what the final sum will be. Failing that, look for some sort of skirmish between the national guard of WV and RI. :wideeyed:
Bottom line is we will be there if folks can accommodate late schedule changes.
Last edited:
Id think the big east would have a hard time proving those levels of damages. The combined value of the existing big east contract over those years doesnt cover that, and WVU can easily argue the already diminished value of the big east contract from Pitt\Syracuse leaving (even with the new members). The new big east contract (that the big east was hoping for a much larger sum, before Pitt\Syr left), will now be much smaller, regardless of whether WVU stayed, and even if they give the required notice, the contract will still be much diminished.
I don't believe that anything has been settled with Mizzourah. Why would the Big12 give them the green light until all negotiations are done? Kinda destroys your bargaining chip. Also, from what I gathered from the A&M / Baylor fight, the lawsuit could come from the individual schools since they would be the ones that lost money. So it may not matter what the conference said. If ISU loses $8mil or so because we're down to 9 teams, I would expect our AD lawyer to be filing suit.
I hope this gets finished quickly as much as the next guy, but I can really see the rathole here. What if the other FB schools still in the BE decide to sue based on financial harm caused by WVU leaving in the manner they are? Alot of unknowns still to be played out. Interesting how we still have not heard anything more on final numbers for A&M + Mizzou leaving.
Why would u or anyone be surprised by anything at this point? I'd be very surprised if a team from san Diego decided to join the crumbling big east. But it happened.
Given track record, would it surprise you if that was not the case??
Also, to your point about individual schools, that would apply to BE as well. Every remaining FB member could also sue WVU if so so choose for potential financial harm caused by their manner of departure.
This thing is really ugly IMO.
Most of the financial harm though is by just leaving, not by leaving without 27 months notice. Just announcing they're leaving (along with pitt\syracuse) killed most of the chances of the big east getting the tv deal they were hoping for. And that wouldve only cost them 5 mil to do. So the question to me seems to be what are the additional damages from leaving before 27 months.
So to make sense to me, fair damages would seem to be
'5 mil, plus the additional damages from leaving without 27 months notice, not including damages that wouldve also been incurred if proper notice had been given'
Since the Big East's TV deal is running out and they haven't got a new one setup, I don't know what kind of financial harm the other teams could claim. The only claim I could see is the loss of a BCS bid, and that'll be tough to prove. Even so, since that isn't guaranteed renewal, I don't see WVU paying damages for more than one year for that. So, $15-$20 mil should get them out.
alarson pretty much summed up my response.
Yeah, it's possible that a court would award something ridiculous. Possible. Very unlikely however. As pointed out earlier, this early departure doesn't hurt the Big East any more than Mizzou or A&M's departures hurt the Big 12, or than leaving after 27 months would do.
If the Big East really needs 8 teams for next season to keep from losing their TV contracts, I'm sure one of its new members could easily play football next year.
The only thing that can stop WVU here is an outrageous, legally baseless ruling. Which is possible, but really unlikely.
Yeah, it's possible that a court would award something ridiculous. Possible. Very unlikely however. As pointed out earlier, this early departure doesn't hurt the Big East any more than Mizzou or A&M's departures hurt the Big 12, or than leaving after 27 months would do.
If the Big East really needs 8 teams for next season to keep from losing their TV contracts, I'm sure one of its new members could easily play football next year.
The only thing that can stop WVU here is an outrageous, legally baseless ruling. Which is possible, but really unlikely.
The BE's TV deal is worth about $37mil and there is one year left on the contract. So if this is really about how much the buy out is then it couldn't be for more than $37mil.
Just for a point of reference UT's football revenue in 2010 was $94mil.
Just for a point of reference UT's football revenue in 2010 was $94mil.
Last edited:
Yes each school could sue WVU for damages, but I haven't heard that their TV deal would be voided by them leaving this year. Even so, their TV deal is set to expire so it would be only for the year(s) left. Mizzourah could be on the hook for 2012 plus the difference between the current deal and any new deal once WVU joins if it ends up to be less. That's a big difference considering how ****** the current big east deal is.
If the Big 12 doesn't get WVU, they should get nasty. It's not like we've been the poachers in all of this. The ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Pac Ten have been the poachers, we're just trying to replace what we lost.
Tell them their options are to let WVU join immediately or the B12 goes very public with an official invite to Louisville for #11 and publicly float the possibility of Cincy, BSU, or USF as #12.
If football is king, it's really stupid that the statistically #1 football conference got screwed out of a second BCS bid and is now getting screwed out of teams joining its league when NONE of the other mostly vastly inferior conferences have had zero problems stealing from the #1 conference and getting BCS bids they didn't earn.
Tell them their options are to let WVU join immediately or the B12 goes very public with an official invite to Louisville for #11 and publicly float the possibility of Cincy, BSU, or USF as #12.
If football is king, it's really stupid that the statistically #1 football conference got screwed out of a second BCS bid and is now getting screwed out of teams joining its league when NONE of the other mostly vastly inferior conferences have had zero problems stealing from the #1 conference and getting BCS bids they didn't earn.
Last edited:
I would agree that the Big 12 should play hard ball, and play dirty.
But then again, maybe they know that the Louisville invite is coming regardless of what happens here, and feel like they (the Big East) have no incentive to play nice.
But then again, maybe they know that the Louisville invite is coming regardless of what happens here, and feel like they (the Big East) have no incentive to play nice.
