The Big Ten continues the march to increase its presence on the East Coast by adding Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse as the conference’s first-ever affiliate member and the Pinstripe Bowl based at Yankee Stadium in New York City as a bowl tie-in. These moves aren’t necessarily earth-shattering in the way that the expansion with Maryland and Rutgers was back in November, but they show how Jim Delany and the Big Ten’s university presidents are aiming to make the league as much of an East Coast conference as it is a Midwestern conference.
As far as men’s lacrosse programs go, Johns Hopkins is considered to be the gold standard with more national championships than any other school and clung onto independence in the same way that Notre Dame continues to do so for football.* At the same time, the Big Ten has long had the stance that schools with either “all in” or “all out” (hence the hardline resistance to ever offer schools like Notre Dame any non-football membership). So, it was a bit of a surprise when news broke a few months ago that the Big Ten and JHU were exploring an affiliate relationship. Johns Hopkins then formed a Blue Ribbon Committee that ultimately recommended that the men’s lacrosse team should join a conference last month in a fascinating report. Among the requirements that JHU deemed to be important were an initial membership period of 5 years and that the school could maintain its current TV contract with ESPNU. A number of Big Ten observers thought that the latter TV rights item would be an obstacle on paper (since increasing the inventory of desirable non-football/basketball programming has been a primary goal of the Big Ten Network), but that was assuaged by the fact that Johns Hopkins would not receive any conference revenue (which would make any potential complications as to how an affiliate member would partake in the BTN money trough moot).
(* For anyone that remembers the original version of The Official Preppy Handbook, I always recall that lacrosse was listed as a preppy sport simply because people from Baltimore loved it and that the city was “very prep”. That’s quite a jarring characterization these days for people that have seen The Wire.)
Looking back, this was a perfect storm for both parties to get to this position: the Big Ten needed 1 more school to create a men’s lacrosse league after it had added Maryland and Rutgers, Johns Hopkins had been concerned about how conference realignment was changing its ability to remain independent in men’s lacrosse even before it had failed to make it to the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament for the first time since it began in 1971, and JHU would provide the Big Ten an elite academic research powerhouse located in close proximity to the conference’s other Eastern members and the very best program in the history of the sport. Plus, the only sports that Johns Hopkins sponsors at the Division I level are men’s and women’s lacrosse*, while the rest of its athletic department operates under Division III. Finally, if JHU ends up joining the Committee of Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which is the academic research consortium that includes all 14 Big Ten members plus the University of Chicago, then it’s a coup in terms of prestige. (For whatever reason, Penn State’s official press release on the new Big Ten lacrosse league is the only place that I’ve seen that mentions Hopkins contacting the CIC.) All of those factors make this situation quite unique compared to thoughts of adding Notre Dame for various non-football sports or, say, Boston University for hockey. As a result, I don’t see the addition of Johns Hopkins for men’s lacrosse as any indication of a broader intent by the Big Ten to search for affiliate members in other sports. Johns Hopkins was the right program in the right sport with the right academic profile at the right time for the Big Ten.
(* Interestingly enough, the Johns Hopkins women’s lacrosse program is going in the opposite direction of choosing independence after having been a member of the American Lacrosse Conference. The ALC featured three Big Ten programs, including national powerhouse Northwestern. I’m personally not a fan of JHU going in this direction as the school would have technically been “all in” with the Big Ten for all of its Division I sports if women’s lacrosse had joined, but it’s less of an issue since men’s lacrosse is clearly the marquee program there. It’s akin to Notre Dame stating that it would join a conference football but go independent in its other sports, where pretty much any league would say, “That’s kind of weird, but HELL YES, we’ll take that deal!” Also note that Northwestern and Maryland have more women’s lacrosse national championships between them than all of the other schools that sponsor the sport *combined*, so the intense competition level may have also been a factor for JHU. That being said, there still seems to be somewhat of a door open for the women’s program to join the Big Ten down the road, as the powers that be have claimed that they “haven’t discussed it” yet.)
Meanwhile, a little further north, the Big Ten and New York Yankees announced that the conference will have a tie-in with the New Era Pinstripe Bowl for the next 8 years (with the opponent almost certainly coming from the ACC). From the standpoint of increasing the Big Ten’s mindshare on the East Coast, the tie-in makes perfect sense. The long-term goal of Jim Delany is to make the Big Ten into the de facto “home conference” for the New York City market in the same way that it is in Chicago already. To be sure, that’s a monumentally tough task (as the number of Big Ten grads in the Chicago market is massive by comparison), but the hope is that the cumulative effect of the presence of Rutgers, the Pinstripe Bowl tie-in, and the fans and alums from other Big Ten schools that have a large presence in the NYC area (particularly Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State and now Maryland) will gain traction there in a way that none of the other conferences would be able to (which is arguably a risk well worth taking considering the size and power of that market). In an interesting marketing wrinkle, the Big Ten will actually have a fixed sign in Yankee Stadium along the first base line along with being part of the rotating ads behind home plate during regular season Yankees games starting in 2014, which might end up being the best advertising that the conference could get in that market.
Whether the Pinstripe Bowl will actually be a great deal for traveling fans is a different matter. Believe me – I love New York City and enjoy the idea of playing a bowl game there, but most of the Big Ten territory prefers its winter destinations to be escapes from the cold weather of the North*. At the same time, Yankee Stadium isn’t in Manhattan or even in a neighborhood comparable to Wrigleyville in Chicago. (As a White Sox fan, it always amuses me when people complain about the “bad” neighborhood that surrounds U.S. Cellular Field as being a drag on attendance since it makes it clear that they’ve never visited the Bronx.) I could see how Rutgers, Penn State and Maryland could travel up to the Pinstripe Bowl fairly easily, but it remains to be seen how the rest of the conference would travel there.
(* If the speculation is true that the Big Ten bowl rotation will consist of the Rose, Orange, Capital One, Outback and Holiday at the top, a mix of the Kraft Fight Hunger, Pinstripe and Gator/Music City at the next level, and a new Detroit Lions bowl against the ACC and maybe the Heart of Dallas in the old Cotton Bowl at the bottom, then I’ll be pretty happy with that lineup. It would hurt to lose the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl since the Phoenix area is such a large home base for Big Ten transplants, but the Kraft Fight Hunger is going to turn into a top notch game when it moves to the new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara and I will always quickly find any excuse to head out to San Diego. I’ll have a more in-depth analysis of the entire Big Ten bowl lineup once it’s officially confirmed.)
The overall message from the Big Ten today is that it’s going full steam ahead in heading to the East Coast. I’ve long been confident that the strategy will work around leveraging Maryland to get into the Washington, DC and Baltimore markets (which will only be further aided by adding Johns Hopkins as an affiliate member), yet the New York City portion of this cycle of expansion and bowl contracts will determine whether Big Ten is going to end up being the second most powerful sports entity in America after the NFL in 10 years or we’ll be sitting around wondering why the conference had chased after cable network fool’s gold. There’s a better chance for the former to occur than what a lot of conference realignment skeptics believe, but the latter could certainly still happen.
(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)
(Image from Baltimore Sun)
RTR
LikeLike
PSU #1
LikeLike
Go Huskers!
LikeLike
GBR
LikeLike
Hoping to someday see PSU play Pitt in the Pinstripe.
LikeLike
Pitt’s contractually obligated to play its postseason game in Birmingham… even if the ACC doesn’t have a tie-in there.
LikeLike
Don’t be so quick about that. Next bowl cycle, I actually am projecting the ACC to face the SEC in the Birmingham bowl.
You may have entire classes at Pitt who graduate knowing no bowl experience but Birmingham’s.
LikeLike
Usually with an interim coach…
LikeLike
Hysterical. I’d give you a +1 if I could. Maybe I just did.
LikeLike
GEAUX Tigers! On to Omaha!
LikeLike
Super Regionals are finally set. UNC holds off FAU in 13 innings. Rice also upsets #8 national seed Oregon. 14 #1 seeds and 2 #2 seeds advance.
Congrats to loki’s Rice Owls and ‘shroom & duff’s Hoosiers for advancing.
By Conference:
SEC (4) – LSU, Vandy, South Carolina & Miss State
ACC (4) – UNC, NC State, UVa, & Florida State
Pac 12 (2) – Oregon State & UCLA
Big XII (2) – K-State & Oklahoma
B1G – Indiana
Big East – Louisville
Big West – CSU Fullerton
CUSA – Rice
This weekend’s match-ups:
South Carolina at #1 UNC
Louisville at #2 Vandy
K-State at #3 Oregon State
Oklahoma (2) at #4 LSU
UCLA at #5 Fullerton
Miss State at #6 Virginia
Indiana at #7 Florida State
Rice (2) at NC State
LikeLike
Update for start of CWS
Today
Mississippi State (SEC) vs Oregon State (PAC) 3:00 PM EST on ESPN2
Indiana (B1G) vs Louisville (Big East) 8:00 PM ESTon ESPN
Tomorrow
North Carolina (ACC) vs NC State (ACC) 3:00 PM EST on ESPN2
UCLA (PAC) vs LSU SEC 8:00 PM EST on ESPN2
LikeLike
Hawks.
LikeLike
Welcome to the B1G family!
LikeLike
Gig EM’
LikeLike
XLAX?
LikeLike
The Big Ten should tell JHU it can only join the CIC if it becomes a member in women’s lacrosse. Like Notre Dame in football, Hopkins thinks it’s bigger than the game, and I’m sorry Delany acceded to JHU’s demands.
LikeLike
Perhaps JHU said it would only join the CIC if the men’s LAX could come alone? Isn’t that really the cherry here? I’m glad the COP/C accede to that.
LikeLike
The Big Ten should tell JHU it can only join the CIC if it becomes a member in women’s lacrosse.
And how does that negotiating tactic help the Big Ten? The Big Ten would take the Hopkins women’s program, but it doesn’t need them. I’d say that if Hopkins joined for the CIC plus men’s LAX, the Big Ten might arguably be getting the better end of the deal. It certainly wouldn’t be any worse off than before.
Like Notre Dame in football, Hopkins thinks it’s bigger than the game, and I’m sorry Delany acceded to JHU’s demands.
Exactly how does Hopkins think that…when THEY joined a conference, and Notre Dame football did not? What demands did they make, that Delany acceded to? Is there an inside story that you’re privy to, that the rest of us missed?
LikeLike
Something strange happened with the women’s end of this. Several sites reported yesterday that women’s lacrosse was joining too.
And if you google (hopkins “news-letter” big ten lacrosse), you see a link to the JHU News-Letter stating–on the search page–that Hopkins would join for both men’s and women’s. If you open the link, you go to the updated version, which says only men’s will join. But the search page still uses the cached version, published yesterday, and that shows that the JHU newsletter itself thought both were joining.
My guess is that women’s will join too, but they’re not ready to announce for whatever reason.
LikeLike
Most of the articles also included a statement along the lines of: ‘the B1G will be adding both men’s and woman’s LAX’. This may have confused some people into thinking JHU’s woman’s team was joining as well. With that said, I think you may be onto something.
LikeLike
I speculated earlier that that if the Big Ten was willing to tolerate the women’s team as independent, that might not extend to joining a conference other than the Big Ten women’s competition … if there is a term to the agreement that JHU women’s team would either be independent or in the Big Ten, that could easily get distorted at one or two steps remove into the women joining the Big Ten.
LikeLike
BruceMcF,
“I speculated earlier that that if the Big Ten was willing to tolerate the women’s team as independent, that might not extend to joining a conference other than the Big Ten women’s competition … if there is a term to the agreement that JHU women’s team would either be independent or in the Big Ten, that could easily get distorted at one or two steps remove into the women joining the Big Ten.”
I agree, it seems highly unlikely the B10 would let the women compete in another conference. I think the B10 is hoping that the men will have such a good experience that JHU will change their mind and have the women join. The B10 isn’t the American Lacrosse Conference. It has the unity and resources to make the experience better.
LikeLike
Under NCAA rules I don’t even think JHU could put their women’s program in another conference.
Supposedly their is a rule stating that you can’t divide your athletic department amongst different conferences unless one conference doesn’t sponsor one of your sports (i.e. Missouri is allowed to put its wrestling team in the MAC because the SEC doesn’t sponsor the sport but they couldn’t do the same for baseball which the SEC does sponsor).
LikeLike
frug,
“Under NCAA rules I don’t even think JHU could put their women’s program in another conference.
Supposedly their is a rule stating that you can’t divide your athletic department amongst different conferences unless one conference doesn’t sponsor one of your sports (i.e. Missouri is allowed to put its wrestling team in the MAC because the SEC doesn’t sponsor the sport but they couldn’t do the same for baseball which the SEC does sponsor).”
But what if the women joined a conference that doesn’t offer men’s lacrosse, the Big South? They’d say the Centennial Conference is their home league and their two D-I programs are split because the Big South doesn’t offer men’s lacrosse. Is there a clause that would force them to join the B10 since it does offer both? I don’t know.
LikeLike
They are presently in a single sport conference, which they are leaving to become independent in the 2014/2015 school year. That conference would be compliant, it does not sponsor men’s lacrosse.
LikeLike
Damn, didn’t think of it that way, but, yeah, they would probably be acceptable under NCAA rules.
LikeLike
That would be the case if they were a full Big Ten member. You can be an independent in a sport and not join your conferences league. You can not join another conference for a sport when your conference sponsors it.
John Hopkins isn’t a full Big Ten member though, they are just an affiliate (specific contract for a single sport) so the NCAA rule doesn’t apply to them.
LikeLike
vp19,
Like you, I also hope that Hopkins goes “all-in” and, if the tweet reported by Frank is legit, they might still go “all-in” in the near future.
Do realize, though, that Delany works for the B1G universities, not the other way around. I know that is what it looks like but the reality is different. JHU’s academic heft overwhelms whatever issues some fans may have about affiliate membership.
1. B1G gets the sixth team to start up the men’s lacrosse league
2. Having them in the CIC helps to shut up the whining elitists who think that renowned schools like Nebraska are beneath them, not to mention the added political power of Hopkins
3. Helps to turn down a few notches the chest-thumping on the part of the ACC’ers who come here, at least until they reveal their new “vaunted master plan” to defeat the B1G
Btw, in case anyone want to see the video of the press conference, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l3wk7N6LyI
LikeLike
Transic,
“Like you, I also hope that Hopkins goes “all-in” and, if the tweet reported by Frank is legit, they might still go “all-in” in the near future.”
I think all or almost all of us want that given that the men’s team is a done deal. The difference is in how upset we are by their partial membership.
“2. Having them in the CIC helps to shut up the whining elitists who think that renowned schools like Nebraska are beneath them, not to mention the added political power of Hopkins”
NE is a very good school, but they are clearly the bottom of the B10 academically. It is a fair are to complain about, as is the lack of athletic success at RU. Besides, I don’t think adding JHU will stop any of the NE complaints. Maybe if they were added at the same time, but not this far apart.
“3. Helps to turn down a few notches the chest-thumping on the part of the ACC’ers who come here, at least until they reveal their new “vaunted master plan” to defeat the B1G”
I don’t worry much about internet posters, but it was helpful to the B10 to not let the ACC reestablish themselves in MD by getting JHU’s men’s lacrosse. This solidifies the B10 as the college conference of the mid-Atlantic, from DC to Baltimore to Philadelphia to Newark (NYC is up in the air, but the B10 has it for CFB), with DC, MD, DE, PA and NJ all solidly B10.
LikeLike
vp19,
“The Big Ten should tell JHU it can only join the CIC if it becomes a member in women’s lacrosse.”
Why? Their women’s team isn’t a big deal. They aren’t even very good. Yes, it would be a little more mid-Atlantic access but men’s lax is a much bigger deal than women’s.
Things the B10 wanted in this deal:
1. JHU’s men’s lacrosse team – 6th men’s lax team, lax king, more mid-Atlantic access, etc
2. JHU in the CIC – #1 research school
3. To keep JHU out of the ACC
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. JHU’s women’s lacrosse team
If you get the men’s team, why would you turn down their research? That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If you want the B10 to make a principled stand on not having a partial member by having all JHU’s D-I teams join, I can understand that. But then you should be rejecting the men’s team, not their CIC membership.
LikeLike
Slight side note:
JHU continues to cling to the “most national titles” meme, while conveniently grabbing disputed titles the same way Alabama does in football. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Syracuse has won two more championships (11 versus Hopkins’ nine) since the NCAA started sponsoring a men’s lacrosse tournament. To me, the biggest issue for JHU in aligning with the B1G is its fear of becoming irrelevant in a shrinking at-large pool, first and foremost. After missing the tournament for the first time in forever this season, it lit a flame under their ass that likely would’ve stayed dormant if they’d scored an at-large bid and maybe advanced a round. They’re panicking in a way maybe Notre Dame football would’ve if not for their recent resurgence, so they grabbed the boat that needed them most (the B1G), not the one that provided the best competition and fit (the ACC).
LikeLike
These rumors/talks far predate JHU’s missing the post season. Frank’s post from February: http://frankthetank.me/2013/02/07/big-ten-expansion-lacrosse-style-potential-catholic-7-fallout-and-the-classic-east-c7-name-game/
LikeLike
Though all of this got underway well before the NCAA tournament bids went out. So this would be panicking in advance of the event that was supposed to cause the panic.
LikeLike
Competition, without a doubt. But with Maryland joining the Big Ten, the question of ‘fit’ is debatable. Yes, the ACC is dominant. Sort of like Canada was dominant in hockey before the rest of the world took up the sport. Penn State is already respectable and within a decade the Big Ten’s resources and network will help them narrow the gap.
As for your ‘panic’ theory, this article refutes that:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/lacrosse-blog/bal-johns-hopkins-lacrosse-program-to-join-big-ten-20130602,0,1998652.story
BTW, I thought you were happy for us?
LikeLike
I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but Canada is still pretty damn formidable in hockey – all levels – and they have far less people than say the US or Russia. Moreover, they continue to place the bulk of the best into the NHL.
As for BIG Lax, men’s side, people overlook Rutgers’ upside. They’re closer to Long Island than Syracuse & NJ prep lacrosse is generally top 5.
Btw, the BIG will be the dominant lacrosse conference on the women’s side from 2014 on. Md simply puts them in distant first.
LikeLike
Rest easy, you’re not bursting my bubble.
1) Canada has only won 9 world championships in the last 50 years. Same as Sweden, which is a third its size.
2) The bulk yes (50% of NHL is Canadian), the bulk of the best? Less all the time. Per capita Sweden creates the best hockey players. Last year Malkin(R) Lundqvist (S) Karlsson (S) and Landeskog (S) won the Hart, Vezina, Norris and Calder trophies with Bergeron (C) winning the Selke.
3) Who mentioned women’s lacrosse?
LikeLike
I wasn’t responding to you on the W. Lax note. A simple reminder that lacrosse dominance is not just measured on the men’s side.
Last year was a good year for Swedish NHL players, but they don’t deliver like Canada on the big stage: Olympic Gold or Stanley Cup leadership. Could they get there someday? I don’t know. They definitely need to play on this side of the Atlantic in order to stay the course.
World Championships are nice, but the NHL is ultimately the real deal, esp the playoffs. WC’s are also relegated to Olympic sized ovals if I’m not mistaken. Throw in the officiating at the WC level – the hits and fights just don’t come with regularity. Furthermore, the Olympics trumps WC’s. Canada has 4x more gold than Sweden. WC’s are simply third wheel, at most.
Technically & factually, I compared Canadian per capita talent with the US and Russia. I know Sweden, among others, have more per capita talent than Canada. But the Canucks, as stated, rule the biggest stages: Olympics and Stanley Cup. They also dominate the all time stats categories of the NHL. If I’m not mistaken, Mats Sundin is the only Swede in the top 30, all time scoring, and he’s barely there, no. 27.
Swedish players are a whole lot of finesse, but often lacking in the toughness department. Of course there are exceptions, but not enough. Toughness & skill often prevails in the NHL, long term.
I root for the Swedes, great players, but tragically soft often enough.
PS Malkin is quite Russian & Bergeron is Canadian. Great Lakes, your hockey knowledge needs some work : ).
LikeLike
Also, in terms of nations, hockey will generally remain a northern sport, it’s far from wide scale global popularity. Your first post mentions “the rest of the world.” Be more specific, because most nations could give a crap about hockey. Furthermore, most of the hockey world we know of, adopted the game soon after Canada broke ground, long ago. Russia (USSR) had a dominant run from pretty much 1956 – 1988. Sweden won a Silver by the third Olympic Games.
The fall of Communism simply brought the NHL great Eastern Europeans, that’s the last surge in the sport’s popularity.
PS My words: “Canada is still pretty damn formidable”. How did this turn into a pissing contest on your end? Reread your post. I’m just reminding you the Canadians still run hockey, which is not really debatable. Not yet.
LikeLike
G-funk
Nick Lidstrom was the best hockey player of this generation. Subject to debate of course, but not much.
LikeLike
Syracuse has more NCAA titles and Hopkins has more overall champions. The sport did in fact exist before the 70s so I really don’t see the problem.
LikeLike
Bingo.
LikeLike
Too bad Syracuse had to vacate one of the those titles : ). And the violations were quite severe.
LikeLike
Ah, of course. Because secondary violations where a coach’s wife co-signs for a car loan to help a player out is “pretty severe.” You’re totally right.
LikeLike
Yes, severe in my book and stupid as well. Dude why you on here hating on this decision and JHU? Chill out. Syracuse has a sliver’s edge on JHU in the NCAA era, but not overall history. The fact is they have 9 NCAA titles, that’s pretty damn impressive, better than all but Syracuse. They’re both fantastic programs.
JHU misses the tourney one time in the past 4 decades and you are predicting the Apocalypse. JHF’ngC! Sorry your team got schooled by Duke. Syracuse wasn’t even the best team in NY this year.
JHU joins Md and rising programs OSU & PSU. They’ll be fine & so will the BIG. If you want lacrosse to grow beyond the Mid Atlantic and Northeast, then JHU to the BIG is far better for the growth of the sport than say an ACC affiliate membership.
LikeLike
JohnCassillo,
“Ah, of course. Because secondary violations where a coach’s wife co-signs for a car loan to help a player out is “pretty severe.””
That sounds like something that would get a major CFB program in serious trouble. People were outraged that OSU p[layers might have gotten good deals from a used car dealer (turns out they didn’t, half paid above blue book). Co-signing a loan is very close to just giving them money since the coach’s wife was responsible for the debt and her signature probably influenced the interest rate, too. The player never really needed to make a payment. I’d expect the NCAA to take that very seriously.
LikeLike
“I promise to make your car payments if you don’t” ~ even if the intent was “I know you’re trustworthy, I’ll vouch for you”, the reality of what co-signing is makes it something the NCAA can’t turn a blind eye to without opening up the barn door. If you only want to count national championships sponsored by the NCAA, then they have to be counted under NCAA rules.
LikeLike
Um, what disputed titles has JHU been conveniently grabbing along the way? Please enlighten me.
LikeLike
According to the NCAA site, it would be 10 to 9. 10 is normally one more than 9, in decimal base arithmetic. The 1990 tournament win did not suffice to win the championship in that year, there’s a * attached to the result. You can’t both declare that championships don’t count for the more than three quarters of the century before the NCAA sponsored a championship, and then ignore the NCAA rulings on which championships do count once they did started sponsoring the sport.
LikeLike
JohnCassillo,
By all accounts the ACC showed zero interest in JHU. It’s really hard to join a league that doesn’t want you. So taking the ACC out of the equation, does another conference provide better competition and a better fit for JHU than the B10?
LikeLike
They were all over the academics in the Press Conference (youtube link above) ~ the President, the AD, the Coach. And made a point that every point they raised they thought would be a deal killer, the Big Ten said, ‘Yes, we can do that.’ Hard to see the ACC that in no way needed JHU to square a circle would have had the same reaction.
From various remarks in the Press Conference, first discussion between AD and Coach about multiple paths to NCAA tournament via a conference tournament AQ was 2 years ago, Big Ten seems to have approached JHU about six months ago (in line with it possibly following a promise to UMD to make sure its lacrosse wasn’t stranded), the AD and Coach chewed it over, went to the President to pursue it, President set up committee, committee recommended joining a conference, and since then seems like the Big Ten getting the votes in order for a unanimous decision to admit JHU as an affiliate.
LikeLike
I was just pointing out that he was creating a false choice. JHU didn’t turn down the ACC, the ACC didn’t seem to want them. So of the remaining options, which conference offered the best competition and best fit? I’d say the B10.
LikeLike
By all accounts the ACC showed zero interest in JHU.
Not disagreeing—as I haven’t searched exhaustively—but where are those accounts? I haven’t seen any story indicating that the ACC rebuffed Hopkins.
Hopkins probably would’ve chosen the Big Ten in any event, but I can’t imagine why the ACC wouldn’t have wanted them, if it ever had the chance.
LikeLike
The Sun: http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76153325/
Quote from Calder: “The ACC wasn’t an option,” Calder said. “I had tried to reach them and did not hear anything back from them. My assumption is that because they do not allow non-full time affiliate members or associate members, it really wasn’t an option.”
LikeLike
Huh? ND’s playing football in the ACC now?
LikeLike
But Affiliate member is a technical term. JHU will be an affiliate member in the Big Ten ~ which previously NEITHER the Big Ten nor the ACC allowed for.
Whether the conference allows full members to play as independents in some sport it sponsors … well, neither the Big Ten nor the ACC allowed for that previously either, but the ACC wanted Notre Dame even if those were the terms, and so now they allow for it.
Just like the Big Ten wanted JHU on THEIR terms, and so now they have some rules allowing for affiliate members.
The Big Ten wanted it to happen to make Maryland happy, the ACC did not seem to be all that interested in making it happen, so JHU joined the Big Ten, who accepted every single one of the terms that JHU laid out in their committee report.
LikeLike
Something about that doesn’t seem quite right. For one thing, the ACC already allowed a huge exception for Notre Dame. To say they were opposed to affiliate members (or whatever the term may be) would be more than a little hypocritical.
For another, unless I am miscounting, the ACC will no longer be an auto-bid league after they lose Maryland. Now, with the strength of their various teams it’s doubtful they’d ever be shut out of the tourney…still, you’d think they’d prefer to have the autobid in their hip pockets.
Lastly, for the same reasons that the Big Ten wants to grow in that region, you’d think the ACC might want to block the Big Ten if the opportunity had presented itself.
LikeLike
I don’t disagree with you, but I have no basis to think he’s lying. Also, I think you need to distinguish between an affiliate member (joins for 1 sport) and a non-FB member (joins for all but FB). ND is a non-FB member of the ACC. Boise is an affiliate member of the P12 for wrestling. It’s different.
LikeLike
They can look at auto-bid down the track. Right now its no difference ~ if the fourth ranked ACC team wins the ACC tournament, those two tournament wins and a 4th place position in the ACC are enough resume for an at-large bid.
LikeLike
If the JHU to B1G move results in JHU to CIC, then this is a really great play by the B1G. In fact, I’d wager that the CIC+JHU might tip the scales for schools like UVA/UNC down the road should their presidents tire of their weak ACC research sisters (which, frankly, is the entire conference sans Duke/GA Tech). Interesting that the CIC tail might eventually wag the football dog on this one down the road.
LikeLike
We don’t need UVa or UNC. Let’s park that idea for a long while.
LikeLike
If the JHU to B1G move results in JHU to CIC, then this is a really great play by the B1G.
If UVA/UNC ever switch conferences, the decision will be made primarily on what’s best for football and men’s basketball. If you made a list of factors they’d consider, the presence of Hopkins would obviously be on the plus side of the ledger, but it would be pretty far down the list.
I’d wager that the CIC+JHU might tip the scales for schools like UVA/UNC down the road should their presidents tire of their weak ACC research sisters (which, frankly, is the entire conference sans Duke/GA Tech).
The whole ACC isn’t “weak” in research. People throw around that word far too lightly. Pitt is a fellow-AAU school. Syracuse was in the AAU until quite recently, and although they had to leave, it would be grossly exaggerating to call them weak. Wake Forest is an elite mid-size private school. VT, Miami, and FSU, could all very well be in the AAU eventually.
LikeLike
You’re argument disintegrates with Wake is an “elite” school.
LikeLike
Oh, come on. Of course it is. I mean, it’s not Harvard or Johns Hopkins. But there’s a pretty big distance from Wake Forest to “weak”. For instance, here’s Wikipedia:
LikeLike
Your first three points are entirely beside the point ~ they are undergrad. They last one is more to the point ~ if the Law School or Business School were up in the top 25 alongside the Medical School Primary Care, it might get a “Good Professional Schools” pass, just as Notre Dame would be expected to get.
LikeLike
I know it’s easly to lose track of the argument, but I was responding to the suggestion that the entire ACC, other than UVA/UNC/Duke/GT, is “weak.” Wake Forest isn’t weak. If you need a few more stats, Wake is 60th in Federal research, ahead of such AAU members as Princeton, Tulane, and Iowa State. In total research, Wake is ahead of a number of schools that no one would consider “weak,” like Brandeis, Brown, Tulane, and Georgetown.
People toss out “weak” without any sense of perspective.
LikeLike
Per Scarlet_Lutefisk, when “strong” and “weak” are vis a vis Big Ten norms, this was his list after the second lowest Big Ten school in the combined Big Ten / ACC list:
ACC 32 Notre Dame 570.6391
ACC 34 Miami (FL) 545.8323
ACC 37 NC St. 481.5926
ACC 42 Virginia Tech 420.3547
ACC 43 Wake Forest 415.1336
ACC 51 Florida St. 371.8093
B1G 60 Nebraska 301.8498
ACC 63 Boston College 269.7699
ACC 66 Louisville 234.7797
ACC 69 Clemson 211.7657
ACC 73 Syracuse 192.6929
So in ACC terms, Wake Forest would be middling rather than weak, but relative to the Big Ten, its weak. Certainly Whiskey and TSUN would object heavily to slumming it with Wake Forest ~ the next one down is Florida State, which if not for being considered “weak” in academic research status would have been the most appealing add in the ACC.
LikeLike
Syracuse left the AAU specifically because they are (relatively) weak in research when compared to other institutions within association.
Using just the 11 research focused rankings from my composite list, to compare the B1G & ACC schools:
B1G (3) Chicago 936.2152
B1G 4 Northwestern 900.7747
B1G 5 TSUN 898.9744
B1G 7 Wisconsin 894.1248
ACC 8 Duke 894.1224
B1G 10 Minnesota 837.0713
ACC 11 North Carolina 821.6055
B1G 12 Illinois 808.0424
B1G 13 Penn St. 791.8379
B1G 14 Ohio State 788.1387
ACC 16 Georgia Tech 762.1026
ACC 17 Pittsburgh 761.5447
B1G 18 Purdue 741.1839
B1G 21 Maryland 715.5550
ACC 23 Virginia 684.3797
B1G 24 Sparty 681.4953
B1G 29 Rutgers 641.0087
B1G 30 Iowa 617.7697
B1G 31 Indiana 577.3120
ACC 32 Notre Dame 570.6391
ACC 34 Miami (FL) 545.8323
ACC 37 NC St. 481.5926
ACC 42 Virginia Tech 420.3547
ACC 43 Wake Forest 415.1336
ACC 51 Florida St. 371.8093
B1G 60 Nebraska 301.8498
ACC 63 Boston College 269.7699
ACC 66 Louisville 234.7797
ACC 69 Clemson 211.7657
ACC 73 Syracuse 192.6929
The positional rankings are among BCS schools only. Schools that compete at other levels are not included. Chicago would be at #3 if it were included in the main list.
As you can see Syracuse is in fact weak in research when compares to it’s peers. And the ACC as a whole is generally not as strong as the B1G in research. FWIW Syracuse would rank in the 20’s using only the undergrad focused rankings.
LikeLike
I’m guessing that Marc’s point is that being a top 150 research school is pretty good in the big picture. It may be weak compared to the B10, but not weak overall.
Weak is for diploma mills and jumped up community colleges.
LikeLike
I had not realized quite how low Syracuse was compared to other B1G/ACC schools.
LikeLike
JHU joining the CIC is huge if it comes to pass. JHU is the number one research school overall and for federal funds by a huge margin.
http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf Page 188.
In 2009, JHU had 1.5 billion in federal research expenditures. The next highest school was Michigan at a little over 600 million. There is a pipeline of federal money flowing into JHU. If CIC schools can partner up to receive a fraction of it, that would be a huge boon for BIG schools. Not to mention the resources available and prestige for university health systems with being associated with perhaps the biggest name in medicine in the world. JHU would turn the CIC from catnip to cocaine to college administrators. If there is another round of realignment, the BIG could have its choice of schools with only geography and t-shirt fans, which still matter with booster dominated schools like Texas and Notre Dame, as their only obstacle.
LikeLike
roughly half of JHU federal research comes from the Applied Physics Lab (Defense spending). That pipeline may be in jeopardy and JHU may be looking to diversify.
LikeLike
Frank:
Small nit: The part of the Bronx where Yankee Stadium is located has cleaned up a bit. While both may be equally safe in the daytime, there are actually plenty of people walking around on the streets near Yankee Stadium.
LikeLike
Maybe now the Big Ten will go back and grab FSU. I mean they are already breaking the no partial membership rule, why not the AAU requirement? Hopkins could even serve as academic cover for the ‘Noles.
Come on Delaney you still have 27 days until the GOR kicks in…
LikeLike
frug,
“Maybe now the Big Ten will go back and grab FSU.”
Doubtful.
“I mean they are already breaking the no partial membership rule, why not the AAU requirement?”
I think we put more weight in the no partial members rule than the COP/C ever did. Or perhaps I should say we twist it into also being a no affiliate member rule. There just weren’t many circumstances where it ever made sense to consider affiliates before. In hockey, the schools were happy in the WCHA and CCHA. It wasn’t until the BTN was formed and then became profitable that the notion of a B10 hockey conference really made sense. The BTN started in 2007 and PSU decided to go D-I in 2010. That’s not much time to add someone, especially since the B10 was busy with expansion for the last year of that. Besides, I don’t think MN and WI would have supported adding an affiliate that forced them to leave the WCHA (or MI and MSU, probably). They barely could stomach it for PSU, they certainly wouldn’t for Miami (OH).
“Hopkins could even serve as academic cover for the ‘Noles.”
I don’t think the COP/C views things that way.
LikeLike
I agree with you on all counts. On the other hand, it was mostly a joke post (though you could make the case that FSU would add more value to the Big Ten than any schools besides Texas and Florida)
LikeLike
I know you were mostly kidding, but there are probably others who seriously think that. Besides, you’re correct about the value of FSU. My issue with them is location. I really don’t think the B10 can justify becoming a SE league.
LikeLike
The Big Ten Universities are forming a Cancer Research Consortium–see http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201305/big-ten-universities-form-big-ten-cancer-research-consortium
Eleven of the 15 B1G/CIC schools are part of the consortium (Chicago, Maryland, Michigan State and Ohio State aren’t included). I wonder if there’s a role for Johns Hopkins in this group given its new membership in the B1G as an associate member.
LikeLike
Thanks for posting. I just read it. Why aren’t OSU, UMD & MSU involved? I could imagine JHU collaborating.
LikeLike
It probably comes down to the administration of the cancer research centers deciding whether they want to collaborate right now on research or not. Over time, everyone will probably join.
LikeLike
Who knows? It could be a matter of specialties not aligning or being redundant. It could be other commitments for collaboration. It could be something else.
LikeLike
The University of Maryland in College Park is technically a separate institution from the University of Maryland Medical School and Law Schools. The med school isn’t part of the B1G and probably wasn’t invited.
There have been efforts to merge them so they’re all part of the same University of Maryland (by state law, only those institutions can use the UMD name) meaning that total research would be approaching $1B but the med and law schools are in Baltimore and have resisted.
LikeLike
Thanks Chesapeake, I suspect MSU is in a similar situation, don’t know about the rest.
I truly find this consortium wonderful & relieving. When other conference fans diss the BIG’s academic angle by countering the BIG is like any conference: it’s merely sports and money driven concealed in academic talk – they’re genuinely off target.
I’d like to see more similar consortiums.
LikeLike
MSU’s cancer center likely isn’t heavily involved in research. Their medical school emphasizes patient care & community healthcare.
U of C is in the CIC, but I don’t know how motivated they are in joning a B10 group.
Don’t know anything about OSU.
LikeLike
Whenever I see UMD, I think it means Minnesota-Duluth.
LikeLike
@Chesapeake
The MD Baltimore Professional Campus and UMD College Park have formed a “special relationship status” which brings benefits to both but not with a formal merging of Admins. It is true that the combined research funding would be large (close to $1B), but it was decided not to go back to the old system of “one” University of Maryland comprising the College Park and Baltimore campuses. One compelling reason presented is that several Universities tried to merge their undergrad and professional campuses to make their grant funding look impressive and grant reporting agencies saw that as a ploy and still reported their grant standings separately.
As Maryland’s Greenebaum Cancer Center just won a very large multi-year Center grant and has done some cutting edge work on things such as transplants, I think the downtown campus is doing pretty well. Besides, undergrad students at College Park will be able to do internships there, and JHU and the Baltimore campus collaborate fairly extensively now.
Nemo
LikeLike
Maybe they shouldn’t have kicked out UIC.
LikeLike
so sheer brilliance by Delaney anticipating the impact on bowl venues of global warming. Soon enough NYC will be like a Georgia bowl game
also, yes the acc is dominant in mens lacrosse like the east coast schools were in womens lacrosse until Northwestern women crushed the country out of nowhere with 5 straight championships. Don’t fool yourself, just because Maryland/Virginia was the seat of power for LAX for decades, wait and see what happens when the big states like Illinois, Michigan, Ohio flip the switch fully to LAX, its already happening in Chicago north suburbs and the power is shifting to all sorts of new schools.
This is a great investment in a growing and exciting, relatively low cost sport.
Well done B1G!
LikeLike
RTR
LikeLike
I’m not sure how the success of the Big Ten in New York City has anything to do with whether we’ll wonder why the Big Ten chased “cable network fool’s gold”. I can’t imagine NYC is that critical to the success of the BTN, especially if we’re talking about a conference with the potential to be the #2 sports entity in America; after all, the BTN launched well before Rutgers or the Pinstripe Bowl.
Whether or not we’ll remember the BTN as “cable network fool’s gold” will have a lot more to do with things like John McCain’s recent a la carte cable bill. If something like that happens, having NYC will certainly help the BTN, but the Maryland and Rutgers additions would nonetheless look very questionable, because the success of the BTN would now be determined by the overall passion and following of the Big Ten schools, which the Big Ten would have more of than any other non-SEC conference but which Maryland and Rutgers add little to while splitting the pie. How many new subscribers would Maryland and Rutgers bring the BTN if the consumer alone chooses whether or not he wants to subscribe? That’s if “success” would even still be possible, especially given the impact a la carte would have on recruiting.
LikeLike
I just can’t imagine a la carte diminishing the BTN’s potency. BIG fans are loyal, despite less success in football or basketball, NC wise. The fans will pay for it in overwhelming numbers. The BIG clearly has an advantage similar to the SEC and Pac12 – they dominate their footprint, brand wise & the flagships. Furthermore, the BTN is already in the streaming game & should continue to improve the Internet experience.
PS I’d love to see a la carte happen, but not so much in the sports world. If this option somehow forces me go down the road of watching delayed Internet games, no thanks. If I can get a suite of bundled sports packages at discount, I’ll take it.
LikeLike
I can’t imagine any but the hardcore fans justifying >$1/mo (probably a lot more than a dollar a month considering all the non-B1G fans in B1G states) for third tier football (IU vs. EKU is NOT worth it…unless you’re an EKU fan), some basketball games (B1G third tier hoops are generally more interesting than the third tier football matchups), non-revenue sports, and mostly a lot of rerun games on in prime time (esp. grating is watching reruns of scrimmages). With no chance at first of second tier programming, they won’t be able to command first of second tier pricing…even in the footprint.
I know this is a B1G site, but I can’t imagine that the BTN wouldn’t be among the first group of channels to go dark in an a la carte world.
LikeLike
I think both of you are suffering from poor imaginations.
The reality is that, in its core historic territory, the Big Ten has millions of fans who will pay to see its teams regardless of the opponent, and regardless of the format: à la carte will change nothing, except for the way the money is collected. That is why the Big Ten network won’t go dark.
In the new markets, where the BTN’s appeal is unproven, it’s hard to know what will happen. I live on the East Coast, and I receive BTN as part of a “sports package” that contains many extra channels that I would never order if they were priced separately. What I’m paying for all of those channels, I’d happily pay for BTN all by itself, a situation that would please Jim Delany very much.
If access were priced by the game, Delany would make a lot less money from me, since currently I’m paying for BTN all the time, but many months go by that I hardly look at it. On the other hand, there are probably many people who don’t want a full subscription, but would happily buy by the drink, if they could.
Obviously, new payment models involve new risks, and some of the current players will fail to adapt. But as long as there is money to be made, somebody will be making it, whether it’s the BTN or someone else. At this point, I wouldn’t bet against Delany.
LikeLike
Marc,
How is my imagination poor? I think you underscored some of my points, but in finer fashion. I think the East Coast markets with uncertainty are obviously DC & NYC, but we can’t overlook the fact that NJ & Md combine for nearly 15 million people. Maryland and New Jersey natives, generally speaking, will root for their flagship schools & pay for the BTN.
I’m sure the BIG will figure out a way to package the BTN in a post – a la carte way & they’ll have plenty of time to work it out. No way does a la carte come without a constructive, phase in process.
LikeLike
@gfunk: What I meant was, of course it’s possible that BTN will be a net loser if coverage becomes à la carte. Anytime there’s a paradigm shift, there are winners and losers. The losers are usually the ones who failed to foresee the threat to their hegemony.
Do I think that’s going to happen to BTN? No. But can I imagine it? Yes.
LikeLike
@FLP_NDRox – You’re a good Notre Dame poster, but I vehemently disagree with that (and I’m not just saying that as a Big Ten guy but just in terms of observing how basic cable works). Remember that a cable company like Comcast is anything but a charity. The entire reason why the BTN was able to get basic carriage at a high rate was because Comcast was getting hit directly on its bottom line during their 1st year BTN carriage dispute as a result of such high demand for the channel in Big Ten markets (as they were flocking to DirecTV that carried the network from day one). There’s no magic elixer that has ever forced Comcast to carry the BTN at a high rate simply because the channel exists. The cable company agreed to that rate because the high demand was there (while very frequently fighting and/or dropping channels where the requisite demand doesn’t exist). It stands to reason that any cable channel that has been able to get basic carriage at a high rate would actually survive fairly well in the a la carte world because that indicates that non-partisan profit-driven third parties that don’t like paying high carriage fees at all (such as Comcast and DirecTV) still deemed them to be essential (which is a VERY high bar to clear). I’m not saying that a la carte is a *good* thing for the BTN or any other basic cable network, but the non-Big Ten fans that hope/dream of the day that a la carte will kill the BTN are completely misguided because they’re forgetting that the legitimate and very real high demand for the channel is what allowed the network to ever get basic carriage in the first place. Frankly, a network like NBC Sports Network (which happens to carry a bit of Notre Dame programming) would be much more at risk in an a la carte world compared to the BTN if it wasn’t already owned by Comcast itself.
LikeLike
In this house, the decision to pay $1 or $5 a month for one or two Buckeyes games that are only on the BTN would be automatic. The killer in the revenue that the BTN could drain out would be when its not football season, since its more an Indians / Browns / Buckeye FB and Reds / Bungals / Buckeye FB household, and neither BBall nor hockey are a big deal.
LikeLike
Edit: (BBall) other than March Madness, of course.
LikeLike
Bruce:
In an a la carte world, virtually all Buckeye games (besides maybe a handful) will be on the BTN. You’ll have the game of the week on broadcast TV and the rest on the BTN. ESPN would be in serious trouble.
Also, you won’t be paying by the month but for a year-long package, like the MLB/NBA/NFL season-packages.
LikeLike
ESPN would see a hit in an a la carte world, but OTOH in a lot of households it will be the first addition to the shopping cart, so being in “a lot of trouble” would be a matter of a squeeze between revenue and long term contractual obligations.
LikeLike
Flip,
I’m afraid that you’re out of your league on this one. Note that the B10 has the most living alumni of any league (4.4M _before_ adding UNL, UMD, and RU), most of whom are willing to pay for a season TV package. Plus you have places like Nebraska and central OH where seemingly every man, woman, and child is a Husker/Buckeye fan. Plus, you seriously think that the vast majority of people in IN will be willing to go without Hoosier & Boiler basketball or MN will be willing to go without Gopher hockey? Finally, when the NFL, MLB, and NBA are charging over $100 a season for their packages, an ala carte BTN will likely be around $100 a year.
If college sports revenue will come from only the most die-hard fans, the B10 and SEC will be far ahead of the rest. The B10 (with the biggest total basketball attendance & 2nd in football attendance, far ahead of everyone besides the SEC) will certainly not suffer in relative terms.
LikeLike
From my personal experience, I kept a higher level package on DirecTV just because it carried the BTN and WGN (I wanted to watch Cub games). However, I finally decided that as much as I would miss a few games, it just wasn’t worth it (besides WGN carries far fewer Cub games than in the past – when I was growing up). Turns out the channels I miss more are the ones I was watching more (a nathional geographic or history). But I have been tempted several times to order the expanded package just to see a specific game. Sports has a way of doing that. My point is that I think the BTN would propser in an ala carte world.
LikeLike
@FLP – Perhaps it would be useful to check out the number of PPV costs and buys for the schools in the SEC or B1G. Before Nebraska joined the Big Ten there was one year where Nebraska played four PPV games at something like $30 or $40 a game . I would be very surprised if you found out only the most hard core fans paid the $120-160 for the four games that year.
LikeLike
If making people pay separately was more profitable than forced carriage, they would be doing that today. You are blinded by your own fandom. If a la carte comes, there will still be a BTN, but it will be less profitable without the 50% non-sports fans and 25% non-college sports fans and 20% non-fanatics supporting it.
LikeLike
Nobody has really tried before. A few bottom of the barrel games on PPV vs the money broadcast/cable has bid to keep the rights is a comparison similar to saying conference networks would be money drains. Bundling creates leverage. Phone, cable, Internet. Buy three tires, get the fourth free. Various packages of TV channels at a discount to what they would cost individually. National sports offerings on a channel (ESPN) > regional/conference in broad attractiveness, but not necessarily intensity of interest in the crossover segment. Similar with conference networks > school specific channels, but inventory becomes the issue. I think major conference’s networks are in the Goldilocks zone. Attractive enough to their base of fans when bundled together that they create enough demand and inventory to survive/prosper in whatever future distribution model is in vogue.
LikeLike
Bullet:
Maybe, but ultimately, that just means that coaches make less and teams will have to be OK with a decade-old practice facility, since relative wealth is what matters in the arms race. If a la carte affects the BTN, they’ll affect all conferences (over the long term, after current TV contracts run out), and in relative terms, the B10 and SEC will likely be even farther in front of the rest of college football (besides Texas, ND, and maybe OU) in an a la carte world.
LikeLike
@bullet –
I’m not sure why you think I’m being blind. FLP made the following statement:
I can’t imagine any but the hardcore fans justifying >$1/mo (probably a lot more than a dollar a month considering all the non-B1G fans in B1G states)
I pointed out a situation where people were willing to pay much more than a dollar a month ($30 for one game) for much less content. I didn’t think that was controversial.
LikeLike
All the people are saying the Big 10 will make as much if we go to a la carte because they would pay for it. Just because you would pay for it doesn’t mean enough would. As I said, if a la carte meant more money, the Big 10 would do it that way now. They have decided forced carriage is more profitable.
And the Big 10 and SEC would be hurt more, because they are likely to have the most profitable networks. So they will lose proportionately more. The G5 will gain the most since they aren’t really getting anything.
LikeLike
bullet：
That doesn’t follow. Even if the B10 & SEC make less than now in an a la carte world, their relative advantage over the other conferences could very well increase because they have more die-hard fans (per-school) than other conferences. You look at stuff like attendance and donations (which consist more of die-hards compared to something like TV ratings) and the B10 & SEC outpace the other conferences even more than they do in TV revenues.
Mind you, Texas and OU (and FSU & USC & maybe UNC & KU) may be able to keep up with the B10 and SEC if they don’t have to share their a la carte revenues with the rest of their league, but that’s a minority of schools.
Why would the G5 benefit from an a la carte world? They don’t exactly have tons of die-hard fans, or else they would not be in the G5.
LikeLike
Richard:
“Mind you, Texas and OU (and FSU & USC & maybe UNC & KU) may be able to keep up with the B10 and SEC if they don’t have to share their a la carte revenues with the rest of their league, but that’s a minority of schools.”
I disagree with this. In order for anyone else to have enough inventory to drive any kind of demand, even from the staunchest of adherents, they would need to go independent. ND is really the only school that could drive enough national coverage (and perhaps BYU through the LDS) to be acceptable. And both of those schools aren’t primarily driven by the income. Individual school networks simply don’t have the live desirable inventory to drive enough subscriptions for those who are.
Everyone points to what the LHN is paying (not necessarily it’s true worth), but don’t consider what those rights would be worth if leveraged through a conference network. I recall an estimate that had the P16 happened the 3B primary media deal the P12 got would have been north of 4.5B. A difference of near the whole B12’s primary deal. That leverage would follow to the P16N also, and would likely surpass what the LHN pays UT…for all the schools.
LikeLike
The G5 benefit relatively because they don’t lose anything.
There’s no question the SEC and Big 10 networks have the most potential if things work out. But that is also an advantage that has the biggest potential to decrease.
LikeLike
Bullet:
I suppose that’s true, but it really isn’t a benefit. It’s like saying that a candidate with only 100K in campaign funds benefits if his/her opponent only has access to $2M instead of $2.2M. Technically, that’s true, but realistically, the G5 isn’t going to be in the same financial league as the B10 & SEC regardless of whether a la carte happens or not.
LikeLike
bullet-
“ESPN would lose a lot, but would still be the healthiest network out there.”
Totally disagree on that one. If you look at what ESPN gets now for its networks, they would need 25% of the country to be willing to pay $30 or so a month for the ESPN family of networks under a la carte just to break even, and they aren’t going to be anywhere close to that. In addition, although they have paid a TON for rights fees, they are structured badly to where if you are not a big NBA fan you could easily go without ESPN from April to August (and nowhere 25% of the US households are big NBA fans). They are in big trouble under a la carte pricing.
On the other hand, take something like the NBCSN, which people like to rag on. They have a lot of sports with small, niche, but devoted audiences of sports that have LONG seasons. They will be able to do well on a smaller level, because they are not going to need to charge much under a la carte to, for example, recover the rights fees they are paying for August to May coverage of the Premier League. NBC is paying for all of its EPL rights about 50% of what ESPN is paying the NFL for one Rams-Cardinals MNF game.
LikeLike
Thanks for the reminder, Frank.
The more I sit here and think about it, the bigger issue vis a vis a la cart is not just the subscribers, but Fox. If Fox is serious about their networks to take on Disney’s ESPN and ESPN2, they are going to need programming. Where would they rather have revenue sport B1G content? I would think in an a la carte world they would prefer it on a channel they owned lock, stock, and barrel that they were marketing nationally rather than using it on a regional network they only owned 51%. Of course, what I don’t know is what other programming options they would have at that point. I would assume that B1G third tier football and basketball would beat out most but not everything they would have rights to, i.e. what Disney doesn’t.
The obvious follow-up question would be how the COP/C would handle that kind of treatment from Fox. Would they be willing to pull a P12 create a network/ buy out Fox? It wouldn’t be easy…or cheap, but seeing as how the network’s creation was basically giving ESPN the finger they darn well might. I acknowledge I have no idea how the COP/C would work as network execs.
As far as the subscribers leaving, it depends on how much the price jump is as to how the channel will do. I would imagine it would do a lot worse if it was at best showing 4th tier football and men’s hoops, third tier women’s hoops, and first tier everything else. As a Notre Dame guy, and a hockey guy, and especially a ND Hockey guy, I would probably be tempted to keep NBCSN, but there’s a limit to how much a month I would pay (and it’s probably less than HBO/Cinemax/SHO/TMC, but I haven’t priced them in years). In a garbage economy, I know I can’t be the only one.
LikeLike
In an a la carte world, all general sports channels would suffer. People would be mostly signing up just for the sports/leagues/teams they follow. ESPN as we know it would cease to exist. Fox would abort their sports channel.
LikeLike
ESPN would lose a lot, but would still be the healthiest network out there.
LikeLike
What legal authority can keep entities from bundling the products they own, or have contractual rights to? Could any such attempt possibly pass legal muster? What could keep the BTN and P12N from entering an agreement that they be purchased as one (assuming the conferences bean counters arrived at an acceptable division of income)? It’s a mater of the market place. We actually are in an a la carte era now. It is simply that market forces haven’t driven every channel to be alone and independent. We do have varying levels of service we can purchase now, a broad form of a la carte.
LikeLike
@ccrider
Congress does. The FCC could also if Congress grants them the authority.
LikeLike
Cable companies have municipal franchises, so they started with a governmental monopoly. Their pricing mechanisms can be challenged on anti-trust grounds even leaving out the FCC.
Most people currently have few choices. Dish, DirectTV, local cable (usually Time-Warner or Comcast, maybe Charter or a smaller one) and maybe UVerse. In my location its Comcast or bust. There’s no satellite or UVerse service.
LikeLike
Aren’t cable companies/telecoms required to allow competing services? How can there be a claim of monopoly if competing providers exist (satellites/telecoms)?
Do you live underground? How is satellite not available in an area? (Serious question)
LikeLike
ccrider55,
“Do you live underground? How is satellite not available in an area? (Serious question)”
In my case, I can’t get satellite because of trees. I’d need a dish across the street and they aren’t going to do that. For some people in big cities, other buildings block the required line of sight.
LikeLike
ccrider55:
1. Trees (the eastern US is now heavily wooded; fly over it, and most of the Northeast looks like pre-Columbian forest).
2. Apartments/condos. Apartments usually negotiate who they will get TV from (sometimes, that results in a great deal; some times not, but your choice is restricted). Condos & apartments tend to have restrictions on whether you can put up satellite dishes or not.
LikeLike
As Brian says. Buildings, trees, hills. To get satellite you have to have a clear view of the southern sky. That’s often not possible in forested, hilly Atlanta.
LikeLike
I guess lacrosse is so important that the Capital One Cup considers it a Group B sport. I’m not sure I understand the logic of Capital’s scoring system. They put M. & W. Swimming in Group A, despite the fact that there are far more D1 programs in this sport than Lacrosse, plus it has far more regional crossover.
Poor Michigan, they’d have the Cup sewn up on the men’s side if not for this odd scoring system. Clearly Michigan has demonstrated more sport’s depth than Duke this year, men’s side.
LikeLike
I originally found this place when I was excited about my alma mater potentially joining the B1G.
I can now rest in peace.
LikeLike
You can rest in peace since these people are excited about lacrosse?
When I was growing up, I never knew anyone who played soccer, let alone lacrosse. Lacrosse is very much an eastern thing. There are a few Atlanta public HSs that play it as clubs. But in Texas, I don’t know of any who play it but the elite private schools like St. John’s and Kinkaid in Houston and St. Mark’s in Dallas.
LikeLike
While in Ohio Lacrosse teams see, to be sprouting up in all of the nice suburban schools that first started soccer. The soccer players often prefer it as a spring sport to baseball, because of the higher paced tempo.
LikeLike
I assume this tie with the the Pinstripe Bowl will not hurt in future BTN negotiations concerning the YES network.
LikeLike
I want a la carte hotels. I only want to pay for the part of the bed I sleep on, the one drawer, and the towel that I use.
Restaurants where I don’t have to pay for the veggies, or the excess silver and glass ware.
Don’t need to pay for the lanes I don’t drive in.
Don’t want to pay taxes I don’t see direct return from.
These are as likely as a la carte cable.
LikeLike
Consumers and competition are going to eventually force more options. It probably won’t be full a la carte, but there will be packages. UVerse or Dish or DirectTV will offer a “family package” or “Entertainment package” without the expensive sports channels and everyone will be forced to follow.
LikeLike
But most people want to watch the expensive sport channels. Families can replace channels without live entertainment with other home video options, but channels with popular live entertainment will remain popular, regardless of the distribution system or model. This is most likely to hurt the less popular channels shoved into the a la carte arena, like TeenNick or Cloo.
LikeLike
This.
LikeLike
Methinks that JHU’s wlax team will join if, toward the end of the 5 year trial period, the B1G and JHU decide to make the mlax team a permanent affiliate member of the B1G. A possible way to avoid having to boot the wlax team if things unravel.
This is separate than the CIC, who I imagine would pull the UChicago rule and allow JHU to remain even if JHU decided to pull its mlax program.
Food for thought.
LikeLike
It might not. JHU might have settled on a strategic position that Women’s LAX is just their Title IX offset and playing as in independent with a bus league schedule is fine for them long term.
The other issue the JHU coach or AD mentioned (forget which) was scheduling ~ its starting to get harder to schedule good games toward the end of the season when the conference schools want to put their conference rivalry games on in the warmer weather. If JHU is not as concerned about whether Women’s LAX team schedule makes for a good preparation for the NCAA tournament and good resume to get selected, then that’s not as big an issue either.
LikeLike
Hook ’em
LikeLike
http://espn.go.com/new-york/college-football/story/_/id/9334537/big-ten-team-play-new-era-pinstripe-bowl
3 things about the Pinstripe Bowl deal stick out to me:
1. It’s for 8 years, not the expected 6 that other bowls are doing.
2. “The deal between the Big Ten and Yankee Stadium also will include additional future conference events held at the ballpark, a source said.” What other events would fit at Yankee Stadium? B10 baseball tourney during a NYY road trip? An occasional RU home FB game? Soccer, lacrosse, etc?
3. It’s in a group with the horrible SF bowl. You can praise the new site all you want, but it’s still a lower tier bowl 2000+ miles away and not in a warm location. SF is a great city, but I wouldn’t choose late December as the ideal time to visit. I don’t think you should send mediocre teams that far for their bowl game. It’s also too many CA games versus the P12.
LikeLike
@Brian – I actually think the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is going to be a nice destination, especially with it moving to the new 49ers stadium. That venue just got awarded a Super Bowl over perennial favorite Miami head-to-head, so it’s going to be a top-notch facility. Unless we actually added another bowl in the Midwest that would truly be a short drive for middle-of-the-pack teams, I don’t think that the distance matters as much as the quality of the destination. (Whether it’s 1000 miles or 2000 miles, it means getting on a plane for most people.) Pretty much the only bowl that I don’t like losing is the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, but that one was drastically reducing its payout according to Stewart Mandel (while the Kraft Fight Hunger was substantially increasing its payout with its new stadium).
LikeLike
Also note that Santa Clara (where the new 49ers stadium will be located) is warmer than San Francisco proper. I’d take that winter climate way over places in the non-Florida South like Nashville, Atlanta and Charlotte.
LikeLike
Santa Clara is hotter than SF, but only during the summers. In fact it is much hotter than SF during the summer. But, they’re about the same in the winter. Much of the Bay Area is surprisingly cooler than most think in the winter – rarely above 60 & often below 40 from evening to early morning.
Regardless, the new stadium will be a huge upgrade on Candlestick. It should be a solid bowl venue.
LikeLike
It won’t be on the bay like the SF sites. That’ll be a big improvement.
I don’t think natives have ever seen a snow shovel, except on the weather channel.
LikeLike
Having spent the summer within spitting distance of the new 49ers stadium and being from Texas, it aint hot at all. I cannot comment on the winters however.
@Frank: Lisa Birnbach wrote the Official Preppy Handbook, and also a College Review in the early eighties (follow up in 92) That was absolutely hysterical. Rating things like favorite drug, drinking game, etc at each school. if you can find it, its a 30 year old time capsule of large and small schools.
LikeLike
“rarely above 60 and from evening to early morning often below 40” sounds like fine football weather.
LikeLike
Frank the Tank,
“Also note that Santa Clara (where the new 49ers stadium will be located) is warmer than San Francisco proper.”
It’s 1 degree warmer for the high on 1/1 and 4 degrees colder for the low (57/41).
“I’d take that winter climate way over places in the non-Florida South like Nashville, Atlanta and Charlotte.”
They all suck, but the others aren’t 2500 miles away. Besides, Atlanta would be indoors.
LikeLike
Frank the Tank,
“I actually think the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is going to be a nice destination, especially with it moving to the new 49ers stadium. That venue just got awarded a Super Bowl over perennial favorite Miami head-to-head, so it’s going to be a top-notch facility.”
It’s in a pool with the Gator, Music City and Pinstripe supposedly. They could hold it in the Vatican and it still will be a mediocre bowl game. It’s picks 5-7, but that’s assuming a 2nd B10 team isn’t in the CFP or one of the big 6 bowls. The 8th B10 team is not going to be a stellar team and most fan bases won’t be excited about an expensive bowl trip. This will be in the 9 game era, so that team is likely to have an extra loss, too.
“Unless we actually added another bowl in the Midwest that would truly be a short drive for middle-of-the-pack teams, I don’t think that the distance matters as much as the quality of the destination.”
Nashville is drivable for several schools. NYC is drivable for at least 3 schools plus it’s home to thousands of B10 alumni. Jacksonville sucks, but it’s in FL and about 1700 miles closer. Lots of groups are talking about creating new bowls. The B10 should start a bowl in St. Louis with the B12 and one in Indy with the MAC and drop Detroit.
“Pretty much the only bowl that I don’t like losing is the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, but that one was drastically reducing its payout according to Stewart Mandel (while the Kraft Fight Hunger was substantially increasing its payout with its new stadium).”
I agree on losing the BWW, and losing Houston is also bad. Overloading in CA doesn’t help anything. Bowl payouts shift all the time and can be a strong driver for the bowl line up, but we’re still talking about a low bowl in the B10’s slate. Even if it pays $1M more per team than the BWW, that’s only $71k per B10 school per year. OSU spends that on bowtie cookies. Playing the ACC in Detroit is also a bad idea. The MAC fans were the only ones that went to the Pizza Bowl, and no ACC fan is going to show up.
LikeLike
Depends on the ACC school. Pitt, Cuse, and Louisville are within driving distance. Granted, they may not go. Plus, playing a MAC school in a bowl fills most B10 fans with zero enthusiasm.
Playing an ACC school might be worth the short drive to some fanbases.
I liked Houston as well, but I don’t think that was entirely the B10’s choice.
LikeLike
Agreed, not all bowl decisions are up to the B10. But I know we agree that keeping Dallas but losing Houston is not the best outcome for the B10 in TX.
LikeLike
Miami didn’t approve the stadium improvements, essentially knocking themselves out. So it was basically just San Francisco and Houston going for 2 years. SF got 2016 and Houston got 2017.
LikeLike
And New Orleans should get the Super Bowl for 2018, breaking its tie with Miami for hosting the most Super Bowls.
LikeLike
I don’t know that it wouldn’t have been chosen even had Miami approved the improvements.
I think it’ll be fine.
https://www.google.com/search?q=49er+stadium+progress&client=safari&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kI-uUYmcAYrbigLfhoDoCA&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=672#
I have no idea how busy or usefull it is, but the Mineta San Jose international airport looks to be only a few miles away
LikeLike
“You can praise the new site all you want, but it’s still a lower tier bowl 2000+ miles away and not in a warm location”
If it pays out as much as the Pinstripe Bowl or Gator Bowl, It’s a mid-tier bowl with higher payout than most other bowls.
As for warmth, the South Bay has a desert climate, so they get more sunshine and much less rain than SF. It’s cooler at night but figures to be nice and mild in the sun in the day time.
BTW, from where I am in the Midwest, looking right now, a flight to SF actually costs about the same as one to Orlando and a little bit less than a flight to Jacksonville in late December.
I think you just like to whine, Brian. I can’t think of another bowl (that’s not in the projected B10 bowl order) that’s willing to take the B10 #5-7 & pays as well as the Pinstripe (and is in a better location). I don’t think you can either.
LikeLike
“If it pays out as much as the Pinstripe Bowl or Gator Bowl, It’s a mid-tier bowl with higher payout than most other bowls.”
Not for the B10 it isn’t. That’s all that matters. It’s a lower tier bowl for the B10.
“As for warmth, the South Bay has a desert climate, so they get more sunshine and much less rain than SF. It’s cooler at night but figures to be nice and mild in the sun in the day time.”
See weather info in my reply to Frank.
Kayak 12/26-1/3 trip cost:
Chicago to Nashville – $235
Chicago to Jacksonville – $347
Chicago to New York – $296
Chicago to SF – $382
Plus, a lot more alumni are in driving distance of the eastern 3 than SF.
LikeLike
Actually late December, Christmas time, is a huge tourist draw time for NYC. Other sports tie-ins with the Knicks and Rangers at MSG, in addition to Rockefeller Center, Macy’s, Radio City, etc. There is lots to do in NYC in late December. Sure it may be cold, but its still NYC.
LikeLike
Right. Late December, Manhattan Midtown is absolutely packed. There’s really nothing like it in the rest of the country (and that’s coming from a guy who’s lived in the heart of the only other American city with a real vibrant big big-city downtown; Chicago).
LikeLike
I agree, but Manhattan generally has dense foot traffic. Question is, how’s the foot traffic in the South Bronx? Far less, I actually know the answer. South Bronx is also a decent commute from Midtown.
Btw, SF has plenty of foot traffic, in fact more than Chicago, my opinion. It’s actually a much denser city. Also, LA’s density and foot traffic has become increasingly on par with Chicago. It won’t be long before LA surpasses Chicago’s density & its area is roughly twice the size of Chicago, believe it or not. LA & Houston are shockingly large in area, though the latter was zoned by a bunch clueless, schizophrenic planners.
I like the Pinstripe Bowl agreement. Screw other conferences who duck out because of the colder weather. I didn’t know the BIG signed up for the SF bowl as well. I like both bowls, BIG teams have better chances of winning either than say bowls in the southeast or Tx against Big12 – SEC opponents.
The BIG would have a decent lead in Rose Bowls, all time, if not for USC. I think USC & UCLA are the obvious beneficiaries of a Rose Bowl appearance, but match ups become more even against the rest of the Pac12. Interestingly, this SF bowl would be the same sort of advantage USC & UCLA have down south, just exchange Stanford and Cal. Thank God, neither have USC’s football pedigree.
LikeLike
Erm? I’ve lived in both SF and Chicago (city proper as well as the burbs). I love the Bay Area and SF does have foot traffic in places, but it doesn’t have the downtown that NYC and Chicago have. You don’t feel that frisson in the air in SF that you do in NYC or Chicago where there are 10 things going on at once and you could spend the whole day just people-watching out of a second storey cafe from noon to 11PM and not get bored.
As for density, I’m not talking about residential neighborhoods. There’s just no place in SF like the Mag Mile in Chicago or Broadway in NYC.
LikeLike
SF doesn’t have Chicago’s vertical density, but there are so many heavy walking areas. SF Chinatown rather comparable to Magnificent Mile in terms of density, of course not towering Skyscrapers, as well as the the piers & parts of Golden Gate.. In fact the piers are becoming a nuisance in terms of crowds, parts of Market Street and the Castro as well. Just two months ago, I found the piers simply too crowded, almost unsafe & returned to my uncle’s place in the Mission. I’m usu in SF a few times a year – family. Chicago at least 4x a year, merely a 7 hour drive, lots of friends and I’m a record collector.
I’m also quite certain SF has interesting characters. There’s definitely a greater sense of diversity in SF than Chicago.
But hey now, I’m a huge Chicago fan. I can’t live without doing quarterly vinyl runs to Chicago. My favorite city for record shopping & architectural walks – subway rides. I have to hit the Seminary Co-op at the U of Chicago as well, my favorite university bookstore in the country. I also prefer the CTA over any other public transportation system in the U.S. due to it’s elevation and views. NYC’s subways inevitably make me sick, almost always underground unless you’re in Queens, & parts of Brooklyn & the Bronx.
LikeLike
gfunk,
“The BIG would have a decent lead in Rose Bowls, all time, if not for USC. I think USC & UCLA are the obvious beneficiaries of a Rose Bowl appearance, but match ups become more even against the rest of the Pac12.”
Actually, only USC has had a home field edge.
Rose Bowl Records:
P12: 48-42-3
USC: 24-8
UCLA: 5-7
P12 – USC: 24-34-3
B10: 30-37
B10 vs USC: 6-16
B10 not vs USC: 24-21
“Interestingly, this SF bowl would be the same sort of advantage USC & UCLA have down south, just exchange Stanford and Cal. Thank God, neither have USC’s football pedigree.”
More importantly, they don’t have USC’s fan base either.
LikeLike
GFUNK: It is not that bad a commute (Try 15 minutes). How? You can take Metro-North (A local suburban Railroad) one stop from Grand Central (Mid-town Manhattan), to Yankee Stadium. Realistically speaking, someone can see a Broadway show (Not my thing but lots of people love it), sightsee at Times Square (One subway stop from Grand Central), and Rockefeller Center (A must during Christmas Season), shop at Macys, have lunch, get to the Game and have dinner at the Stadium while attending, all in about 12 hours.
LikeLike
Manhattan generally has dense foot traffic. Question is, how’s the foot traffic in the South Bronx? Far less, I actually know the answer. South Bronx is also a decent commute from Midtown.
Granted, no one walks to the South Bronx from midtown, but who walks to the Fiesta Bowl? Same answer: almost nobody. Yankee Stadium regularly attracts an affluent audience. It is actually easier to reach than most stadiums in most cities, as it’s served by commuter rail and two subway lines. It’s FAR easier to get there than, say, the Meadowlands, or any stadium you have to drive to. No one minds that it’s in the South Bronx.
LikeLike
@gfunk
You don’t know much about Houston. Houston is NOT zoned. Its said that Odessa, Texas is the 2nd largest unzoned city in the world, so that may be hard to understand, but Houston does it without any zoning at all (You can’t build a chemical plant next to single family homes or an adult bookstore next to a school or church, but other than that you can do pretty much what you want).
LikeLike
DaveBrown,
I don’t have an issue with the commute, nor the Pinstripe Bowl & I would likely seek a hotel closer to the South Bronx if say my team was playing this bowl game.
I think you mentioned in a previous post that you’re a NYC native, thus you may be unconsciously overlooking the fact that a subway commute also includes station entrance-exit times, waiting for the subways, time of day, navigating crowds – there’s plenty of walking and more time spent during these processes. I don’t mind, but just like any commute I consider all of the above. Walking just a block in Manhattan is a lot different than doing similar in my home city (Mpls) & of all the subways I’ve ridden in the world, NYC’s right up there with say Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, or DC – it often seems greater time is spent on getting in and out of the stations.
But I honestly don’t mind. When I get older, I might : ).
Bullet,
I didn’t spell it out in my post, but yes I’m quite aware of Houston’s so called “de facto” zoning – it doesn’t have a formal zoning code like similar cities. But, civic leaders and citizens generally get some say in a development process, and Houston does have geographic borders. The city does use formal neighborhood distinctions (just not enough) & there are certainly wards for governing and policing.
I think we all have a tendency of reading too much or little into these posts. I don’t have the gift of explaining myself fully in a post (one of my many limitations). Moreover, most of us have never met in person.
Brian,
Yes, UCLA does have losing Rose Bowl record, but it’s still their actual home field. That’s not exactly fair.
Also, I may be wrong here, but I think USC has a losing bowl record once they leave California.
I do think the SF bowl, whatever it’s called, will be a more level playing field for any conference stacking up against a Pac12 opponent.
LikeLike
“The city does use formal neighborhood distinctions (just not enough)”
In general, zoning is bad news for a metropolis. They protect entrenched interests (current property owners) at the expense of everyone else and lead to housing bubbles due to artificial restrictions on supply.
LikeLike
http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_/id/67818/big-12-says-goodbye-to-the-pinstripe-bowl
The B12 found some downsides to the Pinstripe, mainly logistical and weather based.
Kansas State played in the inaugural game back in 2010 and encountered major snow storms that produced travel difficulties for fans and the team and forced the Wildcats to practice in a hotel ballroom. West Virginia dealt with nearly identical troubles last season and played the actual game in a blizzard.
The Big 12’s 0-3 record in the game (Iowa State was beaten by Rutgers, 27-13, in 2011) doesn’t help. Difficulty for teams and media to reach practice sites during bowl week also drew complaints, and the open-air press box in a frigid New York December isn’t exactly the product of well thought-out genius. Press box inhabitants have been given gloves and hats for past games.
Trekking to New York City the week of New Year’s Eve isn’t exactly cheap for teams or fans, either.
Having a bowl game in Yankee Stadium and giving fans a reason to spend New Year’s Eve in New York City sounded cool in theory. The logistical issues in making it happen, though, produced quite a few headaches.
LikeLike
Houston didn’t have any zoning except for deed restrictions in certain neighborhoods until the last 20-25 years. What goes where is still determined entirely by the market. They have added some density regulations and parking and traffic regulations and some other changes, but zoning has been defeated several times at the ballot box. The city has really only challenged one major development that I am aware of and they lost all the court battles. And the only reason they tried was the neighborhood was wealthy and didn’t want a high rise condo near them and the mayor was running for governor (he lost badly).
Houston’s planning basically concerns infrastructure, not what type of development occurs. The “schizophrenic planner” is called the free market. It in many ways makes it an easy city. You don’t have to drive 7 miles to find a grocery store, although typically Texas cities use a light hand with zoning. Contrast that to the city of Atlanta which has something like 46 zoning categories, 7-9 of which are for single family residential and you have to get through neighborhood planning groups before you can do anything. There was an article recently saying it took an average of 42 weeks to get a business permit in the city of Atlanta (which is why so much of Atlanta’s growth occurs in their far flung suburbs and you don’t see a lot of small businesses inside the city).
LikeLike
Bullet,
I saw the high rise article you may be referring to (Southhampton & Boulevard Oaks). But, If you think Houston is an fine example of an American city planning, or city in general, your standards may need to rise. And despite what you call it, Houston’s planning is poor. It’s filled with surface parking blight, industrial waste, it’s incredibly sprawled and too car oriented, & the city lacks feasible interconnectivity throughout its borders. It also needs a much better public transportation system, which I know the city is attempting to address (good sign). I say the above because there is so much potential in that city. Tremendous diversity and cultures throughout the city, really cool art scenes, big time businesses, and some wonderful universities.
Please don’t give me the free market crap either. Nothing is free in this country, not in capitalism, nor government processes. If it’s not zoning, it’s something else & that’s why I used the term “de facto zoning”, but the better term is “bad planning”. I engage public-private development processes at least 3x a week. I can’t truly pick a side between private and public, for it’s best when they work together, but the private side too often lacks transparency & of the worst kind. There seems to always be a hidden agenda that bites everyone else in the ass down the road.
As mentioned, I do find Houston fascinating, most of the people I’ve met there are really nice, the Vietnamese community is especially wonderful, some of the wards have incredibly history – historical preservation, & of course neighborhoods-areas, like Midtown, Montrose, West University Place and the Museum District are always worthwhile. I used to visit annually because my good friend and old neighbor is an art car junkie – “Houston Art Car Parade”. But honestly, I can think of at least a dozen cities and two in Texas, alone, I’d rather visit and live in than Houston. The lack of actual zoning makes the city incredibly blurry to me.
You’re standards of being able to drive and find a grocery store within 7 miles, versus say Atlanta, needs to raise. Such a comparison is hardly an issue in Minneapolis – Saint Paul, where legal zoning does factor into growth & development & the assurance that rational food choices are nearby. We’re doing our best here to make walkable neighborhoods the norm within the next 20 years. I fortunately live in one, and much of Mpls already has walkable neighborhoods. Also, as it stands now, most Mpls residents are no more than 5 blocks from a park & less than a mile from a grocery store. Our park system is vastly underrated and there is nothing in Houston, wide scale, that compares. And damn it, if we had Houston’s weather, our park system would truly be year round.
No doubt Tx and many of its cities are booming, but it won’t last & I suspect there will be huge repercussions for Texans in general. You can’t sustain such population growth when the water cycle can’t keep up. The public education system seems genuinely challenged there as well. But I root for Texans to figure it out. They are, after all, fellow Americans & humans.
PS Zoning is not the restrictive, suffocating reality you claim. In some cities it works far better than others. It’s up to each respective city. Thus, I accept there is horrendous zoning, or lack thereof, just as there is rather efficient and sustainable zoning.
LikeLike
Nobody complained about the Pinstripe Bowl. Or at least I certainly didn’t. My complaint is with the SF Bowl.
LikeLike
Yankee stadium is hosting a couple of NHL outdoor games next year. I could see Yankee Stadium also hosting a college hockey game in January. Michigan vs Penn State might make the most sense, but I don’t see why you couldn’t also do Michigan State vs Ohio State, too.
LikeLike
Or play an OOC game versus Cornell.
LikeLike
Bad idea: Cornell does Madison Square Garden every year (Quite well), so they make no sense. In addition, Penn State will be doing Philly (Where they drew 18,000 versus Ohio State), and Pittsburgh. Finally, remember how many people UM drew against MSU in The Big House for outdoor Hockey? For that reason alone (not to mention travel expenses), I bet that when UM does outdoor hockey again as the home team, it will be in Ann Arbor, rather than Yankee Stadium or another neutral site.
LikeLike
The game in the Big House was seen as a rare special occasion. Do it every year, and it loses its luster.
However, UM vs. someone at Yankee Stadium (Wisconsin? They also get a bunch of NYC kids) would still be pretty special, at least the first time.
LikeLike
Michigan has played four outdoor games recently – one at home and three on the road. At Michigan State in the Cold War in 2001 kicked it all off. At Wisconsin followed in 2009-10, Michigan hosted Michigan State in 2010-11, Ohio State hosted Michigan in Cleveland in 2011-12.
While it may not be a huge money maker, it is a tremendous recruiting tool and a marketing tool for the program. If Michigan is invited to play an outdoor game at Yankee Stadium, I would be shocked to see them turn it down.
LikeLike
Brian: “2. “The deal between the Big Ten and Yankee Stadium also will include additional future conference events held at the ballpark, a source said.” What other events would fit at Yankee Stadium? B10 baseball tourney during a NYY road trip? An occasional RU home FB game? Soccer, lacrosse, etc?”
For Lacrosse, the baseball regular season has already started by the time the Big Ten tournament will be rolling around, so it would have to be an early season classic, while the Yankees are still in Tampa, say mid-March. But the Big Ten Soccer championship game is played after the World Series is finished, so a soccer championship game would work on the calendar.
LikeLike
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ticketing/soccer.jsp
They play soccer there during the MLB season. I think a week long road trip would be room enough to sneak in a lacrosse tournament.
LikeLike
How flexible is the American League in scheduling Yankees road trips to suit an NCAA sports calendar? European national soccer teams in the summer between the Euros and the World Cup years would seem like they’d have flexibility to schedule their trip to hit an existing schedule.
I don’t know what the logistics are for converting the field to a soccer pitch in terms of lead time both ways, but a lacrosse field would be the same lead times. A western road trip would seem plenty of time, if the dates fell right.
They play the Konica Classic in the Meadowlands at the end of April and draw 25,000, but that is, eg, Princeton vs Cornell and the Irish vs the Orangemen.
LikeLike
Big Ten lacrosse or soccer isn’t going to Yankee Stadium. I think the most likely non-bowl event would be the Big Ten baseball tourney, which I believe was held this year at the Twins’ Target Field. I could also envision Nationals Park, Citizens Bank Park and Camden Yards as possible future sites.
For lacrosse, the Ravens’ stadium could be a venue.
LikeLike
Go Blue!
LikeLike
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9338542/pac-12-limit-hits-contact-football-practice
A sign of the times. The P12 is drawing up conference rules that limit hitting in practice beyond the NCAA’s rules. Look for that concept to spread to the B10 soon (maybe not to the SEC, though).
LikeLike
I would look for the B1G to fight this tooth and nail. Most of the B1G schools recruit developmental athletes. Limiting their practice time of fundamentals/tackling etc… would really hurt the programs and the conference competitiveness.
Urban Meyer has been outspoken on this issue.
LikeLike
There are a lot of ways to practice without hitting. You can do a lot of of drills with dummies/sleds, run through plays, etc.
LikeLike
I agree with Brian. Full contact practice is not necessary 80% of the time. There is plenty of development that can be done without Oklahoma drills.
LikeLike
With JHU officially onboard for men’s lax, the next obvious question is the CIC. The only relevant report about it is PSU’s announcement as Frank said, and I prefer to see multiple sources for something like that.
If JHU joins the CIC, it reopens the question of adding CIC-only schools. Obviously the CIC has avoided that so far, but JHU would be a bridge. The UAA schools would be ideal candidates, since Chicago is already a CIC member and JHU is a former member.
UAA (schools and cities, for those that don’t know):
Brandeis (Boston)
Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
Case Western Reserve (Cleveland)
Chicago
Emory (ATL)
NYU
Rochester
Washington U (STL)
JHU (Baltimore) is a former member.
These are smallish (except NYU), private schools that are all AAU members, and they don’t lack for resources.
Total Enrollments:
BU 5300
RU 9700
CWRU 9800
CMU 10,900
EU 12,800
WU 13,500
UC 14,800
NYU 42,200
NW is over 19,000 and OSU just under 57,000 for comparison.
Endowments:
BU $700M
CMU $1B
RU $1.6B
CWRU $1.7B
NYU $2.8B
WU $5.3B
EU $5.4B
UC $6.5B
JHU $2.6B
RU is at $700M and UMD at $800M, but the current members are all over $1B with IA at $1.0B and MN at $2.5B and the rest in between except for NW at $7.2B and MI at $7.8B. In other words, the UAA schools would be a good match in this measure.
Total research ranking (National/Private):
19/6. WU
34/13. EU
38/16. CWRU
42/17. RU
45/19. UC
63/22. NYU
82/26. CMU
172/46. BU
1/1. JHU
B10:
2. MI
3. WI
9. MN
12. OSU
15. PSU
25. IL
28/9. NW
33. PU
39. UMD
47. MSU
57. IA
59. RU
78. NE
104. IN
The UAA schools would fit in terms of research money except for Brandeis, and being a top 50 private school isn’t bad. Brandeis is the smallest of the schools, so it should have the lowest total.
LikeLike
Don’t see how the CIC adding a BigTen member puts adding a non-conference member onto the agenda. I think the decision made in the previous decade stands.
LikeLike
With Delany’s focus on New York, I could see NYU coming in. According to Brian’s numbers, they’re easily the largest of the UAA schools. And unlike most of the others, they have an actual sports history (including decent basketball through the ’60s).
They also could eventually be part of a Big Ten fencing conference (because fencing allows cross-division competition). Imagine the BTN ratings boost. Incidentally, Hopkins fences too.
Not really kidding though. In some sense, the Big Ten probably could use NYU to help its presence in New York.
LikeLike
Adding an affiliate member wasn’t really on the agenda until it was brought up by UMD. Suddenly the old decision changed.
LikeLike
Both the CIC and the Big Ten make most of their decisions in the shadows, with no obligation to share the process or the reasoning by which those decisions were made.
For the Big Ten, their decisions produce visible output that receives tons of media coverage, which we can all observe and measure. Most of what the CIC does remains in the shadows, largely out of the public eye.
We have enough trouble arriving at consensus on what the Big Ten might do about things like rules, expansion, scheduling, etc. And on those subjects, at least the main facts are known to all of us. And there are other conferences facing similar decisions, to which the Big Ten can be compared. For the CIC, we really don’t know what’s important to them, and there aren’t many similar organizations we can compare them to.
LikeLike
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/060313aaa.html
As was mentioned on the last post, the B10 released the 2015 schedule. All the games flip locations but there are no opponent changes from 2014.
UMD – MI, @OSU, bye, PSU, @IA, WI, @MSU, IN, @RU
RU – @PSU, bye, MSU, @IN, OSU, @WI, @MI, NE, bye, UMD
That’s a tough start for UMD. If they survive until late in the year, the finish is soft. RU has a tough slate in the middle with OSU, WI, MI and NE in 4 straight weeks.
One interesting note:
UMD will host PSU at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore instead of at home. This replaces the VT game UMD was supposed to play at M&T, so I think they were contractually obligated to move a game there. UMD’s other home games are BGSU, USF, MI, WI and IN with 2 OOC games not scheduled yet. MI is the other school most likely to fill the place in Baltimore, but PSU’s proximity makes them the better choice. MI at home should make sure that season tickets sell well.
LikeLike
Oops. I also wanted to add that I’m not sure if UMD plans to routinely play in Baltimore. I’m sure they want to get lots of big games at home, too. Maybe when the B10 goes to 9 games they’ll play their 5th home game at a neutral site (DC or Baltimore).
LikeLike
@Brian
Maryland generally HATES the idea of playing offsite. My understanding is that the 2015 game in Baltimore was to replace a game that was cancelled (an ACC opponent – VaTech). Two sides to this issue: some want to get Baltimore fans involved while others want ALL the games played at College Park forcing the stadium to increase in size. Lots of discussion on how ticket allotments are allocated and whether Maryland really IS the home team. If the game was turned around, the game would be played at State College which IS the home of Penn State.
LikeLike
From here on in, I expect any Maryland games scheduled in Baltimore or Landover to be solely against elite non-conference opponents (e.g., Texas at FedEx in 2018). Penn State was shifted to Baltimore to fulfill an agreement after Virginia Tech left the schedule in the Big Ten move, and I predict PSU’s next game at Maryland (either in 2016 or 2017) will take place at Byrd Stadium.
LikeLike
It’s quite possible. I saw some UMD blogs discussing rotating the site for the home game against PSU between Byrd and M&T, but it was pure speculation. I’d much rather see UMD keep home games on campus. If you build up the team again, then you could play a weaker OOC game (Navy?) in M&T instead of at the other school.
LikeLike
Nemo,
“Maryland generally HATES the idea of playing offsite.”
When you say Maryland, do you mean the fans or the school or the team? I’d have to think many UMD fans like playing in Baltimore because it’s closer to them and/or they’re Ravens fans. The school probably started doing it for the money and they may be hooked on the extra cash. Maybe it was a short term money grab and will stop once the B10 money is coming in.
“My understanding is that the 2015 game in Baltimore was to replace a game that was cancelled (an ACC opponent – VaTech).”
Yes, I mentioned that.
“Two sides to this issue: some want to get Baltimore fans involved while others want ALL the games played at College Park forcing the stadium to increase in size.”
Shouldn’t they focus on paying off debt, like from the new luxury boxes, before they even consider expansion? I’d guess UMD is at least a decade away from even considering expansion based on how bad their finances were. They’ll want years of sell outs and time paying off debt and building reserves before starting a large capital project.
“Lots of discussion on how ticket allotments are allocated and whether Maryland really IS the home team.”
Well they can always adjust the distribution. The B10 only requires that 3500 (I think) seats be set aside for the visiting team. My guess is UMD gave more to the opponent because UMD fans wouldn’t fill the place.
“If the game was turned around, the game would be played at State College which IS the home of Penn State.”
PSU’s stadium seats 30k more people than M&T. That’s the difference. UMD would never play in Baltimore if Byrd held 100k+.
LikeLike
While I think I agree, is it possible that getting the financing to expand in the current economic climate might be less expensive than waiting to pay down their debt? If its going to happen either way, that is.
LikeLike
True, but I think they need proof that expansion is justified. It’s not like they have a waiting list for season tickets.
LikeLike
@Brian
I have to agree with vp19 here:
“From here on in, I expect any Maryland games scheduled in Baltimore or Landover to be solely against elite non-conference opponents (e.g., Texas at FedEx in 2018). Penn State was shifted to Baltimore to fulfill an agreement after Virginia Tech left the schedule in the Big Ten move, and I predict PSU’s next game at Maryland (either in 2016 or 2017) will take place at Byrd Stadium.”
As for paying off debt, we have luxury suites to fill that were built just before the housing crash. So, if games are played at alternate sites, what point is there in buying a luxury suite? The draw for such “high hitter” perks is to see a premier game against a premier team.
Nemo
LikeLike
Nemo,
That’s why I thought they might use M&T for a game like Navy instead, with M&T as the home site for Navy in a home and home series. Play the big games at home to max out Byrd. Do you think a game like UT will draw more than MI or OSU or PSU?
LikeLike
That’s a tough start for UMD. If they survive until late in the year, the finish is soft. RU has a tough slate in the middle with OSU, WI, MI and NE in 4 straight weeks.
I suspect that what drove the league was tryiing to get “king” games into the East Coast TV market in the first 2/3rds of the season, when they’re more likely to get the national network pickup. (In the final third of the season, traditional rivalry games and games with league championship implications tend to predominate.)
LikeLike
Note that the DC, Baltimore, and New Jersey markets will not just get a heavy dose of the Michigan schools and Ohio St. and Penn St., but they also get Nebraska and Wisconsin in the first two years. Brilliant move for the Big Ten. Although the offset is few marquee cross over games (both Nebraska and Wisconsin miss Michigan, Ohio St., and Penn St.), but the newly expanded markets will get a lot of quality opponents into town.
LikeLike
For Wisconsin, this means their conference membership is practically on hold for a while. They have no games against Ohio St, Michigan, Michigan St, or Penn St for at least two straight seasons from 2014-15. Which makes the scheduling of Alabama in 2015 and the yet-to-be-finalized attempt to schedule LSU in 2014 make even more sense.
LikeLike
My Gopher “tin-foil” hat says that Barry has been doing some “dirty-work” in the B1G offices in Chi-Town… basically given a free pass to the conference title games with their sked…
Gopher’s gotta get that Axe back and “spoil” some Badger football…
LikeLike
http://www.baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/jhu-mens-lacrosse-joins-the-big-ten/
An excerpt from a letter from JHU’s president to the JHU community.
The special committee looked into several possible conference affiliations in the course of its deliberations. In the end, Athletics Director Tom Calder and Coach Dave Pietramala recommended that Johns Hopkins join the Big Ten for several reasons, including:
* We are a good fit with the Big Ten institutions, research universities with whom — in most cases — we already share close connections through the Association of American Universities;
* The commitment of the Big Ten and its members to the academic success of student-athletes;
* The opportunity for Johns Hopkins to help to launch Big Ten lacrosse play, including the adoption of competition rules and procedures;
* The opportunity for Johns Hopkins to contribute to the creation of the league’s lacrosse culture, bringing to bear the experience of our 44 national championships and the traditions and history of the nation’s most successful lacrosse program;
* The chance to continue a historic series with arch-rival Maryland, which is also joining the Big Ten;
* The conference’s understanding and encouragement of our desire to maintain as many of our other traditional rivalries as possible;
* The conference’s understanding and encouragement of our desire to maintain our agreement with ESPNU for national telecasts of all games from Homewood Field; and
* The strength, stability and resources of the Big Ten, which bode well for the success of its venture into a new sport.
It also means a great deal that the Big Ten is so enthusiastic about welcoming Johns Hopkins into its ranks. Commissioner Jim Delany and other Big Ten officials and coaches have made it clear that they consider Johns Hopkins central to the league’s strategic decision to expand into lacrosse competition.
LikeLike
Go Green!
LikeLike
JHU didn’t join in women’s lax because it’s just too expensive for a mainly D-III athletic program with no TV money (other than a modest amount for the men’s games) to finance multiple airplane trips for large squad non-revenue sports like women’s lax. That’s why Hopkins left the UAA some years ago — too many trips to Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Boston without any compensating revenue to pay for it. Being in the ALC meant at least 3 airplane trips a year, with no TV or other conference revenue to pay for it. Being in the Big 10 for women’s lax might have meant slightly lower expense (no Florida or Tennessee trips), but given the large number of potential Middle Atlantic opponents and the relative de-emphasis of the women’s team (compared to the men’s team), independent status for the women’s team made more sense overall. Also, as noted, the Big Ten didn’t need the women’s team, so I think they just left that decision to JHU. And JHU had nothing to gain in terms of exposure, etc.
If the Big Ten had demanded it, JHU probably would have included the women’s team in the mix. I would have preferred that approach myself, as a fan/alum. But it just wasn’t that important to either side, and I think the travel costs were just too high to include them.
LikeLike
Wouldn’t the problems you cited, which led JHU to go independent in women’s LAX, have been faced by many other schools that play the sport?
LikeLike
Look at the league footprint of many of those leagues ~ they don’t require much flying. But I expect joining a “lesser league” would grate on JHU alumni sensibilities. Independence allows them to play an east coast bus league schedule.
LikeLike
Obviously this is not as big as a true conference expansion, but it could be a very influential middle step in the way of future expansion. Could certainly be another rung to getting UT or UVA/UNC to join. Time will tell.
LikeLike
I have trouble seeing that. Obviously, the conference is better with JHU than without. Still, among the factors that would induce UVA/UNC to abandon the ACC, or Texas to abandon the Big XII, it’s pretty far down the list. So far, in fact, as to be practically irrelevant.
Should UVA/UNC decide to abandon the ACC, it’ll be because that’s best for football and men’s basketball. Sure, they’d be glad to be in a lacrosse league with JHU, but not to the extent that it would prompt a different decision than they’d otherwise make. It’s even less of a consideration for Texas, which doesn’t even play lacrosse.
LikeLike
Bingo. This will matter down the road. As someone in the industry, I can tell you that if JHU to B1G means JHU to CIC then this makes the B1G more attractive to places like UVA/UNC should they jump ship down the road. Sure, the lax is a great fit at the moment, but this has everything to do with the CIC and the hard scrabble of STEM dollars which is currently running the show in higher education (when football isn’t) in case you haven’t noticed. I can’t speak to UNC, but UVA is under enormous pressure to increase its STEM profile and this will matter down the road should either UVA/UNC decide to look elsewhere (I exclude Duke because I don’t see the B1G wanting them for sports reasons when you can get the others).
LikeLike
Duke basketball is a powerhouse, in case you haven’t noticed.
Considering that Gee mentioned Duke in the same breath as UVa and UNC, I think they’re in if they want in.
LikeLike
@Richard – Yes, I never understood how people have thought that the Big Ten would somehow object to Duke. An elite academic powerhouse that is consistently the single biggest national TV draw in college basketball in one of the fastest growing (and most well-educated) metro areas in the country isn’t getting passed over no matter how bad their football program might be. I’ve seen some fairly ridiculous suggestions for Big Ten additions for purely market or academic reasons over the past few years, but Duke is perfectly aligned with what the Big Ten would want in expansion despite being a private school. To be clear, I loathe Duke more than any other sports team (including the Packers, which is saying something for this Bears fan). I’m also far from the only person that loathes them (Grantland had a 64-player NCAA Tournament-style bracket of the most hated players in college basketball history a few months ago and dedicated an entire “region” to only Duke players in order to avoid having an all-Duke final four), so that’s probably coloring a lot of people’s hopes/wishes that Duke would get left behind in conference realignment. That’s simply not going to happen with an institution of that academic caliber that is also to basketball what Notre Dame is to football.
LikeLike
The problem with Duke is they don’t really give you anything you don’t already get with UNC. I don’t think they would be a bad addition, I just think if the Big Ten was expanding and could get UNC without Duke they probably would.
LikeLike
Surely ~ Duke would undoubtedly be a 16th, not a 15th. As a 16th, and arguably unlike Pit, it would be gross revenue positive, even though likely not average revenue positive, and average revenue neutral at best.
LikeLike
The problem with Duke is they don’t really give you anything you don’t already get with UNC.
Of course they do. For starters, it gives you every Duke basketball game. Duke basketball games are like Notre Dame football games: they’re a huge draw, regardless of the opponent. Duke is also extremely strong academically, better than almost all of the current Big Ten.
It’s not like Iowa State or Pitt, which give you hardly anything when you’ve already got Iowa and Penn State. Duke is a national brand, and you never have too many of those. I mean, what’s better than having UNC/Indiana on your basketball schedule devery year? Having UNC/Indiana, Duke/Indiana, plus UNC/Duke twice!
I just think if the Big Ten was expanding and could get UNC without Duke they probably would.
If you mean that the Big Ten would actually turn Duke down, I think you’re quite mistaken.
LikeLike
If you mean that the Big Ten would actually turn Duke down, I think you’re quite mistaken.
If they are already getting UNC then schools like UVA, Kansas or even Georgia Tech would provide more marginal value than Duke, so yes under the right conditions they would turn them down.
For starters, it gives you every Duke basketball game. Duke basketball games are like Notre Dame football games: they’re a huge draw, regardless of the opponent.
True; but the problem is they also give you Duke football games which would detract from the Big Ten’s football value at least as much as they would add to the basketball side, and since FB is far, far more important than MBB that would be a problem.
Duke is also extremely strong academically, better than almost all of the current Big Ten.
Academics are a qualifying condition. Either you meet the standard or don’t. How much better or worse you are than the standard isn’t really relevant. Obviously Duke meets the threshold but so do other schools.
I guess to some up my thoughts on Duke, if the Big Ten is already getting UNC I do think they would try and find other alternatives to Duke.
LikeLike
Well, we are talking hypotheticals, anyway, since none of those major schools are available any time soon. But if we’re talking Duke, then we’re really talking about a #17 or a #18, not a #15 or #16. Remember that Duke/Carolina ARE the ACC. UVa is still sort of tied in to Carolina. Who would be #18? There are a few possibilities: Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Connecticut. If football is more important, we’re looking at FSU or Miami (or OU/Texas if they become available). But we’re looking at going so far south that the regionalists would have a big problem with it. If academics is still more paramount, then we’re looking at UVa/UNC/Duke/GT as more likely the play. But does the B1G really want to go as far south as Atlanta? They didn’t the last time, which makes me doubt they’d want to. So there’s still Connecticut. They’re not AAU but they could be in twenty years’ time. Could Virginia and UConn be the better play? I have no idea but I’m baffled why they didn’t go the last time.
LikeLike
@transic: Remember that Duke/Carolina ARE the ACC. UVa is still sort of tied in to Carolina.
That’s the key point: the ACC losing UNC is like the Big XII losing Texas. Once that happens, the conference as we’ve known it is dead, and it’s every university president for himself. That means the Big Ten would pretty much have its choice of schools for #16, 17-18, or 19-20, assuming they want to go that far.
But does the B1G really want to go as far south as Atlanta? They didn’t the last time, which makes me doubt they’d want to. So there’s still Connecticut. They’re not AAU but they could be in twenty years’ time. Could Virginia and UConn be the better play? I have no idea but I’m baffled why they didn’t go the last time.
They weren’t going to take GT without a 16th school, and as far as we know, no acceptable 16th was available. For that matter, we don’t even know for sure that GT was available. Beyond that, various Big Ten sources have stressed geographic contiguity as a priority, in which case they wouldn’t take GT without both UVA and UNC, and that wasn’t going to happen this cycle.
I think UConn would need to be AAU to even be considered. I question whether they could get there within 10 years, which is when the next realignment cycle is likely to happen. I’m sure UConn would like to be AAU, but so do a lot of schools.
LikeLike
@ Transic- Are you really baffled why the Big Ten didn’t take UConn? If so, I’m baffled that you’re baffled.
Connecticut has 3.6 million people (compared to 5.9 million for Maryland and 8.9 million for New Jersey). It’s 29th in population, but 42nd in growth rate, so will fall even lower. It also has no football history to speak of, so its base of fans can’t compare with schools that have been playing big-time football for decades. And of course, New England in general is no football hotbed.
I can’t imagine that the Big Ten will ever seriously consider UConn, AAU or not.
LikeLike
Yeah, I think it’s a no-brainer that the Big Ten would take Duke, in the hypothetical that they’re also getting UVA and UNC. Duke is extremely weak in football, but they’re a national powerhouse (practically like an Ivy) in academics and research.
And of course, they have a basketball team you might have heard of. UNC/Duke basketball is one of the nation’s best rivalries in any sport. The Big Ten would gladly swallow Duke’s weak football team, to get all of that.
LikeLike
Is this even on the table anymore? Or is it in the 10-year plan?
I think it would be cool to see a 20-team Big Ten with four or five “pods”, but the rejuvenated ACC seems like it can put some decent product together.
LikeLike
Its 10-20 year plan thinking ~ which is an advantage of the JHU move, building B1G LAX is a nice little side venture right now, and long term the worry UMD had about the future of its Lacrosse program won’t be an issue for Duke or UVA or UNC in 10-20 years time.
LikeLike
@bobscatar: I think the broad consensus on prior FTT threads, is that the major conferences are now untouchable until their GORs get closer to expiration in the 2020s. Some people think there might be a way out of them sooner, but that’s not a majority view.
The Big Ten has proven it can be patient: it waited for over a decade with just 11 teams, waiting until the right #12 was available. It’ll wait a decade again, if need be. JHU can be seen as a move in their strategic direction, even if the strategy will take a long time to pan out.
LikeLike
If the Big 10 could hypothetically get UVA and UNC, I’m not sure they would take Duke. They would first have to decide they were willing to go to 18. Then they would have to decide that Georgia Tech or Pitt or Kansas or Missouri was ok as #18. Then they would have to be able to get one of those that was acceptable.
And Duke would have to decide it wanted to be in the Big 10 if the ACC disintegrated as opposed to dropping football and moving to Big East. TV $ would probably be big enough to make the decision easy, but not necessarily.
LikeLike
@Bullet- I agree with you. I think it should be phrased that the B1G would take UVA and either UNC or Duke, but not both. Either one will give BTN sufficient entry into North Carolina. Adding both does little more than dilute the impact of one. We can debate the merits of Duke vs UNC (amount of alumni, relative football success, etc…), but at the end of the day, either would fit very well in the B1G.
In the same vein, its why the SEC is comfortable with only one Florida school. UF gives the SEC sufficient entry and presence in Florida markets; FSU–a powerhouse in its own right–would not do much inside Florida that UF does not already do, relative to what it would receive in distributions. I mean, that the SEC opted for Mizzou over potentially adding FSU shows that adding markets is the critical driver of expansion; doubling down in a state add enough relative to the equal distributions.
LikeLike
Frankly, if the B10 moves to 16 teams, I see no reason why it wouldn’t go up to 18 or 20. I concede that with each additional school you liekly create more instability than with the previous added school. But unless the next two schools are UT and ND by themselves, I think the B10 will always have room to go above 16 just to get a school it highly covets. I could easily see UNC (and UVA) making Duke a contingency on acceptance. That hardly seems like a difficult sell the way taking OSU (with OK) or TT (with UT) would be.
From a long-term perspective, I think Duke’s basketball program will be more valuable than Nebraska’s football program. Only because I think football is on a slow death spiral in this country. If a president shared that perspective, then it makes sense for the B10 to diversify its sport holdings, which it has done with hockey and lacrosse, and to to strengthen others, baseball, soccer and most importantly basketball.
This is one of the benefits of the three ACC core universities.
LikeLike
If the Big 10 could hypothetically get UVA and UNC, I’m not sure they would take Duke. They would first have to decide they were willing to go to 18. Then they would have to decide that Georgia Tech or Pitt or Kansas or Missouri was ok as #18. Then they would have to be able to get one of those that was acceptable.
I think it’s beyond obvious that in a scenario where the ACC loses UVA, UNC, and Duke, then GT is available. You think it’s at all doubtful that the B1G would take those four in a heartbeat??
And Duke would have to decide it wanted to be in the Big 10 if the ACC disintegrated as opposed to dropping football and moving to Big East. TV $ would probably be big enough to make the decision easy, but not necessarily.
Duke has played football since 1895. They’re not dropping football. Do you seriously think that Big East money would be anywhere close to Big Ten money? Like, even in the same zip code?
LikeLike
Wainscott – what if UVA/UNC says you either bring Duke along or we don’t go? Does the B10 forfeit Virginia and North Carolina the states simply because it won’t go above 16 or because Duke/UNC will take a spot from another market? I don’t know the answer, but I suspect that both Duke and UNC are valuable enough brands in their own right that you might make that exception. I htink that is a harder question to answer than a scenario where UVA says to get us you have to take VT. I think in that latter scenario the B10 walks. Just my opinion of course.
LikeLike
@SH: Certainly, if UNC and Duke are handcuffed, that would complicate matters. If the B1G wants no more than 16 teams, then they might walk and see if UVa will join, and find a different #16 (GT? Mizzou? Kansas after 2027?). If the conference wants to go to 18 0r 20, then having Duke and UNC could be a tremendous positive for reasons unrelated to the BTN (such as owning college basketball).
I also agree that VT just would be a nonstarter, and if UVa was handcuffed to VT, than the B1G might cast its gaze elsewhere (as Gee mentioned, maybe Mizzou and Kansas once the Big 12 GoR expires) or simply stand pat at 14.
LikeLike
Wainscott – I don’t underestimate the standing pat option. My whole point with going above 16 teams is this. If B10 wants the VA and NC markets, and it decides it must have UVA/UNC. I just don’t see a Duke from preventing that from happening. But if Duke went another way and untethered itself from UNC, and the B10 has a perfect 16 team league, well it would certainly open the doors back up to get UT or ND (despite Gee’s comments). So I just don’t think that 16 is a magic number.
Expounding from my previous comment, no doubt football is the big revenue drive, but there is no guaranty that it will remain that way. As I stated, I am of the belief that football is on a slow death spiral. I’m certain not everyone shares that opinion. But it does offer a rationale to diversify and strengthen basketball where you can.
My only beef with Kansas is that apart from basketball (and 2 senators) what else does it offer? I say this even though I have advocated that it is a very valuable brand and I have stated that it must be takent care and placed in a power conference for political purposes.
LikeLike
I don’t think that UNC will ever join the Big 10. UNC doesn’t need Big 10 money for research or sports. It gets plenty of both in the ACC. Honestly, UNC would be one of the only schools which could feasibly handle independence in all sports. There are more than enough programs in the state of North Carolina alone that the school could schedule every year (every one of which would play the Heels in any sport in a home and home if offered). Plus, UNC basketball, lacrosse, soccer, etc. are all such strong brand names in their sport that the school could easily fill out its schedules with big time national opponents. If UNC does ever leave the ACC, which I don’t think will happen in our lifetimes, if ever, it won’t be to the Big 10. The vast majority of UNC’s fanbase, and a very sizable portion of it’s alumni base consider themselves Southerners. They don’t want UNC in a Northern Conference, aka the Big 10. UNC fan support is so overwhelmingly in favor of the SEC to the Big 10, that I don’t think it would be politically feasible for the school to go to the Big 10 over the SEC if both were options, and I don’t think the SEC will expand again without UNC. For similar reasons, I don’t think UVA will ever join the Big 10 either, especially if UNC joins the SEC. An SEC with UNC would mean that UVA could be in a conference with the flagship (or at least co-flagship) universities of every former state of the Confederacy, which I promise is more appealing to most Virginians (at least those outside of the D.C. suburbs) than the research money of the Big 10. If the Big 10 really wants to expand it’s market when the ACC GOR expires, I think it needs to focus on schools that are realistic gets culturally, such as Maryland or Rutgers. The University of Miami is the first that comes to mind. Fantastic location, tremendous television draw, likely eventual AAU status, and virtually no pro-southern culture. And even though Miami is in a prolonged slump right now in football, based on its location, tradition, and huge appeal with many South Florida athletes, Miami will be back, and I say that as a UF fan. IMHO, the best move that the BIG 10 could make would be to take UM and FSU (which lacks much of the strong southern cultural identity of other ACC schools) and put both in the West, and move Purdue to the east. That would make for much more balanced divisions long-term
LikeLike
Perhaps. But things change. This is why I think the incremental approach of Hopkins may matter. It further changes the identity of the B10 as simply a midwestern conference. The B10 doesn’t have to do anything for now. But if the revenue inequality grows between B10/SEC and the B12/ACC, then the schools in the latter may start looking to maximize their opportunities. Other factors could come into play as well. For Texas, they have already unhooked themselves to A&M. And A&M is rising at a time that UT is falling (football wise). Who knows how this may play into conference realignment. Obviously there is a lot of uknowns in the future. But I know how gravity works. Power is attracted to power. Now maybe they will all just orbit around one another, but maybe they will get sucked in. In a day and age where Rutgers gets invited to the B10 and A&M splits from UT, I think anything is possible. At the end, I simply cannot discount the fact that the B10 offers just about everything a college president and board could wants as far a conference goes (other than location). And it is obviously open to expansion. With Hopkins they have shown they can manuever around a rights contract (admittedly, on a very small scale). The best move for the B10 to make would simply be to be patient until it gets a school or group of schools it really likes.
LikeLike
Yes, and the media market will be a very different place by the mid 20’s. There is no telling whether the coming turbulence will amplify the disparities, leave them where they are today, or narrow them. And even if a conference leadership were to guess right which way its heading, there’d be no big benefit in worrying about it very much until the GOR’s come closer to their expiration dates.
LikeLike
@Jeffrey: Neither agreeing nor disagreeing about the likelihood of getting UNC, because I am agnostic.
Every scenario involving UNC presumes a VERY substantial revenue disparity, over time, between the Big Ten and the ACC. In the modern history of conference alignment, no school I’m aware of has tolerated a long-term substantial revenue disparity in its current league, when it had options in a far more lucrative league. If the gap is large enough, no school is going to say, “We have enough money. We don’t need more.” The only real argument is how big the gap needs to be, before UNC considers it intolerable.
My understanding, is that Swofford was able to persuade the wobbling members that future deals would narrow the revenue gap to a “tolerable” amount. Exactly what he promised, obviously, is not exactly on the public record, but he was able to make it fly. This does not mean the conference is stable if he is unable to deliver on those promises.
LikeLike
Marc, that probably best summarizes the whole situation. For those reasons, I think the odds are in favor of UNC/UVA will join the B10. I really think it just a matter of time.
LikeLike
Agreed, with Notre Dame as the notable exception.
LikeLike
Agreed, with Notre Dame as the notable exception.
That’s why I included the words, “in its current league,” which leaves out independents.
LikeLike
@Marc Shepard: Such is the peril of quickly scanning for the gist of an argument rather than reading every word.
LikeLike
@jeph: Maybe so, but the composition of both Virginia and North Carolina is rapidly changing. Northerners fleeing high taxes and cold weather are moving in at a rapid clip. The demographics are such that both states might resemble Maryland within a generation–southern in location, but northern in attitude and interests. In such a case, joining a northern conference might very well appeal more to the average Virginian or North Carolinian within 20 years than it may today.
LikeLike
Very good point. Ultimately, the B10 and SEC will likely overlap in some states, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Rivalries are in general good for sports, and this will likely make the conference rivalry more interesting.
LikeLike
I agree that perhaps the ACC could get to a point where it is at such a monetary disadvantage compared to the Big 10 and the SEC that UNC and UVA will be forced to jump, but I think that both with choose the SEC to the Big 10. I think that the Big 10 can shed it’s identity as a Midwestern Conference by moving to the East Coast, but I don’t think it will ever be able to shed it’s identity as a Northern Conference, at least in the minds of most Southerners. The problem for the Big 10 and UNC/UVA, (and for that matter Va Tech and NCSU) is that as long as the SEC is an option for both schools, the Big 10 will always be at a huge disadvantage. While I agree that the demographics of both Virginia and North Carolina are changing, I don’t think that 20 years will be nearly enough time to change them into “Northern” states. Florida has had many times the number of migrants from the north, and over a much longer time than Virginia and North Carolina, and Florida is still much more of a Southern State than it is a Northern State. Honestly, I think Penn State and Nebraska, both of whom were in unique positions at they time they joined the Big 10, gave the Big 10 the feeling that they could get anybody that they wanted to join. While the Big 10 is certainly an incredibly desirable conference, which at least 80 FBS schools would kill to get into, there are still a number of schools that would have little to no interest in the Big 10, or would at least prefer another conference. If the Big 10 really could have anyone for the asking, I suspect they would have taken Notre Dame, Texas, Florida, Nebraska, and either Georgia (which I know is not AAU) or North Carolina in that order, not Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, and Johns Hopkins.
As for Johns Hopkins somehow convincing UNC and UVA to join the Big 10, I don’t think that UNC and UVA care anything at all about what Hopkins does. If they did, they could have invited them to the ACC. I do think that Hopkins could be used to lure a number of exceptional private schools which don’t sponsor D1 athletics into the CIC only, which I think would be a fantastic move. For example, if the Big 10 really wants to get into the New York market, NYU as a member of the CIC would be the way to go about doing so.
LikeLike
Fans may want the SEC but I doubt the administrators and professors want it. Would be interesting to see what alums want. There is certainly a faction that more easily identifies with the South and one that more easily identifies with the B10 schools. The ones in the latter camp will likely be the ultimate decision maker. But these being public schools you have to convince the fanbase at large to some extent. One way to do is is to show that the B10 makes more money than the SEC. Another way is to make sure the other state schools end up in a good spot – VT and NCSt. No way they end up in B10. So either those schools split with some going to B10 and some going to SEC or they stay together.
LikeLike
Sorry, but I think you’re letting your bias cloud your judgement. UNC and UVA are two different animals. I agree that UNC would commit cultural Hari-Kari by joining the Big Ten. I can’t imagine under any circumstance that UVA would choose the SEC over the Big Ten.
LikeLike
The SEC could offer UVa and UNC an answer to the “Tech and State” problems. I doubt the SEC would work with the B1G and take NC State and VA Tech to enable the B1G to get the schools they really want. The B1G won’t take NC State and VA Tech is probably a non-starter too. The SEC wouldn’t have that problem though. The SEC could offer take all four schools, but add that it won’t take VA Tech without UVa, and it won’t take NC State without UNC.
That would be a tough offer for the trustees/politicians to turn down, especially when the fans/constituents would be for it. The eggheads might be in a box with an offer like that.
LikeLike
Conference realignment really is like a big game of chess. There are so many different moves that cann be made and many depend on your opponent. I just wish we could get to the end of it.
LikeLike
Yeah, that would be the SEC’s biggest advantage, and, frankly, the only way I see UVA ever going to SEC if they had a competing offer from the Big Ten (compared to UNC who I could envision preferring to the Big Ten straight up).
LikeLike
The SEC’s biggest advantages are geography and alumni. The SEC is closer to UNC and UVA and there are a lot more alumni in the southeast than in Chicago or Detroit.
LikeLike
Its not so much what the alumni want, but how does the university reach them. CU moved to the Pac 12 because its alumni were on the west coast. FSU’s president liked the ACC because its alumni were mostly in Georgia and the east coast. The Big 10 picked Maryland and Rutgers to connect with alumni in those areas. If UVA and UNC ever decide to leave the ACC, where their alumni are located will be critical.
LikeLike
But how many are in NY, NJ, Maryland, DC area? In ten years that will be established B1G territory (regarding college identification).
LikeLike
Bullet:
I’m not as certain about UNC, but UVa definitely tends more to send its grads north to the northeastern corridor than south in to SEC country. Same with Duke. These days, that’s probably true for UNC as well. Lots of Tarheels in NYC nowadays.
LikeLike
Granted, the states of NC and SC are very tied together, so the UNC t-shirt fans would strongly favor the SEC. Already, however, VA is more tied to the northeastern corridor than to any place south of it.
LikeLike
I don’t think the ACC will break up. and I don’t think UNC is up for grabs. But if ever they were, the general population of fans and alums would favor the SEC. I would have to think that that would be a major factor. Also, I think the SEC would let UNC bring whoever they want with them, be it NCSU or Duke or UVA or all three.
I don’t think the SEC expands without UNC. So I don’t think the SEC will expand again. I think it’ll be 14 for the long haul.
LikeLike
You talk cultural fit and then mention UVA going into the SEC? You have a point about states having a cultural identity. This is a fact but if you think people from North Carolina or Virginia have a more kindred spirit with the gulf states because of the Civil War, you don’t know the same people I do from those states. North Carolinians and Virginians, especially Virginians, look about as far down their noses as possible at those from the gulf states. There is southern and there is Deep South. You have a point about culture but you are misplacing it in regards to geography and fans, which in all probability won’t matter. The only culture that matters here is acedemic.
Academics is a culture onto itself. Most high end administrators travel from school to school, completely insulated from the outside world. Gordon Gee is a perfect example. He went to Columbia then worked at BYU, then West Virginia, then University of Colorado, then OSU, then Brown, and then Vanderbelt before returning to OSU. The Administrations of every major university is littered with these academic nomads, who spend most of their adult life away from the culture of states they work in and strictly in the company of similarly traveled professors and admins. These people collectively look down their noses at anybody without a doctorite. The only time they have any contact with people from the outside world are politicians and well heeled boosters and board members. If you think anybody in that world cares about t-shirt fans and average alumni, who are sadly mistaken. The only letter writing campaigns that matter have checks with lots of zeros in them, which can no doubt dictate a schools conference. The SEC schools and the old Southwest comference schools are booster dominated. The boosters in these areas care about football and nothing else. That is not the case with UVA, who have as much as an academic snobbery as you will find outside the Ivy League. Same with Duke. Those schools wont be joining the SEC over the BIG anytime soon. UNC is slightly different from those schools in that basketball is as important as football is down in SEC land, with boosters to boot. But I find it hard to believe that well heeled basketball boosters would choose the SEC over the BIG, against the overriding support for the BIG by the top administrators.
This is a conversation to be had in 10 years time. A lot can change by then, but one thing that won’t change is the desires of the average alumni and fans. Unless those alumni and fans are donating 7 figure checks, they don’t matter. In fact, they will be the last to know just like Maryland fans were.
LikeLike
I agree that the academics at UNC and UVA would almost certainly prefer the Big 10. However, Notre Dame academics were overwhelmingly in favor of joining the Big 10 in the 90’s, and the school remained independent. If UNC and UVA were not publicly funded state schools, the opinions of academics would matter a great deal more, but that is not the case. If the leadership at Syracuse or Boston College decided to join the Big 10, they wouldn’t have politicians to answer to. UNC and UVA receive the vast majority of their funding from those who are neither employees nor alumni of the schools, but rather the populace of the states. If the legislatures of North Carolina and Virginia decide that those schools aren’t going to join the Big 10 because that is what their constituents (the much derided T-Shirt fans) want, there really isn’t anything those schools can do about it.
And just to clarify, I do not think that UNC or UVA are going to join the SEC. I think that they will remain in the ACC. What I believe is that both would choose the SEC over the Big 10.
LikeLike
“UNC and UVA receive the vast majority of their funding from those who are neither employees nor alumni of the schools, but rather the populace of the states.”
If you mean money from the state legislature, that’s actually not true these days. UVa gets barely any of its budget funded by the VA legislature these days (some crazy small percentage, like 5% or something; OK, I looked it up; it’s 5.8%: http://www.virginia.edu/finance101/answers.html). That’s why there had been talk of UVa going private.
UNC gets more from NC, but state funding is now less than 20% of UNC’s budget.
LikeLike
Honestly, UNC would be one of the only schools which could feasibly handle independence in all sports.
No one could go indy in all sports. It’s not possible anymore. If it were possible Texas would have done it years ago.
The vast majority of UNC’s fanbase, and a very sizable portion of it’s alumni base consider themselves Southerners. They don’t want UNC in a Northern Conference, aka the Big 10
Since when do what the fans care matter? I mean the Maryland fan base didn’t seem thrilled with the Big Ten move but they’ll get over it (most of them already have). And in case you didn’t notice, FSU fans weren’t exactly dancing in the streets after they signed the GOR.
UNC fan support is so overwhelmingly in favor of the SEC to the Big 10, that I don’t think it would be politically feasible for the school to go to the Big 10 over the SEC if both were options
I’ve never seen any evidence of this.
I don’t think the SEC will expand again without UNC.
A year ago I would have agreed with you, but if the Big Ten thinks it can get sufficient value from Rutgers who the hell knows.
An SEC with UNC would mean that UVA could be in a conference with the flagship (or at least co-flagship) universities of every former state of the Confederacy, which I promise is more appealing to most Virginians (at least those outside of the D.C. suburbs) than the research money of the Big 10.
You do realize that NOVA’s tend to wealthier and better connected politically than the rest of the population don’t you? Plus, the rest of Virginia is starting to resemble the D.C. much more than the Southern part of the state (just look at what has happened to the state from an electoral perspective over the past decade).
If the Big 10 really wants to expand it’s market when the ACC GOR expires, I think it needs to focus on schools that are realistic gets culturally, such as Maryland or Rutgers.
A. UNC and UVA have just as much in common with the Big Ten as they do the SEC. Sure the SEC has geography, but the Big Ten schools are more similar structurally. They are elite public research universities and are far more similar athletically. UVA and UNC both larger athletic departments than any SEC school and a move to the SEC would require UNC to find a separate home for a half dozen of their sports. The Big Ten meanwhile sponsors (or will soon sponsor) all those sports.
More importantly, UNC as a BB school, is a much better fit economically in the Big Ten.
B. Cultures change. If you had gone to UMD 30 or maybe even 20 years ago you would have found yourself at a southern school similar to present day UVA.
LikeLike
Good points, and I admit I could very well be wrong on my assessments. I do disagree with you on one point. Maryland was not really a Southern state 30, 50, or even 100 years ago, which I think makes a major difference. Also, Maryland and its fans had been discontent with ACC leadership for many decades.
LikeLike
I agree that the academics at UNC and UVA would almost certainly prefer the Big 10. However, Notre Dame academics were overwhelmingly in favor of joining the Big 10 in the 90’s, and the school remained independent. If UNC and UVA were not publicly funded state schools, the opinions of academics would matter a great deal more, but that is not the case. If the leadership at Syracuse or Boston College decided to join the Big 10, they wouldn’t have politicians to answer to. UNC and UVA receive the vast majority of their funding from those who are neither employees nor alumni of the schools, but rather the populace of the states. If the legislatures of North Carolina and Virginia decide that those schools aren’t going to join the Big 10 because that is what their constituents (the much derided T-Shirt fans) want, there really isn’t anything those schools can do about it.
And just to clarify, I do not think that UNC or UVA are going to join the SEC. I think that they will remain in the ACC. What I believe is that both would choose the SEC over the Big 10.
LikeLike
Also, I apologize for posting that twice. My computer did something really strange.
LikeLike
“However, Notre Dame academics were overwhelmingly in favor of joining the Big 10 in the 90′s”
I keep hearing this, but it isn’t true. While the faculty senate voted in favor of joining the CIC, and the relatively tiny GSA was also highly in favor of joining, the faculty at-large were split around 50-50 according to all reports and everything I ever heard.
That is all.
LikeLike
Notre Dame is also a booster driven school much like the SEC and Texas. They are a small private school beholden to donators more so than larger universities.
As far as politicians, they might be want to appease the constituents in the state who’s primary issue is the conference of the local university but do you know what drives politicians more: money. The ability to bring in research money and the jobs it creates, and thus more tax revenue to spend, is a lot more appealing than pissing off a couple of college basketball fans. Like all politicians, they would probably announce their disapproval and solitary with the average UNC fan then share a toast with Jim Delaney that night. Again the only people who matter in college realignment is the high end administrators, who will want to be associated with similar prestigious universities, and the big time donors. For UVA and Duke, academics matter to everyone associated with those universities. The boosters at UNC could be a different story.
LikeLike
Jeff, you need to read more history (read up more in general). Maryland was definitely a southern state back when H.L. Mencken was writing in Baltimore about 100 years ago.
LikeLike
On top of that, I can’t imagine any VA or NC school saying, “Whooppee! We get to be re-united with our old Confederate buddies.”
LikeLike
I’m surprised you said that North Carolina doesn’t need Big Ten money for research (which I assume you mean the CIC) or sports.
Let’s start with the latter. In the 2011-2 fiscal year, UNC’s athletic department barely broke even. See http://www.wralsportsfan.com/unc/story/9944045/. The department’s revenue was $72.4M with expenses at $72.2M. Among the revenue the UNC AD receives is $7M in student fees.
UNC supports 28 sports under this budget Per the UNC AD Bubba Cunningham is looking to increase the annual athletic department budget by 40% to $100M. See http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/2013/04/unc-ad-i-want-to-increase-athletic.html
So how does UNC get to that $100M, let alone pay for the inevitable increases in expense they’ll incur (their budget was $61M less than five years ago)? Part of it will come from the new ACC television deal, but that’s nowhere near $30M per year. They also talk about increased ticket sales and donations, but with a rather smallish football stadium, there’s not a lot of new revenue you can generate there.
IRT the former, UNC’s research budget revenue actually went down. Here’s a recent article on the UNC website about the effects of sequestration on their research budget–it’s pretty enlightening. Go to: http://research.unc.edu/sequestration/
Note that a lot of UNC’s research money comes from the federal government, and in particular, from the National Institutes of Health. UNC’s research dollars peaked in 2010 at $803M and is now down to $767M in 2012. See http://research.unc.edu/about/facts-rankings/research-funding/
So if you don’t think that UNC would be interested in the CIC consortium vis-a-vis research dollars (especially one that now includes Johns Hopkins), then I think you misunderstand the situation.
One other very important thing to keep in mind is that the current North Carolina state government’s policy calls for major budget cuts and austerity. NC’s governor is looking at a $139M cut in support for the state’s public university system. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324125504578508981551931820.html
So why would the Big Ten look good to North Carolina? How does an opportunity to join the most power university research consortium coupled with a conference that is looking at paying its member athletic departments in excess of $40M per year by 2017 look if you’re running UNC and you have a governor and a state legislature that is going to cut your budget even more?
LikeLike
I think it’s funny you guys are still fighting the same fight over UNC and UVA to the B1G or SEC. It’s not happenin, folks. That ship has sailed. Find a new topic.
LikeLike
Sadly, most people associated with Chapel Hill — despite its status as a top-tier state university flagship — are more concerned with preserving the status of its men’s basketball team. They’ll let everything else at UNC wither on the vine, finances be damned, until they develop a similar passion for football (where the real money is).
LikeLike
Breaking News: OSU President Gordon Gee to retire July 1.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2013/06/ohio-state-president-gee.html
LikeLike
Shocker.
LikeLike
Triple smile & good f’ing riddance.
LikeLike
Good.
LikeLike
LikeLike
When they tell you to scale back your public speeches and hire a cpersonal oach, and you’re 69, that’s a pretty clear signal that it’s time to go. He’s obviously a talented guy — you don’t get to run all of those universities without being good at something — but his public comments were increasingly embarrassing.
LikeLike
There is no question Gee had a big mouth and make stupid anti-Catholic remarks (Of course, Notre Dame’s biggest priorities are 1: Football. 2: Independence. 3: Everything except Traditional Catholic Teachings). That said, Gee cannot be any worse than what we have at Penn State with Rodney Erickson or his predecessor Graham Spanier. I remember when Spanier embarrassed himself and wore the Nittany Lion mascot suit, and after the Sandusky Incident, the Board of Trustees replaced that Lion, with a different species of Lion…. The Cowardly version.
LikeLike
Gee cannot be any worse than what we have at Penn State with Rodney Erickson or his predecessor Graham Spanier.
I cannot recall quite so many really dumb things being attributed to Erickson or Spanier, as Gee has blurted out in the last couple of years.
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure Spanier saying that Schultz and Curley had his full and unquestioned support right after they were indicted was way way dumber than anything Gee said.
LikeLike
In fact, it was dumber than all the crazy stuff that Gee has ever said combined.
LikeLike
But Spanier was fired very shortly after that, which confirms my point, rather than contradicting it.
I mean, it’s not as if Spanier made that sort of comment for years and years, and got away with it.
LikeLike
What about Sandusky in the School President’s Box on the day Paterno “Broke” the record of Eddie Robinson? That tops anything Gee ever did. Naming the “Child Care Center” after Gary Schultz (one of the indicted Sandusky enablers), is another example of this.
LikeLike
The relevant comparison is stupid public comments, not stupidity in general.
LikeLike
@David Brown: “Notre Dame’s biggest priorities are … 3: Everything except Traditional Catholic Teachings…”
Gotta love the fact that FTT has been invaded by idiots.
LikeLike
Loki:
That duck roast taste good yesterday?
Feed enough rice to a duck and it blows up.
LikeLike
Soon, we’ll see what happens when you feed enough rice to a wolf.
LikeLike
Gonna be an interesting weekend in Raleigh, weather permitting. Projections are for TS Andrea to be in the area on Friday.
LikeLike
Would Gee have been forced out if his comments had solely been about the SEC and Louisville? I tend to doubt it; Notre Dame is still a sacred cow.
LikeLike
That interview, if you read it, was full of comments he frankly had no business making. Nor is this the first time he has made such comments, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. He’s a walking gaffe machine.
Exactly what would have been the tipping point? I don’t know. Whether you like ND or not, his comments were an offense to more than just the school, and have no place in polite company. Obviously, if you’re just knocking back beers and wings with friends at the bar, you can say whatever you want. When you’re addressing a larger group and your remarks are recorded, then not so much.
LikeLike
The problem wasn’t the references to ND, it was the reference to Catholics in general.
LikeLike
I didn’t see any reference to Catholics in general, just sloppy phrasing in talking about those particular Catholics running things at Notre Dame. As far as I could tell, converting it into a reference to Catholics in general was just normal internet hysterical over the top hyperventilating … not that far different to the reaction in some quarters to the reveal announcement of the XB1:
LikeLike
Why won’t Julie Hermann follows Gordon Gee’s example!
LikeLike
Because she doesn’t think she did anything wrong? They offered a job and she accepted. Is RU prepared to pay a lot to buy her out? They don’t have cause to fire her.
LikeLike
And sorry, Rutgers fans, you’re not getting Tim Pernetti back. You need to hire an AD with legitimate experience at a school in a “big five” conference.(and I’m not necessarily saying Hermann is that person).
LikeLike
will now be the case for lacrosse as the B1G Network will certainly be carrying the conference’s contests throughout the country
LikeLike
Go Bucks
LikeLike
http://www.testudotimes.com/2013/6/3/4390928/conference-realignment-johns-hopkins-to-announce-joining-the-big-ten#comments
I have no idea if this is true, but here’s a rumor:
The news out of BIG HQ is a trial period for CIC
CIC integration is a huge expensive drawn out process. It is a full integration of the libraries, research, and university computer systems. Besides the Google digital library project, it also includes High fiber cables and internet linking all the campuses. For the students this also includes Online distinct classroom and subjects. So a Iowa senior can technically attend a online course or subject at Maryland for instance. JHU trial period kind is put on hold. For now we will have some increased colloboration but no integration for the duration of the 5 years. The hope is after 2 years we will increase and show JHU the benfits of the CIC and within year 4 they will decide early on joining fully. If that is the case full integration to the CIC immediately in the 4th year along with full time membership in the BIG, but in the respect of the D1 teams, kind of like the University of Chicago has.
by Vortex51 on Jun 3, 2013 | 2:20 PM
So JHU would be a partial CIC member until they agree to join the B10 permanently, then they’d also become a full CIC member.
LikeLike
As usual, nice work Brian.
LikeLike
At the end of the trial period is when I would imagine the WLax teams to join the B1G, too.
LikeLike
It’s certainly plausible.
LikeLike
This threads like a runaway train.
LikeLike
Delany said he will be at Rutgers on Thursday and Friday, when he is expected to meet with Hermann and Rutgers officials. Reports over the weekend said that Hermann’s meetings with officials this week had been postponed, but a Rutgers spokesman confirmed Monday that Hermann will be on campus.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/commish-big-ten-stays-fray-article-1.1362256
LikeLike
Jim Delaney’s wish list:
1. Texas
2. Notre Dame
3. North Carolina
4. Georgia Tech
5. Virginia
6. Florida State
7. Duke
–
8. Miami
9. Missouri
10. Kansas
11. Syracuse
12. Pitt
13. Boston College
I don’t think the B10 is interested in anyone other than the top 7. I also feel the B10 AD’s/presidents want the B10 to remain contiguous (outside of Texas), so everything hinges on Virginia to move further southward.
LikeLike
If “everything hinges on Virginia to move further southward,” then Virginia would have to be above North Carolina and Georgia Tech on your list, no?
LikeLike
The most likely scenario is Virginia, North Carolina, Duke & Georgia Tech as a foursome; as Virginia is tied to the ACC pretty tightly and probably only leave when and if NC does too. Yeah, Virginia & GT need swapped around imo. Jim Delaney really wants the Atlanta market but I think the B10 presidents, AD’s pretty much are demanding expansion to be contiguous which is pretty critical for stability.
LikeLike
Yeah. In any case, no way UVa is below GTech. Gordon Gee is pretty connected in the B10, and if he mentions UNC, UVa, and Duke as desirable (and talks of those schools being available if FSU goes to the SEC or B12, it’s a good indication that the first 3 are the B10’s top 3 ACC targets & that FSU isn’t on the list of desirables.
So the list is really
1./2. Texas/ND
3. UNC
4. UVa
5. Duke
6. GTech
–
7./8. KU?/Mizzou?
9+. Some elite research school like Rice, Tulane, Pitt, or maaaybe BC/TCU/Baylor if adding them is the requirement for getting Texas or ND to join.
Others (doesn’t matter as the B10 won’t want them).
LikeLike
One interesting point from the infamous Gordon Gee speech, was that he favored taking Kansas and Missouri, but he couldn’t muster the votes for that. I believe expansion requires a 2/3rds or 3/4ths super-majority, so that doesn’t mean most of the conference disagreed with him. It only means he couldn’t get 2/3rds (or whatever the number was).
LikeLike
1. Texas
2. Notre Dame
3. Virginia
4. North Carolina (not contiguous without Virginia)
5. Duke
6. Missouri
7. Georgia Tech (not contiguous)
8. Kansas
9. Pitt
10. Iowa State
11. Rice? Buffalo? Who’s left?
AAU only other than Notre Dame. That means no FSU. No Miami. No VATech.
LikeLike
GT is above Missouri on the Big Ten’s list for sure.
I might even rank Kansas above Missouri, not because Kansas is better, but because it could actually happen. I don’t envision Missouri leaving the SEC, even though they would happily have accepted a Big Ten offer when they were still in the Big XII.
Anything on the list below Kansas/Missouri is so remote as to not even merit serious consideration. I mean…Buffalo??
LikeLike
Buffalo only because it’s AAU.
Yes, Kansas is way more likely but less desirable.
I only ranked GT so low because they’re such a bad fit geographically. Academically of course they are superior to Missouri. Markets, I don’t know. Atlanta’s good, but they don’t carry much further than that. And sports-wise GT is less than or equal to Missouri.
But I agree, Missouri is highly unlikely to ever join the B1G at this point.
LikeLike
Slives\Delaney\everybody’s wish list:
1. Texas
2. Notre Dame
3. North Carolina
4. Virginia
5. Duke
6. Georgia Tech
7. Florida State
8. everybody else as filler or requirements for 1-3
LikeLike
FSU’s higher on my wish list, but doesn’t make the cut for the B10 presidents.
OU is probably somewhere on the SEC list as well. Not all lists will be the same or in the same order.
LikeLike
Two of the three who were most against FSU, Gee and Coleman are out. I still believe if the B1G expands to twenty, FSU will be included.
I think the SEC’s wish list would be
1. Texas
(Notre Dame won’t join)
2. North Carolina
3. Duke
(UVA won’t join)
4. Oklahoma (alone)
5. VT
6. NC State (if UNC/DUKE won’t join)
7. WV
LikeLike
To be consistent, Texas will never join the SEC either.
I think the Big Ten’s final six will include two from the Midwest and four from the Southeast.
Controversial as it may be, I think UNC may well join the SEC but not DUKE who will join the Big Ten. Accompanying them will be UVA, GT and FSU. From the Midwest Kansas and Oklahoma, unless, of course Texas is interested. I was not surprised by CBS report that the B1G did homework on Oklahoma (I know, AAU, blah, blah blah)
The only other possibilities are Vandy (also not surprised CBS named them) or prying Missouri away from the SEC. This ‘homework’ supposedly went well beyond an initial review and I believe the six named in the article ARE the actual targets.
LikeLike
I was not surprised by CBS report that the B1G did homework on Oklahoma (I know, AAU, blah, blah blah).
I am not surprised either. It’s standard business procedure to evaluate a broader candidate set than you are actually prepared to consider. Beyond that, I am not convinced that AAU membership is an absolute requirement. If the reports are correct, a large contingent within the Big Ten was willing to at least consider Florida State.
And the Big Ten took Nebraska while knowing it was at least possible, and perhaps likely, that the school wouldn’t be in the AAU for long. There’s not a whole lot of substantive difference between taking an AAU school that promptly gets kicked out, and taking a good non-AAU school that has never been in the group at all. They wouldn’t stoop as low as Louisville, but a Texas/Oklahoma combo is not beyond the realms of imagination.
LikeLike
“good non-AAU school that has never been in the group at all”
I don’t think the B10 presidents put OU in that group.
Going by ARWU, OU is closer to Louisville than they are to Nebraska (FSU, as well as KU & Mizzou, is/are between Nebraska and OU). Rutgers is far above all of them.
LikeLike
SEC Wish List:
1. UNC – and without them they probably don’t expand
2. Virginia
3. Duke
4. Texas (so unrealistic as to not be a priority)
5. Oklahoma
6. Virginia Tech
7. Florida State
8. NC State
Nobody else would really even be considered, and those last 2 are questionable. Notre Dame is so much not a fit that it’s not even worth putting them on the list.
LikeLike
UNC – and without them they probably don’t expand.
I am not predicting that UVA/UNC will ever join the Big Ten. But IF they do, I think the SEC covets the NC/VA markets sufficiently, that in that case it would take Virginia Tech and N. C. State (or Duke, if the Big Ten didn’t take them first). Of course, as long as UVA/UNC remain in the ACC, the SEC will wait for them.
One could argue that, for a football-first league that doesn’t insist on AAU membership, VT is pretty much equivalent to UVA. UVA is, of course, the flagship school, but VT is considerably more competitive in football.
LikeLike
I’m not sure how valuable NCSU is. Duke could work. VT could work under the right cicumstances. But I don’t think the SEC would make a move unless UNC is joining or is already gone.
LikeLike
If FSU even gains AAU status (and that probably isn’t happening anytime soon), it would replace Duke in any foursome with UVa, UNC and GT.
LikeLike
oops…”ever gains AAU status”…
LikeLike
I think you’re right about that; however, the question is whether the Big Ten would prefer (in that unlikely scenario) to add six, and if so, then who would the sixth be?
My guess is: A) Yes, in that scenario they would like to add six, including Duke; and B) Kansas would be sixth. I don’t see ND or Texas in the Big Ten, and adding Kansas would assuage the fears of the western schools that the conference was becoming too Eastern-centric.
LikeLike
We are, of course, assuming Kansas could break the shackles with KSU, which I don’t think is as much a certainty as some here believe. What makes it inherently different from Oklahoma and Okie State?
LikeLike
A lot of folks thought there was no way Texas A&M could split from Texas. The reason it could happen is that the Big XII remained a viable league without A&M. (Yes, it also helped that the governor is an Aggie.)
With that precedent in mind, I think that Kansas could leave, because they’re not a big enough loss to kill the league. The Big XII could replace Kansas. K-State would still be in a Big Five league, and KU would have upgraded its circumstances considerably. Depending on which schools are available at the time, the Big XII might even be better off with a new school in a new market, rather than having two schools in a relatively small and slow-growing state.
LikeLike
So the Kansas BOT (don’t the schools share a board?)is going to leave KSU’s fate to the whims of the longhorns?
LikeLike
So the Kansas BOT (don’t the schools share a board?)is going to leave KSU’s fate to the whims of the longhorns?
It’s subject to the whims of the Longhorns already. Basically, the Big XII is going to exist if UT wants it to exist; otherwise, it won’t.
Remember when UT and OU flirted with the Pac-12? KU and K-State would have been relegated to the Big East (along with Iowa State), and Texas wouldn’t have cared They avoided that fate because Texas decided that the Big XII was more aligned with its own interests, not because Texas gave a damn about those schools.
So if KU has a chance to upgrade itself (and a Big Ten invite is about the biggest upgrade imaginable), and you’re the BOT, you’ve got to say yes. K-State’s fate will be the same as it was before: subject to whether Texas wants the Big XII to continue to exist.
LikeLike
I should have phrased it “So the Kansas BOT (don’t the schools share a board?)is going to leave KSU’s fate to the whims of the longhorns, with no protective cover should the longhorns bolt?”
We disagree. Whether it would be wise to let KU go its own way or not, much as with OU/OkSU I don’t think they want to, and perhaps politically can’t.
LikeLike
@ccrider55: If you’re the KU/K-State BOT, your job is to maximize the potential of both institutions.
If you think K-State is “safer” because it’s in the same league as KU, you’re crazy. In either scenario, it’s dependent on what UT, and to a lesser extent Oklahoma, decide they want to do. They would no doubt be aware of what very nearly happened, when the two kings thought they might join the Pac-12.
Allowing KU to join the Big Ten would improve KU considerably, while leaving K-State in exactly the same position it would be in anyway. It would be a travesty if they failed to take advantage of that opportunity, assuming it was presented. Maybe they’d mandate that the annual football and basketball games continue. That could easily be done, much as Iowa continues to play Iowa State and Northern Iowa.
Of course, one should never underestimate the stupidity of politicians, but the Texas A&M case provides a way of understanding how it could work, in a case that was long believed to be “impossible”.
LikeLike
Iowa didn’t play ISU for how many years/decades?
aTm was the one leaving, not UT (and aTm would have been in no trouble had it been UT). Isn’t the TT problem what kept UT from potentially leaving for B1G membership?
LikeLike
Isn’t the TT problem what kept UT from potentially leaving for B1G membership?
Exactly, but the difference is: if UT leaves the Big XII, then the Big XII (as we’ve known it) probably can no longer exist. That would leave TT homeless (or with a FAR worse home).
If KU leaves, it doesn’t kill the Big XII. In fact, as I noted upthread, there’s a good chance that KU’s replacement would be an improvement. The Big XII doesn’t really need two schools in a lesser-populated, slow-growing state. By the time this would happen, better options might be available to them.
The Big XII will exist as long as UT and OU want it to exist, and that doesn’t change whether it has one Kansas school or two. Forcing the two to remain together only means that if the Big XII meets its demise, both schools will be in trouble. If you have the chance to move KU to a better home, you take it.
LikeLike
“In fact, as I noted upthread, there’s a good chance that KU’s replacement would be an improvement.”
Who? SMU? Houston? Would Rice again crawl out on that broken branch?
LikeLike
Kansas and OK are two very interesting schools because I could potentially see them joining the P14, B10 or SEC. And they both have their own Tech problems. There are just so many different scenarios for both those schools. Makes for interesting discussion.
LikeLike
@ccrider
Personally, I don’t think the Big XII would rebuild if KU bolted. I just don’t think OU and UT would consider a Kansas-less Big XII would be worth saving.
That said, if they did choose to replace them, then they would either go with Cincinnati or UConn or maybe BYU.
LikeLike
“In fact, as I noted upthread, there’s a good chance that KU’s replacement would be an improvement.”
Who? SMU? Houston? Would Rice again crawl out on that broken branch?
No, obviously not. Bear in mind that that we’re considering the scenario 10+ years from now, where the ACC and the Big XII have fallen far behind the Big Ten and the SEC, and the weaker leagues are once again unstable. So you’re talking about any ACC school that the Big Ten doesn’t take, such as Pitt, FSU, Louisville, or Miami. Any of those (and I could name others) get the Big XII into new markets, and they’ve still got the state of Kansas market with K-State. And that’s before we consider wild-cards that might be available and desirable by then, like BYU, Boise, Cincinati, UConn, Utah State, etc.
You are certainly right about the worst case.
LikeLike
@frug “I just don’t think OU and UT would consider a Kansas-less Big XII would be worth saving.”
Wow, what an insane statement. That might just break the record.
LikeLike
I’ll give you it was a complete butchering of the English language (I really should have learned to proof read my posts by now).
LikeLike
vp19,
“We are, of course, assuming Kansas could break the shackles with KSU, which I don’t think is as much a certainty as some here believe. What makes it inherently different from Oklahoma and Okie State?”
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6937826/board-regents-prefers-ku-k-state-stay-together
Kansas chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said last week that Kansas and Kansas State are not necessarily connected should the Big 12 dissolve, but McKechnie said the Board would prefer that the two schools stick together.
LikeLike
http://www.crimsonandcreammachine.com/2011/8/12/2360002/are-oklahoma-and-oklahoma-state-really-a-package-deal
Legally, OU and OkSU are less tied together than KU and KSU. This article explains how they are governed. There’s a BOR for each system, plus a higher level BOR that oversees all of them but only for academic matters. The final say comes down to the governor who appoints the BOR.
LikeLike
Read the actual quote from the ESPN article about KU and KSU. The chair–who is, of course, just one regent–stated that “our first hope is they stay together in the Big 12, and until something happens, I’m just not going to speculate on what else there could be.”
What else would you expect him to say? That the board’s first hope is that the the Big 12 breaks up or that one or both leaves the conference?
I think it’s much more important that no one was quoted as saying that they NEED to stay together as opposed to the board’s “hope.”
LikeLike
The boss saying he hopes disciplinary measures won’t be necessary is not a weak statement of intent.
Hope in this situation equals firm desire, intent, and expectation as far as they can influence the situation and its various potentials.
LikeLike
The boss saying he hopes disciplinary measures won’t be necessary is completely different. The equivalent in this context would be a regent saying he hopes that it won’t be necessary for the board to force KU to stay where they are. He didn’t say that.
Again, it’s to be expected that the regent would say that he “hopes” KU would stay in the conference that they’ve shared with KSU (in different iterations) for 100 years. But a hope is different from a requirement.
LikeLike
If you “war game” the options for the combined KU/K-State BOT, here are the main possibilities (of course there are variations):
1. The Big XII falls apart. Now, if you give the BOT an option where KU/K-State both go to the MWC, or KU punches the golden ticket to the Big Ten, which do you think they’d choose?
2. The Big XII remains healthy, but KU gets a Big Ten invite. Do the BOT stand in the way of a huge upgrade for KU, just because K-State can’t come to the party? That would be a very irrational decision.
3. The only tough case, I think, is if the BOT believed that KU’s departure would be the straw that breaks the Big XII’s back. Then, perhaps, they might hold KU back, in order to keep both schools in a Big Five league. I do think this is the unlikeliest scenario, because I don’t see KU as a linchpin school in the Big XII.
Note that the OU/OKSU situation is very different, because the league probably cannot survive in its current form if Oklahoma leaves. So Oklahoma’s departure (or the threat thereof) would be more like #3 above, where the BOT would insist that the two are linked at the hip.
LikeLike
bikemore,
I gave a quote that explicitly shows the two aren’t tied together legally. The comment asked what made KU/KSU different from OU/OkSU so I wanted to show what the two cases were. Since you can’t put two links in one comment without waiting for moderation, I showed KS in one comment and OK in the other.
The OK system is even a looser tie than in KS, but the point was just to show how exactly the schools were tied in each case. It was just for education of those reading the thread.
LikeLike
Fair enough. My comment was mainly a reaction to previous posts on this board where people have made incorrect but definitive statements that the two are irrevocably tied together (and have even stated that KU wants to be tied). I’m hoping that people look beyond the misleading headline of the ESPN article and fairly assess what was actually said.
LikeLike
http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/56239/crossover-scheduling-hurt-by-expansion
A look at the negatives associated with the ACC’s new 6-1-1 schedule. The ACC has released the crossover schedules for 2014-2024.
For the most part, the ACC got it right with the permanent crossover opponents from the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions. Florida State and Miami might never meet in the ACC championship game, but at least they’ll play each other every year in the regular season. Clemson and Georgia Tech will continue their thrilling rivalry every season, and so will instate rivals North Carolina and NC State, and Wake Forest and Duke. Former Big East rivals Syracuse and Pittsburgh will play every season, and Boston College and Virginia Tech were paired together. Louisville was matched up with Virginia as a permanent crossover opponent when it joins the league.
For the most part, the ACC kept its longtime rivalries intact and created some new ones.
But here’s the worst part of crossover scheduling: ACC teams will play one crossover opponent only once in the regular season over 11 seasons, and each of those meetings occurs in the 2020 season.
BC/VT and UL/UVA seem pointless. They could at least rotate those pairings. Duke/WF isn’t really a big game either, but they are sort of Tobacco Road rivals so I understand why they kept it.
Playing a conference team once in 11 seasons is ridiculous, and it could be even longer. Schlabach cherry-picked data to point that out, though. The reason it happens is that those games will be played in 2013 (well, those that can be played) which was released earlier, so they don’t happen to play again until 2020. Over the 12 years of 2013-2024 the schedule is balanced. UL doesn’t join until 2014, of course, so they do only play VT once in 11 years (UMD plays VT this year).
LikeLike
BC/VTech and Louisville/UVA actually seem wrongheaded.
If anything, they should have matched up the school that thinks it’s an Ivy (and sends a ton of grads to the northeastern corridor) with the private school that is by an Ivy located in the northeastern corridor while both VTech and Louisville are both located in Greater Appalachia and are closer to each other. Furthermore, I expect VTech and Louisville to be better at football going forward than UVa and BC as well.
LikeLike
I think they took the lazy way out and simply replaced UMD with UL. Maybe they think BC/VT has become established, but I don’t think anyone cares about that game. Your pairings make much more sense if they insist on locking games.
LikeLike
I think the real problem for the ACC is their hybrid division philosophy. They blended a zipper with a geographical split and got the worst of both.
Better Zipper:
In order of locked rivals:
A – BC, UL, VT, NCSU, WF, GT, FSU
B – SU, Pitt, UVA, UNC, Duke, Clemson, Miami
Geographical:
N – BC, SU, Pitt, UL, VT, UVA, Duke
S – Miami, FSU, GT, Clemson, UNC, NCSU, WF
No locked games.
Better Geographical (more balanced):
N – BC, SU, Pitt, UL, VT, UVA, UNC
S – Miami, FSU, GT, Clemson, NCSU, WF, Duke
Lock UNC/NCSU only.
LikeLike
I’d switch Miami with Duke in your 1st geographical alignment. Miami is so far south in Florida its north. Let Miami/FSU play ooc 4 out of 8 years and play 4 in conference in 8 years. Get everyone else 2 out of 8. Maybe give UNC/UVA same setup. Don’t have any of them play ND in those 4 ooc years.
LikeLike
I still the best alignment is modified North-South (i.e. ACC-Big East a.k.a. F*** Wake Forest)
North – BC, ‘Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, V-Tech, WF, Miami
South – UVA, UNC, NC-State, Duke, Clemson, G-Tech, FSU
The only locked rivalries would UVA-VPI, Miami-FSU and maybe Wake Forest and one of the triangle schools.
Really, I think this best way. Divisional balance is alright, everybody gets equal access to Florida and it best represents the way the teams are natural aligned. Really outside of Wake Forest who would be pissed (but who has no leverage) the school that might have a problem with this split is V-Tech who would probably prefer to be the ACC schools, but I doubt they would make it an issue.
LikeLike
bullet,
“I’d switch Miami with Duke in your 1st geographical alignment.”
I was going for pure geography in that one, the KISS approach. I did swap Duke and WF for cultural reasons, but clearly Miami is in the South (just not of the South).
“Let Miami/FSU play ooc 4 out of 8 years and play 4 in conference in 8 years. Get everyone else 2 out of 8.”
There’s no way they’d agree to that. Why should they have to play OOC?
LikeLike
frug,
“I still the best alignment is modified North-South (i.e. ACC-Big East a.k.a. F*** Wake Forest)
North – BC, ‘Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, V-Tech, WF, Miami
South – UVA, UNC, NC-State, Duke, Clemson, G-Tech, FSU”
With 9 games, you might be right. Not with 8.
“The only locked rivalries would UVA-VPI, Miami-FSU and maybe Wake Forest and one of the triangle schools.”
That’s what kills it. That means the other 12 teams see FSU or Miami only once every 6 years. 6 teams see VT only once every 6 years. You can’t lock up most of the major powers like that, especially in a league with few big FB names.
“Really, I think this best way. Divisional balance is alright, everybody gets equal access to Florida and it best represents the way the teams are natural aligned. Really outside of Wake Forest who would be pissed (but who has no leverage) the school that might have a problem with this split is V-Tech who would probably prefer to be the ACC schools, but I doubt they would make it an issue.”
Miami will object to all those cold weather games, especially since no other southern school will get many of them. The travel for them would be ridiculous, too. VT will be mad at losing several good FB teams, but mostly they just want to play UVA annually. WF would probably insist on locking in Duke and nobody else would object to that (see PU/IN).
LikeLike
“The only locked rivalries would UVA-VPI, Miami-FSU and maybe Wake Forest and one of the triangle schools.”
That’s what kills it. That means the other 12 teams see FSU or Miami only once every 6 years. 6 teams see VT only once every 6 years. You can’t lock up most of the major powers like that, especially in a league with few big FB names.
I don’t understand the problem. The North schools don’t have any history with FSU and the South schools don’t have any history with Miami so it’s not like they are losing rivalries. And everyone still gets an annual game with either FSU or Miami.
Miami will object to all those cold weather games, especially since no other southern school will get many of them.
They did just fine with those cold weather games when they were in the Big East. And the fact that other Southern schools won’t play as many cold weather games won’t effect Miami’s ability to compete for the the division title.
The travel for them would be ridiculous, too.
I don’t get this. Even in a straight N/S split Miami is still going to have to fly to all their games. In fact, the actual travel times might shorter than in if they were placed in a South division since BC, ‘Cuse, Louisville and Syracuse are all located in cities with major airports meaning no 2 hour+ bus rides after the plane lands (of the South schools only GIT has a major airport).
LikeLike
frug,
“I don’t understand the problem. The North schools don’t have any history with FSU and the South schools don’t have any history with Miami so it’s not like they are losing rivalries. And everyone still gets an annual game with either FSU or Miami.”
They all want to play both FSU and Miami as much as possible.
“They did just fine with those cold weather games when they were in the Big East.”
That was a league with no other southern teams. The ACC isn’t. When they have to compete with FSU in recruiting and on the field, these things matter.
“I don’t get this. Even in a straight N/S split Miami is still going to have to fly to all their games.”
Playing BC is the same as playing FSU to them in terms of travel? You keep believing that.
LikeLike
“I don’t get this. Even in a straight N/S split Miami is still going to have to fly to all their games.”
Playing BC is the same as playing FSU to them in terms of travel? You keep believing that.
They would play FSU annually in my scenario…
LikeLike
“They did just fine with those cold weather games when they were in the Big East.”
That was a league with no other southern teams. The ACC isn’t. When they have to compete with FSU in recruiting and on the field, these things matter.
They were competing against FSU on the field and in recruiting from ’91-’04 and seemed to do just fine. In fact, during their time in the Big East Miami went 8-6 against FSU compared to 3-6 since joining the ACC.
“I don’t understand the problem. The North schools don’t have any history with FSU and the South schools don’t have any history with Miami so it’s not like they are losing rivalries. And everyone still gets an annual game with either FSU or Miami.”
They all want to play both FSU and Miami as much as possible.
Probably true, but if it was a major priority they wouldn’t have had any protected crossovers to begin with. The bigger issue is everyone wants equal access to Florida and annual against one of them.
LikeLike
frug,
Playing BC is the same as playing FSU to them in terms of travel? You keep believing that.
“They would play FSU annually in my scenario…”
They would in mine, too. But they wouldn’t play BC annually in mine. You seem to think they won’t care about whether a game is in Boston or Tallahassee because they fly everywhere, and I think that’s silly.
LikeLike
frug,
“They were competing against FSU on the field and in recruiting from ’91-’04 and seemed to do just fine.”
Only head to head. They were in different conferences.
“In fact, during their time in the Big East Miami went 8-6 against FSU compared to 3-6 since joining the ACC.”
Miami was better in those days. They’ve been down since Coker. And playing in the same conference as FSU but being in the North while FSU is in the South would be a disadvantage they wouldn’t accept. That’s why they have a modified zipper now.
“Probably true, but if it was a major priority they wouldn’t have had any protected crossovers to begin with. The bigger issue is everyone wants equal access to Florida and annual against one of them.”
All that means is they need to split Miami and FSU. It doesn’t mean they should do a N/S with Miami in the N. A zipper achieves the same thing, which is why they did it in the first place.
LikeLike
They would in mine, too. But they wouldn’t play BC annually in mine. You seem to think they won’t care about whether a game is in Boston or Tallahassee because they fly everywhere, and I think that’s silly.
Sure a game in Tallahassee is different than a game in Boston. It’s also different than a game in Durham or a game in Blacksburg. I don’t get what you are trying to argue.
Only head to head.
Yes, that is how teams compete. Then, now and always.
They were in different conferences.
Yes.
Miami was better in those days.
So was FSU.
And playing in the same conference as FSU but being in the North while FSU is in the South would be a disadvantage they wouldn’t accept. That’s why they have a modified zipper now.
No. They have a modified zipper because everyone wanted to be in a division with either FSU or Miami ensuring them an annual game against one of the conference’s big guns and giving everyone equal access to the state of Florida.
All that means is they need to split Miami and FSU. It doesn’t mean they should do a N/S with Miami in the N. A zipper achieves the same thing, which is why they did it in the first place.
Just because they did a zipper the first time doesn’t mean they have to (or even should) do it again.
LikeLike
frug,
“Sure a game in Tallahassee is different than a game in Boston. It’s also different than a game in Durham or a game in Blacksburg. I don’t get what you are trying to argue.”
You claimed that since they fly everywhere, Miami wouldn’t care that the rest of their division were the 6 schools the farthest away from them while FSU got all their nearest foes. I think that’s a silly notion.
Only head to head.
“Yes, that is how teams compete. Then, now and always.”
They can also compete in conference and even in division. They used to be in different conferences, but they aren’t any more. That changes things.
“No. They have a modified zipper because everyone wanted to be in a division with either FSU or Miami ensuring them an annual game against one of the conference’s big guns and giving everyone equal access to the state of Florida.”
No, that’s why Miami and FSU are separate. You don’t need a zipper to have everyone in a division with one or the other. They did the zipper because neither FSU nor Miami would accept being stuck in the north.
“Just because they did a zipper the first time doesn’t mean they have to (or even should) do it again.”
I never said it did mean that. But claiming Miami would be fine with a geographic split except with them in the North needs some support. When has any person in power at Miami indicated they’d rather play the northern schools than the southern ones, especially if it meant that FSU played the other group?
If you list the division requirements, it tells you how to split them. If everyone demands to play in FL, then you have to split FSU and Miami. But FL isn’t the only strong recruiting area. Teams also want into GA, SC, NC and VA. That requires a zipper. A zipper also keeps new members from feeling isolated (BE division vs ACC division, essentially). That’s important for conference unity, especially if you worry about losing schools to expansion.
LikeLike
No, that’s why Miami and FSU are separate. You don’t need a zipper to have everyone in a division with one or the other. They did the zipper because neither FSU nor Miami would accept being stuck in the north.
Yeah, that was my bad; I didn’t complete my full thought. After they decided they had to split FSU and Miami the ACC felt a zipper was the only to preserve historic rivalries
N – BC, Maryland, Virginia, V-Tech, WF, Miami
S – UNC, NC-State, Duke, Clemson, G-Tech, FSU
Maryland, UVA and Wake were not going to live with that.
LikeLike
frug,
“Yeah, that was my bad; I didn’t complete my full thought. After they decided they had to split FSU and Miami the ACC felt a zipper was the only to preserve historic rivalries
N – BC, Maryland, Virginia, V-Tech, WF, Miami
S – UNC, NC-State, Duke, Clemson, G-Tech, FSU
Maryland, UVA and Wake were not going to live with that.”
Miami wouldn’t have liked it either. That’s why I take issue with your current plan – you still have at least 2 schools that will hate it (WF and Miami).
North – BC, ‘Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, V-Tech, WF, Miami
South – UVA, UNC, NC-State, Duke, Clemson, G-Tech, FSU
It might help to swap UVA for WF while locking UVA/UNC instead of UVA/VT. That would appease WF, but might upset UVA just as much (they’d keep their top 2 rivals, though). That’s why a modified zipper works best for the ACC in my opinion. Nobody loves the outcome, but nobody despises it either. Everyone gets most of what they want.
In order of locked rivals:
A – BC, UL, VT, NCSU, WF, GT, FSU
B – SU, Pitt, UVA, UNC, Duke, Clemson, Miami
1. Miami and FSU are split so everyone plays one of them.
2. NC schools are split evenly with 1 locked rival meaning they each play at least 2 of 3.
3. Rivalries are preserved – VT/UVA, UNC/NCSU, GT/Clemson, FSU/Miami, etc.
4. Recruiting grounds are spread out. Everyone gets equal access to FL, NC and VA, and they all get SC or GA.
5. Cold weather/BE schools are spread evenly.
6. The division are reasonably balanced.
A true N/S split would work if every school didn’t demand FL access. The N would still have access to MA, NY, PA, VA and NC for recruiting, plus anyone can recruit in FL (B10 does).
LikeLike
The ACC wanted to set up the possibility of a Miami/FSU championship game. Naturally, the football gods took their revenge, and such a game has never happened. With three new schools entering, they should have scrapped the zipper and re-done the divisions from scratch, as the Big Ten did.
It would take an ACC expert to opine on which rivalries are considered indispensable. But according to Wikipedia, UNC/UVA is the second-most played active annual rivalry in FBS (behind only Minnesota-Wisconsin). I have trouble imagining that they would ever eliminate that from the ACC schedule.
Of course, schools have killed long-standing rivalries by switching leagues without a partner, but while they remain in the same league, I have to think that UNC/UVA would be contested annually, no matter what the divisional structure.
LikeLike
I don’t mind John Hopkins as men’s only. Regardless of whether its one sport or two, we are still talking an affiliate membership so being all in or not doesn’t seem like a big deal.
LikeLike
What somebody doesn’t mind and what rubs somebody the wrong way is partly a gut reaction, so there’s only so far stepping through the rational pros and cons can go. For me, I actually would be a bit annoyed if JHU women were in a different conference when there is a Big Ten women’s conference. But I don’t mind it nearly as much if they are playing as independents.
LikeLike
Pingback: Lacrosse & The Future | ATLANTIC COAST CONFIDENTIAL
I think that the addition of Johns Hopkins means that the Big Ten is a lot more pragmatic about affiliate membership than most fans had assumed. Johns Hopkins is in for a test period only, it gets to keep its TV contract, its women’s team doesn’t have to join, and it’s not required to join the CIC. However, the Big Ten gets to sponsor a Big Ten lacrosse league with an auto-bid to the NCAA tournament, it gets to market to affluent families that might not otherwise consider a Big Ten school, the BTN gets a bit of a stronger foothold on the East Coast, and the COP/C gets to associate more closely with an academic powerhouse (even if Johns Hopkins never joins the CIC). These positives outweigh the “all for one” mentality that the Big Ten has required for full members, especially considering that this is is for a traditionally non-revenue sport.
LikeLike
The Confidential’s take on the Big 10’s win with Johns Hopkins & lacrosse generally:
http://atlanticcoastconfidential.com/2013/06/05/lacrosse-the-future/#more-3439
Look forward to your comments, of course. Here or there.
LikeLike
I think you’re right, that IF the ACC had a chance at Hopkins, and passed, they made a big mistake. In my view, Hopkins would’ve chosen the Big Ten anyway, but the ACC had nothing to lose by at least trying to make their own compelling case. And certainly, the ACC had points in their favor, had they chosen to make them.
The comparison of football to boxing seems way off-base. Football is a contact sport with the objective of putting the ball in the endzone. Boxing is a contact sport with the objective of bashing the other guy’s brains. You can make changes to football to make it safer, without changing the basic idea of the game, whereas the very essence of boxing is to cause injury to the opponent. That’s a pretty significant difference.
Even in its heyday (whenever that was), boxing never had the fan support that football does now. Football engenders lifetime and multi-generational team/fan relationships that transcend the identities of particular individuals (i.e., you’re an Alabama fan, regardless of who’s on the team at a particular time). Boxing is all about the individual competitor. And as you noted, you could pay $50 for a fight that ends in 30 seconds, whereas a football team is guaranteed to offer 3 hours of entertainment, 12+ times a season.
LikeLike
WSJ (if I remember right) had a very interesting article about the eventual ‘death of football’.
Primarily, it concerned the growing unwillingness of parents to allow their kids to play football or even acquire a taste for it in Pop Warner. It was a staggering percentage that, unless helmet/equipment technology can assuage their fears in the next decade, could eventually cut off it’s supply line. Couple this with the nanny state tendencies of the government and I absolutely think football faces a long term dilemma. Who, only two years ago, would have believed the Pac would limit contact for practices. People will claim this is ridiculous because of the money involved, but if you think the majority of parents are going to let their kids play a game that could threaten their children’s or teen’s long term health, you’re mistaken. And the research could only get worse. I think ‘football’ has a decade to remedy this problem before you’ll see it’s rapid decline. Not only on the parent front, but colleges will no longer be willing to risk the health of their students (for moral and legal reasons). Delany & Co. are obviously cognizant of this.
Obviously science/engineers are working hard to solve this problem and I hope they do.
LikeLike
Here’s the NYT backing up that logic:
For all of the talk about the physical toll of football, the most imposing challenge for the N.F.L. will be moral issues as parents decide whether their children should play the game. As more studies are completed and more high-profile players experience postcareer complications, the industry and parents are faced with ethical questions: How can football executives continue to sell the game? How can fans continue to watch? And how can parents continue to allow their children to play?
Here’s CNN:
Knowing this, and knowing how prevalent and often undiagnosed concussions are at even the lower levels of football (to say nothing of all the other serious injuries accepted as ‘just a part of the game’ in football), why would any parent choose to enlist their child to join these ranks? To volunteer them to have their head smacked around inside a plastic cage? Children have been playing tackle football for generations, yes, but only recently have we become aware of what it’s doing to them.
This is not some fringe point of view and is already a cause celebre with the chronically outraged.
LikeLike
So where are the chronically outraged with boxing in decline and being replaced by the even more violent MMA?
I’m not saying there’s not a risk to the sport, but its overstated based on current knowledge. Most of those parents are upper middle class who don’t produce much of the Division I football talent. The top players are disproportionately lower income. Which is why the stipends are such a big deal.
LikeLike
Because colleges aren’t giving scholarships to kids to participate in MMA. High schools aren’t fielding MMA teams, and MMA pee-wee leagues won’t be popping up any time soon.
The chronically outraged feed off of lobbying congress (government regulation) or targeting advertisers.
I absolutely agree that lower income kids will decide to keep playing, right up to the moment that choice is taken away from them. Do you really believe that Washington is going to allow poor minority kids to continue playing a game that they know to be harmful?
The only way football survives the next twenty years is if they can eliminate concussions.
LikeLike
Working against this, football is a very expensive sport, and one that is only for one genders. School districts will eventually abandon the sport due to costs and declining support and out of fairness to girls. Legistlatures will impose additional restrictions. Wealthy parents whose kids play soccer, lacrosse, baseball, and golf will wonder if their tax dollars couldn’t be better spent. This is why I see football dying (or at least becoming less mainstream). It may not die out completely (though that would not suprise me), but it may shrink. I’d say football’s future is unknown, but if I were to wagers, I’d wagers that in 50 years baseball, soccer, and lacrosse are the more popular sports in all the various ways in which you can measure popularlity.
LikeLike
This is why I see football dying. . . .
There’s just no evidence for this at all. Obviously, nothing is impossible: Kodak failed to foresee that film would die, and look at Kodak now. But to reach your preferred outcome, you’re making a vast number of unsubstantiated assumptions, and failing to consider many other possibilities. If you want football to die, then you can resolve all doubts in favor of your prediction, and voila! In your mind it becomes a practical certainty.
LikeLike
ESPN (of all places) has a great article up addressing why Football is doomed, and why its not.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/page/Mag15footballisdead/jr-moehringer-120-reasons-why-football-last-forever-espn-magazine
11. Buzz Bissinger, Malcolm Gladwell, George F. Will, they’ve all recently declared that football is going bye-bye. Or maybe that’s the wrong way to put it. Maybe what they meant is closer to what George Carlin said about climate change. The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are. Pack your shit, folks.
12. After all, boxing didn’t go anywhere. Boxing is still here. No, honest, it’s around here somewhere. You can still fly to Vegas this weekend, take in a prizefight. Just be prepared to feel the peculiar enervation of total irrelevance. Boxing, which once stood at the center of American cultural life, glistening arms aloft, now slouches punch-drunk on the tattered fringes. So while you’re seated ringside, watching that fight, which won’t even make the morning papers, and not simply because there are no morning papers, bear in mind: Messrs. Gladwell, Bissinger, Will and others say the same pall of obsolescence should hang over football games, pro, college, high school, peewee. Until the games vanish altogether.
LikeLike
@Marc – of course it is just my opinion. Though I don’t think an unreasonable one. Several people have written about the same scenario. But legistlatures are already getting involved. School districts are already cutting it. I may be wrong, and hope I am. I love football, even though I would never let my kids play it. You are right, they are my assumptions, but they are grounded in some reality. The fact is that football is expensive and only going to get more expensive. Teams are big and insurance is going to go up. Tax revenue for football is not going to increase in the aggregate. The supply of players is going to decrease as more parents take the same approach I will take. This may simply just lead to a changing sport and not a dying sport. I really don’t know. But in my opinion, I think it will eventually die out.
LikeLike
FWIW – I don’t want football to die, it is not my preferred outcome. Sure I’ll take some “I told you so glee” when it happens since my wife thinks I’m nuts to even think it. I just see too many things working against it.
LikeLike
It isn’t about ‘violence’. It’s about the long term effects of continuous head trauma inherent with certain sports. Football is bad & boxing is far worse. MMA is not in the same ballpark as either when it comes to TBI.
LikeLike
I haven’t seen any studies, but I find it hard to believe MMA isn’t worse than boxing. Maybe people get beat up so bad they can’t do it for 20 years. Maybe its just that the sport hasn’t been around very long.
@SH
IMO the idea that lacrosse will be bigger than football in 50 years is pretty unreasonable. For that matter, baseball, which is in decline, and soccer, which has never been able to take off as a spectator sport, being bigger than fb seems pretty unreasonable as well.
Football is a pretty cheap sport for kids to play. Just need an open field and a ball. You can do it with 2 players, although 4 is much better. Lacrosse is more expensive. It and baseball are more difficult to on a sandlot. More players, more space, more coordination.
My idea, as I’ve stated on here before, is to do away with unlimited substitution. You aren’t going to have as many 300 pounders if they have to play both ways. And if the players are smaller, the damage is less. If they’re slower (and if they play both ways, they will slow down from fatigue) the damage is less.
LikeLike
“IMO the idea that lacrosse will be bigger than football in 50 years is pretty unreasonable. For that matter, baseball, which is in decline, and soccer, which has never been able to take off as a spectator sport, being bigger than fb seems pretty unreasonable as well.”
I admit it is probably only reasonable if you think football will die, which I do. So it is less lacrosse overtaking it and more just fading away.
“Football is a pretty cheap sport for kids to play. Just need an open field and a ball. You can do it with 2 players, although 4 is much better. Lacrosse is more expensive. It and baseball are more difficult to on a sandlot. More players, more space, more coordination.”
True – except organized football will become expensive. The insurance will be what really drives the cost up.
“My idea, as I’ve stated on here before, is to do away with unlimited substitution. You aren’t going to have as many 300 pounders if they have to play both ways. And if the players are smaller, the damage is less. If they’re slower (and if they play both ways, they will slow down from fatigue) the damage is less.”
These are very interesting ideas. Maybe with some radical changes football will stave off death. But those are the changes that fooball will need to explore.
LikeLike
Bullet – I also just believe that 50 years is a lot of time. Football has been king for a long time now. To remain on top for another 50 years would be one great run. All good things typically come to an end. I guess I would just take the field and assume another sport will top it.
LikeLike
“Do you really believe that Washington is going to allow poor minority kids to continue playing a game that they know to be harmful?”
They haven’t outlawed boxing yet.
LikeLike
Maybe Washington would be better off by dropping its paternalistic attitude towards group they claim to care about. Then they wouldn’t be much hated by the vast majority of the public.
LikeLike
GreatLakeState,
“Because colleges aren’t giving scholarships to kids to participate in MMA. High schools aren’t fielding MMA teams, and MMA pee-wee leagues won’t be popping up any time soon.”
Actually, there are lots of youth MMA classes out there and some competitions. It’s growing.
“I absolutely agree that lower income kids will decide to keep playing, right up to the moment that choice is taken away from them. Do you really believe that Washington is going to allow poor minority kids to continue playing a game that they know to be harmful?”
They already do. They haven’t banned any sport that I know of, and all sports are dangerous. Youth boxing still exists. Extreme sports are thriving. Hoops sends more people to the hospital than any other sport last time I saw the stats.
“The only way football survives the next twenty years is if they can eliminate concussions.”
Bull.
LikeLike
“I haven’t seen any studies, but I find it hard to believe MMA isn’t worse than boxing. Maybe people get beat up so bad they can’t do it for 20 years. Maybe its just that the sport hasn’t been around very long.”
—The long term danger is due to the use of heavier gloves. They help to prevent acute injuries (cuts, fractures etc) but they also expose boxers to many more blows to the brain. Without 8oz gloves two quality heavyweights would be completely unable to sit and pound each other in the head for 14 rounds. Yes an MMA fighter is more likely to suffer broken bones over the short term but over the long term they are going to be less likely to suffer the chronic debilitating cognitive loss that many boxers exhibit.
LikeLike
Catching bullets is much safer than catching RPG’s…
The big advantage that MMA held over boxing was they would stop the fight much quicker. No ten count, standing eights, proving you could survive being wobbled. That seems to have diminished significantly. I’ve seen many serious beatings go on far longer than they should. Will the public demand and reward the earlier, questionable stoppages to restore some lost safety? Will they stop idolizing the undefeated, and the ability to overcome any damage to remain so?
Sure, bare knuckle fights were less deadly. Hands break easier than skulls. Elbows and feet don’t.
We are at the beginning of a 40+ year trial period. Perhaps after that time we’ll have data to support one argument or the other. I just don’t think educational institutions should be involved in the modern Roman Circus.
LikeLike
Scarlet_Lutefisk,
The counter to that is that MMA athlete get kneed, kicked and elbowed in the head regularly. Those are heavier blows than any gloved punch and do more damage internally. They also get punched in the head while on the ground, so they get double hit (fist to face, back of head to mat). To top it off, they get choked unconscious too so the brain is being deprived of oxygen.
LikeLike
GLS,
Suburban parents may be doing this, but I doubt poor families in football hotbeds are. Football is still the ticket out of poverty for many kids and their parents will encourage them to play. Rural areas also are less likely to follow this trend.
For all the talk about the dangers of sports, people are generally pretty clueless about the facts. Rugby is a growing sport and it hits just as hard as football. MMA is replacing boxing and it’s equally risky. Studies have shown repeated headers to also cause brain damage but soccer is thriving. Hockey helmets are less effective than football helmets but youth hockey thrives and every player ditches their full face mask as soon as they turn 18 or leave college. Extreme sports are growing tremendously and they’re all very dangerous.
Newsflash: All sports are dangerous. Moving fast means a lot of inertia and a forced stop or rapid change of direction means potential injury, to the brain and elsewhere.
LikeLike
“The only way football survives the next twenty years is if they can eliminate concussions.”
Bull.
What a typical nothing answer from the human drone.
LikeLike
A silly statement like that deserves a simple answer. Not a single sport can eliminate concussions, and none of them will disappear in 20 years.
http://www.momsteam.com/softball/concussion-in-high-school-sports-rising-fifteen-percent-new-study-finds
A study of concussions in HS sports in VA. The second most “dangerous” sport was girls’ soccer. Is soccer also going to disappear in 20 years?
Concussions per 1000 Athletic Exposure (game, practice, etc per player)
Boys:
1. Football – 0.60
2. Lacrosse – 0.30
3. Soccer – 0.17
4. Wrestling – 0.17
5. Basketball – 0.10
6. Baseball – 0.06
Girls:
1. Soccer – 0.35
2. Lacrosse – 0.20
3. Basketball – 0.16
4. Softball – 0.11
5. Field hockey – 0.10
6. Cheerleading – 0.06
Being a VA study, hockey isn’t on the list. Neither is rugby, a growing college sport.
If concussions are going to kill football, then soccer and lacrosse and maybe hockey will also have to die. All rational people know that is not going to happen, though.
LikeLike
Rationality has to come into play regarding concussions/injuries in general when playing sports.
One underlying problem is our media and our government seem to think that it is their responsibility to educate/regulate/dictate what we as individuals should and shouldn’t do.
Of course, a lot of this “education” is sold via emotion—hence, young, suburban house-wives are scared their little Johnny or Julie is going to be forever scarred if they play any “violent” sports… “Violent” being defined by the “self-proclaimed/media-proclaimed” expert of the day…
No more nanny state B.S. please…
I survived without a bicycle helmet, I survived football, I survived wrestling, I survived my teens and twenties… We all do really stupid stuff—sometimes we get lucky, sometimes not-so-much…
If life is to be lived—there is inherent risk…
LikeLike
“And look where college football is headed… from all-over-the-air networks to ESPN, and then ESPN to conferences having their own networks. The money is starting to change access to sports.”
This is a big part of my disappointment with the mainstream (ESPN, Fox) becoming part or full owners of supposedly school or conference networks. The non monetary benefit, that can legitimately be claimed as important by schools, is unimportant to them. Making money directly and quickly is the goal of a quarterly profit driven business.
I’m not sure lax will fare any better than hockey for the general sports fan on TV. They both have a very small ball/puck in a fast moving game. It’s not like following a basketball, or even a football. Both are easy, and in FB there are breaks after every five or ten seconds of action to reset the frame of reference if you did lose track. I’m one of the odd ones who actually appreciated the glowing puck (but not the tracer) precisely for that reason. I think a newer, improved, more discrete tracking method could make both sports as easy to follow the action on TV as mainstream sports.
LikeLike
High-definition TV has made hockey a far better viewing experience, and the same improvement may apply to lacrosse.
LikeLike
Good point.
LikeLike
True, but its not completely easy for the non hockey fan. Rather than a glowing, larger circular overlay I’d like to see if a fairly bright pinpoint (perhaps a strobe at 30 to 45 cycles/second, or not) would assist without being distracting.
LikeLike
I agree with you, but those partnerships may be imperative to a nationwide network. The PAC12 network will tell the tale.
LikeLike
I think hockey and lacrosse could benefit from that camera that they have for football– I forget the full name–the camera that moves on wires. Imagine being able to watch the attack flow from an angle like that. Moreover, there are few passes that are high enough to trip that camera. And none in hockey. But being able to see the play facing the goalie, rather than from the side or the perspective of the goalie might be helpful. And maybe 3-D TVs will help.
Who knows?
The point was not that football would disappear, but that the erosion of football support may be replaced by lacrosse. Instead of revenue being 80%football/20%basketball, maybe it becomes 65%/25%/10% lacrosse. If so, great move by the Big 10 to get JHU.
Also, TV viewership is also impacted by people watching live. Not a causal relationship. If lacrosse game attendance goes from 5,000 to 20,000… that makes it a lot more likely to generate TV interest. Lacrosse is played in stadiums with greater capacity than basketball.
Did anyone in the 1960’s think that a Final Four would be played in a Dome? You just never know where things go in a generation or two.
LikeLike
1968 Astrodome sellout-UCLA vs. Houston.
You can never say never, but if lacrosse attendance went from 5,000 to 6,000 that would be a major accomplishment. Its a small niche upper middle class/wealthy east coast sport that has as much potential upside as rugby and less than ultimate.
LikeLike
Eeeeeee!!!
Aaaaaaa!
The birth of the goggles in BB was precipitated by Hays elbow catching Alcindor’s eye that day.
LikeLike
A ton of kids are now playing lacrosse in Oregon and Utah. I could see lacrosse making a long-term push somewhere along the lines of 72%/18%/10%.
LikeLike
I think that is right. In the future, the concentration of revenue will not be all tied up in one sport. I’d be concerned that football may be a dying product. Like any other business venture, you have to find new products and revenue streams. The B10 seems to be the most forward-thinking conference in this regard.
LikeLike
Then again,
Pele signed with the Cosmos? Soccer is going to be huge in the US!
Beck signed with the Galaxy? Soccer is going to be huge in the US!
LikeLike
Soccer is just never going to be big here. We like offense.
Basketball–shot clock. Baseball–PEDs. Football–nearly every rule is pro-offense.
Lacrosse offense > soccer offense. By quite a bit.
LikeLike
I’d say soccer is huge (maybe big reserving huge for the big 3) in the US. It has an expanding league that does not appear to be in trouble in any way. ESPN is paying a lot of money for foreign league broadcasts. It has not overtaken the big 3, but it is doing well enough and will likely only grow.
LikeLike
@acaffrey – Right now soccer is biggers than lacrosse. But lacrosse could quickly overtake soccers. As you say, their is far more offense, plus it offers some contact. I think also because it is uniquely American, which will appeal to our independent streak.
LikeLike
I’ve never understood this attitude about soccer. I don’t know how big it could get but it has its believers. The US game against Germany this Sunday sold out. More over, the women’s team game against Canada in Toronto sold out minutes after tickets went on sale.
LikeLike
If you benchmark every sport against the wildest predictions of its most naive supporters, every sport will be a litany of failure to meet those wild projections. As far as realistic expectations, soccer is now the fifth team sport by value in the US, so either the biggest or second biggest of the second tier, depending on whether you put hockey at the bottom of the first tier or top of the second tier.
There are two big differences between College Lacrosse and College Soccer that stand to the benefit of LAX. First, Soccer is a Fall Sport while Lacrosse is a Spring Sport. College Football castes a much bigger and darker shadow on College Soccer than College Baseball casts on College Lacrosse. Second, College Soccer is much further from the top ranks of the sport, since the US professional league is more or less a AAA or AA minor league in the world of soccer, with the “majors” being played in England, Italy, Spain and Brazil ~ the more generous you are about some other leagues being top tier leagues the better the claim MLS has to being second tier. And College is not the only development ladder, with paid development ladders both with the semi-pro leagues in the US and, for same, the option of going overseas and seeking a place in big money club’s development system.
LikeLike
@Accafrey
I agree. The slow pace of baseball was better suited to a different era. Soccer’s low scoring condemns it to the 2nd tier.
Basketball is the sport that could overtake football, but has the disadvantage of fewer players and requiring genetic advantages (Calvin Murphy and Spud Webb are once in a generation players-shorter fb players are much more common).
LikeLike
Soccer is still growing at the youth and high school level, but it is pretty saturated. Lacrosse has fewer teams and schools, but the growth is booming. But just because the kids are playing doesn’t mean that they will automatically start watching MLS or EPL, or attending MLS games. Same thing with watching/attending college/pro lax.
However… as the percentage of immigrants in America grows, the growth of soccer will continue, as many of these immigrants are existing fans of pro soccer (including the national teams).
LikeLike
Football on TV is great and i think that has really helped it grow.
Hockey on tv looses a lot and that hurts it. But that tracer or glower or whatever was totally asinine. It is not that hard to follow a puck on tv if you have any idea what the flow of a game is. Does it get lost on ocasssion, yes. But who really cares? You can typically find it in about 1 second. Maybe they could take some ads off the ice. The NHL and hopefully B10 hockey need to understand that the vast majority of existing fans don’t care about being popular. They appreciate tradition, the game, and the quirks. They need to put the market research back on the shelf and let hockey be hockey.
I honestly cannot see the average sports fan giving a crap about LAX on tv or otherwise.
LikeLike
LAX combines the two sports 90% of Americans don’t like – hockey and soccer.
LikeLike
@JJ ‘LAX combines the two sports 90% of Americans don’t like-hockey and soccer.’
Great observation. As far as football losing, or rather, declining, from its pre-eminent position in American sports, I believe its saving attribute is that it is played by all shapes and sizes and abilities of individuals. It is also helped by the sheer number of participants. This is true especially at the high school level where a deep love of a sport is developed. And, those various individuals go on in life relating to Friday nights, and Saturdays and Sundays. IMO, the only thing that will bring football down is the concussion issue.
LikeLike
ESPN sees value enough in soccer to be showing Czech Republic v Italy in a World Cup qualifier on the main channel.
LikeLike
“LAX combines the two sports 90% of Americans don’t like – hockey and soccer.” ~ yes, combining the fourth and fifth most popular team sports, into a sport that’s more accessible than either.
My experience is its easier for a novice to tell where the ball is than tracking the puck in ice hockey, from following my Alma Mater the Miami Red{something}s in their effort to make the Frozen Four and the Buckeyes in their two games in the NCAA Lacrosse tournament.
And the scoring comes at a regular enough pace so that its a lot easier to follow who has the run of play than in soccer. It took several years of following the Newcastle Breakers in the old Australian NSL before I could really follow the run of play in soccer.
LikeLike
Nice take. Bottom line, my resolve remains firm: the sport grows better with JHU to the BIG, not the ACC. Plus it helps the ACC in the long run, there is simply more depth on the men’s side. Adding JHU only makes the annual bids a constant controversy. The sport’s growth is more important than a particular conference’s dominance (men’s side). I’ve never been a big fan of BIG dominance in wrestling, plus OkSt. Unfortunately, the sport’s popularity is on the decline. I could also insert a Water Polo argument as well : ).
On the other hand, I do want to caution lacrosse’s so-called growth. There’s a bit of hype with all of this. I argued earlier that Duke’s M. Lacrosse NC should not outweigh Michigan’s M. Swimming NC – Capital One Cup, at most they should be the same. I’m not exactly a fan of the Director’s Cup assigning equivalent points for all sports either. But, there are simply far more swimming programs on the landscape than lacrosse, swimming has greater regional diversity as well.
LikeLike
“I’ve never been a big fan of BIG dominance in wrestling, plus OkSt. Unfortunately, the sport’s popularity is on the decline.”
No, the popularity is higher than ever in HS and younger. More schools, men, and a very quickly growing number of women. A number of states now have enough participants they sponsor a separate women’s state championships.
Wrestling isn’t dieing in college. It is being murdered at D1, but growing at the lower levels.
LikeLike
CC,
Sure, but if the college or olympics route ceases, then all that hs growth hits a wall. MMA or other alternative professional MMA leagues may become the norm, post high school.
I’m disappointed about what’s happening to NCAA wrestling. I’d like to see the sport grow. It doesn’t seem to have the damaging, long term health risks of say football, boxing & even ice hockey. It’s the biggest sport at my former high school – Apple Valley, MN (consistently one of the nation’s best high school wrestling programs). The UofMn is a respectable wrestling program & Augsburg College in Mpls, is one of D3’s blue bloods.
LikeLike
I believe Putin has had members of the IOC over for dinner and made a “Godfather” like proposition. Wrestling will remain (and actually has made some dramatic changes in the last month, returning more to the sport before the IOC and TV execs got involved in trying to make it more soccer mom, broadcast window friendly) is my considered opinion.
MMA is not an acceptable change from wrestling. As with boxing, the goal is to break, submit, or render the opponent unconscious. Wrestling rules sanction such intent and bar holds likely to produce those results. Barbaric exhibitions are not really a good fit for an academic institutions athletic offering.
UofMn is significantly above “respectable”.
LikeLike
I like your thinking. That sounds about right.
LikeLike
I know we’re “significantly above respectable” but in general, Minnesnowtans don’t pat themselves too much on the back. On the other hand, we can be extremely critical, esp with our hockey team. This year being a fine example. We were better than Yale on paper, and throughout much of that heartbreaking, boneheaded loss. They prevailed and went on to win the NC. Oh well, nice to see an Ivy League team win it all.
I do notice a lot of former wrestlers in MMA, more so than say boxers. But maybe not as much as those with a jiu jitsu background. Sure I see the differences between wrestling & MMA, but there’s a lot of crossover. It’s often a submission that ends an MMA match, though the “unconscious” knockouts have increased : ).
Of all the sports I watch, wrestling so often brings the drama. You are right, there is a definite form of grace in order to win the match & it doesn’t include supercharged, vicarious howling screams by male types like an MMA circus. Nothing like a Mn vs OkSt, Iowa, PSU match. I’ve seen plenty.
LikeLike
GFunk – I concur with your assesment. Lacrosse as a sport is better off with JH in B10. Gives that league instant credibility and they have the schools to grow it. Here is Texas it is really taking off. Obviously it is not football, but one wonders when it will become mainstream – at least like soccer is now.
One thing about lacrosse is that it is uniquely American – like baseball once was and football still is. As oppossed to soccer. You could look at this as a positive or negative. But I think it probably helps.
LikeLike
I have read this whole thread with some interest. In full disclosure, I live in a rural area near Madison, Wisconsin. My take is that, at least in the upper Midwest, that football is somewhat in decline among youth. It is still very popular, and likely will always be, but I think the best middle-class athletes aren’t playing football anymore. I think Soccer has begun to make big inroads against football for youth, and may overtake it at some point in the next generation. La Crosse does not have a significant youth following, but a big ten la crosse conference could help change that. I am old enough to remember soccer being the same way. The point is that I think football will be impacted by these changes, and won’t be as dominant among younger generations.
LikeLike
Nice article. I complete disagree with anyone who compares footballs future to that of boxing. Boxing didn’t die because it was dangerous. It was much more dangerous back in the day than now. Boxing died in this country (still a very popular nitch sport but it was once the biggest sport in the world) because it went PPV and cutoff it’s own feeder system. Boxing, like football and basketball now, was a way of upward mobility in this country for blue collar workers and those below the poverty level. When the sport went to PPV, it destroyed its exposure to the lower income people that made up its ranks; those willing to sacrifice their health for upward mobility. Rich suburbanites, the very same that are now keeping their kids out of football and worrying about long term health affects, hardly ever participated in the sport to begin with even in its hay day. It was made up of the poor trying to climb the latter thru athletics. Those same kids now turn to basketball and football because that is who they see of TV, Unless in the future, Football takes themselves off the TV’s of lower income families, the will not be hurting for participation. As long as fame, money, and even something like a free education are there for the taking, kids will still participate. I would wager that the majority of NFL players came from small beginnings except maybe the quarterback position. With the likes of Katherine Webb and Gisele waiting in the wings for successful quarterbacks, you will have plenty of rich kids badgering their parents to play that position. Football will be fine for a long time.
LikeLike
I’ll tell you what, though. The more likely harm to football will be continued modification of the rules to placate the need to pretend it is safer. We already have so many rules to protect the QBs. Then the hits by DBs. Now RBs are not allowed to do this or that. At what point does making football safer keeper it from being football? We are not there yet, but there is a slippery slope that can be conceived. And once it stops being the football we enjoyed watching, will we still care as much about it and still watch it?
I don’t watch hockey FOR the fighting, but it is far less interesting to me without fighting at least being possible. I’ll never forget 190-lb Matthew Barnaby taking on 240-lb Eric Lindros. That is a level of courage I sure as heck don’t have. Wasn’t much of a fight, but pretty cool nevertheless.
I suspect if NASCAR had padded walls and padded cars, they would lose some of their following too. It’s not THAT there are crashes. Its that there CAN BE crashes. That is a level of courage that is alone worth watching.
At least for the mainstream watcher.
LikeLike
acaffrey,
“I don’t watch hockey FOR the fighting, but it is far less interesting to me without fighting at least being possible. I’ll never forget 190-lb Matthew Barnaby taking on 240-lb Eric Lindros. That is a level of courage I sure as heck don’t have. Wasn’t much of a fight, but pretty cool nevertheless.”
Fighting isn’t allowed in college hockey or the Olympics or in youth hockey. It’s only in the pros, and it’s stupid just like allowing bean balls and bench-clearing brawls in baseball. Risking injury to your stars by allowing people to break the rules is bad policy.
“I suspect if NASCAR had padded walls and padded cars,”
They do. The doors of the cars are filled with foam, the drivers use wraparound seats with a neck restraint and the walls have SAFER barriers which are large foam blocks behind a wall that gives a little. Padding doesn’t stop crashes from happening, it just reduces injuries and deaths.
LikeLike
I hate NASCAR, so I do not care. And I have not been able to care about hockey since the first lockout in the 2000s. You are entitled to your opinions on the stupidity of fighting, bean balls, and bench-clearing brawls. I just do not understand how anyone is “allowing people to break the rules,” as there are imposed penalties in hockey and suspensions in baseball.
LikeLike
Refs could stop fighting before it happens by imposing serious punishments for those who do it. Instead, they treat it is a minor offense and people keep fighting. Then a big name player gets hurt (Zach Greinke – broken collar bone) and the sport suffers. The same in hockey – players don’t fight at the lower levels because the punishment is more severe. Bean balls have the potential to kill the batter, but they’re part of the game as a way to resolve any pent of frustration a team might have. Why aren’t the player unions stepping up to protect their members? It’s stupid and reckless and eventually someone will sue when they suffer a serious injury.
Hockey refs literally let a fight happen and then break it up once they’re done rather than try to stop it right away. Then they give a trivial penalty to the fighters to make sure fighting stays a part of the game. Make fighting a mandatory 10 minute game misconduct and 40 game suspension (escalating for each violation by 20 more games) and nobody would fight in the NHL. Instead, the NHL makes sure to keep the punishment light enough to keep some fighting.
LikeLike
Fighting is part of the game. I also agree that it actually prevents injuries because it reduces the amount of stick attacks. No one will spear you if they know they will get their ass beat for it. If you really wanted to reduce hockey violence, you would move to 4 on 4. The NHL size ice is crowded.
LikeLike
One last thing, goes along with crowded ice. You are far more likely to be injured by a legal check you don’t see than a consensual fight.
LikeLike
There are other ways to prevent spearing than to sanction committing a felony during the game. Make the penalties for intentional violent acts (spearing, slashing, boarding, etc) much more severe and people would largely stop committing them. Other levels of hockey do just fine without allowing fighting.
LikeLike
I didn’t realize mutual combat was a felony.
Fighting in hockey is very ritualized. It’s not just someone coming up and going nuts on some random opponent. The first rule of fighting is that the players have to agree to it. You may not believe this, but it’s true.
Refs will usually jump in once someone is down or if they are clearly outmatched. And the third man in rule prevents any real mayhem. I can’t remember the last time I saw anything really crazy.
Players have been sued and prosecuted for actions on the ice. As far as I know, one person has died as a result of being in a fight. I can think of far more instances of people getting seriously hurt and damn near killed by stick attacks.
Fighting is way down anyway. Popularity isn’t improving.
LikeLike
I agree fighting is way down (because they stiffened the penalties) and I never claimed it would make hockey more popular. Stick attacks should get stiffer penalties, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for players that refuse to wear full face masks and then get facial injuries.
LikeLike
PSU, I agree with you the PPV harmed boxing. Promoters did not culture the sport at a time it needed culturing. It benefitted a select few, but ultimately harmed the sport in general. Football seems to have better caregivers, as well as a much larger fanbase. Ultimately, I think its deathknell will come when high schools eliminate it in the name of costs and safety. I hope I’m wrong, but nothing goes on forever.
You say football will be fine for a long time. I’d probably agree, just disagree with you on what constitutes a “long time.”
LikeLike
“I would wager that the majority of NFL players came from small beginnings except maybe the quarterback position.”
I would say you’re wrong about at least some positions. O-Linemen are probably more likely to have been middle-class suburbanites than poor anything.
LikeLike
>to the same conference that has Notre Dame football.
I chuckled.
LikeLike
Let’s plug some positive Rutgers’ news. Sorry if it was already done, the thread is becoming an ACC wish list again.
“The Rutgers football program was the lone state university on the list to be ranked in the top 10 percent nationally in APR for the sixth straight year. The Scarlet Knights continue to be one of the leaders nationally in both production on the field and in the classroom. Last year, Rutgers football was ranked ninth nationally in Academic Progress Rate, after placing number two in 2011 and number one in 2010.”
http://www.scarletknights.com/football/news/release.asp?prID=13307#.Ua9xbpV8zzJ
LikeLike
Why the precipitous slide? 🙂
LikeLike
haha.
LikeLike
I pointed this out earlier in thead, if you are of the belief that football is dying, a reasonable belief but not a certainty, it makes sense (for a conference) to diversify its sport holdings and strenghten existing ones. While also maximizing your football revenue while you can. The B10 has done this with its recent additions. Its why a UNC/UVA/Duke expansion make a lot of sense (from that perspective).
And if superconferences can break the NCAA – there is a lot of money for them in basketball.
LikeLike
The Ole Miss game at Texas this season will be on the LHN.
http://djournal.com/view/full_story/22799189/article-Longhorn-Network-to-show-Texas-vs–Ole-Miss?instance=lead_story_left_column
LikeLike
Yikes. I imagine it will be on regular TV in Mississippi, but if not, good luck getting secondary BCS schools to want to play Texas non conference if its only on the LHN.
LikeLike
Supposedly ESPN is working on a solution for MS. Maybe it’s broadcast, maybe it’s PPV, maybe it’s a reduced price for 1 month of LHN for the local cable distributors.
LikeLike
“Supposedly ESPN is working on a solution for MS. Maybe it’s broadcast, maybe it’s PPV, maybe it’s a reduced price for 1 month of LHN for the local cable distributors.”
Seems like an odd way to drive carriage.
LikeLike
I doubt carriage in MS is a high priority for the LHN.
LikeLike
Cox in Baton Rouge carries LHN.
LikeLike
Are there a lot of UT alums there?
LikeLike