By The Numbers

Not that I believe SC financial people are behind the times or are overly naive, but SC football obviously sells-- and nationally as well. So I would presume these folks know the value of the product they market and "sell." But if Scott is correct (and unfortunatly because of his sick interest in teenage cheerleaders I am left to wonder about his mental health) I would hope SC is getting its "fair" share of the t.v. market, because SC football is America's team, if any great college team is, especially in this internet age, so take advantage of it you SC "money people."

Yeah, this is a game changing deal. Notre Dame and NBC was one thing, but a major team from a major conference is quite different. Purportedly, the SEC was negotiating a conference-wide deal that would have financial benefited all conference members. But, Florida had their own idea, undercut the conference, and was able to keep all the money for themselves. Brutal, huge competitive advantage for the Gators over their conference foes, but all is fair in love and war. SC's Atheletic Dept seriously need to get their asses in gear. If you are not innovating, you are falling behind in this money-dominated college sports environment. College athletics embrace more cutthroat American capitalistic methodologies every year. We need to start running our sports programs more and more like a business, and less like a non-profit, socialist utility. I think that SC has done a fairly good job university-wide, but could be much more aggressive and innovative in the Athletic Dept. The lack of a big money TV deal is a glaring example of our opportunities for improvement in this area.

The Pac 10 could learn a lot from the SEC business office but not from Florida necessarily. USC could definitely do better in media deals but it really loses out as part of a badly run conference business-wise.

I don't think college athletics should be purely profit centers, detached from the college or that such an approach works in any part of higher ed. What we need to do though is to take advantage of the cartel system that is big conference CFB- pull in two teams from two big media markets, add a conference championship, more bowl tie ins (including a Big East or ACC tied bowl for East Coast coverage) and secure big promotion/media deals. (I'll take that check Pac 10 Commissioner. lol)

SEC being the bidness conference, I am sure they will get back at UF some way. Their whole conference depends upon cooperation when you look behind the big egos. If a team tries to improve out of conf strength of schedule significantly, angle for the better bowls, not support the conf champ to the NC game, ask for cracking down on illiterate recruits at another school, everything will go to pot over there. Instead I expect UF is going to be the subject of a lot of recruit poaching, coach bad mouthing, and some unfair voting by SEC based sports writers in the polls when normally those guys are all conference homers.