It is the college football offseason as the Knights close up the #ChargeOn Tour and introducing their new coaching staff around the state. Players are in summer workouts and in a few months it will be time to get back out on the field.
The offseason is the time for the machinations of the conferences to take hold. And another year for the Big 12 thinking maybe, perhaps the conference will expand.
It is no secret UCF wants to be part of that discussion. The 0-12 football record probably does not help but the Orlando market and the potential for the conference to come into Florida and have a presence in this fertile recruiting ground.
None of that really matters. When it comes to conference expansion, all that really matters is television money and how much financial benefit a school can bring to the conference rather than competitive value. Not that the Knights would not contribute to that.
A few weeks ago, ESPN uncovered a letter written by West Virginia president Gordon Gee to UCF president John Hitt acknowledging UCF was being considered for conference expansion.
The Knights have been down this road before. So while negotiations and discussions might be happening behind closed doors, there is not going to be any kind of open campaigning.
“[A]s a community, as an alumni, base, as a university, we need to be mostly focused on the things that we can control. That’s building a fan base, building our season ticket base up, getting our donations up to a Power 5 level and making sure we’re maximizing all of those things,” athletics director Danny White said, according to the Orlando Sentinel, in a Facebook live chat a few weeks ago. “If we do that and support our coaches at that level, because of all the other competitive advantages, we’re going to be really successful here. I think we’re going to win an awful lot and then I think we’ll be in a position where we have a lot of options but for right now, we’re really excited to be in the American Athletic Conference.”
The conference presidents will meet next week where expansion could be brought back onto the table.
UCF certainly makes a lot of sense as a potential candidate for expansion.
A few weeks ago on the Sports Talk Florida Insiders Show, Carson Ingle laid out why UCF is the top candidate:
A lot of the problem with Big 12 expansion is the Texas Longhorns’ independent network deal with ESPN. The big issue is the Big 12 creating its own television network and then expanding the network to as large an audience as possible.
The key to expansion is that television number and how the Big 12 handles buying out Texas, essentially, from its television contract. It is something that could still take some time to sort out and figure out.
Orlando Magic not shy about free agency plans
The Orlando Magic are not being shy about their plans to be aggressive in free agency this summer. Everyone from general manager Rob Hennigan to CEO Alex Martins has said the team expects to be big players this summer.
Looking at the Magic’s spreadsheets, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders projects the team could have as much as $52.1 million in cap space this summer. That would be enough to sign two max contract players.
The cap flexibility continues to be a selling point for the team in discussions they have had with the media. It is a real thing the Magic are selling. And selling publicly.
“Because that’s what we need at this point in time to take the next step,” Magic CEO Alex Martins told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. “Secondly, this has been a plan, this has been a process. The first part of the plan and the process is to develop your own [players] and grow your own [players]. And when you inject veterans at the wrong period of time, it has an impact in the way that you’re trying to develop your corps of young players. It can’t just happen immediately. It’s got to happen at a certain point in time — after your players have matured and developed.”
It does seem like this is an important and typical point in the life of a rebuild. At some point, the young core needs some pieces around it to take the next step. That appears to be where the Magic are at.
Orlando Predators back in action tonight
The Orlando Predators are back in action tonight at 7:30 p.m. as they take on the rival Jacksonville Sharks.
They are coming off their first loss of the season, a 62-54 defeat at the Philadelphia Soul. You can watch a really nice highlight package of the game here from 50-Yard Game Film:
50 Yard Game Film: Orlando at Philadelphia from Ben Fraternale on Vimeo.
The game tonight is obviously a big one as the Predators now try to keep pace with the Soul.
It is also Military Appreciation Night. The Predators are giving out 1,500 tickets for free to military members for the game. You can find more details at OrlandoPredators.com.
Nonsense: The Big 12 will issue its expansion Invitations within the next 30 days. Potential expansion members (except BYU) need to serve 1 – 2 years notice to their current conferences to eliminate/mitigate exit fees.
The Big 12 CANNOT assume the LHN contract. That would be guaranteeing to Texas a $15 million annual income that we already know will fail on its own. The joint venture between ESPN/IMG College Sports and UT-Austin is in serious financial trouble and will eventually end in bankruptcy. For the Big 12 to roll the LHN into a Big 12 network and guarantee Texas that $15 million income would be the same kind of disastrous decision that gave Texas the unequal income that led to the loss of Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M.
In other words rolling the LHN into a Big 12 network with a $15 million guarantee for UT will be the death of the Big 12 in 2025.
What they need to do is add 4 teams now, start a conference network ( WITHOUT TEXAS) with a clause for capturing added value as Big 12 viewers grow in the 4 new markets.