Larry Scott thinks leverage is an unfair concept.

Poor Larry Scott.  A couple of years ago, the man was lauded as a genius for moving the Pac-12 into the modern era, leapfrogging its peers by forming its own conference network, completely controlled by a bunch of folks who’d never done anything like that before.  Now, with the news that the SEC Network has cut a deal with DirecTV, something that’s eluded Scott, reality has begun to step in.

“We’ve been disappointed that DirecTV has been willing to negotiate with ESPN for the SEC Network but not Pac-12,” Scott said. “It is certainly not consistent with them saying they care about what the consumer wants.”

Scott is miffed that the SEC Network will be available to DirecTV’s Southern California subscribers while the Pac-12 channels won’t be. He thinks the fact that Walt Disney Co. is behind the new network played a part in the satellite service’s willingness to get a deal done.

Earth to Larry:  well, duh.  What did you expect?

“It appears this is an example of DirecTV being willing only to deal with big conglomerates who have muscle and leverage beyond the interest of consumers,” Scott said.

Or that a behemoth like ESPN finds it easier to command the subscription dollars than you do.  The market is a beyotch, buddy.

Tuesday morning buffet

Suffering from a World Cup hangover this morning?  Eat something.

• The Pac-12 distributed only 68 percent of its revenue to members in fiscal 2013.  Man, those television networks are expensive.
• Would paying college players slow down early exits for the pros?  Maybe.
• Gentry Estes looks at where Brice Ramsey’s at right now.
• Kentucky beat writer asks the musical question “Does Georgia have anyone left to play defense?”  More than Kentucky does, I’m willing to bet.
• Hawaii athletic department fails to pay players summer scholarship money due to clerical snafu, resulting in seven kids sleeping in the locker room until paperwork went through.  AD’s analysis of the situation:  “When it comes right down to it, we need to plan better.”  No shit, Sherlock.
• In fiscal year 2012-3, Georgia generated more revenue from football and men’s basketball than your average NHL team.
• To some extent, Chris Low’s rankings of SEC defensive lines looks like it was determined by throwing random darts.  Which probably means nobody really has a good handle on what the conference has this year.
• Kevin Scarbinsky wonders if the SEC needs a rule prohibiting dismissed players from returning to the league, and concludes it won’t happen.  “Richt deserves credit for sticking to his principles in letting players go knowing they can and have come back to beat him. Hard to imagine the rest of the schools in the league would line up to save him from his own idealistic self.”
• Here’s a list of ten toughest non-conferences schedules.  Only one SEC team makes the list – guess who.
• And here’s Phil Steele’s combined experience chart for 2014.  Georgia is middle of the pack in that department.
• John Infante points out that if Joker Phillips’ recruiting transgression is deemed serious enough, Boom could face the possibility of a suspension under the head coach responsibility bylaw.
• “Auburn is all about giving players second chances…”  Gah.

The Pac-12 enhances the fan experience.

Unfortunately for the locals, it’s the East Coast folks the conference is going after with this:

The conference also announced that it has created an 11 a.m. Pacific Time television window on the Pac-12 Networks for the upcoming football season. The league said the move was made in an effort to reduce the number of night games across the league.

At that time slot, isn’t this newly targeted audience going to be watching ACC, Big Ten and SEC games anyway?

I guess Larry Scott figures there aren’t enough insomniacs on our side of the country to make it worth his while to accommodate the Left Coasters who, you know, might actually like to attend a game live at a sane hour.  It reminds me of the baseball player in Ball Four who, upon being told he had to report to the ballpark early for a Game of the Week, replied, “Eleven O’Clock?!  I’m not even done throwing up by then.”

It’s TV’s world.  The rest of us are just trying to find a place in it.

This financial aggression will not stand, man.

Move over Big Ten and SEC.  There’s a new revenue dog taking over.

The college athletics conference financial pecking order has received a jolt – the Pacific-12 Conference new federal tax return shows it had more revenue during the 2012-13 fiscal year than either the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference.

The Pac-12 reported $334 million in total revenue for a fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, the first that reflects the conference’s 12-year, $3 billion TV rights deals with ESPN and Fox; the debut of the wholly conference-owned Pac-12 Networks; and operations of the conference’s nascent marketing and media arm, Pac-12 Enterprises.

That total represents a $158.1 million increase in revenue over what the conference reported for the 2011-12 fiscal year and a more than tripling of the $111.8 million that the Pac-12 reported for 2010-11.

The Big Ten recently reported $318.4 million in total revenue for a fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. The SEC reported $314.5 million reported for a fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2013.

I imagine the Big Ten and SEC poobahs will give Delany and Slive a chance to match that.  But if two or three years go by and that hasn’t happened, look for some more fan friendly moves to be made.

Wednesday morning buffet

The chafing dishes are full, so knock yourselves out.

• “Gets. You. Fired. Up.”  Ugh.
• Athlon ranks Georgia eighth in its preseason top 25:  “Barring the unforeseen, Georgia’s prospects come down to Mason and the defense.”
• Florida and Miami chew over renewing their series… at a neutral site.
• Was Aaron Murray’s last season at Georgia worth over $2 million?
• A college football head coach hot seat list without Mark Richt’s name on it?  I don’t think so.
• More evidence of the ripple effect from the Northwestern unionization effort.
• Speaking of unions, a North Carolina union for public workers will allow scholarship student-athletes at public universities to join as state employees.
• And a Boston politician has introduced two ordinances that would give health care and educational rights to college athletes beyond what the NCAA requires.
• Another reason to stay in school and get that degree, kids.
• Gus Malzahn wants to keep up with pace on the defensive side of the ball.

“We like our path to the national championship playoff.”

The Big 12 thinks the Pac-12’s whining about the SEC’s eight-game regular season conference schedule is just crazy talk.

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said the SEC struck a compromise by staying at eight and requiring a nonconference game against a power-five conference starting in 2016.

“It isn’t the number of games, it’s who you’re playing,” Bowlsby said. “The committee will be more than sophisticated enough to make those distinctions, just like my experience with the basketball committee. They could very easily tell the difference between a 9-9 record when everybody plays each other twice and a 9-9 when there’s been some no-plays and one-plays.”

Then again, wandering soul and current Arizona State head coach Todd Graham doubles down by jumping on Bowlsby’s conference for not playing a nine-game schedule and a championship game. Never mind that the Big 12 is a ten-team conference playing a round robin schedule that makes a conference championship game as useless as tits on a boar hog.  Todd thinks that everyone should model themselves on what the Pac-12 wants:

“If we’re playing Stanford and if we didn’t play that extra (Pac-12) game, we’d be playing a [FCS] team,” Graham said. “What if we go undefeated and lose to Oregon in the championship game and the team in the Big 12 doesn’t have to play a championship game?”

The response to that is so obvious that I’m not going to insult your intelligence by typing it here.  But even Jim Delany recognizes the obvious overarching issue.

B1G's Jim Delany on @CFBPlayoff committee: "If they don't look at strength of schedule it could be damaging to the sport"

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 9, 2014

Graham’s and David Shaw’s delicate fee-fees and Chris Fowler’s aesthetic sensibilities aside here, with regard to the selection committee’s analysis, the issue isn’t the number of high-profile conference games played.  It’s how many cupcake games a team in consideration for a playoff spot schedules, assuming that more than lip service is going to be paid to strength of schedule.  If there’s one area that needs to be painfully transparent when the committee rules from on high, that’s it.  If strength of schedule is given due deference, the big schools will find themselves lining up in accordance, one way or another.

But they said Larry Scott is a genius.

The Pac-12 discovers that broadcast partnership thingy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  What a surprise.