College Hoops/Football Teams "Buying Out" Road/Return Games

[MylesKnight]

Being a Alum/Fan of a Non-Bowl Cartel Series University, everytime I see this kind of thing occur it disgusts me.

The University of Kentucky Basketball Program (of the mighty $EC) is the latest example.

Thoughts?


http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2877223


Kentucky will pay $50K to get out of UMass game

By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

Kentucky wants out of its game with Massachusetts in November and the school is willing to pay $50,000 to do it, but the Minutemen aren't happy.

Wildcats athletic director Mitch Barnhart told UMass he will cut the check to get out of a return series game scheduled for the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston on Nov. 24, but an estimated 7,000 tickets have already been sold for the contest. The arena and the Minutemen would have to refund those purchases, and overall, stand to lose an estimated $300,000 that the game would have generated.

Barnhart and UMass athletic director John McCutcheon confirmed Sunday that the Kentucky AD made the call to the Minutemen on Friday and said the Wildcats wouldn't be coming next season. The contract on the home-and-home series called for a $50,000 buyout. UMass, coached by Kentucky alumnus Travis Ford, lost to the Tubby Smith-coached Wildcats 82-68 on Dec. 22.

McCutheon said losing the marquee game will likely mean UMass won't play a game at the Garden since the Minutemen would be unable to attract a high-profile team at this late date.

"We did this deal a year ago and had a date of Dec. 22 but Kentucky wanted to move it so we worked with the arena and got Nov. 24, which was a challenge since two pro teams play there [the NBA's Celtics and NHL's Bruins]," McCutcheon said. "You live and learn. I know this was a concern for the coaches' association [teams getting out of contracts]. We're going to have to refund the money. It's a big hassle and very problematic.

"If we had had a sellout, a conservative estimate is that we could have made $250,000 to $300,000," he added. "Playing in Boston is off the board now. I don't see how we can get a caliber opponent like Kentucky."

McCutcheon said he firmly believes the Wildcats got out of the game because of the coaching change from Smith to former Texas A&M coach Billy Gillispie.

"This is a bad practice and maybe next time we should have a higher buyout," McCutcheon said. "This wasn't our arena. This wasn't on our campus."

Barnhart said the Wildcats have scheduling challenges next season. The schedule was put together by Smith and Barnhart said, "Tubby went to Minnesota." According to the AD, this is the first time Kentucky has paid a game buyout during his five years on the job.

Gillispie said he had just looked at the schedule late last week and deferred all comments on the matter to Barnhart.

Kentucky is still honoring a return road game at Houston next season, which should end up being a recruiting hotbed for the Wildcats under the Texas-raised Gillispie. Kentucky is also at Indiana. North Carolina and Louisville come to Rupp Arena in the other major nonconference games. Kentucky will likely play two neutral-site games in New York in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, assuming the Wildcats win two home games against likely lower-profile competition. Kentucky is expected to face Connecticut in one semifinal in New York with Memphis and Oklahoma in the other bracket in the November tournament. The rest of Kentucky's nonconference schedule will be filled by home games, but the slate will not likely have high-major competition.

Meanwhile, UMass needs three more games. They have a a one-way road game at Syracuse (the Orange won't return), travel to Boston College in an annual home-and-home series and are at Northern Iowa's tournament along with Northern Illinois and Cal Poly. The Minutemen play Toledo, Yale, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Boston University at home.

Kentucky did take into consideration that Ford is a former Wildcat, but in the end didn't want to have five games away from Rupp.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

[Ksyrup]

No sir. Don't like it!

[SirFozzie]

Kentucky are a bunch of chicken-hearted bastards!

I see more of this lily-livered stuff often:

"Sure we'll sign a home and home with you, Mr Mid-Range Team. The first game will be at our house, and just in case you get good or we might not be good enough to beat you away from home, we'll cancel the return leg because beating you does us no good, and losing to you would show up as a "bad loss" come tourney time on our way to becoming a one and done 7 seed that we get because we're Kentucky."

Grow a set of balls.

[Lathum]

I will never understand why the NCAA won't step in and control the scheduling

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I will never understand why the NCAA won't step in and control the scheduling

Because the big teams make so much money from playing The Sisters of the Poor 15 times at home, the NCAA gets their kickback, and generally everyone is happy.

[MylesKnight]

I suppose I should've asked this in the initial thread posting, but what can be done to make this activity decrease?

Can the formula used for NCAA Tournament Selection be further tinkered with to discourage this?

What I'm afraid may happen though if things are pushed too far (and by too far I mean a situation where the non-BCS Schools compete a little too well) is a situation where the six BCS Conferences get together and make a pact to only schedule each other in Non-Conference Men's Basketball Play whenever possible, making it even more difficult for teams and conferences just a notch below, such as the MVC, A10, MWC, WAC, CUSA, CAA, WCC, etc., to improve their standing for NCAA Tournament Selection.

I just hope that Kentucky (and the $EC) assist in finding UMass an equal opponent to replace UK in this game. The problem is only a handful of teams in College Basketball have the kind of following that the Wildcats do. Wishful thinking though.

[MylesKnight]

One more thing, I don't care much for Syracuse University (as they are the main example in my mind of this), but at least they make it clear to everyone where they stand on Non-Conference Scheduling..

...Unless the State of New York is in a state of anarchy, do not expect Jim Boeheim's Basketball Team to step one foot out of the Empire State for Non-Big East Play.

[Ksyrup]

This isn't just a basketball issue, either. Didn't we have a thread about Ohio State pulling something like this last year in football? And I know I've raised the Auburn/FSU thing back when Terry Bowden got fired. You think it's tough to schedule a basketball game, try finding a quality football opponent less than a year before the game.

[molson]

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

One more thing, I don't care much for Syracuse University (as they are the main example in my mind of this), but at least they make it clear to everyone where they stand on Non-Conference Scheduling..

...Unless the State of New York is in a state of anarchy, do not expect Jim Boeheim's Basketball Team to step one foot out of the Empire State for Non-Big East Play.

This sort of thing will continue as long as the RPI is considered the #1 criteria in the selection process. Boheim knows what he's doing - the trick is it schedule good teams from bad conferences. Those teams will be easy to beat, and they'll still end up with 20+ wins. 50% of the RPI is opponents' record.

Sure, the system didn't help SU get in last year, but their RPI will always be a little inflated because Boheim knows what's he's doing.

For Kentucky, losing that UMass game would hurt WAY more than winning would help, and it's no cupcake on the road. It sucks that they're backing out of a commitment, people shouldn't expect schools to schedule better games just because neutral fans would enjoy it.

[Ksyrup]

But I think we all agree that if they schedule it, they should play it.

[albionmoonlight]

The NCAA could make rules that provide enough of a penalty for teams that break commitments that no team would break its commitments (things like scholarship restrictions and bans on post-season play if they were really serious about it)

But, as someone pointed out above, the NCAA is controlled by the very entities who want the freedom to break the commitments. So don't hold your breath.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by molson

Sure, the system didn't help SU get in last year.

Yeah but I think the comitte punished 'cuse because of their scheduling practices and the irony of it was they were obviously a quality eam based on their NIT performance

[BishopMVP]

I'm up to JeeberD levels of hating Billy Gillispie at this point. At least most UK fans seem to be disappointed the game was cancelled.

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

I suppose I should've asked this in the initial thread posting, but what can be done to make this activity decrease?

Can the formula used for NCAA Tournament Selection be further tinkered with to discourage this?

What I'm afraid may happen though if things are pushed too far (and by too far I mean a situation where the non-BCS Schools compete a little too well) is a situation where the six BCS Conferences get together and make a pact to only schedule each other in Non-Conference Men's Basketball Play whenever possible, making it even more difficult for teams and conferences just a notch below, such as the MVC, A10, MWC, WAC, CUSA, CAA, WCC, etc., to improve their standing for NCAA Tournament Selection.

I just hope that Kentucky (and the $EC) assist in finding UMass an equal opponent to replace UK in this game. The problem is only a handful of teams in College Basketball have the kind of following that the Wildcats do. Wishful thinking though.

Hahaha... we'll be lucky to replace UK with Bucknell or Holy Cross instead of St. Francis.

It was pretty surprising that Kentucky even agreed to the home and home to begin with - other than BC for obvious reasons no power BCS team will come here unless we get back to consistent Top 10's (I remember Kansas actually played us in Amherst instead of Springfield or Boston.) That's why we had absolutely no leverage over the low buyout or setting a date for cancellation.

Maybe the NCAA can step in and mandate every BCS team has to play X amount of non-conference games away from home at non-BCS schools, but like other people have said that will never fly.

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

One more thing, I don't care much for Syracuse University (as they are the main example in my mind of this), but at least they make it clear to everyone where they stand on Non-Conference Scheduling..

...Unless the State of New York is in a state of anarchy, do not expect Jim Boeheim's Basketball Team to step one foot out of the Empire State for Non-Big East Play.

Ironically enough, now an away game @Syracuse becomes the marquee non-conference match-up (maybe BC.)

[henry296]

If UMass didn't want Kentucky to cancel they could've put a much bigger buyout clause. While I wish they didn't do it, Kentucky just exercised their right within the contract. UMass knew this was a risk.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by henry296

If UMass didn't want Kentucky to cancel they could've put a much bigger buyout clause. While I wish they didn't do it, Kentucky just exercised their right within the contract. UMass knew this was a risk.

Ding ding ding - correct answer! Yeah, Kentucky is being extremely lame in exercising their buyout clause, but if UMass really stands to lose so much money from them doing so, they should've negotiated a much higher buyout figure to cover this possibility.

[Swaggs]

In the last three seasons, West Virginia's football team has had Central Florida, Buffalo, and Ball State back out of contracted, home dates so that they could play other schools (mostly SEC) for bigger paydays. We had to replace the first two with D1AA schools and Ball State was able to get the MAC to find us Western Michigan as a replacement.

If I'm not mistaken, Buffalo did the same thing to Rutgers last season, as well. To make matters worse, they announced the games, with dates, without officially notifying WVU or Rutgers, so they were basically waiting and hoping that WVU would find and announce a replacement, so they would not have to pay their buyout. And, at one point prior to last season, Buffalo had 14 games scheduled and had games @ Auburn and @ WVU for the same day (I believe they had Wisconsin and Rutgers on the same date, as well).

Long story short, I used to feel bad for schools like UMass in this case, but realistically, all the schools are out there doing whatever they can to make as much money as they possibly can for themselves. No one cares if UCF or Ball State leaves my school in a bind at the last minute, to play an SEC school for more cash, so I don't really feel sorry for them when they get screwed out of attractive games, either.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Ding ding ding - correct answer! Yeah, Kentucky is being extremely lame in exercising their buyout clause, but if UMass really stands to lose so much money from them doing so, they should've negotiated a much higher buyout figure to cover this possibility.

This makes all the common sense in the world, but if schools make ridiculous demands for buyouts, very few will be willing to negotiate with them.

[TroyF]

I'll be the third to agree.

The way to stop this is to put in huge buyouts. Kentucky doesn't cancel this if there is a 500k buyout. If Kentucky doesn't agree to that buyout, you move on and find someone else.

This in no way makes me think this isn't a BS move by the Wildcats. It's pathetic. But they negotiated the contract and UMass needs to be smart enough to understand what they are getting themselves into.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

If I'm not mistaken, Buffalo did the same thing to Rutgers last season, as well.

You are not mistaken.

[st.cronin]

Honestly, I have no problem whatsoever with this.

[sooner333]

I don't really like it, but I will cut Kentucky some slack because they have a new coach. I agree with the buyout argument, but I don't think that Kentucky would have agreed with a $200,000 buyout. It's nice to say "put in a higher buyout", but it's not easy to get a big-time school to agree to this when they can just go to the next mid-major eager to get them to do a home-and-home with them for a small buy-out.

I think the mid-majors need to get rid of this attitude where they think they deserve home-and-home's with the big boys as some sort of divine right. They need to consider more 2-for-1's and maybe a 1-1-1 type deal where the other game is at a neutral site near the big school (Charlotte for North Carolina, for example) maybe just getting 1/4 revenue. I think bigger schools are more willing to do that or at least do a home and neutral (like if Oklahoma played Southern Illinois in Norman and then in St. Louis).

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I'll be the third to agree.

The way to stop this is to put in huge buyouts. Kentucky doesn't cancel this if there is a 500k buyout. If Kentucky doesn't agree to that buyout, you move on and find someone else.

Kentucky doesn't schedule this in the first place. Neither does any other marquee matchup. UMass might as well schedule Bucknell in the first place. At least this way, they get an extra 50K from their lousy non-con schediule.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by molson

This sort of thing will continue as long as the RPI is considered the #1 criteria in the selection process.

RPI now has a mammoth tilt towards winning on the road. Plus, the strong mid-major conferences have gotten good enough at gaming it that the NCAA seems to be moving away from it.

Ultimately, I think trying to build social engineering into the RPI as currently constituted is a dead end. It's so weak as a model that there's not much you can do with it that isn't going to get exploited by someone.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

This makes all the common sense in the world, but if schools make ridiculous demands for buyouts, very few will be willing to negotiate with them.

Yep. But the smaller schools need to face the facts that the high reputation schools hold the leverage, and there are way too many reasons why it would be a bad idea for the NCAA to try and legislate against this.

[JeeberD]

At both UTEP and A$M Gillispie scheduled creampuff preconference games. I thought that might change now that he's at an "elite" school, but I guess not...

[cougarfreak]

This has alot to do with UK not having anymore ties to the UMass coach as well (Travis Ford), who played for Pitino and Tubby Smith. I agree UK should now have cancelled the game, but essientially were obviously within the rights of the contract to do so.