Shame on Syracuse University. Shame on them for not being loyal. Shame on them for bring greedy. Shame on them for not honoring their contract.
Sha....what's that...they have a chance to make a crapton more money and this is just business? Oh...well...carry on.
...as television deals for college sports have exploded, Syracuse officials believe the value of the school's multimedia rights have as well, something that wasn't reflected in the current contract with IMG.
"As a general rule, the market is dramatically different than it was five years ago," said Joe Giansante, the chief of communications for the Syracuse athletic department. "We've seen it in TV as well. The visibility increases the value. It's increased, and we expect it to continue increasing."
One of the new suitors could be JMI Sports, which just inked Kentucky to a lucrative deal. That deal pays out $14M to UK every year. It's not known exactly what IMG was paying Syracuse but a similar deal with West Virginia was paying $7M/year. Some believe SU's deal with IMG was actually closer to the one Rutgers signed with their media rights company in 2004 ($3M/year). Either way, uh, yeah...
At the end of the day, Syracuse doesn't outright cancel this deal if they don't see an obvious payday on the horizon. And whatever you think of DOC Gross, has he steered you wrong yet when it comes to financial decisions? SU should see a good influx of cash with a new deal, something they can add to the incoming cash from the ACC deal. Flush with all this new revenue, the real question will become "what does SU do with all this money?"
One obvious bad side to the contract de-honoring? Matt Park and his fellow SU broadcasters are out of their jobs. At least for the time being. We'll have to see how it pans out but hopefully they can come back on with a new deal, regardless of media company.
