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Posted

The biggest development today is what didn't happen. The SEC and Big Ten had a 9 a.m. deadline to give Congress their position on the revised bill, and they let it come and go, scheduling more calls with their presidents instead. That tells me they're still negotiating, not endorsing. And look how far the bill has already moved toward them. Media-rights pooling is now explicitly voluntary, with language barring lawsuits against conferences that stay out. The expansion limit goes to 19 members. There's a $20 million retention pool on top of the $21.3 million revenue-sharing cap, plus another $5 million restricted to women's sports, putting the total around $46 million. They're reportedly still pushing to get that full $25 million unrestricted, along with tighter recruiting language and killing the nine-year sunset on the cap. A month ago the question was whether the SEC and Big Ten would accept Congress's bill. Now Congress is writing a bill for them to accept, and they're still not saying yes. Whether they finally sign off probably determines if this reaches the Senate floor before Aug. 7 or slips into the fall.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

One more thought, it appears the media rights fight is basically over, and the SEC and Big Ten won it. Pooling is voluntary now, and there's language saying nobody can sue them for sitting it out.

What's actually holding things up is enforcement. They're not signing off on a bigger cap unless the associated-entity loophole is really closed, and I don't blame them. Otherwise the number means nothing and their own schools just keep escalating right past it. They also want the nine-year sunset gone, better antitrust protection so this doesn't just end up back in court anyway, and some assurance that a $22.5M retention pool stacked on a court-approved settlement cap actually holds up legally. That last one is Petitti's own point, and it's a fair one. He wants to read the language before he commits to it.

None of that strikes me as unreasonable. But none of it is small either, and every one of those asks buys them more time. If they think they can do better next offseason, there's no cost to just waiting this out.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

can anyone confirm if the 'protecting historic in-state rivals' provision is still in it, and if so, how do they determine historic in-state rivals? I do not see Tech being a historic rival of Texas, and if it's on games against other in-state schools, Tech is still 6th, behind Rice and TCU and SMU.  I assume Campbell will have the bill written so the look back in calculating rivals will favor Tech. 

Number of time Texas has played an in-state school:

Texas a&m - 118

Baylor - 112

Rice - 96

TCU - 93

SMU - 73

Texas Tech - 72

Houston - 25

North Texas - 10

Posted

Senator Cruz was on X lamenting the pushback he's getting on this bill. He said he's trying to save college football. I replied to him and told him the bill needs to be fixed. I told him to drop trying to control conferences and TV revenue and concentrate on defining and regulating the NIL, pay-for-play (which is not authorized anywhere), and portal free agency. 

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