FoxPerez
09-08-2011, 03:02 PM
Originally posted at PlaymakerOnline.com (http://bit.ly/qNaEcx):
ESPN is reporting that it’s not just the Baylor Bears standing in the way of Texas A&M’s move to the SEC, but eight of the remaining nine Big 12 teams blocking the move. For all the talk about an inconsequential school preventing the college football world from changing, the Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma State Cowboys, and Missouri Tigers all have a hand in this as well. That’s hardly a group of small-time misfits.
The only group not standing in the way of the move within the Big 12 is the Oklahoma Sooners, because they are the only school, besides Texas, that would be in a better financial situation in a different conference if the Aggies were to leave. They would likely join the Pac 12, which has the richest TV deal in all of NCAA Football, without bringing a major media market to the table in the move.
What all the other schools have likely realized is that with the Big 12′s TV deal set to expire far before the Pac 12 and SEC’s deals do, if they were to stay together and bring in a team like BYU, Notre Dame, or even the SMU Mustangs or Houston Cougars, they would all be set to make a lot of money. The small schools in particular, because they would be getting BCS conference money instead of being relegated into a non-BCS league as a result of A&M leaving and the Big 12 dissolving.
Even though no school has ever forfeited the right to pursue litigation in a case like this, Texas A&M is claiming that they’re being “held hostage” even though the very future of some of these athletic programs is being put in jeopardy by such a move. So when they band together to fight to keep things the way they are because one school has decided to go rogue, they become the bad guys.
“We are being held hostage right now,” Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin said of being forced to stay in the Big 12. “Essentially, we’re being told that you must stay here against your will and we think that really flies in the face of what makes us Americans for example and makes us free people.”
I really hate when people play the :"American free society" card, in situations like this. Living in America doesn’t mean “I can do what I want whenever I want to.” It’s a fundamental principal of being an American that you abide by American laws like say… honoring a legal contract. It’s your right to try to break that contract, but it’s also the right of others involved in the contract to make the outrageous decision to hold you to that contract. Take you at your word, so to speak.
In the words of the great Trey Parker and Matt Stone: Freedom isn’t free.
ESPN is reporting that it’s not just the Baylor Bears standing in the way of Texas A&M’s move to the SEC, but eight of the remaining nine Big 12 teams blocking the move. For all the talk about an inconsequential school preventing the college football world from changing, the Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma State Cowboys, and Missouri Tigers all have a hand in this as well. That’s hardly a group of small-time misfits.
The only group not standing in the way of the move within the Big 12 is the Oklahoma Sooners, because they are the only school, besides Texas, that would be in a better financial situation in a different conference if the Aggies were to leave. They would likely join the Pac 12, which has the richest TV deal in all of NCAA Football, without bringing a major media market to the table in the move.
What all the other schools have likely realized is that with the Big 12′s TV deal set to expire far before the Pac 12 and SEC’s deals do, if they were to stay together and bring in a team like BYU, Notre Dame, or even the SMU Mustangs or Houston Cougars, they would all be set to make a lot of money. The small schools in particular, because they would be getting BCS conference money instead of being relegated into a non-BCS league as a result of A&M leaving and the Big 12 dissolving.
Even though no school has ever forfeited the right to pursue litigation in a case like this, Texas A&M is claiming that they’re being “held hostage” even though the very future of some of these athletic programs is being put in jeopardy by such a move. So when they band together to fight to keep things the way they are because one school has decided to go rogue, they become the bad guys.
“We are being held hostage right now,” Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin said of being forced to stay in the Big 12. “Essentially, we’re being told that you must stay here against your will and we think that really flies in the face of what makes us Americans for example and makes us free people.”
I really hate when people play the :"American free society" card, in situations like this. Living in America doesn’t mean “I can do what I want whenever I want to.” It’s a fundamental principal of being an American that you abide by American laws like say… honoring a legal contract. It’s your right to try to break that contract, but it’s also the right of others involved in the contract to make the outrageous decision to hold you to that contract. Take you at your word, so to speak.
In the words of the great Trey Parker and Matt Stone: Freedom isn’t free.