OK, folks, here's the full Q&A from our sit-down Wednesday with John Thrasher.
Q&A with President Thrasher
I also wanted to offer some thoughts and observations.
For starters, I didn't get as far with the neutral-site games as I wanted with him because the first couple questions didn't go very far, and I knew I would be limited by time and had a lot of other things to get to. I hoped to circle back to that at the end, but didn't have time. So I will be addressing those questions with Stan Wilcox the next time we get in with him.
As for the ACC Network and Grant of Rights, there is some interesting information there about the three "look-ins," which had not been previously reported. Thrasher definitely seemed to take comfort in having those windows for renegotiations. He also acknowledged that the college football landscape could be completely different in 10 years (he even brought up the idea of super-conferences), so I get the feeling he's not too worried about a piece of paper signed in 2016. If things change, he seems confident FSU will be able to change with them. And if they don't, at least the ACC will still be a viable conference. (I'm writing a separate story on this as well)
On the Showtime series, he confirmed to me that FSU was getting paid for the series. I haven't been able to obtain those contract terms yet, but I am working on it. He had a lot of interesting things to say about that.
I also asked him about FSU and Clemson pushing for more revenue as the football leaders in the conference, and he gave the answer you would expect -- that conferences pretty much have to "share and share alike."
We covered many other things, including Stan Wilcox's contract extension, Doak improvements and more.
Overall, I hope you find the interview insightful. You'll notice that it twists and turns a little bit as he gets off topic at times and I have to come back to certain questions later in the interview. I don't think he was necessarily trying to go off on tangents, although that's certainly possible. The guy is extremely sharp and has faced much tougher questions than the ones I could offer.
So you'll have to be patient with the interview -- it's a long read, but we covered as much of the important stuff as I could in 30 minutes. If you have any questions from it, let me know and I'll share what I know.
Q&A with President Thrasher
I also wanted to offer some thoughts and observations.
For starters, I didn't get as far with the neutral-site games as I wanted with him because the first couple questions didn't go very far, and I knew I would be limited by time and had a lot of other things to get to. I hoped to circle back to that at the end, but didn't have time. So I will be addressing those questions with Stan Wilcox the next time we get in with him.
As for the ACC Network and Grant of Rights, there is some interesting information there about the three "look-ins," which had not been previously reported. Thrasher definitely seemed to take comfort in having those windows for renegotiations. He also acknowledged that the college football landscape could be completely different in 10 years (he even brought up the idea of super-conferences), so I get the feeling he's not too worried about a piece of paper signed in 2016. If things change, he seems confident FSU will be able to change with them. And if they don't, at least the ACC will still be a viable conference. (I'm writing a separate story on this as well)
On the Showtime series, he confirmed to me that FSU was getting paid for the series. I haven't been able to obtain those contract terms yet, but I am working on it. He had a lot of interesting things to say about that.
I also asked him about FSU and Clemson pushing for more revenue as the football leaders in the conference, and he gave the answer you would expect -- that conferences pretty much have to "share and share alike."
We covered many other things, including Stan Wilcox's contract extension, Doak improvements and more.
Overall, I hope you find the interview insightful. You'll notice that it twists and turns a little bit as he gets off topic at times and I have to come back to certain questions later in the interview. I don't think he was necessarily trying to go off on tangents, although that's certainly possible. The guy is extremely sharp and has faced much tougher questions than the ones I could offer.
So you'll have to be patient with the interview -- it's a long read, but we covered as much of the important stuff as I could in 30 minutes. If you have any questions from it, let me know and I'll share what I know.
