Official Jon Gruden Thread 33

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#4,752
#4,752
3rdDegreeVol said:
My apologies to everyone looking for Gruden news. This isn’t the post you’re looking for. Just skip to the next post. This is my working theory on how and why Gruden to the Hill is coming about. It’s going to be very long post.

For those with a little curiosity, here’s the bottom line up front (BLUF as my Army brethren call it). There is a booster or group of boosters attempting to secure the fruits of UT becoming a Top 25 research school. They’re working to ensure a continued stream of funding from Athletics to Academics by making a splash hire as the head coach and returning UT football to national prominence. You can now skip to the end if you aren’t interested in the gory details.

For those still reading here’s my take on the whole situation. Strictly my own opinion based on what I’ve read and my experience. Let’s start with the booster/Investor group because I think that once you understand what they’re trying to achieve, the roles of the rest of the players and the actions fall into place.

The booster group is leveraging the University’s drive towards becoming a top 25 public research school (top25.utk.edu). While the University has many good and valid reasons for this, the boosters see this as an opportunity to cash in on an increasing amount and quality of research coming from the University. Bubba on several occasions involvement of a (Silicon Valley) venture capital firm (not Castor Ventures). (1)(2) MIT_Beaver outs the reason. Early stage VC firms are interested in the intellectual property rights coming out of the research. (3) The boosters, in conjunction with the VC firm(s?), see this as an opportune time to develop a (binding?) relationship with an up and coming research University that funnels the valuable research results into their portfolios. I haven’t had the time to fully investigate all the players, but MIT_Beaver implies that Charlie Ergen is involved. (4)

Charlie Ergen’s possible involvement I think relates to Dish’s upcoming moves into the wireless connectivity area. Dish owns and continues to buy valuable wireless (cellular) spectrum. The first portion of which requires Dish to build out a wireless network by 2020 supporting narrowband internet of things (NB-IOT). (5) NB-IOT is one part of the proposed 5G specification. A large part of how NB-IOT is implemented is yet to be determined and will require a great deal of research (hint, hint). Dish, not being constrained by a legacy, voice-oriented network, has a tremendous chance to develop a different core network than the legacy carriers. Ergen called it “a blank sheet of paper”.

It sounds like the how this is being accomplished is through a combination of a venture capital firm advised by a MBB type management consulting firm. Together they’ve developed a plan, of which Gruden is a part, to assist the University in reaching its goal while, presumably, the VC firm gets in on the reaping of benefits. Here’s how the other major players are involved, in my opinion.

The football program is viewed as a key revenue source for the University. The Athletic Department already provides quite a bit of funding back to the Academic Department and people have noticed how the success of the Alabama football team has fueled an academic renaissance of the University of Alabama. How do you duplicate that success at Tennessee? By making a big-time splash hire as the new head football coach and give him the resources (monetary and otherwise) to compete with the Alabamas and Ohio States. This leads logically to Jon Gruden due to his connection to and past history with UT. No other coach excites the fan base and makes a national splash like him. You secure his services by making him an offer he can’t refuse (especially in light of ESPN’s well documented financial issues). Bubba says the base is $7.5M (6) but that is the least interesting part of the deal (7) and won’t all be in USD (8). Possibly a stake in the venture capital fund investing in the UT research?

The Athletic Director doesn’t really have much of a role in this. He was given the coach as part of the package deal and does not have a BANTA, although it appears he did do his due diligence and checked. The only real option he had was the timing. It appears that, while the decision to not retain Butch was made early in the season, the plan was to allow him to coach out the rest of the season and resign with a renegotiated buyout. However the performance (or lack thereof) of the team on the field and the Kendrick situation made that position untenable and Butch was let go early. At this point Currie has a replacement and is waiting a suitable amount of time to announce him. This may be due to commitments by Gruden, pressure from certain boosters, a desire to see Butch hired elsewhere, or a combination of some or all of these plus other unknown conditions.

Peyton Manning was brought in to help seal the deal on Gruden as the new head coach and to provide an incentive to accept the deal on the part of the Academic Department in the form of potential fundraising. I think Peyton’s involvement was actually predicated on the football team having a reasonably successful year and needing to provide rationale and support for changing the coach. Events have shown that part was unnecessary.

The Academic Department gets increased funding and other resources to help them with their goal of becoming a top 25 public research school. They also get a built in outlet for the results of the research in the form of a relationship with the VC firm. In exchange, they’ve agreed to give up some of the control they had over the Athletic Department. This helps the Athletic Department become more competitive and increases the revenue stream from Athletics.
The Haslams are probably the only losers in this whole scenario. Their influence on the University is being minimized. This is probably to ensure there is no interference, intentional or otherwise, with all the other arrangements. I’m not into the politics of the situation but it wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t personal reasons behind it as well if some of the speculation about past power struggles is true.

MIT_Beaver basically laid out his role for us as an influencer. His job was to help develop the strategy (it’s unclear on whether in whole or in part) and serve as the public influencer. He’s using VN and the Vol fan base to increase public pressure on the University to ensure that all aspects of the deal are approved.
Bubba appears to be part of the venture capital team arranging things. His posts indicate knowledge of the details and indicates his own involvement (9).

(1) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(2) Official Jon Gruden Thread XXI
(3) Official Jon Gruden Thread XXV
(4) Official Jon Gruden Thread XXVI
(5) Dish: We already have RAN vendors for our NB-IoT network | FierceWireless
(6) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(7) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(8) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(9) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
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#4,754
#4,754
3rdDegreeVol said:
My apologies to everyone looking for Gruden news. This isn’t the post you’re looking for. Just skip to the next post. This is my working theory on how and why Gruden to the Hill is coming about. It’s going to be very long post.

For those with a little curiosity, here’s the bottom line up front (BLUF as my Army brethren call it). There is a booster or group of boosters attempting to secure the fruits of UT becoming a Top 25 research school. They’re working to ensure a continued stream of funding from Athletics to Academics by making a splash hire as the head coach and returning UT football to national prominence. You can now skip to the end if you aren’t interested in the gory details.

For those still reading here’s my take on the whole situation. Strictly my own opinion based on what I’ve read and my experience. Let’s start with the booster/Investor group because I think that once you understand what they’re trying to achieve, the roles of the rest of the players and the actions fall into place.

The booster group is leveraging the University’s drive towards becoming a top 25 public research school (top25.utk.edu). While the University has many good and valid reasons for this, the boosters see this as an opportunity to cash in on an increasing amount and quality of research coming from the University. Bubba on several occasions involvement of a (Silicon Valley) venture capital firm (not Castor Ventures). (1)(2) MIT_Beaver outs the reason. Early stage VC firms are interested in the intellectual property rights coming out of the research. (3) The boosters, in conjunction with the VC firm(s?), see this as an opportune time to develop a (binding?) relationship with an up and coming research University that funnels the valuable research results into their portfolios. I haven’t had the time to fully investigate all the players, but MIT_Beaver implies that Charlie Ergen is involved. (4)

Charlie Ergen’s possible involvement I think relates to Dish’s upcoming moves into the wireless connectivity area. Dish owns and continues to buy valuable wireless (cellular) spectrum. The first portion of which requires Dish to build out a wireless network by 2020 supporting narrowband internet of things (NB-IOT). (5) NB-IOT is one part of the proposed 5G specification. A large part of how NB-IOT is implemented is yet to be determined and will require a great deal of research (hint, hint). Dish, not being constrained by a legacy, voice-oriented network, has a tremendous chance to develop a different core network than the legacy carriers. Ergen called it “a blank sheet of paper”.

It sounds like the how this is being accomplished is through a combination of a venture capital firm advised by a MBB type management consulting firm. Together they’ve developed a plan, of which Gruden is a part, to assist the University in reaching its goal while, presumably, the VC firm gets in on the reaping of benefits. Here’s how the other major players are involved, in my opinion.

The football program is viewed as a key revenue source for the University. The Athletic Department already provides quite a bit of funding back to the Academic Department and people have noticed how the success of the Alabama football team has fueled an academic renaissance of the University of Alabama. How do you duplicate that success at Tennessee? By making a big-time splash hire as the new head football coach and give him the resources (monetary and otherwise) to compete with the Alabamas and Ohio States. This leads logically to Jon Gruden due to his connection to and past history with UT. No other coach excites the fan base and makes a national splash like him. You secure his services by making him an offer he can’t refuse (especially in light of ESPN’s well documented financial issues). Bubba says the base is $7.5M (6) but that is the least interesting part of the deal (7) and won’t all be in USD (8). Possibly a stake in the venture capital fund investing in the UT research?

The Athletic Director doesn’t really have much of a role in this. He was given the coach as part of the package deal and does not have a BANTA, although it appears he did do his due diligence and checked. The only real option he had was the timing. It appears that, while the decision to not retain Butch was made early in the season, the plan was to allow him to coach out the rest of the season and resign with a renegotiated buyout. However the performance (or lack thereof) of the team on the field and the Kendrick situation made that position untenable and Butch was let go early. At this point Currie has a replacement and is waiting a suitable amount of time to announce him. This may be due to commitments by Gruden, pressure from certain boosters, a desire to see Butch hired elsewhere, or a combination of some or all of these plus other unknown conditions.

Peyton Manning was brought in to help seal the deal on Gruden as the new head coach and to provide an incentive to accept the deal on the part of the Academic Department in the form of potential fundraising. I think Peyton’s involvement was actually predicated on the football team having a reasonably successful year and needing to provide rationale and support for changing the coach. Events have shown that part was unnecessary.

The Academic Department gets increased funding and other resources to help them with their goal of becoming a top 25 public research school. They also get a built in outlet for the results of the research in the form of a relationship with the VC firm. In exchange, they’ve agreed to give up some of the control they had over the Athletic Department. This helps the Athletic Department become more competitive and increases the revenue stream from Athletics.
The Haslams are probably the only losers in this whole scenario. Their influence on the University is being minimized. This is probably to ensure there is no interference, intentional or otherwise, with all the other arrangements. I’m not into the politics of the situation but it wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t personal reasons behind it as well if some of the speculation about past power struggles is true.

MIT_Beaver basically laid out his role for us as an influencer. His job was to help develop the strategy (it’s unclear on whether in whole or in part) and serve as the public influencer. He’s using VN and the Vol fan base to increase public pressure on the University to ensure that all aspects of the deal are approved.
Bubba appears to be part of the venture capital team arranging things. His posts indicate knowledge of the details and indicates his own involvement (9).

(1) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(2) Official Jon Gruden Thread XXI
(3) Official Jon Gruden Thread XXV
(4) Official Jon Gruden Thread XXVI
(5) Dish: We already have RAN vendors for our NB-IoT network | FierceWireless
(6) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(7) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(8) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
(9) Official Jon Gruden Thread XX
Click to expand...

Got dang son I bet you started writing that book in the Jon X thread and just got done finishing that up. You literally just gave everyone the cliff notes of the past 33 threads. Man I commend your efforts. When will your book signing be, and will you autograph a copy for me? Thanks! As the great Gruden himself would say. "I tell ya what man, what you just wrote out is wild, man."
 
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#4,756
#4,756
knoxswim890 said:
It's certainly an interesting angle. Truly, I always enjoy your posts. :hi: My thoughts on this is that Ergen's folks know they have to cut Gruden's ESPN contract, and hence are helping him land his next gig (at Tennessee) because he's a byproduct of the downsizing.

The reason Bubba/MIT know Gruden is gone from ESPN is because he has to be. They work for the consulting firm evaluating the strategic nature of this deal. As part, they have used this board as an informal vetting process to evaluate whether they could put all their eggs in the UT basket (the stalking horse), and this thread seemed to validate that opinion.
Click to expand...

What's even more possible is a Dish/Verizon partnership to get into Sat Phones
 
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#4,760
#4,760
Ok seriously its about flipping the switch. Gruden's had his success and lifestyle. No need for him other than his own internal drive to do something truly amazing for himself and for all of us.

IF he decided to do this it means he is ALL IN and anything short of perfection in his eyes is unacceptable. He will choke the life out of you until you execute or cry. He will call you a ***** and tell you take off the orange because you dont deserve to wear it. We are talking an unprecedented level of intensity never before seen on the sidelines. IF gruden does coach in college my money says its at UT and he gets ejected within first 3 games.
 
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#4,764
#4,764
3rddegreevol said:
my apologies to everyone looking for gruden news. This isn’t the post you’re looking for. Just skip to the next post. This is my working theory on how and why gruden to the hill is coming about. It’s going to be very long post.

For those with a little curiosity, here’s the bottom line up front (bluf as my army brethren call it). There is a booster or group of boosters attempting to secure the fruits of ut becoming a top 25 research school. They’re working to ensure a continued stream of funding from athletics to academics by making a splash hire as the head coach and returning ut football to national prominence. You can now skip to the end if you aren’t interested in the gory details.

For those still reading here’s my take on the whole situation. Strictly my own opinion based on what i’ve read and my experience. Let’s start with the booster/investor group because i think that once you understand what they’re trying to achieve, the roles of the rest of the players and the actions fall into place.

The booster group is leveraging the university’s drive towards becoming a top 25 public research school (top25.utk.edu). While the university has many good and valid reasons for this, the boosters see this as an opportunity to cash in on an increasing amount and quality of research coming from the university. Bubba on several occasions involvement of a (silicon valley) venture capital firm (not castor ventures). (1)(2) mit_beaver outs the reason. Early stage vc firms are interested in the intellectual property rights coming out of the research. (3) the boosters, in conjunction with the vc firm(s?), see this as an opportune time to develop a (binding?) relationship with an up and coming research university that funnels the valuable research results into their portfolios. I haven’t had the time to fully investigate all the players, but mit_beaver implies that charlie ergen is involved. (4)

charlie ergen’s possible involvement i think relates to dish’s upcoming moves into the wireless connectivity area. Dish owns and continues to buy valuable wireless (cellular) spectrum. The first portion of which requires dish to build out a wireless network by 2020 supporting narrowband internet of things (nb-iot). (5) nb-iot is one part of the proposed 5g specification. A large part of how nb-iot is implemented is yet to be determined and will require a great deal of research (hint, hint). Dish, not being constrained by a legacy, voice-oriented network, has a tremendous chance to develop a different core network than the legacy carriers. Ergen called it “a blank sheet of paper”.

It sounds like the how this is being accomplished is through a combination of a venture capital firm advised by a mbb type management consulting firm. Together they’ve developed a plan, of which gruden is a part, to assist the university in reaching its goal while, presumably, the vc firm gets in on the reaping of benefits. Here’s how the other major players are involved, in my opinion.

The football program is viewed as a key revenue source for the university. The athletic department already provides quite a bit of funding back to the academic department and people have noticed how the success of the alabama football team has fueled an academic renaissance of the university of alabama. How do you duplicate that success at tennessee? By making a big-time splash hire as the new head football coach and give him the resources (monetary and otherwise) to compete with the alabamas and ohio states. This leads logically to jon gruden due to his connection to and past history with ut. No other coach excites the fan base and makes a national splash like him. You secure his services by making him an offer he can’t refuse (especially in light of espn’s well documented financial issues). Bubba says the base is $7.5m (6) but that is the least interesting part of the deal (7) and won’t all be in usd (8). Possibly a stake in the venture capital fund investing in the ut research?

The athletic director doesn’t really have much of a role in this. He was given the coach as part of the package deal and does not have a banta, although it appears he did do his due diligence and checked. The only real option he had was the timing. It appears that, while the decision to not retain butch was made early in the season, the plan was to allow him to coach out the rest of the season and resign with a renegotiated buyout. However the performance (or lack thereof) of the team on the field and the kendrick situation made that position untenable and butch was let go early. At this point currie has a replacement and is waiting a suitable amount of time to announce him. This may be due to commitments by gruden, pressure from certain boosters, a desire to see butch hired elsewhere, or a combination of some or all of these plus other unknown conditions.

Peyton manning was brought in to help seal the deal on gruden as the new head coach and to provide an incentive to accept the deal on the part of the academic department in the form of potential fundraising. I think peyton’s involvement was actually predicated on the football team having a reasonably successful year and needing to provide rationale and support for changing the coach. Events have shown that part was unnecessary.

The academic department gets increased funding and other resources to help them with their goal of becoming a top 25 public research school. They also get a built in outlet for the results of the research in the form of a relationship with the vc firm. In exchange, they’ve agreed to give up some of the control they had over the athletic department. This helps the athletic department become more competitive and increases the revenue stream from athletics.
The haslams are probably the only losers in this whole scenario. Their influence on the university is being minimized. This is probably to ensure there is no interference, intentional or otherwise, with all the other arrangements. I’m not into the politics of the situation but it wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t personal reasons behind it as well if some of the speculation about past power struggles is true.

Mit_beaver basically laid out his role for us as an influencer. His job was to help develop the strategy (it’s unclear on whether in whole or in part) and serve as the public influencer. He’s using vn and the vol fan base to increase public pressure on the university to ensure that all aspects of the deal are approved.
Bubba appears to be part of the venture capital team arranging things. His posts indicate knowledge of the details and indicates his own involvement (9).

(1) official jon gruden thread xx
(2) official jon gruden thread xxi
(3) official jon gruden thread xxv
(4) official jon gruden thread xxvi
(5) dish: We already have ran vendors for our nb-iot network | fiercewireless
(6) official jon gruden thread xx
(7) official jon gruden thread xx
(8) official jon gruden thread xx
(9) official jon gruden thread xx
Click to expand...

beaver this sound corrrect?
 
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#4,766
#4,766
They also increased the chances of him saying yes from 0 to 10 percent. An increase of Buzz like numbers.

To infinity and beyond
 
#4,768
#4,768
Up to 95% confidence after FINALLY catching up today. And now it seems fairly logical to announce by Vandy.

On a slightly related note, does anyone have any good suggestions for a tailgate group name? Gruden's Gang is the best so far, but still looking for more ideas.

Oh, and I want one of those T-shirts I saw a bunch of pages ago!
 
#4,772
#4,772
Hawkpilot said:
Dish is on a tight timeline to get their spectrum (quantity) of wireless service to the market. The quickest way is on someone else's equipment, then build your own 5g service on your own time or not at all.

If you can partner with someone who has brand familiarity in the wireless world it is easier to sell your service (tv package). ATT/Directv sell TV/internet together but this would be a cell service streaming tv package. This isn't traditional home internet we're talking about..if it is then i completely misunderstand it.


Again, obtaining ESPN and the rights to stream it when you hold the ability to market it is amazing. If the only way to stream ESPN is to say be a T mobile customer (who would be partnered with Ergen) that would probably generate huge revenue.

ESPN needing to reduce costs to make the sale is what Concep alluded to.

So the question, is Gruden the byproduct or the prize? If any of this is true.
Click to expand...

Hawk, the reason I don't think this is true is that Dish already owns the rights to stream ESPN. They do it through Sling. Plus there's no logical reason to get UT involved. ESPN is valued somewhere near $50B. Gruden's salary is nothing compared to that. Why single him out? I'm sure others probably make more than that. That's where the Dish/ESPN thing falls apart for me.
 
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#4,774
#4,774
KnoxSkiVol said:
Up to 95% confidence after FINALLY catching up today. And now it seems fairly logical to announce by Vandy.

On a slightly related note, does anyone have any good suggestions for a tailgate group name? Gruden's Gang is the best so far, but still looking for more ideas.

Oh, and I want one of those T-shirts I saw a bunch of pages ago!
Click to expand...

"Child's Play"
 
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#4,775
#4,775
KnoxSkiVol said:
Up to 95% confidence after FINALLY catching up today. And now it seems fairly logical to announce by Vandy.

On a slightly related note, does anyone have any good suggestions for a tailgate group name? Gruden's Gang is the best so far, but still looking for more ideas.

Oh, and I want one of those T-shirts I saw a bunch of pages ago!
Click to expand...

Shoot me an email. Bkwvols@hotmail.com and I can get it taken care of for you.
 
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