Conference realignment at the power conference level has seemingly ground to a halt after what has been nearly four years of rumors, Tweets and blogs speculating on apocalyptic moves. When I created the Big Ten Expansion Index, there seemed to be endless possibilities of how the college sports world would shake out. Now, tools such as grant of rights agreements have at least temporarily paused any realignment within the power conference ranks. However, there’s still a nagging feeling that the 10-member Big 12 won’t stay at its current size. While any belief that some outside force would demand that the Big 12 expand (i.e. the SEC or other power conferences in the new playoff system) should be discredited as completely erroneous (as every conference wants to respect each others’ full autonomy in determining its membership levels), the practical reality is that the Big 12 is the odd duck in a world where other conferences are seeking size and depth in terms of brand names and TV markets while adding conference championship games (as opposed to eliminating them). Just as there will continue to be speculation about the Big Ten expanding to 16 members until it actually does so (particularly with comments such as the recent ones in Inside the Hall from Indiana Athletic Director Fred Glass calling 16 schools a “sweet spot”), the Big 12 is going to face the same questions until it gets back up to 12 schools.
With the peripheral rumor mongering noise dying down for the most part, I though it would be a good time to take a step back and create The Big 12 Expansion Index to assess where the viable candidates for that conference stand. To be clear, the purpose of this post is not to endorse the expansion of the Big 12. It’s perfectly reasonable for a Big 12 partisan to see the realistic expansion candidates as the equivalent of looking at a bar full of butterfaces at 3 am while “Closing Time” is playing in the background and saying, “No thanks. Call a cab for me to get the hell out of here.” Personally, I believe that the Big 12 needs to expand in the long-term regardless of any short-term revenue splitting implications, but this analysis can just as easily serve as justification for the conference to not get larger.
I. ASSUMPTIONS
In examining the Big 12 candidates, the following assumptions will be applied:
- ASSUMPTION #1 – Think like a university president and NOT like a sports fan.
This was the most important rule when constructing the Big Ten Expansion Index and it continues here with the Big 12. Conference realignment decisions aren’t driven by which school is most highly ranked in the latest BCS standings, who the fans like, or even what coaches and athletic directors may want (no matter how powerful they might be at their respective schools). Instead, university presidents are the ones that ultimately make realignment decisions and they’re looking at the long-term off-the-field big picture much more than short-term on-the-field issues that fans are generally focused upon. To be sure, how well a school plays football (and to a much lesser extent, basketball) is certainly relevant, but TV markets, demographic changes and academic rankings are factors that really get university presidents get much more engaged.
- ASSUMPTION #2 – The Big 12 lacks the ability to raid another power conference.
A number of Big 12 partisans wanted to believe over the past year that the league would be able to poach high profile schools from the ACC such as Florida State and Clemson. However, that prospect was simply never realistic due to a number of issues that the Big 12 needs to address, namely the demographics of the league outside of the state of Texas (which will be explained further in the index criteria below), overall academic reputation and national football brand names beyond Texas and Oklahoma. The Big 12 was able to save itself due to Texas wanting the Longhorn Network over the creation of the Pac-16 and Fox and ESPN paying a lot of money to keep the league together, but it is a paper tiger when it comes to expansion. As a result, the schools being evaluated in the index are all from the “Group of Five” non-power conference ranks.
II. EXPLANATION OF THE BIG 12 EXPANSION INDEX
The Big 12 Expansion Index assesses candidates on a 100-point scale. Please note that the schools are being graded on their values relative to only other Gang of Five schools. So, it doesn’t mean that if a school that receives a perfect score in the index that it would be as valuable as Florida State or USC. These values also have no relation to the figures that were calculated in the Big Ten Expansion Index*. This is only measuring the distinctions within the Group of Five universe that serves as the realistic pool of Big 12 expansion candidates. Here are the categories:
Football Brand Value (30 points) – As it was with the Big Ten, this is the most heavily weighted category as a reflection of the reality of the college sports landscape. The revenue generated from football is so massive in comparison to the other sports (including basketball) that it is the ultimate driver for expansion in every conference (including more historically basketball-focused ones such as the ACC).
It must be emphasized that Football Brand Value puts much more weight on the long-term history and financial underpinnings of a program over short-term or recent success. Thus, Team A that has sold out stadiums for years whether it wins or loses is much more valuable than Team B that only sells out a 40,000-seat stadium when it’s in the national championship race, even if Team A has had a mediocre seasons recently and Team B happens to rank in the top 25 of the BCS rankings this year. A lengthy tradition of playing football at the top level also carries more cache compared to being a noveau riche program. The “What have you done for me lately?” attitude of most sports fans doesn’t apply here. Instead, the proper question is the opposite: Even if the target school goes 0-12 in a season, will it still attract TV viewers and attendance? In other words, the true value of a football program is really measured by how much attention it still receives when it’s down as opposed to how much attention it gets when it’s up. Granted, it is much more difficult to find schools under this standard at the Group of Five level compared to at the power conferences, which is a large reason why those Group of Five schools aren’t in power conferences in the first place as of now.
National TV Value (15 points) – The calculation for TV values is a bit different for the Big 12 compared to the Big Ten. With the latter’s Big Ten Network, there was more of an emphasis on the value that schools would bring to that channel (which meant it was fairly large market-focused, albeit the Big Ten still ended up small market Nebraska first when all was said and done because of its extraordinary national TV value). The Big 12, though, is more concerned with the value of its national TV contract above all else since the league doesn’t have a conference network (and in fact, grants third tier TV rights to its individual members who then keep all of that revenue to themselves). Losing Nebraska was a major hit on that front and it led to the Big 12’s decision to add West Virginia instead of Louisville in 2011. As with the Football Brand Value category, there is much more weight on programs with longer histories of being national TV draws as opposed to the flavors of the moment. The issue with Big 12 expansion, of course, is that there are really only a handful of Group of Five schools that have any national TV value at all with respect to football.
Local TV Value (10 points) – While national TV value is more important to the Big 12 with respect to expansion candidates, there’s certainly still an interest for the Big 12 to expand to new TV markets (as the national TV contract can be impacted by local TV market coverage). The defections from the Big 12 over the past 4 years caused the conference to lose its only two top 25 TV markets that were located outside of the state of Texas (Denver and St. Louis). For this category, 10 points will be granted to a top 25 market, 7 points to a 26-50 market, 3 point to a 51-75 market, and then 0 points after that. Please note that any school that is already located in a Big 12 market will receive zero points in this category no matter how large its local market might be.
Demographics/Recruiting Value (20 points) – This was a category that wasn’t included in The Big Ten Expansion Index, but it would have been if I knew then that Jim Delany was going to use the word “demographics” in conjunction with expansion more than any other word over the past 4 years. While there’s some correlation between demographics and local TV value (as a larger market generally means more favorable demographics), the word “demographics” is really a code word for a very tangible concern for football fans and coaches: football recruits. It always irks me whenever I see comments to the effect that the Big Ten’s additions of Rutgers and Maryland didn’t do anything for the conference in football. Quite to the contrary, that expansion was very important for on-the-field matters because New Jersey and Maryland, according to a study by Football Study Hall, happened to be the top two non-Sun Belt states not already in the Big Ten footprint in terms of producing Division I football recruits (and it wasn’t even close).
The very real danger for the Big 12 compared to the other power conferences is that its coverage in the state of Texas (which is the nation’s top football recruiting state and a beast in terms of population growth) has masked its completely poor demographics in the rest of the conference. There’s no demographic depth at all in the conference once you get beyond the Lone Star State, which has come so close to collapse on multiple occasions over the past few years. Without Texas, the Big 12 dies (whereas each of the other power conferences might be severely wounded if their very top brand name school left, but they would likely still find a way to carry on since they have fuller slates of markets and populous states). In this category, 20 points go to any school in a state that is in the top 5 of Division I recruits annually under the Football Study Hall study (as there’s a huge gap between #5 and #6), 15 points go to any school in a state ranked 6 to 10, 10 points go to any school in a state ranked 11 to 20, 5 points go to any school in any other state that produces at least 20 Division I recruits per year, and 0 points for states under 20. As noted by Football Study Hall, the states that have 20 or more Division I recruits per year have produced 93% of all Division I football players since 2008, so any state under 20 isn’t helping the Big 12’s demographic cause. As with the Local TV Value category, any school that is already located in a Big 12 state will receive zero points in this category.
Academics (5 points) – The Big 12 would certainly like to add top tier academic schools, but it won’t necessarily nix any expansion candidate on those grounds. This is in contrast to the Big Ten, where the Academics category was weighted heavily enough to effectively exclude any school that didn’t meet the threshold as being a viable candidate. For the purposes of the Big 12, 5 points will be assigned to any school that has at least 2 of the following 3 qualifications: an AAU member, ranked in the top 100 of the US News undergraduate rankings and/or ranked in the top 300 of the ARWU world graduate school rankings. A school that has 1 of those qualifications will receive 3 points. Everyone else will receive zero (as the Big 12 would likely only be swayed by truly exceptional academic reputations).
Basketball Value (5 points) – As I stated in the Big Ten Expansion Index post, personally, there’s nothing that would make me more delirious as a sports fan than Illinois winning the national championship in basketball. However, when it comes to conference expansion discussions, basketball has been even less of a consideration than I originally thought 4 years ago. This is too bad since there is a whole slew of excellent or even elite basketball programs available in the Group of Five (much more so than football programs). That being said, if all things are relatively equal in the other categories, then basketball considerations could be the tipping point. An elite program and/or fan base will receive 5 points and a solid program and/or school with a fair amount of tradition will get 3 points.
Geographic Fit/Need (5 points) – Normally, this is a category that is based on pure geographic proximity. However, the Big 12 also has a geographic need to bridge the distance gap between West Virginia and the rest of the conference. As a result, schools in states that are located within that gap along with other states immediately adjacent to the current Big 12 footprint will receive 5 points, while everyone else will receive zero. This is an all-or-nothing category – either a school meets the geographic need or it doesn’t.
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power (10 points) – This is a category that wasn’t considered for the Big Ten since it was really looking for established old money schools. In the Big 12’s case, though, its realistic expansion candidates almost all have warts of some nature. In fact, there are quite a few candidates that would be looked at in an entirely different light in a positive way if they were merely competent in on-the-field football performance (much less being powers). As a result, much like an unpolished prospect with a lot of athleticism in the NFL or NBA draft, the upside potential of a school should be taken into consideration by the Big 12. This is especially true for a school that could potentially have “monopoly power” of being the only power conference program in its home state. Other factors include whether a school is a flagship or academically elite, has a proven basketball fan base, or has made a lot of recent investments in football facilities.
(* Note that the Mutual Interest category that was in the Big Ten Expansion Index was eliminated here. Any Group of Five school would join the Big 12 in a heartbeat.)
III. EVALUATION OF BIG 12 EXPANSION CANDIDATES
The candidates are listed in reverse order from least desirable to most desirable. Once again, for the purposes of this evaluation, it is assumed that the only viable Big 12 expansion candidates are not currently power conference members and the calculations are based upon comparisons only to other schools within that non-power conference school group.
A. ALL HAT, NO CATTLE
RICE
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 0
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 5
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 5
Total: 35
Overview: Fantastic academic institution with a lot of history with the former Southwestern Conference teams in the Big 12, but the lack of a new market or recruiting area is a killer for its candidacy. It would take some massive on-the-field accomplishments (i.e. winning the Group of Five bid to a top bowl in the new College Football Playoff system multiple times) for Rice to move up here.
UNLV
Football Brand Value – 10
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 0
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 37
Overview: The Runnin’ Rebels score low right now due to a horrid stretch of on-the-field football performances over the past several years, but they’re a program to watch if it can get a new state-of-the-art football stadium into place. This is a school that provides the highest profile sports teams in the Las Vegas market with a strong basketball fan base, so their value skyrockets if they can avoid complete ineptitude in football.
COLORADO STATE
Football Brand Value – 10
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 10
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 5
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 43
Overview: It’s a mystery why Colorado State doesn’t ever seem to be able to get its act together on-the-field. On paper, this is an institution that ought to be attractive to a power conference with its solid academics and location in fast growing and demographically desirable Colorado, yet their putrid football performances over the past decade have nixed them from any type of consideration. CSU, like UNLV, is looking to build a new football stadium to increase its chances to move up in the athletic world.
SMU
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 10
Local TV Value – 0
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 5
Total: 43
Overview: The issue with SMU (and any other Texas-based school) is that they’re not bringing any new TV markets or recruiting areas that the Big 12 doesn’t already have blanketed. Now, that isn’t an automatic disqualifier for a Big 12 candidacy (see the addition of TCU in 2011), but it would likely take perfect scores in the Football Brand Value and National TV Value categories to make that happen.
NEW MEXICO
Football Brand Value – 10
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 45
Overview: New Mexico is in a very similar situation to UNLV with an excellent basketball program and fan base with potential monopoly power in its home market… but its on-the-field football product has been unacceptably terrible for a long period of time. The Lobos actually have a leg up on UNLV in terms of academics and being a geographic fit with the Big 12, so they’re a school that can rise rapidly in the pecking order with merely some football competence (much less prowess).
HOUSTON
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 10
Local TV Value – 0
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 3
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 5
Total: 48
Overview: See the comments about SMU, only Houston has more basketball tradition. There is also the wild card that the Big 12 may want a physical presence in the Houston market in the same way that TCU is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, but the Cougars would still need to have some overwhelmingly extraordinary football success for this to be a possibility.
MEMPHIS
Football Brand Value – 10
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 10
Academics – 0
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 7
Total: 49
Overview: Memphis is essentially an Eastern mirror of UNLV: large urban basketball school with historically terrible football over the past decade. The advantage that Memphis has by comparison is that it’s located in a rich football recruiting area and aids in bridging the geographic gap between West Virginia and the rest of the Big 12. Memphis has shown that they have excellent basketball fans – if they can get that to translate to football, they have quite a bit of upside. The main drag is being the midst of heavy SEC competition.
B. INTRIGUING, BUT NOT PRACTICAL
BOISE STATE
Football Brand Value – 30
National TV Value – 15
Local TV Value – 0
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 0
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 7
Total: 52
Overview: From a national TV contract standpoint, Boise State might be the single most valuable school that is outside of the power conferences as of today. The question that university presidents will always ask, though, is, “How long will this last?” As you can see, Boise State doesn’t bring anything else in terms of demographics, academics, basketball or geography. This is a school whose attributes are purely based upon on-the-field football performance, which is actually exactly what university presidents tend to shy away from since such success is difficult to maintain even when a program has all of the financial resources in the world (see Texas and USC right now and Alabama prior to Nick Saban coming in). There might be a point where Boise State becomes the Gang of Five equivalent of Nebraska where markets and demographics become completely irrelevant with having such a strong football brand, but we aren’t there yet.
TEMPLE
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 10
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 15
Academics – 0
Basketball Value – 3
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 5
Total: 53
Overview: This is an interesting potential play for the Big 12 by going directly east of West Virginia. The good news is that Philadelphia is a massive market with access to an excellent football recruiting state*. The bad news is that Philly is a tepid college football market (and those that follow college football there tend to follow the king program of Penn State) and there’s a sense that Temple won’t ever develop into much more than what is now (which isn’t satisfactory for the Big 12). The school has had plenty of chances to become a legit power program and never succeeded.
(* For fans of “Friday Night Light”s (the TV series), just picture that fantastic final scene in the finale with the football in the air transitioning from Texas to Philly. If only conference realignment were as smooth.)
CONNECTICUT
Football Brand Value – 20
National TV Value – 10
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0
Academics – 5
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 57
Overview: In a vacuum, UConn is arguably the most power conference-like school that isn’t in a power conference today. If this were an ACC Expansion Index, then UConn would be close to a perfect score. Frankly, there’s still a part of me that’s surprised that UConn isn’t in the ACC already, but I perfectly understand why Louisville got the nod last year. The problem with the prospect of UConn going to the Big 12 is that it’s not a good fit for what the conference is seeking in expansion. UConn has actually performed aptly in football over the past decade outside of the last couple of years, yet the New England region is a black hole when it comes for football recruiting (particularly considering how it’s a high population area) and the school’s men’s and women’s basketball prowess probably has the least value to the Big 12 out of any of the power conferences (as hoops mainly benefit conferences that either have networks like the Big Ten has or strong basketball syndication deals like the ACC). Now, UConn’s Big East pedigree and relatively strong brand name means that the school has a large amount of upside, but it may not matter to the Big 12 with Connecticut being so far geographically from the conference’s core.
C. NEEDS WORK, BUT KEEP AN EYE ON THEM
TULANE
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 5
Local TV Value – 3
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 15
Academics – 5
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 58
Overview: Tulane has been in the on-the-field football doldrums since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, but the Green Wave might be resuscitating itself at just the right time. The school is building a brand new right-sized on-campus stadium and the football team is bowl eligible this season. Tulane’s academics are arguably the best of any school in the Group of Five besides Rice and the state of Louisiana is one of the best pound-for-pound football recruiting areas in the country. Honestly, out of all of the schools on this list, Tulane has the best chance out of anyone to realize its Tremendous Upside Potential and moving up to the top.
D. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
SOUTH FLORIDA
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 10
Local TV Value – 10
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 20
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 5
Total: 63
Overview: The allure of USF is purely about a demographic play – athletic directors and coaches fall all over themselves over the thought of combining the recruiting territories of Texas and Florida. (Note that this is a bigger reason for any fan of a school that’s not in the SEC to be scared of how successful that league can integrate Texas A&M.) USF has shown some flashes of football ability, but it’s been inconsistent. There is also extremely heavy power conference competition within the state of Florida (with Florida, Florida State and Miami gobbling up market shares), so there’s a limit to how large of a fan base that USF can realistically build.
CENTRAL FLORIDA
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 10
Local TV Value – 10
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 20
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 0
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 7
Total: 65
Overview: UCF has the exact same overview as USF above (just switch USF with UCF) except that UCF has a bit more upside as (a) being one of the largest schools by enrollment in the country and (b) having fresh chances to perform at higher levels of college football (whereas we’ve already seen what USF was and wasn’t able to do in the old Big East).
SAN DIEGO STATE
Football Brand Value – 15
National TV Value – 10
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 20
Academics – 0
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 67
Overview: San Diego State has similar attributes as UCF and USF on the opposite coast when it comes to football, but the Aztecs have the advantage when it comes to basketball value and the fact that it is the primary Division I sports school in the San Diego market. While Florida and Florida State have statewide fan bases in the Sunshine State, California is much more fragmented by market, which means that SDSU has more potential to “deliver” its home market despite the on-paper proximity of UCLA and USC compared to the AAC’s Florida schools.
E. THE ONLY CHOICES TODAY
BYU
Football Brand Value – 30
National TV Value – 15
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 5
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 0
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10
Total: 75
Overview: BYU has strong enough of a national brand to garner an independent TV contrac with ESPN, a massive worldwide fan base, its own TV network and a solid football tradition. My criteria for demographics and academics likely undercount the true value of BYU, as its relevant demographics are really related to the world’s Mormon population and it has top tier undergraduate academics. Boise State might have the best record of recent on-the-field achievements out of any non-power conference school, but BYU is the one institution at this level that legitimately looks, feels and acts like a power conference program.
CINCINNATI
Football Brand Value – 30
National TV Value – 15
Local TV Value – 7
Demographics/Recruiting Value – 20
Academics – 3
Basketball Value – 5
Geographic Fit/Need – 5
Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 5
Total: 90
Overview: I’ve been mentioning Cincinnati as a strong Big 12 expansion candidate for awhile, but it wasn’t until constructing this index did I see how the school really does hit virtually every metric that the conference should be seeking. Among the Group of Five schools, its Football Brand Value is strong with multiple BCS bowl appearances and consistent performances over the past several years despite a number of coaching changes. The state of Ohio is a football recruiting powerhouse with only one in-state power conference competitor (albeit a massive one in the form of Ohio State). The school’s academics are solid, it has a great basketball history and its location is in a major market with probably the best geographic bridge to West Virginia of any viable candidate. The only question with Cincinnati is whether it can really perform any better on-the-field that it already has in football during the past few years. Still, that’s a minor issue compared to how the school has created a consistently competitive football program.
So, if the Big 12 were to expand today, it’s clear that Cincinnati and BYU have a huge gap over the rest of the field. Whether that type of expansion would be compelling enough to the Big 12 to make a move at all is still an open question.
(Image from Wikipedia)
PSU < tOSU
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😦
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GBR
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BYU is not joining a conference. So that leaves the Big 12 to add Cincinnati….and who?
That’s why the Big 12 isn’t expanding anytime soon. They need a partner for Cincy. It doesn’t exist right now.
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What are you talking about? BYU is independent right now but if the Big 12 invites BYU then BYU is joining. Obviously you’re not a BYU fan and know nothing about BYU
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They’ve been invited/explored several times in the last three years, and the requirements of both sides were unacceptable to each other. Unless things have changed dramatically the LDS leaders aren’t interested in acquiescing.
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Not true per Tom Holmoe, the BYU AD. My paraphrase and best distillation of his comments is that there never were any formal “negotiations”; nothing got so far as a real discussion of terms and an offer to take to the Board of Trustees. Not so long ago, a fan threw that up to him at a Q&A session, for about the millionth time. Holmoe’s a nice guy, but he’s tired of fielding the same issue, and giving the same answer. His exasperated comment: “Read my lips! There was nothing to turn down. WE-WERE-NEVER-INVITED !!!!!” My take is that they’ve always wanted to come to the Big-12; they’re a better geographic fit for the PAC-12, but a huge cultural clash there, versus a natural cultural fit with the Big-12 institutions.
As far as “unacceptable requirements” are concerned, Sunday play is the only issue that could be a deal breaker, but it shouldn’t be. It’s not that tough to schedule around, especially in football and basketball. And in truth, it’s not that tough to schedule all sports around it either, as the NCAA has done in championships for years. Besides that issue, the fit is excellent. The way the Big-12 handles 3rd tier rights fits BYU’s in-house TV network perfectly — no clash there, the issue was settled with UT and the Longhorn Network. The travel distance is a negative, but no worse than WVU. The school brings an entirely new footprint in terms of markets and fanbase, and their regional and national fanbase is considerable. They draw well on the road wherever they play. They’re competitive right now; they wouldn’t win the league, but they’d challenge for an upper division finish right away in both football and b-ball. (In the last 6 years they’ve had 5 b-ball NCAA bids and 1 NIT bid.) They draw 60k+ in football and 15k+ in basketball on average, which would put them above average in league attendance on Day 1 as well. They bring enough TV audience to keep ESPN happy with an independent TV deal, so they’re likely to at least hold their share of the weight in future TV contract negotiations. They’re ready to go right now, turnkey, without having to hope for something to develop after they join. The more you look at them, the less there is not to like about the fit. And they’re out there for the taking — at least for now.
Rumor has it that T Boone Pickens and some of the folks at Baylor and in the conference office weren’t nuts about the idea. Who knows; rumors in this stuff aren’t worth much. Suffice it to say that the conversation never got past preliminaries — no offer was ever extended, by definition nothing was ever turned down, and by all accounts BYU is keeping their ears to the ground, and their options open. BYU and Cincinnati are slam-dunks and both would join tomorrow; the league should have pulled the trigger on both of them a long time ago.
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There ar never ‘formal negotiations’ until after a deal is already done.
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http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=B-9LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9OwDAAAAIBAJ&dq=big%2012&pg=4801%2C6649676
This link from the birth of the Big 12 may be just as applicable today…
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People misplace BYU’s negotiations with the Big East. BYU did play hardball with the Big East, before Louisville and Rutgers left…and rightfully so. BYU would jump to the Big 12 in a heartbeat.
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That would leave the Big12 to add nobody, at least until the 2020’s, unless and until one or more of the “upside potential schools take leverages that potential. Mizzou may have left, but the Big12 has every reason to stick with “Show Me” for the balance of the decade.
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Sean:
I would not put it so. Rather, I would say BYU is in no hurry to join a conference.
Right now, they’ve got a sweet deal with ESPN. Their Independent schedule with ESPN’s help has been quite good, perfectly respectable. Plus they aren’t involved in the politics that is inherent in all conferences, some more that others.
Yes, people are talking about going to super conferences, and are saying that BYU, Notre Dame and other Independents had better jump aboard or get left behind. Personally, I’m in the camp that doubts the super-conferences will come. As other people on this blog have pointed out, 10 to 12 members seems to be the sweet spot for conferences. Any bigger, and the inevitable conflicts and divergent interests tend to cause giant conferences to become unstable and split apart. It’s been that way for decades. I see no real reason for it to change any time soon.
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We now have, for the first time, two 14 team “major” football conferences. That’s the relevant history.
BYU will do what the church leaders deem is in the church’s best interest.
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Except that this is year one of ACC at 14 and year two of SEC at 14. And the ACC just lost a member (Maryland) and the SEC seems to be dealing with a decent amount of scheduling tensions relating to how infrequently some of the schools will see each other. There’s no way to know how stable or unstable 14-16 team configurations would be in such a short timeframe, but there have at least been minor signs of trouble. The SEC and B1G have more than enough cash to paper over issues for a while, but the ACC doesn’t, and you do have to wonder how stable that setup is for all but the very richest leagues.
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That’s pretty much true of all colleges, wouldn’t you say? Each and every one of them will do what they see best in their interests.
That is perhaps the biggest reason I see super-conferences as unstable in the long run; there are too many competing individual best interests. The friction and heat generated by so many divergent agendas tends to drive them apart.
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Here’s the big thing that needs to get across: BYU did NOT reject the Big 12. As of now, the Big 12 has passed on BYU. Everything that I’ve seen suggests that BYU would take a Big 12 invite very readily and all TV issues would be worked out. (No Sunday play is non-negotiable for BYU, but it’s exaggerated as a factor. MWC schools had plenty of complaints about BYU, but the rule about not playing on Sundays was fairly easily mitigated and never came up as a major problem.) However, independence is vastly preferred to joining any Group of Five conference.
The LDS leaders want a lot of control, but they do understand the difference of being in a power conference and the exposure that brings the Church. They’ll take a complete hardline against the AAC and MWC in a way that wouldn’t occur with the Big 12. Ultimately, it’s the Big 12’s decision.
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I don’t think the B12 was willing to grant the media demands of BYU. The church leaders don’t care about athletic championships. They care about the ability to expand the church recruitment and their current deal fills BYUtv with attractive inventory. Would the non UT/OU schools accept the media demands? How does it help them? I think you are perhaps misunderstanding the leaderships goals. They may not see the B12 as a stable long term increased visibility and control home. And without such, why sacrifice what they now have?
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PMark,
“BYU will do what the church leaders deem is in the church’s best interest.”
“That’s pretty much true of all colleges, wouldn’t you say? Each and every one of them will do what they see best in their interests.”
That’s the big difference. Other schools would do what’s in the best interest of the school. BYU will do what’s in the best interest of the church.
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This reminds me of the old Hebrew National ad slogan “We answer to a higher authority.”
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Brian:
I always find this a rather strange point to make. What does this mean exactly? Except for Sunday play, where does what’s best for the church diverge from what’s best for the University?
TV rights? What college out there doesn’t want as much control over their TV rights as possible?
BYUtv? BYU has an international channel that is in nearly every home in the country and countless other homes around the world. They want to put as much BYU sports on it as possible. What university, if they had a similar channel wouldn’t want the same thing?
Revenue? BYU and the church wants as much revenue as possible. What college does not?
Joining a conference? Nearly everyone BYU fan I’ve heard from thinks that Independence is far and away better than being in the MWC, WAC, or any other lower rung conference. BYU gets a better schedule, better TV deal, equivalent or better bowl tie-ins, better revenue, more national exposure and no intra-conference politicking. It’s a win-win-win-win-win-win. What college in BYU’s position would want to go back?
Accepting a B12, PAC, or any other P5 invite? If they made allowances for Sunday play, I cannot think of where BYU’s interests here would diverge from the LDS church’s either. Can you?
Perhaps my point can be best illustrated by what happened the last time realignment touched BYU. When everything started to hit the fan, BYU’s President and AD briefed the Board of Trustees (those infamous “LDS leaders” you hear so much about) on the situation. The AD later reported that the BOT essentially gave them carte blanche to proceed as they (the BYU people) saw fit. The BOT didn’t get involved again until the final deals needed to be approved and the papers signed. Does that sound like a governing body that is overly-anxious to micromanage the affairs of their university, to interfere with the best interests of the school?
So in all seriousness, I would love to hear all the areas where the best interests of the LDS church are different from the best interests of BYU.
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Well, as to TV rights, BYU would likely maximize its revenue by being a part of a major conference vs. its deal with ESPN and BYUtv carriage fees. But moving athletic contests from its own TV channel might cause it to lose some carriage fees/lead to the channel to be dropped by some providers. That channel is critical to the larger LDS mission.
So that’s an instance where what’s best for BYU as a school hurts the broader LDS mission.
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“What college out there doesn’t want as much control over their TV rights as possible?”
The school doesn’t control. The church leadership does and with the church in mind, not the school.
“Revenue? BYU and the church wants as much revenue as possible. What college does not?”
Revenue isn’t a primary (or secondary) concern to them. They’d be in the B12 yesterday if it was.
“So in all seriousness, I would love to hear all the areas where the best interests of the LDS church are different from the best interests of BYU.”
They aren’t different. The school (and its athletic teams) are an arm of the church. This is fundamentally different than how most other major schools function. We don’t get to evaluate what would be best for them through the prism of most every other D1 schools shared goals and/or benefits.
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PMark,
“That’s the big difference. Other schools would do what’s in the best interest of the school. BYU will do what’s in the best interest of the church.”
“I always find this a rather strange point to make. What does this mean exactly?”
It means exactly what it says. The church will make decisions for BYU that are best for the church, not necessarily best for the school.
“Except for Sunday play, where does what’s best for the church diverge from what’s best for the University?”
So except for that 1 major example? The honor code is another. The importance of BYUtv is another. There are more. BYU makes sacrifices for religion and more exposure at the cost of more potential revenue. That’s not in the best interest of the school, but it is for the church.
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Wainscott,
Could be. However, BYUtv isn’t much of a sports station. LHN / BTN it ain’t. It exists primarily as an education tool for its students, and as a world-wide outlet for the church. If you ever watched it, you would quickly see that it is kind of a cross between a religious channel and a PBS channel. The church, wanting to get its message out to as many people as possible, provides it at a very low cost. As a result, nearly all providers carry it in their block of religious channels.
So if BYU sports disappeared from it, the impact upon its availability would be nil. It was doing just fine before independence. It will do just fine after if it meant losing BYU sports. Obviously having sports is better than not having sports.
So my point still stands, BYU — as any other college would if they were in the same position — wants to keep as much of their sports programming on their network as possible.
—
ccrider55,
“The school doesn’t control. The church leadership does and with the church in mind, not the school.”
Oh come now. Yes, you are technically correct, but let’s not play semantic games. Under your definition, the University of Texas doesn’t control their rights either, the State of Texas does.
“Revenue isn’t a primary (or secondary) concern to them. They’d be in the B12 yesterday if it was.”
How can that be true when they weren’t even invited? The discussions never got beyond the “feel out” stage.
Yes, they wish to live by their morale principles, and as such they are not willing to give up on Sunday play or fielding players who have violated the Honor Code. So in that sense, yes, revenue is not a primary issue for them. But if Sunday play was dealt with, I suspect you will find them just as eager for the buck as anyone else. If the price was right, I suspect they would even give up most of those wonderful TV rights they currently have. They are valuable to them. How valuable, who knows? But for sure they are negotiable.
But when it comes to TV rights, that is why I suspect the B12 is likely a better fit for them than any other P5. The B12 has already dealt with the LHN. I don’t see much in BYU’s TV package that would be that much different than the one given to the Longhorns. A tweak or two here and there, and voilà! You’ve got it.
The point I am making is that when I hear people talk about BYU not doing what’s in their best interest but the church’s, I think it’s a bit silly. Apart from Sunday play and playing players who are in Honor code violation, the interests of the BYU in the buying and selling of their athletics are not all that different from the interests of nearly every other institution of higher learning out there.
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PMark,
“So my point still stands, BYU — as any other college would if they were in the same position — wants to keep as much of their sports programming on their network as possible.”
No, many schools chose a conference network over a private one.
“How can that be true when they weren’t even invited? The discussions never got beyond the “feel out” stage.”
Nice straw man. Nobody ever gets invited officially until it’s a given that they’ll accept. That way nobody ever looks bad.
“The point I am making is that when I hear people talk about BYU not doing what’s in their best interest but the church’s, I think it’s a bit silly. ”
Sure you do. Of course, you start by exempting the most glaring examples and minimizing the TV issue. If we all looked through those same blue-colored glasses we might share your POV.
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“BYUtv isn’t much of a sports station. LHN / BTN it ain’t.”
Precisely. It’s a proselytizing tool. Sports are a supplement to draw a larger/broader audience, as well as provide as much coverage as possible to the already converted (at no additional cost).
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Brian,
What possible bearing would not playing athletes under honor code violations have on joining or not joining a conference? Do not other schools and other teams have rules which if an athlete violates, they can get suspended? Whether they do or not, that is an internal affair between the school and the student and really shouldn’t affect their negotiations for joining a conference. I wouldn’t expect the B12 negotiators to tell BYU, “As a condition to joining us, we want you to stop suspending student athletes for having sex with their girlfriends”. I can see them talking about about abandoning their Sunday play policy, but I really can’t see them touching upon honor code violations. Can you?
So once again I ask, except Sunday play, where does the LDS church’s best interests lie counter to BYU’s interests as a university in negotiating joining a conference? Sunday play, I’ll grant you free and clear. That’s a given. But where else?
—-
ccrider55,
I had to chuckle a bit when I read your “proselytizing tool” remark. Have you ever watched the LHN? I view it a fair amount since that I live in Texas and try to follow the Longhorns. Believe me, there is far more “proselytizing” done on that channel — blatant, over-the-top proselytizing — than is ever on BYUtv. They really lay the UT propaganda on thick.
I can’t say that I blame them much. They’ve got the channel. Why not use it?
What’s the BTN like? I don’t get it so I’ve never watched it. How much proselytizing for the B1G is on it?
Humor aside, how does wanting to put as much as possible of the most attractive programming available (BYU sports) on the University’s own network constitute placing the church’s interests over the interests of the school? The network serves the University’s mission well. Students produce most of the content. They do most of everything from the control booth to the camera work to the makeup and lighting to the video vaults. It’s all under the watchful direction of their teachers. It gives the students valuable hands-on experience for when they go out into the world looking for jobs in their chosen field of media production. BYU sports production does the same thing in the area of sports broadcasting. How would dropping BYU sports from BYUtv be in BYU’s best interests, the best interests of its students and those of its alumni?
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“…how does wanting to put as much as possible of the most attractive programming available (BYU sports) on the University’s own network constitute placing the church’s interests over the interests of the school?”
One last attempt:
So long as you accept that the purpose/goals of BYU, the programs, and the students is to serve the mission of the church then their interests are the same. But the same decisions made for almost any other school would be seen as hurting their own competitive interest (not joining a P5 conf, not having multiple auto bowl tie-ins and championship access, easier scheduling, etc).
The church ended intercollegiate athletics at BYUI (formerly Ricks) because it wasn’t promoting the “proper” morals and goals.
There is a difference between promotion/propaganda at LHN and proselytizing.
Are you from Missouri?
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ccrider55
Okay, now I see what you are getting at. The owners of a university can do things that may not be seen as in the best interests of the university.
When the old SWC was collapsing and the B12 came into being. UT wanted to join the PAC and TAM wanted to join the SEC, but the State of Texas (their owners) forced them to join with the old BIG-8 and take Baylor and TT with them.
Plus I read stories a couple of years ago about how the PAC wanted OU, but the State of Oklahoma (their owners) insisted upon OU and OSU being joined at the hip. Supposedly the Texas legislation also interfered with UT’s PAC flirtation, as well.
So, yes, the LDS church could step in and put their best interests ahead of BYU’s. As history has shown, there is always the danger of the owners doing that sort of thing. However, at this point I don’t see their interests as being all that far apart.
By the way, I watch BYUtv and LHN about equally and even in terms of promotion not proselytizing, the LHN does far more of that sort of thing that BYUtv does. Why, I don’t know, but I am guessing that BYUtv pretty much assumes that the vast majority of its viewers are either LDS or BYU alumni, and they don’t waste the efforts promoting the school or the church. What’s really sticks out are the food storage and wedding ring ads. The WCC fans get a real kick out of those when they tune in to watch their teams play BYU. 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to get your point across.
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Glad to help, you’re getting close.
“So, yes, the LDS church could step in and put their best interests ahead of BYU’s.”
You still don’t seem to grasp that they don’t step in, they are the purpose for BYU. All decisions by the school are made in this light. Athletics are a promotional tool that a significant group of leaders would rather do without, but have enough promotional value that they continue to be supported (far more by their fans).
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cc,
Surely you have learned by now that people seldom, if ever, only consider one thing in making a decision. How often do you, yourself, do something for one reason, and one reason only? It’s simply not done by anybody.
Is “promotional purposes” the only purpose you can come up with for BYU to support student sports?
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“Is “promotional purposes” the only purpose you can come up with for BYU to support student sports?”
It’s the only one that justifies the expense of intercollegiate competition, the chase of money, winning as a primary goal, consorting with those who have opposite ideology, etc.
See how athletics are supported at BYU-I.
Hint: look under activities.
http://www.byui.edu/
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cc,
Ricks college dropped their intercollegiate sports when they became BYU-I for one simple reason — money.
It’s a little know fact, but the LDS church requires intercollegiate athletics at their universities to be self-sustaining. It must pay its own way in sports with no help from the church. Why? To put it in a nutshell, it could be awkward to ask a Utah Ute fan to pay tithing to support BYU football.
In the case of BYU, the problem is moot. The school is big enough, strong enough and good enough to be fully self-sustaining in sports. BYU-I is not. They could never compete at the level where that would be possible. So they dropped intercollegiate sports all together.
They still have a very strong intramural program in many different sports, but intercollegiate sports are gone.
To construe their actions in this case as LDS leadership not liking sports for the reasons you gave takes some serious leaps in logic. If they were so much against competition as you appear to postulate, why would they support such a strong intramural program at BYU-I?
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“President Hinckley articulated the following response: “It takes too much money. It takes a great amount of time and energy.”
I.e. intercollegiate competition is not valued enough to focus on, even with a successful JC/small college history. No mention of self sustaining (are intramural a?).
As to the independence (or not) of schools in the LDS system: “For the immediate future, the president of BYU–Idaho will report directly to the Commissioner of the Church Educational System.” There isn’t really a separation.
http://www.byui.edu/upward/archive/summit/fall-2000/announcement
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The LDS Church has 15 million worldwide members that pay 10% tithing. That’s WAY more money than any university or athletic conference. It also has substantial investments and landholdings apart from tithing (LDS Church now owns 2% of Florida’s property).
BYU’s role for the LDS Church is primarily missionary and bridge-building with other faiths for standing up for family and Christ-centered values – establishing Christ’s kingdom on earth.
Money barely makes the lists of priorities for the BYU football and athletics programs, but for the fact that the LDS Church expects BYU’s athletic department to be self-sufficient and not tithing-dependent.
Also, you cannot understate BYU’s current relationship with its WCC brethren. The relationships that BYU and the LDS Church are forging with Catholics and the Church of Christ are exponentially more important to BYU than BYU’s results in WCC men’s basketball.
I still think BYU would jump at the right opportunity to join the Big 12. But it would be done to give BYU and the LDS Church the opportunity to expand and broadcast the LDS Church’s mission; and would have very little to do with conference and TV payouts.
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“….and who?”
Next team on the list by total index points is San Diego State. Making a play for California would be a smart move for the Big XII
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Go Hawks.
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Hook ’em
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Cincinnati seems a little marginal outside of market (don’t know if I’d put them so high at football brand value or national TV value), but I’d have to think WVU would be doing backflips trying to get into Ohio. Even Iowa State and, to a lesser extent, the Kansas teams, would likely be happy. Ohio has always been a good spot for Midwestern teams to hit in recruiting, but most Big 12 teams have been non-factors in the state (all focused on Texas).
BYU has to be the default choice. No one among the other viable candidates has their football infrastructure and their commitment to competing at a high level in the sport.
Beyond that, they pretty much just have to root for UNLV and Colorado State to get their acts together in a sustained way, or for one of the California or Florida second-tier programs to get a god-send of a football coach that leads them to sustained greatness and doesn’t want to leave for greener pastures.
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Though bear in mind that the football brand value and national TV value is declared up front to be relative to Go5 schools ~ in that context, I think the ratings given are at least arguable.
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Spartans>Rodents
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If BYU joins, it will probably be football only due to Sunday play issues with the Olympic sports. So that might change the analysis.
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Yeah, the no play on Sundays would be a really big issue for a conference whose members would span three time zones and tend to be located fairly far from major airports. And I’m not really sure how open the Big XII would be to adding BYU as an FB only member since it could set a precedent for Texas to eventually try the opposite.
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Football only is not an option as B12 bylaws require a program participate in at least five total sports plus Football.
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Louis D,
“Football only is not an option as B12 bylaws require a program participate in at least five total sports plus Football.”
If the B12 wanted BYU for FB only, they could easily change the bylaws.
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If the Big 12 wanted to expand with any of the available candidates they would have done it by now. Under current circumstances, BYU is the only viable option, and only in football. If in the future a conference championship game is considered necessary, the conference would construct a list very similar to this one, but it would be surprising if it happened anytime soon.
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I feel sorry for Kansas- they, unfortunately, were left without a chair after the music stopped. I don’t think they were happy with their situation in the Big 12, but maybe now that it’s stabilized they can breathe a sigh of relief. Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri all got the elusive golden tickets out while they were basically stuck on what was, at the time, a dumpster fire.
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@Bjork:
I’d say you were Andy’s Scandinavian cousin, but you expressed genuine sympathy for Kansas.
Also, true, Kansas is in genuine danger if the B12 one day implodes.
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You’re right, I have no sympathy for Kansas fans like you. You’re even more obnoxious than I am.
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2 things:
1) I was unaware I am a Kansas fan, but ok.
2) Surely being called obnoxious by you is a badge of honor. Like a ruler praising a disciple.
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Big 12 made a short sided decision by not adding Louisville. Frank’s article shows Cincinnati is qualified to be in the Big 12. Choosing the short term money over the long term stability of a 12-team conference with Louisville & Cincinnati will come back to hurt them when the TV contract expires.
This would have have been an interesting scenario:
SEC = 14
B1G = 14
ACC + UConn = 14
PAC + BYU, UNLV = 14
XII + Cincy, Lville, Memphis, Tulane, UCF, USF = 16
+ Notre Dame = 73 BCS Power 5 teams with only UNLV, Memphis, Tulane & UCF promoted from Group of 5
Hypothetical Big 16 pods:
Texas
Baylor
Texas Christian
Texas Tech
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
Louisville
Cincinnati
West Virginia
Memphis
Tulane
Central Florida
South Florida
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“Choosing the short term money over the long term stability of a 12-team conference with Louisville & Cincinnati will come back to hurt them when the TV contract expires.”
It will only hurt the schools that are stuck and will not be able to join a power conference. Texas and OU will make out fine because they will simply join a power conference once the B12 TV contract expires.
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My guess is that Kansas will be okay, too.
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The problem with Louisville, most likely, was that, unlike WVU, UL wasn’t prepared to sue their way out of the BE.
The B12 couldn’t wait on UL to be “honorable”, and wait the time prior to departing the BE.
The B12 was at 8 and had to get to 12 before the 2012 season in order to preserve their (probable) inflated television deal that they were able to garner after the defection of NU and CU.
Had the B12 had the presence of mind to expand after NU and CU left, maybe they could have added UL and WVU. But the B12 had no plan. They were caught with their pants down.
So when they hit 8 schools, TCU suddenly looked good because they could join at once. And WVU looked good because Luck assured the B12 that WVU would be there for the B12 for the 2012 season. So far as I know, no such assurances were made by UL.
The B12 has only itself to blame. And now, it is my firm opinion that the B1G (and, possibly, to a lesser degree, the SEC) has itself set up for big things in about a decade.
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Had the B12 had the presence of mind to expand after NU and CU left, maybe they could have added UL and WVU. But the B12 had no plan. They were caught with their pants down.
Key point. If they added and got right back to 12 they would have never lost the CCG and they would have added a Card team peaking at just the right time to bring power the Big 12 at a time when their public image was damaged. Louisville beat a SEC football team, ran second in the women’s basketball, won the men’s basketball, and put a team in the CWS.
While you may think the Big 12 was caught with their pants down my thought has more to do with the balance of power. With Nebraska and Colorado out, putting Louisville and West Virginia back in does nothing to swing votes to the Texas block. Louisville was clearly supported by Oklahoma and if granted Big 12 membership would ally with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. West Virginia had long term history with Louisville so they would side with the Louisville when it came to voting blocks. If Texas really wanted a conference where they held full sway then adding non TX schools would clearly dilute their power.
Adding TCU – a small private school in a pre existing footprint – may protect the TX schools but it clearly is not the best thing for stability in the conference as a whole. Adding Louisville and West Virginia might actually keep Missouri from leaving even if Texas A&M departed for the SEC. Look at it this way.
Big 12 = 12
– Nebraska
– Colorado
Big 12 = 10
+ West Virginia
+ Louisville
Big 12 = 12
– Texas A&M
+ Cincinnati
Big 12 = 12
North division
West Virginia, Cincinnati, Louisville, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State
South division
Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Missouri (TCU if MU leaves)
Even if Missouri still goes to the B1G or SEC the Big 12 can fall back and add TCU at that point but they have already picked up 3 new footprints first. If realignment taught us anything it was driven by new markets to drive TV dollars. Under that guide, expansion to new territory should have been the first priority even if it weakened the grip of Texas early on to accomplish it.
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The Big 12 held together in June. I think they were all catching their breath when A&M decided to leave the next summer. They were working on the TV contract, revenue sharing and GOR. UL looked a lot better the following year than they did in 2010. At that point UL was on a streak of 6-6, 5-7, 4-8, 7-6. They would have one more 7-6 season before their Sugar Bowl season. And w/o UL, WVU is not geographically continguous. In 2011, WVU was simply far and away the best available choice, so geography was ignored.
Its revisionist history to say they should have expanded in 2010. There really was no time. 2011 maybe, but Missouri was leading the drive to hold the conference together. A&M was saying one thing but thinking another. The rest of the conference had historically been open with each other. Texas told Nebraska about the Pac 16 deal before it got close.
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bullet,
Realignment was being discussed back in 2009 so when June rolled around the Big 12 should have already been prepared. In the bigger picture Louisville already had a decade or so of support from ESPN and they had already put in motion a full rebuilding of their facilities.
Baseball stadium, new in 2005 and CWS in 2007
– Final Four in 2009
Basketball arena, new in 2010 and Final Four in 2005
Basketball
Field Hockey, new facility in 2000 and NCAA in 2006
Football stadium – new in 1998, 13,000 expansion during realignment (spring 2010)
(Cards had won the Orange Bowl in January of 2007 and drew ~74K)
Softball stadium, new in 2000
Trager (football training facility), new in 2006
Marshall (other sports training facility), new in 2008
Basically, everything at Louisville was brand new and showed the Cardinals had made the investment for the future. With all that new infrastructure it was clear they were building for the future. Since ESPN already supported Louisville (and why I still feel they wound up in the ACC) they would have possibly established a much scaled down version of the LHN for Louisville so ESPN would have 2 properties to trade content with and double their inventory. If Texas got 15 million from the LHN, ESPN could have piggybacked the Cards for 3-6 million per year. Again, the value of a network is not only the football properties, but the content provided in the months when football is not played.
At the Tier III level Louisville had all kinds of content and their basketball program was near elite status and they were building the biggest new arena in the country. Indianapolis (NCAA HQ) is just a couple of hours away so YUM provides a close venue. When Texas won the Volleyball Final Four last year, they did it in YUM Center! You can claim revisionist history all you want, but the blame for not being prepared lies squarely at the foot of Big 12 leadership and Deloss Dodds if you subscribe to the theory Dan Beebe was just a puppet figurehead.
Look at the timeline :
Blair Report leaks in late 2009
Nebraska and Colorado leave in June 2010
By March of 2010 the Big 12 should have already developed not only a primary plan, but a second and third option as they had at least 3 months notice. Even so they had at least another 3 months to backchannel to implement them. 6 months is not revisionist history, it is time wasted and poor planning by institutions that are supposed to be filled with smart people.
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Lets be clear. Until the Sugar Bowl, Louisville was a lousy football product and an afterthought in their own state. They aren’t even #1 in Louisville. And without UL, Pitt and WVU look like islands. Noone else besides Pitt and WVU really made sense at the time and their geography didn’t make sense. And they might not have been interested. Pitt would rather have been in the ACC and WVU in the SEC.
Were they properly prepared? Don’t know. But being prepared wouldn’t have resulted in a different decision. They would still have stayed at 10.
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@bullet: “Texas told Nebraska about the Pac 16 deal before it got close”
Sure it did, after it came out as public speculation via media reports/rumors. Texas didn’t even tell A&M it was arranging a deal with the Pac-10 that included A&M. No matter how badly you want to revise history, the fact of the matter is Texas was the first B12 team to negotiate a potential exit from the B12. Powers’ deception led to the eventual exit of NU, CU, A&M and Mizzou.
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The Pac 16 wasn’t in media reports. Pearlman did hear the rumors from people he knew (obviously Pac 10 connections) before Texas told him about it. Pearlman said he always had a good, honest relationship with Powers. Texas told A&M about the Pac 16 deal before it got serious.
Texas was talking to the Pac after the Big 10 announced it was searching for new members.
In any event, schools are always talking and evaluating their options and comparing numbers. At least they should be if their AD is doing his job. Most of it isn’t serious.
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Missouri was at one point in favor of bringing Pitt into the Big 12 but for whatever reason OU balked.
Then again Missouri was negotiating with the SEC at the same time so maybe they were just looking for someone to replace themselves.
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lol at duffman and his “even if Missouri still goes”, like adding WVU, UL, and Cinci would have stopped Missouri from leaving. That’s a joke.
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I disagree that the “sweet spot” for a conference is 16 teams.
Four 18-team conferences (Big XII is the easiest to spit up) results in four conference football championships/National Quarterfinal Games. With each conference division having 9 teams for football, there would be no unbalanced schedules within a conference. Conference championships would never be rematches! Also, no great team would be penalized by playing, and losing to, another great school from another conference. If you win your division/conference, you play on. Polls would be for trolls.
Basketball could be a 17-game schedule, annually alternating home-and-home. If conferences want mirror games, go ahead.
Best of all! If Notre Dame (and BYU), want to play for a National Championship they will have to play by everybody else’s rules – join a conference!
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This is all cute, but your criteria is soooo flawed. See TCU. Flash in the pan, brings no additional TV revenue, no tradition. Jumped right in.
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You have to remember though that when the Big XII added TCU circumstances were very different. First, in 2011 the Big XII had far less leverage than it does now. There was no GOR, no big long term TV deal and (most importantly) the Big XII had expand and quickly; A&M was leaving and without 10 members the Big XII couldn’t meet its inventory obligations to its TV partners. As such when the Big XII look around they found the best school available on short notice was TCU (remember, they weren’t expecting to lose Mizzou and didn’t want to mess around with the Big East’s 27 month waiting period).
The second big issue was that in 2011 it was really important that A&M be replaced by another Texas school which would ensure that everyone got two games in Texas every year. If the Big XII expanded again the conference would already be sacrificing Texas access, so another school in Texas would be less useful.
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Yes, and TCU was an awful addition that added virtually no incremental value.
I don’t think Frank’s analysis flawed, but the TCU addition just shows that the Big 12 struggles to make logical decisions.
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TCU was fresh off a #2 finish in the final poll and a Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin. I would guess the TV people told them TCU brought better ratings than anyone else they could add. The northern schools wanted the 2nd game in Texas for recruiting reasons. TCU was top 5 in winning % over the previous decade. They have been ranked in the final poll in the BCS era more often than Alabama, Tennessee, Penn St. and Notre Dame. TCU had a mass of injuries last year and were still competitive. They were the pre-season favorite to win the conference this year, although they have struggled on offense.
I have doubts that TCU was a good long term choice because I doubt they can maintain success, but there was plenty of logic in choosing TCU. They had football brand, national TV value, local TV value (maintaining B12 dominance in DFW), recruiting value, academic value and fit geographically. And for the immediate term, their recruiting has improved dramatically in the Big 12.
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I could be mistaken, but I thought TCU was taken because T. Boone Pickens pushed hard for them (based on the school’s then-recent success) and Texas was under state political pressure to add a 4th Texas school. I don’t recall it being driven as much by TV as much as conference and state politics. Based on those factors, it was TCU. Had SMU just gone to the Rose Bowl, it would have probably been SMU for the same reasons.
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The pressure for the 4th Texas school was from the Big 12 north schools for recruiting reasons. If it was Texas politics, Houston would have been selected. TV is my speculation. Ratings are very much what have you done for me lately except for the dozen or so “brands.”
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Wainscott – T Boone Pickens grandson was also a TCU student. FYI – Ross Perot’s granddaughter is a freshman at TCU.
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@Bullet:
Maybe so, but this article implies that Houston’s political power regarding UH may not be that strong:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Big-12-invites-TCU-not-Houston-or-Rice-2206766.php
But also, the revenue gap between TCU and UH is massive.
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My point exactly. Texas politics was not involved.
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I stand corrected, as it seemed more Big 12 politics and Texas state politics.
http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/10/07/11/Big-12s-addition-of-TCU-is-a-coup-for-Ne/landing_big12.html?blockID=577118&feedID=9242
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7080495/nebraska-balked-sharing
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And given the rather extreme issues TCU has had since joining the Big 12 (not to mention WV’s struggles, plus Utah’s issues in the Pac-12), I’d think the Big 12 would be a lot more wary about jumping into bed with any more mid-majors. TCU had basically been THE mid-major program of the prior decade (Utah, BYU and Boise were strong as well) and has crashed and burned in the Big 12. That’s a pretty powerful “hold your horses” lesson to take I think.
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Completely disagree bullet. TCU is a small school that has historically been an afterthought in both Texas and the national spotlight. They strung together a couple great years at the right time, but their value was almost completely dependent on Gary Patterson outcoaching mid-major programs. They are already struggling with attendance in just their second year in the Big 12 despite a new stadium and a great run over the last 5 years. Odds are that the Big 12 just added a new Baylor rather than anything close to an A&M replacement.
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Johnny Utah,
“TCU is a small school that has historically been an afterthought in both Texas and the national spotlight. They strung together a couple great years at the right time, but their value was almost completely dependent on Gary Patterson outcoaching mid-major programs.”
Since Franchione started there in 1998 (15 seasons), TCU has 7 conference titles, 14 bowls (9-5), 2 BCS bowls, and 9 top 25 finishes. That’s a better resume than many AQ schools, and it’s under 2 coaches, not one.
They also have ties to several B12 schools from their SWC days.
“They are already struggling with attendance in just their second year in the Big 12 despite a new stadium and a great run over the last 5 years.”
How do you figure?
Capacity is 45,000. Last year TCU averaged 46,047 (up from 33,686 in 2011).
TCU’s home attendance in 2013:
41,170 – NE LA
45,111 – SMU
41,894 – KU
48,212 – UT
Average so far = 44,097
They still have 2 more B12 games at home, including a rivalry game with Baylor so the number will likely rise.
I don’t see 98% of capacity as struggling.
“Odds are that the Big 12 just added a new Baylor rather than anything close to an A&M replacement.”
Nobody claimed they were a TAMU replacement.
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“Since Franchione started there in 1998 (15 seasons), TCU has 7 conference titles, 14 bowls (9-5), 2 BCS bowls, and 9 top 25 finishes. That’s a better resume than many AQ schools, and it’s under 2 coaches, not one.”
Racking up wins in various mid-major conferences is virtually meaningless in this discussion. That just shows they had a nice run as a mid-major.
“How do you figure?
Capacity is 45,000. Last year TCU averaged 46,047 (up from 33,686 in 2011).
TCU’s home attendance in 2013:
41,170 – NE LA
45,111 – SMU
41,894 – KU
48,212 – UT
Average so far = 44,097
They still have 2 more B12 games at home, including a rivalry game with Baylor so the number will likely rise.
I don’t see 98% of capacity as struggling.”
See here:
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/24072486/photo-plenty-of-seats-available-at-tcukansas-game
and here:
http://thebiglead.com/2013/10/12/tcu-is-playing-kansas-amon-g-carter-stadium-is-empty/
and here:
http://sportsblogs.star-telegram.com/mac-engel/2013/10/in-minor-defense-of-the-absent-tcu-fan.html
It seems pretty obvious that they are lying about their game attendance, so those figures you mentioned (which I imagine are still below average for the power five conferences) are worthless.
“Nobody claimed they were a TAMU replacement.”
Actually quite a few Big 12 fans claimed they upgraded with TCU once A&M left. It was a silly, insecure comment then, and is just embarrassing now.
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TCU allows people to leave the stadium and return. Don’t know if that’s the total reason for those pictures, but that is what some people claimed. Apparently it was around 100 degrees that day and people headed to the shade.
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I have no doubt that there was a reason for the poor showing: temperature, boring opponent, disappointing season, etc.
But this just provides further evidence that TCU was a poor long-term addition to the Big 12. TCU added a small fanbase in a state that the Big 12 was already in. Looking back in ten years, I think it will be unanimous that the Big 12 whiffed in a panic move.
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Sammy Baugh and the ’35 and ’38 National Championship teams would like a word. TCU has had a lot of hard years since then, but if Baylor didn’t have the connections in the Governor’s mansion TCU would have been in the BXII at the beginning as I understand it.
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“,.. but if Baylor didn’t have the connections in the Governor’s mansion TCU would have been in the BXII at the beginning as I understand it.”
No, from talking to people who were actually involved in the talks at the time, a more accurate explanation is that if Baylor and TT didn’t have strong active representatives in the state government at the time the SWC folded, there never would have been a Big 12. Texas would have joined the Pac-10 and A&M would have followed Arkansas to the SEC as that was what the schools actually were intending to do when the SWC failed.
Neither TCU nor Baylor are net positives long term for a major conference.
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UT’s President Cunningham said both were evaluated and Baylor came out ahead. Baylor’s program was way ahead of TCU at the time. Of course, Baylor had political pull. TCU would not have beaten out Baylor anyway. BYU might have. Not TCU.
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Once their hand was forced their was no incentive for Cunningham to be forthcoming, better to claim they went where they wanted rather than admit they were pushed by the politicos.
This is from a DMN article:
————————————–
According to folklore, politicians in Austin made the decisions and forced Texas and Texas A&M to take Texas Tech and Baylor along. That’s the “biggest myth in the west,” according to former Texas chancellor William Cunningham.
Texas Tech would join the 12-team league on its own merits, Cunningham said. The final spot came down to Baylor or TCU. Those two were the only viable choices.
“Baylor had much better attendance at football games, and Baylor’s overall statistical profile was much more positive,” Cunningham said. “When we looked at it and tried to say which one was the logical choice, Baylor appeared to be the more logical choice.”
That’s not quite how former lawmakers remembered it.
Republican or Democrat, political allegiances didn’t matter when the saber rattling began in Austin. It was all about where you went to school. That’s what former House Speaker Gib Lewis still believes today.
The late Bob Bullock, the state’s lieutenant governor, had degrees from Tech and Baylor. Pete Laney, a Tech grad, was the House Speaker in 1994, the year everything came to pass.
“When I left office, you had Laney and Bullock,” said Lewis, who has deep ties to Fort Worth and attended TCU. He was House Speaker from 1983 to ’93. “It was pretty damn obvious that the two guys that happened to be in there went to those schools. I smelled a rat real quick.”
Reached at his office in Hale Center, Texas, Laney recalled that Texas and Texas A&M wanted to go separate ways. UT officials were considering the Pacific-10 Conference, and A&M decision-makers were flirting with the Southeastern Conference. Laney said that would have left Tech “in the wilderness.”
UT and A&M officials “came in and said here’s what are we going to do, and I said, ‘Not without Tech,’ ” Laney said. “Then, they went across the hall, and Bullock said the same thing about Baylor.
“When they came by to visit with us about that, they remembered that they got a lot of revenue from the state for education. You could say they were reminded of that.”
It was reported in 1994 that Bullock held a meeting in his office where UT and A&M officials effectively sealed the deal. Cunningham and former Sen. David Sibley, a Baylor graduate, confirmed being there, and Reynolds said he listened in on a speakerphone.
No one was working behind the scenes for TCU, according to key administrative and legislative figures.
————————————-
Like I said, I’ve spoken with people who were actually involved on the A&M side and they were deep into talks with the SEC at the time, and Texas was headed west. The Big 12 was a shotgun wedding that the state government mandated by waiving their control over the schools purse-strings.
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Gib Lewis is just bitter. TCU was not that strong a program at that point in time. As for Laney, that’s the first time anyone has ever said TEXAS was told to go with Tech at THAT meeting. In the stories, Texas was there but didn’t say much.
Cunningham’s story is consistent with Tech having political pull, but he had long been aware of that. Per Cunningham, “the political realities in Texas dictated that any decision UT made and would also have to be acceptable to both Texas A&M and Texas Tech.” And later, “One option that we carefully considered was for A&M to join the SEC, while UT and Texas Tech went to the Pac 10. Bob Lawless, president of Texas Tech, expressed a strong interest in doing that….I kept Lawless up to date on the talks. The problem was that the Pac 10 was not interested in Texas Tech. The Pac 10 looked at a large amount of academic data about Texas Tech and concluded that it would be one of the weakest schools academically in the conference. So once again the possibility of UT heading west fell through.” Later he says “I never received any significant political pressure over whom to take to the new conference. I realize that some people may not believe this, but it is true….He [Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock] was as light-handed with me on this matter as I had ever seen him, and when Bullock really cared about something and wanted something done a certain way, he was not light-handed.”
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Actually, Houston was supposed to be the fourth Texas school to join the Big 12, not TCU. Had it played out like it was supposed to, Texas, Texas Tech, Houston, and Texas A&M would have all joined. But Baylor had connections to the governor, so they got in instead of Houston.
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Adding San Diego State would put the Big 12 in four time zones, not really a wise move. Since Brigham Young isn’t a realistic candidate and I have an inherent dislike for football-only members, I would add Cincinnati and Central Florida and be done with it. You’re adding two fine recruiting areas for football, plus UC has a solid hoops history. That’s pretty good for the Big 12.
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Technically, adding San Diego St would only put the Big 12 in 3 time zones as they don’t have anyone in the Mountain TZ.
Though practically-speaking, having teams in three non-contiguous time zones is probably worse than actually being in all four.
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vp19,
“Since Brigham Young isn’t a realistic candidate and I have an inherent dislike for football-only members, I would add Cincinnati and Central Florida and be done with it. You’re adding two fine recruiting areas for football, plus UC has a solid hoops history. That’s pretty good for the Big 12.”
If that was their basic plan, I’d suggest UCF and USF instead. 2 schools in FL to help draw more attention there. More games in FL for everyone, which helps recruiting (WV also recruits FL a lot). Also, it doesn’t leave a I-A newbie program on an island. WV has the strength to endure that for a while, but I don’t think UCF or USF do yet.
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No reason for the XII to expand in the next decade. Getting close to the expiration of the GOR, the XII will know how they stack up against the ACC and if they will keep Texas. The candidates listed are acceptable in a future XII where Texas has bolted, but not to the current 10 members. Except for ACC and UCONN, would any of these schools get a look from another P5 conference? By the logic in this post, the PAC was short-sighted turning down OK/oSu, or not going after KS and ISU when the TX+4 broke down. I do not see any incentive for PAC to expand further without a home run like TX, even if B1G, ACC, and SEC go to 16. With the PAC at 12, the XII will be just 2 members smaller.
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By the logic in this post, the PAC was short-sighted turning down OK/oSu
The PAC was short-sighted for turning down the Oklahoma schools…
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This….a thousand times, this
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Except for ACC and UCONN, would any of these schools get a look from another P5 conference?
I think the ACC might consider Cincinnati as a western complement to Louisville, in conjunction with Connecticut, and as a way to put the kibosh on Big 12 expansion for the next decade; that conference’s only alternative would then be to add both Central Florida and South Florida (which would somewhat weaken Florida State and Miami recruiting as well as Florida’s to a lesser extent). The UCF-USF duo would be similar to the Big Ten adding Rutgers, in that much of the move would be based upon potential, not just for those schools but for current Big 12 members as a recruiting ground, since Florida is as fertile as Texas where prep football recruits are concerned.
Texas has a problem in that the only place it might call the shots on expansion is the Pac (almost certainly in a combo with Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Okie State) and to a lesser extent the ACC (in a Notre Dame-like semi-independent scenario). It would enter the Big Ten solely on the latter’s terms (sorry, Bevo, but if the presidents prefer Kansas to Oklahoma as your partner, there’s nothing you can do about it), and the SEC is moot, first because Texas isn’t interested, second because A&M now probably owns the same veto power as Kentucky, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina). And any Big 12 alternative will require extensive travel from Austin.
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Pac-12 was in a weird situation wrt OK/OK St. Culture/academic mismatch, not a huge market, and a geographic outlier. It works if they KNEW Texas would come too, but they looked at that pair and decided they couldn’t live with a 14-team setup. IMO that was reasonable. It was risky to take them, and it was risky to stand pat and not get better. I don’t think either a yes or a no would have been a mistake.
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You want to be careful about reading too much into the Patterson hiring, but it certainly can’t hurt Texas to have an AD with some inside ideas on the Pac. I still believe the Texas/TTech/OU/OkieSt combo is possible — it’s frankly the only realistic expansion ploy the Pac has — but it almost certainly won’t happen before the GOR expires..
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Patterson spent many years in Houston with the Rockets/Texans/Aeros. He’s a UT BBA and UT law school grad. He’s been at ASU for 2 years and spent some time as GM of the Trailblazers, but he’s not really a Pac guy.
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@bullet – Yes, I don’t see Patterson as being a Pac-12 guy any more than Bill Powers himself with his history at Cal. Heck, the person in the Big 12 with the deepest ties with both the Pac-12 and Big Ten is commissioner Bob Bowlsby. Besides, these guys are professionals that can flip a switch and compartmentalize prior ties pretty quickly in a highly competitive realm. We’d never suggest that Patterson would have been prone to make more favorable trades to the Rockets while he was the GM of the Trailblazers and his tenure with Arizona State wasn’t very long.
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Personally I think they were gunshy after getting burned on the aggressive move of taking CU to cut Baylor off at the pass when they were confident that they were getting Texas.
But I still think going conservative was a mistake. If they had taken OU/OSU, and heck even TT, the Big 12 folds. Even Texas isn’t going to sit in a conference with no other major program to help carry the load. And once the Big 12 imploded Texas would have been left looking for a landing spot and would have been much more willing to negotiate on the LHN issue.
There would have been some risk, certainly, but you don’t win at the highest levels of any competition by shying away from risk.
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I’m not convinced the PAC turned them down flat. When the BOR granted the exploration of conference affiliation, rather than take the steps the other movers had, they headed to the B12 meetings with added negotiating leverage. Right up until Larry Scott had the middle of the night announcement that the PAC was staying at twelve.
Is that what happened? As you said, admitting them would have ended the B12.
Or did the PAC not want a coerced UT deciding where its future would lie? Those who know are not sharing, nor are they likely to.
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RTR!
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GEAUX Tigers!
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Cincinnati really is a must have. They should invite them now.
I am not convinced on BYU, or that BYU would be willing to move into a conference. The Florida directional schools looks best of what’s left.
I would probably add Cincinnati and explore the others. They messed up in not inviting Louisville as an 11th before.
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Going from 10 to 11 would have cut down on the number of available football inventory (it’s mathematically impossible for an 11-member league to play a 9-game schedule, and with an 8-game slate, the total goes from 45 to 44). Adding Cincy as #11 is fine…but you can’t do it without a #12.
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How is mathematically impossible for an 11-member league to play a 9 conference game slate?
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11×9/2= 44.5 conference games
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*49.5 not 44.5
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“It was my understanding that there would be no math.”
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76adebate.phtml
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No, you want to get to 12. But you want to lock in the one you are sure of ASAP. The B1G did that with Penn State. You can let the 12th work itself out.
You are correct that 11 doesn’t work on a 9 game schedule. So 11 cannot be a long term situation. BYU would be the best 12th, but getting them to join would likely be a multi year courtship and it still might not work out.
I dislike Tulane, mostly because I have a very negative opinion about the long term prospects for New Orleans. It is sort of the Buffalo of the south, a city that is headed from major to minor status. Honestly I like Rice better, they have a massive endowment and have academically placed themselves in the Northwestern, Stanford, Duke, Harvard category; but athletics trails. Sooner or later they will get their act together, and Houston is a great market and leaks into Louisiana. But the Big XII is looking to expand footprint beyond Texas, so Rice may be out..
USF and UCF have some real potential, and deliver the richest recruiting zone. But its not clear which is really better as a 12th. Both have issues to resolve, and neither has what I would call a truly committed Athletic Department – USF makes UConn’s clueless leaders look focused.
So the 12th is the problem. And it could take a few years to settle. But that is no reason not to act on the 11th, even if it means schools have to find one more opponent, or one school play one less conference game (could be Cincy initially to help scheduling of the others).
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Assuming you liked #11, which they don’t, the networks won’t allow it because they won’t allow a reduction to 8 conference games. The issue came up with Louisville. The better rumor mongers and some MSM say the Big 12 approached the networks about adding UL as #11 and Fox said no to an 8 game conference schedule. One of the stories is that the delay on WVU was an effort to see if they could add BOTH WVU and UL. Of course, there are other stories, like one that there were some sticking points with Missouri that delayed the announcement. Only the nutty WV Senators thought UL was trying to “steal” their spot.
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BBC – New Orleans will never become Buffalo. Think tourism and trade (Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico).
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Well think San Antonio only poorer. Or perhaps Charleston and Galveston. Nice tourist traps but not exactly economic powerhouses.
That is only a small sliver of the city, and the “real work” portion of the city is dying much like Buffalo, and for the similar reasons. The French Quarter is not enough. Pro teams really would prefer to move out of New Orleans to a wealthier city with corporate HQs.
The port of New Orleans is not so important. Like Oakland/Alameda California, it doesn’t employ massive numbers of people like in the days depicted in the Glass Menagerie. A relative handful of more skilled crane operators do the work now that armies of Stanley Kowalski’s once did.
The economic facts are clear, New Orleans and Louisiana are in decline, and it is already one of the poorest states in the nation.
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The best two for the B12, IMO, are Cincinnati and either UCF/USF, and I like UCF here.
The next two are San Diego State and Tulane.
The two after that would be UNLV and one of the remaining Florida schools, Memphis, East Carolina, or Connecticut. We’re probably talking about Memphis at 16.
The pickins are slim for B12.
Unlike the B1G, the B12 has not studied expansion (except by reaction), and I seriously doubt the B12 expands at all unless forced to 12 by a D4 requirement (when D4 happens). Even then, I don’t see the B12 ever going past 12 so long as UT/OU/KU are in the conference.
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I seriously doubt the B12 expands at all unless forced to 12 by a D4 requirement
And I seriously doubt that D4 will do anything to force conferences to expand to 12 members.
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Once the GOR’s run out either the Big12 or ACC is toast. I see a future with the PAC at 16 and the SEC & B1G each at 20. While the GOR’s keep them safe the Big 12 will expand by at least 2 teams if not more, they’ll want their footprint in Fla and Ohio at the minimum. The ACC acted in self defense grabbing Pitt & ‘Cuse and I see them going to 16 in self defense as well. Picture the B12 and ACC fighting over Cincinnati, it’s going to get weird.
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I tend to agree with this assessment at this early point in time.
So long as ND is associated with the ACC, it is possible the B12 and ACC could merge, especially since Texas would love a long-term connection with the Domers.
In the B12 I think it takes 8 of 10 votes to dissolve the league, so most (or all) of the B12 would need to merge with the ACC in order to get the requisite votes.
More likely, if it’s the B12 that crumbles — and it seems most suspect, given its small footprint — we will see a group of B12 schools migrate to another league. If two, then UT/OU to the SEC. If three, then UT/OU/KU to the B1G. If four, then UT/OU/TT/OSU to the PAC.
My opinion is that Texas has thought through the PAC and finds it wanting. I suspect option 1 or 2 is the most likely.
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“My opinion is that Texas has thought through the PAC and finds it wanting.”
They have remained in the B12, not chosen another destination. There is only one conf that, at least has in the past, has offered a group rate to four. The politicians in TX and OK aren’t likely to allow little brothers to be set adrift as long as such an offer might be revived.
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Texas can weather the politicians if it wants to. Politics is grossly overrated, IMO. A&M gave Texas a pass to move, too.
Remember, what is meant in Texas by the concept of “politics”? That word means PUF money. Who gets PUF money? Texas and Texas A&M.
If Texas wanted to migrate to the B1G or SEC, and if “politics” seriously reared its ugly head (spreading out of PUF money to other state schools and not just Texas and A&M), then Texas A&M would have no choice except to align itself with Texas’ interest.
Viola, “politics” solved because the other schools cannot overcome the combination of Texas and Texas A&M in the Texas legislature. It might or might not take a Horn or aggy in the Governor’s or Lt. Gov’s seat, but Texas can move if it wants to move.
And what if I’m wrong? Texas still garners millions each year by means other than the PUF.
“Politics” is simply a convenient excuse for testing the waters of migration but being able to quote “politics’ as a means of backing out to save face. It’s a variation of the “Tech problem” that Texas loves to use as an excuse for balking on leaving the B12.
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Fascinating profile on University of Maryland-College Park president Wallace Loh, the man who engineered the Big Ten move: http://www.diamondbackonline.com/news/campus/article_00972a14-41ea-11e3-9b2d-0019bb30f31a.html
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Really a well written and insightful article. It’s an inspirational, Horatio Alger-like life. Twice an immigrant and rising to the heights of his profession.
As a UVa/ACC fan, it was disappointing that Loh seemed so tone-death to cries over traditions, geography and rivalries when he pushed for the move to the B1G. Reading the article, explains a lot about his focus on the future.
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So i typed this up really fast at about 5:45am in an email to some buddies but figured I would post it. Please excuse the multitude of errors, this is not my best performance.
My thing is this. The problem with the Big 12 is they are viewed as weaker than the others. I know 110% that $$$$ is what is most driving all of these conference shifts however I think the key to the Big 12 is not necessarily adding more money to the pot, more notoriety or X but it is adding what the others have that the Big 12 does not – RECRUITING GROUNDS. Look at the map of the Big 12 – being honest about it Texas is pretty much the source of 90% of their in conference recruiting grounds. They are not a diverse conference in terms of recruiting territory they have a firm hand in. You could say that about the PAC but I would argue they have more overall fertile recruiting ground AND they have something the Big12 does not – beaches & beautiful weather to sell. The SEC I don’t have to explain. The ACC is slightly ahead of the Big12 and basketball will put them over the top of them. The ACC also has a great map IMO with a bunch of fertile states and markets. Big 10 has football and basketball and the entire recruiting ground for the types of players that they want “traditionally”.
The key to the Big 12 getting back into the big picture is not about adding BYU – they bring nothing if you ask me. It is about flat out becoming better and that means teams besides Texas and OU being better than their counterparts in other conferences. TCU has fallen some, WVU was a bad choice IMO and Baylor has a long way to go to prove they are here to stay. Because of aTm, the doors to Texas are now wide open and that means more SEC schools will start poaching the kids not only from Texas, but from OU and other schools in the Big12 that recruit Texas. The logical step to gaining respect back which is really what this all is and will drive the $$ is getting your conference into new recruiting territory. To me the choices that make the most sense and frankly are obvious are Louisiana, Florida and I can stretch it to say SDSU but You are more likely to get kids from FL or LA to come to a Big 12 school than you will be to get a California kid to come – I think it is just a way different monster culturally when you talk about the West Coast. I can see why Ohio (Cincy) would be one to look at also in terms of market and recruiting but I frankly don’t think Cincy has the potential or staying power that one of the Florida schools or a Louisiana school would have. I know adding a Cincy or BYU automatically leads to some credibility (I guess) and it leads to huge markets for television which I know drives the $$ but I think it is really the wrong way to look at the picture. Personally I don’t think BYU or Cincy getting into the Big 12 improves their programs that much. BYU is what it is and always will be even if they were in the SEC. Cincy is not an attractive place to live and I think they are highly overrated in terms of potential. I think UCF has way more potential than USF but the fight there is the recruiting market. I would argue being in central Florida is better than being exclusively in South Florida or the panhandle. Tulane is just beaming with potential like TCU was and they have only one other school in state to fight with for recruits if they were to get to a level like TCU. I don’t know, I just look at it differently. It is about the money in a sense but the way to get to that money is not adding TV markets it is about your conference becoming a desirable product for the TV networks (viewing fans) and right now the Big 12 is dead last in that. The way you become desirable again is by becoming relevant with more than just two teams essentially. The other conferences are so well respected and get much more ESPN (let’s face it, they drive it) love is because those conferences are said to have depth and be tough. You need to BEAT those other conferences on the field and you don’t do that by adding a TV market – you do that by adding fertile recruiting grounds which leads to better players for the entire conference which leads to more depth in the conference which leads to turning the tables of respect and perception which leads to becoming of more value to the network partners.
To me the key to the mothership for the Big 12 is simple – Louisiana and Florida. The Big 12 must get their feet into those territories.
I need to take a nap now.
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The Big 12 does beat the others on the field.
Big 12 schools have a history of getting some recruits from California. The Big 8 schools did recruit Florida some, but don’t seem to be doing that now. For the various Texas schools, California seems easier to recruit than Florida. In any event, the recruiting base has been just fine. So far there’s been no SEC incursion into Texas. Just A&M continuing to get Texas recruits. Missouri has shifted its focus elsewhere.
Florida is probably the most competitive state for recruiting. SEC, ACC and B1G all recruit it heavily. And, of course, the AAC, MAC, CUSA and Sun Belt.
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Missouri has shifted its focus elsewhere.
Very true. I looked at Missouri’s offer list for 2015. Of the 34 early offers on rivals:
19 are from SEC states (mostly FL, GA, TN, and LA)
10 are from Missouri and surrounding metros (E. St. Louis, eastern KS)
1 from Texas
4 others (2 OH, 1 MN, 1 VA)
Of the 2014 class, only 2 so far are from Texas. The emphasis used to be in-state and Texas, along with a sprinkling of Calif JUCO’s, KS JUCO’s, maybe an Oklahoma kid or two.
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tough to recruit in a state where you only play there once every 12 years.
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Lamont – it pains me to write this as a Tulane Law alum, but Tulane will never have the New Orleans community’s support the way TCU has the support of Fort Worth.
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Lamont is major jealous about BYU
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FWIW I think Baylor can stay closer to where they are now than what they were in the past.
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@FrankTheTank:
How come you left off Air Force Academy?
I know that reports were they actually turned down an invite to the B12 in 2011, but if true, shows that AFA was wanted (and could be again).
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Don’t consider either a possibility at present even if the Big 12 “had” to go to 12, but East Carolina and Northern Illinois would be at least evaluated. Other than that, it seems like a pretty complete list.
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My best guess is that ECU would at least rank mid-pack in this index, if not higher.
But the lock for the BigXII, at least according to the delusional portion of their fan base, is Louisiana Lafayette.
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loki_The_bubba – not sure if you were talking about me there but when I say Louisiana I mean Tulane – like Frank said. Nobody in Louisiana calls ULL “Louisiana” except the delusional people of that fan base who think that they are actually The University of Louisiana. Trust me on this one, it is a very hot topic around where I am from. The funny thing is Tulane is actually the original “University of Louisiana” but I will save you that discussion. My post was meaning that the Big 12 should look to get into the recruiting areas of Louisiana (Tulane) or Florida (UCF or USF) and possibly California (SDSU)
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@Lamont, I understood, not refering to you at all. On some other boards I frequent there is a very small but vocal group that demand to be called Louisiana. So I still call them USL.
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The fact that you call them USL still means you are a hero in my book! That is what they will always be to me.
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Unfortunately, most of them are too young to remember when they were known as the University of Slow Learners.
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Another to at least rank would have been Southern Miss. Sustained football success over the last thirty years.
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The Fightin’ Favres!
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@Wainscott – I was thinking of including them on the list, but it appears that even if Air Force were to change its tune, it would look for a football-only membership at most. Frankly, I don’t believe that the Big 12 is interested in football-only members (that seems to be more of a fan-based desire), but that option does make a BYU/Air Force football-only combo fairly compelling.
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Frank – why wouldn’t the B-12 be interested in football-only members? If not having a CCG works to the B-12’s detriment under the new CFP format, adding a CCG could possibly pay for two football-only members. Adding two “all in” members from your list wouldn’t pay for themselves and I doubt any of the current B-12 members are interested in taking a haircut for the benefit of Cincy, USF, etc.
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@ Frank,
I tend to agree with Alan as well. Air Force could go football only in the Big 12 and put the rest of their sports in the WCC like BYU did. Having the Air Force in the Big 12 would add credibility and a spot on the selection committee. Granted it might not have been an Air Force representative but you have to think at least 1 service academy would have a spot reserved. On the other side of the equation they could add Cincinnati – as a pair for West Virginia – and the Bearcats could park their other sports in the Big East or A10.
As football only members they could have much lower entry thresholds and probably easily covered by the added revenue of the Big 12 CCG. The bigger point of course is they would not get a full share so they would greatly limit the drag for all the non football sports. While I can not see the B1G or SEC taking partial members, the Big 12 would be less constricted to create exceptions as we saw the ACC do with Notre Dame.
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The ACC did it for ND, and it’s yet to be decided if it was a good move. Ask the BE.
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It would be a terrible decision for Air Force. They shouldn’t be in a P5 conference. Their AD realized it.
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ccrider55,
What the ACC got was the 5 games and a contract. The Big East never got that much. The bigger picture is the ACC and Big 12 will have to make more varied deals as they are still more prey than predator.
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The more deals you make the more vulnerable you look (and may in fact be).
I don’t think I’d have done it, but I can understand the ACC and ND. There is only one of them, and if they ever do commit to a conference they seem to look more ACC like than anyone else.
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Air Force forfeited their chance at becoming a football member of the B12 when they lost to Rice in a bowl game last December. That sort of humiliation will take decades to overcome.
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I’m not really sure why people think BYU wouldn’t be interested in joining the B12. A major conference still allows them to have the TV visibility that they craved via Independence, and it gives them SUBSTANTIALLY better bowl and playoff access than going it alone. They can still schedule Utah and the occasional game in the Eastern time zone (or an old MWC foe) in their non conference, and probably have a better chance an national exposure than they do now.
It is worth noting that outside of Houston though, there are comparatively very few BYU graduates living in the B12 footprint, and honestly, not that many Mormons, period. The alumni and potential fan base is very much concentrated in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.
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Not sure you have spent much time around the BYU fanbase Matt. The brought almost 15k to Houston a few weeks back, and nearly 20k in Austin a few years ago. Games against TCU were usually at least 1/3 cougar fans. Against OU in Dallas they brought just over 15k again. I’ve never seen another program do that consistently 1800 miles from home.
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It is true that the population is centered where you say. However they have fans all over the United States. If they didn’t ESPN would not have signed the TV deal with them. They als travel well and bring in the faithful from the local communities.They tend to draw 15,000 plus to the away games they visit no matter where they are, i.e. Virginia, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Washington, Texas (at Texas and at Cowboys Stadium with they played Oklahoma) etc.
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I opened this new post and saw that Rice was listed first and thought “Alright!’.
Then I saw it was listed in reverse order…
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Loki, at least Rice was mentioned. Your presence is felt.
(obviously Frank neglected to add points for bands)
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The B12 is also hampered by the perception that its long term existence is by no means guaranteed, and that it is willing to backfill with lesser schools well beyond its traditional geographic range.
Unlike the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Pac 12, the Big XII is likely making moves not for the next 100 years, but for the next 12 or so. It changes the strategy, but also affects the schools that would want to join.
Why would, say, BYU, relinquish an independent TV deal with ESPN, just to be stuck in a potentially Texas-less conference in 12 years, and be saddled with costs and penalties if it tried to leave? It might seem like more trouble than its worth.
Cincy is an prime candidate, primarily because its desperate, and because it would be a good travel partner for WVU. As for the other school, I don’t see one out there that would maintain or increase the TV revenue per school. Maybe Air Force for its rabid fanbase and proximity to Denver, but I wonder if Air Force would actually deliver Denver. New Mexico has Albuquerque which I think is the 44th or so TV market, but zero nationwide brand value.
I could see Memphis, even with awful football, if Fred Smith (of FedEx fame) promises the B12 that he’ll throw money around the football program like T. Boone Pickens 2.0 to fix it. Would be a decent media market, good basketball, good entry into southeast for recruiting, and is reasonably close to both the traditional B12 footprint and also WVU and Cincy.
Either Cincy and Memphis or the two Florida schools (UCF & USF) as a package (neither one does much by itself, in my view, as neither is a flagship in its part of the state, let alone in an entire state). To me, one of these are the logical move.
If I were a betting man, I’d wager on the Florida schools, for the best combo of immediate TV value and long term benefits of having a presence in Florida.
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Your comments about long term existence are very true. The expiration of the current GOR’s is the next mile stone. There is a ton of rurmoil now and I don’t think we’ll know the consequences for a few more years.
*GOR expiration
*New playoff system
*Streaming video/a la carte programming possibilities
*New NCAA governance
*Pay for play
*Conference networks
The list goes on. My belief is either 20 will be the new 12 or independence will become more attractive for Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, West Virginia, etc.
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“The list goes on. My belief is either 20 will be the new 12 or independence will become more attractive for Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, West Virginia, etc.”
I think this is spot on, and we have to wait a few years to see how everything plays out before we know what the answer will be.
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Another point to consider about the Florida schools either as a pair or as either one with Cincy is that they offer better divisional options than BYU, though there really aren’t any divisional setups that are particularly appealing to all Big 12 members in any case. Here are the two real possibilities that I see:
Geography
Division 1 – 4 Texas schools, 2 Oklahoma schools
Division 2 – Everybody else
No cross-division rivalries
This would create the unequal division problem that plagued the Big 12, only it would be much, much worse due to the lack of Nebraska and the periodic high-level success of Colorado and Missouri. It would also cut down on the Division 2 teams members’ access to Texas recruiting grounds and high-profile matchups with UT and OU. On the other hand, the powers at UT an OU might prefer this set-up both for tradition and strength of schedule considerations in a future playoff.
Zipper
Division 1 – 2 Texas schools. 1 Oklahoma school, 1 Kansas school, 2 other schools
Division 2 – 2 Texas schools, 1 Oklahoma school, 1 Kansas school, 2 other schools
Every school gets 1 protected cross-division rivalry game (OU/OSU, Kansas/KState, etc)
This could solve the glaring divisional balance issue that is created by a purely geographic split, but it would potentially eliminate some long-running rivalry games and might not balance the divisions as well as you might think. You do cut down on UT/OU matches for the other schools, but not necessarily to the same extent. You also run into the branding/fan confusion issues that the Big 10 and ACC have had with their non-geographically divided divisions.
In the case of a geographic division, if you add BYU and Cincy, you are reducing recruiting access to Texas and annual games games against both UT/OU in exchange for a biannual trip to Ohio and an annual match up with BYU. That’s not a real great trade. If you did either Cincy/Florida school or two Florida schools, you could provide an annual trip to Florida or biannual trips to Florida/Ohio. Still not great, but I think that expanded recruiting access to Florida / Florida and Ohio makes up for less Texas recruiting access better than BYU makes up for the loss of UT/OU in terms of big name matchups.
In the case of a zipper split, how do you divide Cincy/BYU/West Virginia/Iowa State? That’s two bigger names with almost no recruiting potential, one medium name with good recruiting, and Iowa State. That’s going to leave schools in both divisions unhappy no matter how you go about doing it. What cross-division rivalries between them would you have between those four schools? UCF/USF or Cincy/Florida school divide much more easily and fairly in my opinion. This set up would also provide biannual recruiting trips to Florida and/or Ohio to all Big 12 members.
Although to be honest, looking at these potential divisions makes it seem much less likely to me that the Big 12 will expand in the near future.
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I’ve played with potential divisions a few times and I can’t think of a set-up that makes everyone happy and most alignments lean toward making most current members unhappy.
I think there one scenario that I makes a little sense for competitive balance AND recruiting territory but it’s a stretch.
Add Tulane and San Diego State.
South – TX Schools plus Tulane and SDSU
North – OK Schools, KS Schools, Iowa St. and WVU
3 things would have to happen for this to be plausible.
1. OU and Texas would have to be permanent crossovers.
2. OU and Okie St. would have to be guaranteed 1.5 games in TX every year. So 1 game half the years and 2 the other half.
3. OU and Texas would have to be ok with potentially playing each other twice a year.
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San Diego State is out of the question as a candidate, and I’m frankly surprised Frank even had it on his list. The Big East was desperate for football members, which is why it (briefly) joined. SDSU’s closest rival in the Big 12 would be Texas Tech. And you thought West Virginia was on an “island”?
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I like Tulane, but SDSU is a deathtrap. SDSU doesn’t draw for football — has never drawn for football. They do OK in basketball, but the football program doesn’t get the fan support it needs to be a major program, even in “up” years for the team. They don’t even dominate the San Diego TV market. USC and UCLA dominate the market. A poor choice for the conference that would never improve into a power player; they would always be a doormat to neighboring PAC-12 members.
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Friend of mine (Tulane fan) sent me this regarding the Big 12
“This has been my opinion about the Big 12 since we were mentioned. The Big12 does not need another Texas, OU or FSU. Why would Texas and OU want another team that could come in and run this conference? What they need is better schools, better prestige, better tv markets, better recruiting footprint, etc. They do not need another powerhouse as they already qualify and are identified as a power conference. Even last year when Tulane was not winning, it still made sense if a move had to be made. I think another reason that some people talk about is that Louisiana is the only state in football country that only has 1 BCS/P5 team. I do not consider Arkansas and Missouri power football states because they do not produce the amount of athletes that the true Southeast states do.”
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oh and he is a home grown Texan
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Lamont – are you from Louisiana? What’s your school affiliation?
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The other aspect of B12 expansion is the divisional issue. One of the most under-discussed reasons why the B12 imploded was the North division failed to compete with Texas and Oklahoma for a decade. (In hindsight maybe they should have stuck around a couple more years.)
The current 10 need another king to balance out divisions, which is why they were pipe-dreaming for Florida State and Clemson.
Texas and Oklahoma will be against all expansion unless at least 1 entrant is competitively equal. They don’t want to miss out on a conference championship because of losing a one-off neutral site game against a lesser opponent.
Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, West Virginia, X, & Y.
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“Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, West Virginia, X, & Y.”
This shows why B12 expansion is unlikely. Those schools aren’t going to vote to expand since it means losing regular trips to Texas. Games against Cincinnati certainly aren’t going to make up for it.
Frank, my one quibble with your rankings is it ignores stadium size and fan support. Its hard to see Cincinnati rated so high when they play in a 35k stadium that doesn’t regularly sell out.
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Think about it. Size of stadium does not mean squat for TV. 30k or 80k in a stadium does not equal more money. TVs want to see FULL STADIUMS so it looks good on TV they don’t have to be 80k. Hell, TV makes money from people staying home and watching not by the amount of butts in seats. Stadium size is not a critical component. It is important but not to the extent people want to make it out to be and especially not to TV networks
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“Size of stadium does not mean squat for TV.”
I’d much rather tune into 80k jacked Clemson fans than 28k indifferent Cincy fans. Or 13k Eastern Michigan fans.
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I understand that but full stadiums are more important than big stadiums and we are talking about expansion so the list is clearly limited. My best answer to your Clemson fans to Cincy fans or emu fans is “duh”, but that is not what the expansion options are – Clemson types ya dig. I know for a fact that TV networks advised a school to build what they can fill because tht is more important than building 70k and having 45k in it. They said building 30-40k and being full was more important than 60-70k with same amount in it.
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“My best answer to your Clemson fans to Cincy fans or emu fans is “duh””
Then don’t claim it doesn’t matter. It clearly does matter.
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Sensitive.
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While stadium size does not directly have any bearing on TV, the size of a school’s stadium is generally indicative of overall fan support and popularity.
Schools with 30k stadia generally are lesser programs with fewer fans and limited popularity and prestige than the ones with 80k. Schools will have stadia large enough to fit all who want to come, and will expand as necessary. With a 30k stadium, its a sign that now many more will want to pay to watch that team. If that’s the case, its a reasonable deduction that not as many will want to watch that team play on TV, either.
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Part of the attraction of the SEC on TV is the loud enthusiastic crowds.
Most of schools’ money does NOT come from TV. If you have 40k extra, that will be $18 million over 6 games at $75/ticket. And that doesn’t include concessions, parking, mandatory and optional donations. $18 million is more than the budget of some of the G5 schools. Its half or more of the budget of all but a half dozen of them.
Its a problem for a school if they are listening to TV tell them how big to build their stadium. They need to evaluate the additional revenue from selling more seats in the larger stadium vs. the reduction in prices and donations caused by having a supply larger than demand.
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Stadium expansion
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I think the tabk did a great job. He said to think like a University President and not a fan. To understand it all and where it’s going you have to do that. They are the ones calling the shots.
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I get what you are saying there but that is not always true. Schools are in cities and don’t have room for big stadiums unless they use an NFL stadium. A school like Tulane can fit 40-50K on campus and that is plenty.
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Average attendance for the last 4 years based on 2015 lineups:
SEC 75,349
B1G 67,112
Big 12 57,697
Pac 12 52,659
ACC 50,045
And non P-5 schools (only BYU is above the average of even the ACC-note that Cincinnati’s 4 year average is already about 50% above their historical norm of 20k so you have to question how much more upside they have):
BYU Ind 61,761
East Carolina AAC 47,403
South Florida AAC 45,521
Connecticut AAC 36,954
UCF AAC 36,646
Air Force MWC 35,767
Navy Ind 34,629
Boise State MWC 33,868
Hawaii MWC 33,736
Cincinnati AAC 32,614
UTSA CUSA 32,374
Army Ind 32,301
Fresno State MWC 31,978
San Diego State MWC 31,756
UTEP CUSA 30,219
Houston AAC 28,987
Southern Miss CUSA 28,562
Marshall CUSA 25,013
Memphis AAC 23,541
Temple AAC 23,134
Louisiana-Lafayette SB 22,949
New Mexico MWC 22,542
Toledo MAC 21,892
Colorado State MWC 21,790
Louisiana Tech CUSA 21,711
Tulane AAC 21,545
Tulsa AAC 21,361
SMU AAC 21,211
Arkansas State SB 20,685
Wyoming MWC 20,501
UNLV MWC 19,949
Old Dominion CUSA 19,818
Rice CUSA 19,711
Ohio MAC 19,682
Nevada MWC 19,071
Troy State SB 19,053
MTSU CUSA 18,922
Louisiana-Monroe SB 18,829
North Texas CUSA 18,434
Northern Illinois MAC 18,107
Central Michigan MAC 17,869
Utah State MWC 17,843
South Alabama SB 17,618
Western Michigan MAC 17,287
UAB CUSA 17,049
Texas State SB 17,026
Florida Atlantic CUSA 16,199
Miami, OH MAC 15,777
Western Kentucky CUSA 15,683
New Mexico State SB 15,451
Kent State MAC 15,283
San Jose State MWC 14,705
Florida International CUSA 14,699
Buffalo MAC 14,518
Bowling Green MAC 14,497
Georgia State SB 14,286
Akron MAC 13,144
Idaho SB 12,460
Ball State MAC 11,957
Massachusetts MAC 11,855
Eastern Michigan MAC 7,273
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Wow, didn’t realize BYU had such a high game attendance. How is their basketball attendance?
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They draw pretty well:
2013: 15,986 (#13 nationally)
2012: 15,424 (#12 nationally)
2011: 18,714 (#6 nationally)
The facility capacity is listed as 20,900.
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16k average
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BYU Basketball averaged 15,986 last season, best in the west and 13th nationally. Don’t have the numbers for previous seasons.
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Cincinnati has begun an $84 million expansion of Nippert Stadium. Seating will go up over 40,000, which revenue enhancing luxury boxes and ammenities. Replacing the stadium is out of the question. It would be like replacing Wrigley Field. The stadium is historic and located in the heart of the campus. Furthermore, Cincinnati always has the option of playing at the NFL’s Paul Brown Stadium.
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The other aspect of B12 expansion is the divisional issue. One of the most under-discussed reasons why the B12 imploded was the North division failed to compete with Texas and Oklahoma for a decade. (In hindsight maybe they should have stuck around a couple more years.)
I entirely agree with you. This is why I do not think the Big XII will expand unless they are presented with an extremely compelling case. I am not even convinced that FTT’s top two of BYU + Cincy would qualify as sufficiently compelling.
BYU probably doesn’t want to be in the Big XII, so their best option right now is Cincy and a less-desirable school. I don’t see the Big XII doing that, because the divisions for football would be terrible, and there isn’t a good enough financial benefit to compensate for that.
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Lamont, check your facts (“Cincy is not an attractive place to live…”). Cincinnati is rated one of the nation’s most livable cities/metros, home to Fortune 100 headquarters and a regional hub for major league sports, fine arts and entertainment. Culturally, it’s a blend of midwestern and southern traditions on the Mason-Dixon Line. Planting the B12 flag on southern Ohio soil provides much needed exposure for the conference from the tri-state (KY, IN, OH) all the way to West Virginia and puts the league head-to-head with the B10 (Columbus-100 miles away) and SEC (Lexington, KY-85 miles away) for Ohio recruits–a consistent top 3 to 5 ranked state where the B10 has flourished somewhat uncontested against the other P5 conferences.
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Okay. You made a great point.
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Agreed on Cinci. I don’t love the city, but if they joined the Big12, it would immediately become the 2nd best place to live in or visit in the conference, after Austin. And third place wouldn’t even be close. In fact, if you drew a line from Tuscon to Kansas City and then down to Jacksonville, there might only be two or three places under the line that could give Cincinnati a competition.
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Ordo – you obviously have never visited Fort Worth.
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When Tulane played Texas in New Orleans the Longhorns brought 20,000+ fans. In talking with the UT fans they said, ” We’ll play you every year in New Orleans, you never need come to Austen!” I’m sure many other Big XII schools would travel well and enjoy the atmosphere that is New Orleans.
New Orleans is arguably the best FB town in America. Tulane’s new stadium will seat 30,000 and the Superdome would always be available for the ‘Big’ games.
Why is Tulane turning FB around? CJ Johnson THE recruiter is establishing himself as a HC. He is making Tulane what it once was, New Orleans Team. People forget that TU football once led the nation in attendance and would fill Tulane Stadium with 87,000 fans. CJ managed to recruit 4 players from the #1 HS in the country and there are 17 young men from NOLA on the squad and 56 from LA. Add academics and its AAU membership and it is a perfect fit.
Start bringing Big XII teams to NOLA and its a win for everybody.
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Why only the Big 12? If the BIG wants some academic cover for taking say Oklahoma, why not take Tulane. Frank mentioned a BIG expansion idea of Rice, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Tulane, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma would be just as good. Tulane is another state and you would be hard pressed to find BIG fans and alumni not willing to pay for a trip to see their team play in New Orleans.
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Or how about a Texas/Tulane combo for the B1G? AAU for both, attractive cities for tourism in Austin and New Orleans, and two strong baseball programs (crucial in luring UT). If I was a Longhorn fan, I’d rather have Tulane as a partner than Kansas if the presidents veto Oklahoma.
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Travel time is now an issue for the B1G’s non-revenue sports, like baseball, swimming, gymnastics, soccer, et al. It might be as important as TV audience, AAU membership or football kingship.
These sports are actually played by student athletes with real academic goals. Long flights or bus rides across half a continent would have serious negative impacts on their ability to pursue their studies.
Because of that the best candidates for the B1G are schools located near its centroid: Cincinnati, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pittsburgh. Missouri and Connecticut are marginal, and Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia Tech and any Florida or Texas school is out of the question. No P5 has invited Hawaii to join, not even the PAC 12.
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None of your so-called “best candidates,” with the possible exception of Pittsburgh, have the academic and research heft the Big Ten is looking for (none are AAU except Pitt). Hawaii might become a PAC candidate if it gained AAU status.
Ideally, the two best Big Ten expansion candidates where travel is concerned are Virginia and North Carolina…but that opens a different can of worms.
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Travel is exactly why, as the Indiana President said, “16 is the sweet spot.” At 16, the B1G breaks into pods of four, and travel is suddenly fairly well-regulated. When you play the far away pod, you’re only talking about 2 away games in many sports.
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Travel is exactly why, as the Indiana President said, “16 is the sweet spot.” At 16, the B1G breaks into pods of four, and travel is suddenly fairly well-regulated. When you play the far away pod, you’re only talking about 2 away games in many sports.
I think you’re mistaken. Pods are for football. The scheduling issues in the other sports are totally different.
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I’d never considered some kind of package to the B1G that included Tulane. Still seems to be a big stretch, but NO is a helluva lot of fun, plus great it would give all that LA recruiting.
Texas would always prefer Oklahoma, but UT, OU, KU and Tulane? That would be a lot of fun.
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Why only the Big 12? If the BIG wants some academic cover for taking say Oklahoma, why not take Tulane.
If the B1G is skittish about Oklahoma’s academics, Tulane doesn’t solve that problem. Either Oklahoma can hack it (according to whatever standards the B1G cares about), or they can’t. If they make the cut, then you go looking for the best 16th school, and I don’t think Tulane is it. If they don’t make the cut, then #16 is irrelevant.
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That is true. The one thing common among fans from other schools is the travel to New Orleans. Your fan base will travel well there, that might be a consideration also.
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This is a very interesting analysis, and I think the author hit the nail on the head by picking Tulane as a potential up and comer in the big conference sweeps. I lived in New Orleans for awhile, and there are a ton of Green Wave fans that have been waiting for the team to just do something. A part of that has been the administration, throw in some Katrina, and it’s been a rough go. But in 1998 (I believe) they finished 7th in the AP football rankings, the potential is clearly there.
Tulane has added some athlete friendly majors (a source of great debate), a new on campus stadium, and the team is playing well at 6-2. The team has always struck me as an attractive option for a big conference, great city, huge upside, excellent academics.
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This is a very interesting analysis, and I think the author hit the nail on the head by picking Tulane as a potential up and comer in the big conference sweeps. I lived in New Orleans for awhile, and there are a ton of Green Wave fans that have been waiting for the team to just do something. A part of that has been the administration, throw in some Katrina, and it’s been a rough go. But in 1998 (I believe) they finished 7th in the AP football rankings, the potential is clearly there.
Tulane has added some athlete friendly majors (a source of great debate), a new on campus stadium, and the team is playing well at 6-2. The team has always struck me as an attractive option for a big conference, great city, huge upside, excellent academics.
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Kid/scooter – as a Tulane alum I’m surprised to hear that there are a ton of Green Wave fans in New Orleans. If your sample size is St. Charles Avenue, I guess that could be right. The problem that Tulane has with community support is that 80% of the student body comes from outside of Louisiana. Now that Curtis Johnson is putting more of an emphasis on recruiting New Orleans kids that LSU doesn’t want, he may build up more community support. I am hopeful but not overly optimistic.
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Its like ColoradoKid and unclescooter are of one mind! Remarkable!
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They both suck LOL
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Assumption No.1 didn’t seem to apply to the most recent Big XII and ACC moves (West Virginia, TCU, Louisville). Unless, however, thinking like a university president involves “Oh Shit. We need someone, anyone to help protect us. Get the best piece available for football!”
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Assumption No.1 didn’t seem to apply to the most recent Big XII and ACC moves.
It applied at the time those moves were made. If the XII expands again, it will be solving a different problem than it solved when it added WVU and TCU.
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BTW-In 2012 a poll of Ole Miss fans as to which road trip was there #1 choice-not an SEC game but a game with a former SEC champion-Tulane!
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Nobody disputes that New Orleans is a fun city to road trip to, and one easily accessible via car, plane, and train. But since B12 expansion is focused primarily on national television value, Tulane’s long history of craptastic football is a big negative.
If the B12 had a longer-term focus, with building an academic counterpart to the athletic conference, and also had designs of a cable network, then Tulane would have much excellent value and would have to be seriously considered.
But Tulane’s value as a national brand in athletics is negligible, which hampers the school as of now. If it strings together a Boise State-esque run (or even a TCU-type run), then its value increases markedly as a national brand.
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Agreed. I think that is where Tulane is headed. There is time to improve the product. Even with the start to this season TU is getting some nice national press. Further, TU is reemphasizing athletics as evidenced by the new stadium and other facilities. The Admins understand the need to rebrand and the value in doing so.
BTW-Tulane OWNS Cincinnati (11-3 all time) and (6-1 in the 1990’s and 2000’s)!!!!!! Cincy BB got them in the Big East and its FB kept them in the AAC.
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Tulane may very well be headed there (I profess ignorance about Tulane save its conference affiliation, nickname, and new stadium in 2014 or so), but I find it difficult to believe that Fox/ESPN will give the B12 more money NOW based on where Tulane might be in 5-10 years.
Remember, any addition has to, at the minimum, maintain the present payouts per school (before any conference title game payout). Otherwise, why expand?
I like Tulane, and as I noted above, if the B12 were on firmer ground, able to take a longer term view, Tulane would (in my humble opinion) merit SERIOUS consideration. But college football is littered with also ran programs who have one or two great years, generating much excitement, only to see the program recede back into relative oblivion. Tulane circa 1998 (Shawn King!) comes to mind as an example.
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Actually, it’s been well documented that Cincy’s football got them in the Big East; the conference didn’t need more basketball schools. The Big East gambled on an up-and-coming football program and the bet paid off as Cincinnati won or shared four Big East titles, earned Orange and Sugar Bowl bids, produced a succession of great coaches and established “a program” that has continued to win games, set attendance records and earn top 25 rankings through three coaching changes. No disrespect to Tulane, but the historical won loss record against Cincinnati is just that–ancient history. Cincinnati football has become a consistent winner in a larger media market than New Orleans. With more than 200,000 living alumni Cincinnati has a huge upside compared with smaller, private universities that compete in pro sports towns.
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Cincy was at best a .500 team with one recent bowl game when they joined in 2005. Only after joining did Cincy get Brian Kelly and start winning.
CIncy was selected because it was among the best available in 2005 (with Louisville) and had excellent basketball. Cincy basketball was its selling point, along with its proximity to Louisville.
If you have links to the contrary, that CIncy’s addition into the Big East was because of its football, as you state, I would love to see them. I have no problem with being proven wrong.
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See: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1675285
“Big East officials mentioned that Louisville and South Florida — two other Conference USA teams making the switch — have developed a following.
Minter took note then that Cincinnati was the only one of the three schools not mentioned.
“We seem to be the least-mentioned of all the schools in football,” he said. “They talked about South Florida and they talked about the excellence of Louisville. We have a tremendous opportunity here.”
Cincy was a school in a big city with great basketball and a rivalry with Louisville. That’s why it was invited to the Big East. That it later became good in football was, from the Big East’s view, pure dumb luck.
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One more: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-VE1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=WOEIAAAAIBAJ&pg=2645,1241855&dq=cincinnati+big-east+expansion+football&hl=en
An Associated Press article from 11/5/03 talking about how Cincy et al will make the Big East a premier basketball conference, but do little in football.
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Wainscott, let me clarify a bit based on your comments, as I was an insider at Cincy at the time of Big East expansion. The media (and likely the Big East offices) chose to spin it as they did because Cincy’s tradition of national champions in basketball provided a prestige factor supporting their decision. Plain and simple, the BE needed football programs. Cincinnati football was lower profile at that time but Minter had built a solid foundation and taken them to the postseason for the first time in a long time. With Big East membership, it was felt Minter could not take the program to that next level. He was terminated and D’antonio, Kelly, Jones and Tuberville followed each raising the bar.
The Big East speculated on Cincy football and got a very good ROI. But if building a better basketball conference was the primary motive, they could have claimed the Cincinnati media market by inviting a rising Xavier program. Cincinnati flourished in a BCS conference and is more invested now than ever before with an $86 million stadium expansion and is on pace for the best attendance in the history of Nippert Stadium in 2013.
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You’ve drastically changed your statements, however. Firstly, you defended Cincy’s football on the merits and asserted that’s why it was invited to the Big East in 2005. That’s simply not true.
Your subsequent statement is more accurate, at least when you state “Plain and simple, the BE needed football programs.”
The Big East did not speculate on Cincy football as much as take the only available athletic programs in a reasonable geographic proximity and in big markets that offered football. Cincy and Louisville fit the bill. But at no time Big East officials look at Cincy, with a losing record from 1994-2003 and say we must have that. It was more “We can take L’ville and Cincy,, basketball powers, because Marshall, ECU, and other random programs will anger the basketball schools and lead to a split.” Cincy’s subsequent success was fortuitous from the conference’s perspective–an unexpected, but welcome, dividend.
Big East expansion in 2005 had to serve two goals: Maintain an 8 team football conference while not angering the G’town’s of the conference, and hitting more markets to get more TV revenue. Adding basketball powers was the goal–that some of those powers played football, and in L’ville’s case, quite well, was nice. USF was added only to provide exposure and access to Florida.
As for Xavier, I imagine they were considered, but DePaul and Marquette were chosen because they opened new basketball markets whereas Xavier and CIncy would have been duplicative. DePaul stunk, but still added Chicago eyeballs and easy Chicago recruiting access for other teams, and Marquette was a handy rival to DePaul, and a fine program in its own right.
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There’s an unwritten assumption in this post. “Bigger is better.”
That remains to be seen. Fact is every conference that went over 12 splintered, sooner or later, usually sooner. The SEC and MAC are the only current conferences that have been 12 members for more than 10 years that haven’t splintered. That includes basketball conferences.
When you look at TV ratings, what stands out is:
1) Good matchups matter and;
2) To a lesser extent, brands matter.
Neither of these have anything to do with size. Neither has anything to do with the size of the market. You do get the best ratings in your own region, but that is still not that big a part of the whole country. And the bigger you get, the more tenuous the conference ties and its hold on ratings. Expanding with less competitive teams than your average and lesser brands hurts you in TV ratings.
Even if conference networks are the way to go for the next half century, bigger isn’t necessarily better. A higher average population per school is better. But having 18 vs. 16 vs. 14 is not important. Now 10 makes it difficult to feed ESPN/ABC and/or Fox/CBS and a conference network, but the Big 12 doesn’t have one. It sells games individually. Fox Sports SW has become a defacto conference network, buying the 3rd tier rights of Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. They also have OU’s rights, although its not clear if they have the football rights.
With nearly everybody on TV all the time, the TV market is being splintered and conference ties are probably becoming less important for ratings. You can watch your own team. You can watch the best matchup from around the country. Is a Big 10 fan of Michigan really going to watch Minnesota/Indiana in football over USC/Oregon?
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While I thought that Frank wrote in the first paragraph why he thinks that 12 is better than 10 for the Big 12, bullet makes an excellent point that the conference doesn’t have a Big 12 Network to feed. Any new team has to lead to better TV ratings than the current average Big 12 team. (For example, there’s no way that Temple has a positive VORT for the Big 12.)
To answer the question about Oklahoma, their contract with Fox Sports stipulates that their third tier home football game will be on pay-per-view, not Fox Sports Southwest:
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/oklahomas-deal-with-fox-sports-is-for-40-million-over-10-years/
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Bullet:
“You can watch the best matchup from around the country. Is a Big 10 fan of Michigan really going to watch Minnesota/Indiana in football over USC/Oregon?”
It isn’t what particular matchup you choose to watch at any particular time. It is what demand there is a to be able to watch, should you choose to. That drives the value of a conference network as well as broadcast contracts. A larger conference simply has more inventory that is their’s at either teams home available for tire 1 or below.
“Fact is every conference that went over 12 splintered, sooner or later, usually sooner.”
No true BCS conferences are in that sample (BE doesn’t count). Plenty of smaller conferences have failed too.
“…the TV market is being splintered and conference ties are probably becoming less important for ratings.”
I disagree. The advent of conference networks focuses markets. The B12 has 10 separate marketing entities while the 40 B1G/PAC/SEC schools (will) have only three, in addition to the primary partners.
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Conference networks don’t do anything for your Tier I and Tier II ratings.
No “true BCS” conference has been over 12 before if you exclude the BE. The BE, BTW, was the nation’s premier basketball conference. The Southern Conference was over 12 and the SEC schools left the ACC schools behind. Then 20 years later the ACC schools left the new Southern Conference schools behind. And the 12 in the Big 12 lost 1/3 of their membership and nearly totally splintered. The 12 in the ACC were at some risk of splintering. The UNC e-mails make it clear everyone was evaluating their options. They only lost one.
There is no history of a conference over 12 staying together. It remains to be seen whether they will.
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There is no history of a conference over 12 staying together.
And recent history says major conferences don’t stay at 8, 9, or 10 teams. The SEC, B1G, Pac, Big 8 and ACC all out-grew that size.
The economics have changed radically. In the past, there was little financial incentive to grow. In fact, a smaller, geographically compact conference make more sense for travel. Now, TV money dwarfs travel budgets.
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“Conference networks don’t do anything for your Tier I and Tier II ratings.”
But larger conferences can command higher premiums for the same matchup. They also hold a larger number of potential great matchups on their home turf.
The P12N model where their network is a participant in tier 1 and 2 certainly do influence those, though I’m not sure what any particular games rating has on forward looking bidding for rights, or gaining distribution.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you are saying. Yes, some large conferences have failed, as have smaller ones. Had the current media contracts been available decades ago alleviating a lot of cost concerns, who knows what happens? I’m not saying 12+ is a necessity, but it does seem smaller is more vulnerable in the current climate.
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There’s an unwritten assumption in this post. “Bigger is better.”
I don’t think the post assumes that. It just answers the question, IF the Big XII were expanding, who would the likely candidates be?
Fact is every conference that went over 12 splintered, sooner or later, usually sooner.
Smaller leagues failed too. You’d have to consider whether size was really the issue, or if conferences expanded in an unsuccessful attempt to solve a deeper fundamental problem.
Let’s consider the original Big East. Before it started rapidly growing (pre-1991), its members were as follows: BC, UConn, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Syracuse, Villanova, and Pitt.
Eventually, the four schools that now play FBS football (UConn didn’t at the time) would have needed a football conference. If the Big East hadn’t added football, it would eventually have lost those schools, amounting to almost half its membership.
The Big East tried to solve this problem by adding football schools, which was the move that pushed it over your supposed magic number of 12. That strategy failed because the Big East could never get good enough at football, so they couldn’t offer enough for the upwardly mobile schools to stay.
But the fundamental problem — the mix of FBS and non-FBS programs — was there from the beginning. That, and not expansion, was the fatal flaw of the Big East. Had they not expanded, they would have faced the same existential crisis, sooner.
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The Big East failed because there was no unity of vision, simply due to the diversity of the institutions involved. They thought that basketball would be a unifying factor. You are close to right but have to consider the factors of the Northeastern culture (which would help to explain the disdain the other regions have of it) and the hostility among groups of schools. Georgetown, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Villanova are private, urban sectarian schools. Their primary mission traditionally has been to educate students of a certain faith (although they do take students who don’t share it). One of the reasons they’ve continually received applications even when there’s been a process of secularization in society is the perception of quality. This is especially true with K-12 education. But this reality has given them a platform in which to proclaim superiority over public schools.
The public schools, on the other hand, have a different circumstance that made it difficult to work with the private schools, one of which is the state laws concerning transparency. Also, non-discrimination laws that they are required to follow. The private schools are loathe to adopt those rules because of particular things that they don’t want revealed.
There is another factor that is unique in the Northeast and that is the private, non-sectarian schools (Syracuse). They also have a problem with public schools but it is not religion or transparency but competition for students. Schools like Syracuse, Yale, Harvard and Brown are very expensive and are very selective. Now the likes of Harvard can get away with being selective and expensive because of what they can offer. Schools like Syracuse can’t offer what Yale or Harvard can. Even Cornell and Princeton can offer more than Syracuse. The private schools in the Northeast sustain themselves through tuition money. This is where the public schools could be perceived as a threat. Public schools like Connecticut could offer a similar type of education and be less expensive than Syracuse. This creates a lot of resentment and fear among private school alums and fans.
The schools that played football in the old Big East had the opportunity to break away several times during its existence. However, it was not the basketball-first schools who were the main problem but the football-playing schools. Schools like Rutgers, Syracuse and Connecticut did not trust each other. Fans of Rutgers and Syracuse despised each other to the point that each wanted the other to go out of business. That’s how mean-spirited it was. Sure, it didn’t help Rutgers’ cause that they had a mediocre athletics history but that was just used as another excuse to vilify that school’s membership. The private schools perceived public schools like Rutgers, West Virginia, UConn and Temple as threats to be dealt with or contained, and they still perceive it that way, UConn basketball notwithstanding.
Then there was Notre Dame. So far, you’ve heard ND’s take on their relations with the Big Ten schools. What you have not heard about is ND’s history in the Big East. When the Big East was offered by ND their non-football membership (yes, I wrote it that way), ND promised that they’d play some football games against several Big East schools. Of course, the Big East salivated at the prospect of being associated with the Domers that they didn’t bother to read the fine print. ND always give themselves outs in any transaction with other parties. This was another classic case of Domers being Domers. When the idea of playing at Rutgers came about, they insisted that the game be played at the Meadowlands. However, Rutgers knew that if they played the game there that they’d lose their home advantage. Rutgers fans have had a bad history of dealing with the NJSEA and they did not want to repeat that experience. They’ve also have recently renovated their home stadium and increased the capacity to above 52,000. However, the Domers don’t do deals unless it’s to their advantage. They didn’t want to play at Rutgers’ home stadium and preferred not to play them, which is what happened. But standing up to ND’s arrogance comes with a cost, in the form of the enmity of the Domers towards Rutgers and Rutgers fans. This is another reason why BE private schools hate Rutgers.
There is a tendency by people outside the region to look at the dissolution of the old Big East as fooball-related. But, as I’ve explained above, the factors are much complex than that.
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You’ve given a longer version, none of which I disagree with, but in the end it’s all about football.
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In the end it was all about the conference getting too big and having too many diverse interests. The bigger you get the harder it is to maintain unity of purpose. The Ivy League and West Coast Conference have stayed small and maintained that unity.
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The point both Transic and I are making is that the actual problem existed when they were small. Even if they hadn’t expanded, the league simply could not have survived as originally constituted.
If you look to the root cause, you find that size was not the problem at all.
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The root problem was diversity of interests. That tends to happen when you get bigger. That happened in the Big East when it went beyond 9. It happened twice in the Southern Conference that spawned the SEC and then the ACC. It happened in the WAC. It happened on a larger scale with the CFA as first the Big 10 and Pac 10 went their own way, then Notre Dame, then the SEC, then it all splintered.
The bigger you get the harder it is to maintain that. There are only so many Division I private schools on the West Coast. There are only so many Ivy League caliber schools on the East Coast. Those conferences are staying small and have similar interests.
Now the bigger you are, the harder it is to agree on things even when there isn’t a big diversity of interests. You are also less closely tied in a bigger group than a smaller group (that’s just common sense without getting into all the scheduling issues).
Assuming bigger is better when there has never been a single example of that is a big assumption. All schools operate, as they should, in their own interest.
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It happened on a larger scale with the CFA as first the Big 10 and Pac 10 went their own way, then Notre Dame, then the SEC, then it all splintered.
The Big 10 and PAC never joined the CFA.
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I don’t know that the full details of that deal were ever released. IIRC, it was a gentleman’s agreement to play about three schools a year…and mostly to improve notoriety and strength of schedule for the Big East and to help scheduling issues Dr. White was having as the NDAD. I don’t ever remember hearing that these games would be home and homes. Many of the Big East football schools at the time were glorified mid-majors, with mid-major stadiums and fanbases.
Notre Dame was always much closer with the Catholic schools who later split off and took the name with them. It has very very little in common with the CUSA schools that the Big East backfilled with at the same time.
South Florida would have never gotten a game in South Bend without the agreement, nor would UConn…and Rutgers probably wouldn’t have either. I don’t know why ND would want to play Rutgers in a 52K stadium when a 80K stadium is right up the road closer to NYC. ND wouldn’t play UConn at the Rent either, and requested to play at Foxboro…and that’s not even in Connecticut.
I’m so tired of the Big East football fans resenting Notre Dame for not rescuing them. The conference was DOA in a football centered world anyway.
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Of the glorified mid-majors in the BE, 1 is in the Big 12, 1 is heading to the Big 10 and 3 will be scheduling ND in the ACC. USF and UConn are still in the BE-USF with a pro stadium and UConn with one of the newer stadiums in college football-and both with better fan support than 1/3 of the ACC schools, including powers ND occasionally plays like Wake Forest and Duke.
Notre Dame broke their deal. Hopefully the ACC did an air-tight contract.
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The only backfill mid-major the Irish will play is U of L. BC, VT, Miami, Syracuse, and Pitt were in the Big East when ND joined…as were Rutgers and WVU. I don’t forsee home-and-homes with the Irish in the future for USF, UConn, or Cincy.
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“Is a Big 10 fan of Michigan really going to watch Minnesota/Indiana in football over USC/Oregon?” — bullet
This is the phenomenon of “cross-marketing” — where a fan of particular conference’s school watches the game of other conference members even though his school is not one of the schools playing. The more cross-marketing you can obtain as a conference, the more financially successful your league will become. The SEC is the undisputed king of cross-marketing.
Cross-marketing is exactly the reason a school like Texas or Oklahoma would be less valuable in the PAC than in the B1G or the SEC. Even though the PAC would make every effort to set most UT or OU games earlier in the day, for television viewers in the CTZ, the fans of those two schools would have a hard time watching the games of many PAC schools which may be scheduled against UT or OU in the future or which might have an impact on the PAC championships. Many PAC games will in fact end in the wee hours of Sunday morning (1 or 2 am) each and every weekend.
Yes, I do suspect a great many B1G fans would watch Minnesota/Indiana over USC/Oregon (or at most simply check in on USC/Oregon during the MN/IN game during commercials). I know that’s what I do as a fan of the B12, and we have schools a whole lot more boring than Minnesota or Indiana.
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Frank,
This matrix leaves out the single biggest criteria that plays into big xii expansion (possibly the ONLY one), “what does Texas want.” While reasonable to state that the conference’s long term viability should trump the short term financial harm that adding members would do to the rev split, UT is simply not in the business of doing what’s reasonable for the conference. Even in hypothetical world where the conference would die without expanding is there even a shred of evidence that would indicate Bevo would care?
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Disgruntled, I have discussed Bevo the Bull(y) and how they are time and time again. The one thing that has changed is “Little Brother” A&M not only leaving Austin behind, but doing quite nicely. While they would love to add two lap dog Universities (choose two of Houston, Rice, SMU, and UTEP), they have to worry about angering Oklahoma to the point where the first chance they get, they become the next A&M or Nebraska heading for the B10 or SEC. It has to be on their mind (even though they will not admit it).
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Uh, no.
Texas came out in opposition to adding “another school from Texas” during September 2012, but backed off when OU and the northern schools wanted to keep two games per year in the State of Texas. That may qualify as “bullying” in your book, but it does not match reality.
As for Houston, Rice, SMU, and UTEP (??), no, Texas has no desire to add any of those schools.
Texas (DeLoss Dodds) has consistently said it is comfortable at 10 schools, true, but Texas has also said if the league wanted to expand, Texas will accommodate the league.
The reality is that none of the small schools want or can afford to take a hit on the TV contract by expanding. Texas can afford to take a hit. If the B12 really wants to expand, Texas will not stand in the way.
The problem is that there does not appear to be any schools out there (other than possibly BYU, but that’s another story) with whom the B12 can add that will not dilute the TV contract.
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I think there are two things not all that well discussed here. IMO.
1) With the GOR deal in place, it seems like the only get out of jail free card for UT and OU would be imploding the conference. A larger membership would take that from difficult to likely impossible. While I don’t think either school is desperate to escape today, that could change. I would think that puts UT and OU (privately) firmly against expansion, regardless of the company line.
2) I think the “diluting the TV shares” argument may be more of a conventional wisdow argument being subtly pushed by the powers in the conference to encourage the have nots not to push the issue. There has been a lot written about how 12 doesn’t meet the current payouts the conference enjoys. I can buy that that is “true enough”, but I am not as certain that a larger expansion to 14 or 16 is equally unworkable. I think if you crunched the numbers you might find that there are schools that collectively would ramp up the value of the conference enough to meet or exceed current revenue generation.
Consider basketball tourney revenue. The Big East for example built a top heavy basketball league and their SOS dragged their bubble teams into the tourney. It also generated battle tested schools that made long runs in the tourney. The BE was pulling in some pretty good money based off basketball.
A larger B12 with a basketball focus could end up recouping some TV shortfalls with BB tourney money.
Also consider markets. The Big 12 has by far the smallest populations in their footprints. That would seem likely to limit their options vs. other power conferences in terms of conference networks and the like. Could adding a few schools really help in that regard? Possibly, but I think it is an uphill battle due to the small population states near texas.
But if you have very good basketball to go with the UT and OU (and I guess now the OSU, Tech, and Baylor) football brands to support a minimally acceptable footprint…. maybe a network becomes a lot more workable.
Lets name names. BYU is the obvious team 11, but if you are just talking about the value of Utah, BYU is just a little exciting. But if you are talking about BYU + SDSU, UNM, and CSU, suddenly you are sewing together some very complimentary and large fan bases. BYU becomes a lot more valueable in that scenario as do all of those schools due to their existing rivalries and the facts their fan bases care about those opponents.
BYU and SDSU are bowl caliber programs. CSU just built a stadium that should make their team a bowl caliber program. UNM with better Texas recruiting could get there.
UNM, BYU, and SDSU are annual strong tourney teams with strong fan bases and CSU basketball is lead by a good coach now and seems headed in that direction.
Top that with Cinnci and memphis in the east. Cinci does well in football. memphis could potentially do a lot better with a Big 12 check. There is a lot of football talent in Miss and LA if the tigers were higher profile and had the money to really recruit…
In basketball both are ringers with strong fan bases. This could yeild a conference that is one of the best in the nation in basketball, has a terrific recruiting footprint, and has the markets to interest a network partner.
Now I am not saying any of this is likely, but I do think the money would be there at 16 when it might not be at 12.
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No…
Reforming parts of the WAC in the B12 reduces the conference value.
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“Even in hypothetical world where the conference would die without expanding is there even a shred of evidence that would indicate Bevo would care?”
TCU
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Excellent point. They were probably near the bottom of UT’s list.
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UT would care if it was against their best interests. Seeing OU in the B10 or SEC and giving one of those Conferences yet another path into Recruiting in Texas (especially the SEC), would not be in Bevo’s interest. Seeing a Football Schedule where Tech is your best In-Conference “Rival” is not either.
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I think Tulane is great choice. But if I am the Big XII, I am looking for Schools to strengthen the Northern Division, without bringing in TCU 2 (aka Cincinnati). Obviously BYU is perfect, but if they wanted in, they would be there already (plus the fear that if they were admitted as “Football Only” Texas might try the same thing). My strategy would be add UCF & USF for the Southern Division, and send Oklahoma & Oklahoma State to the Northern Division, and have OU and UT be a protected Rivalry Game (like Indiana/Purdue). That would accomplish the twin goals of a Conference Championship Game, and strengthen the Northern Division.
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Texas values its non-revenue athletics. Thus, Texas has zero desire to go independent.
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This is why Tulane and one of the Florida schools makes sense http://cdn2.sbnation.com/fan_shot_images/223004/Ac2h_NWCIAARvlY.jpg
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Folks, here’s a long one, I had way too much time on my hands this afternoon. Hit “page down” if you’re in the mood for quick hitters, ’cause this ain’t a quick hit.
I think that the Big-12 had better hurry. The rest of the Big-12, besides UT and OU, had especially better hurry, because they’re much more at risk with all of this than they might think. It doesn’t take too much stretch of the imagination to see Texas and Oklahoma in the middle of a bidding war between the Big-10, the SEC, and the PAC-12 — and soon, GOR end-of-life not being all that far away, and litigation being what it is in any case. The Big-12 is still the least stabile of the majors (by far), and for its own survival, it needs to get to the best 14 teams available, while they are available, in the hopes that they can survive should the unthinkable happen and they lose either UT or OU, or both. BYU and Cincinnati are fine choices. Both are ready to go right now, as the author correctly points out — especially BYU, which in fact is already a major program as an independent, by every reasonable measuring stick. (Yes, BYU will join — work with them a bit on Sunday play, and they’ll come runnin’) UCF / USF, or better yet, UCF and Tulane, are decent candidates that would progress quickly with league membership. I favor UCF over USF because of the school size and the fact that it has its own unique major market to itself. Do it, and do it now, and get to 14 and a title game while you can. Then if you end up losing UT and OU (horrors), you still have 12 teams, a title game, a TV contract (which would be reduced in value, but would still exist), and a major bowl tie-in. It would be terrible, but perhaps survivable. Lose these two out of the current 10 team league, either right now (yes, it could happen, GORs notwithstanding), or at the end of the contract, and the conference is stone dead, period, end of story. Under that awful circumstance, would you rather face the network execs with a TV market of Texas and West Virginia only, or have 12 teams, two divisions, a championship game, and TV markets that cover Texas and West Virginia, but also Ohio, Central Florida, Louisiana, Utah, and the rest of 15 million Mormons around the country and world?
It may not seem like a risk right now, but the Big-12 runs a high risk of having its pockets picked again. Texas and Oklahoma are the obvious risks, but the “expansion candidates” that they take for granted could easily disappear at a moment’s notice. Cincinnati is the obvious next pick for the ACC if the Big-10 gets an ACC team to defect, and I believe that they’d prefer to follow Louisville anyway, rather than go with the Texas schools, all else considered. Out on the Left Coast, the PAC-12 is in somewhat of a bind in terms of expansion. They’ve always wanted to have 14 to 16 teams; having to settle for 12 wasn’t their first choice and makes for an awkward seasonal round-robin. What they wanted, and still want, is Texas and Oklahoma, and they’ll be back with a raiding party in the near term. Assuming they fail, their expansion options are more limited than any of the other majors. No “Cal State X” fills their bill. San Diego State doesn’t draw, and UCLA and USC already deliver the San Diego market anyway. Fresno State is the best of the “Cal States”, but The Valley isn’t a major market. Boise State is about 20 years removed from being a community college, and the PAC-12 blue bloods can’t live with that. Also, their football program is built on Coach Petersen. What happens when he leaves — can they continue the success? There’s a huge risk on that one, and no local TV market, to boot. The PAC-12 really only has two decent options: Take UNLV and hope to grow it into a player, and also finally bite the bullet, and take the hands-down obvious choice from the get-go: Mormon-conservative-West-Coast-anathema major-player BYU. If the PAC-12 fails to collar UT and OU again, look for them to take UNLV, and finally take BYU off the table, denying the Big-12 its most satisfactory expansion candidate along with Cincinnati.
The Big-12 needs to get going. Looking and acting like the reincarnation of the Big East, i.e. waiting to be raided by a bigger fish and then reacting, isn’t what they should be doing right now. This is the time to be proactive, get the four best candidates out there, get a title game going, and start looking like a major conference again. During the last round of realignments, they came within the proverbial gnat’s eyelash of collapsing by passively waiting, and then having to operate in arrears in panic mode only. They wound up losing valuable powerhouse programs in Texas A&M and Nebraska, schools that likely could have been saved, and should have been saved, if the conference had had its act together. (Colorado and Missouri were lesser losses, but still hurt the image of the league by departing.) The conference cannot afford another screwup of this magnitude. It’s time to show that they learned the lesson by solidifying the long-term future of the league now, rather than worrying about the short-term single-last-dollar of revenue dilution that might occur via expansion. The money’s there to be able to do this. As they say, pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered …
Bring BYU, Cincinnati, UCF and Tulane on board. Just do it. Now.
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… aaccckkkkk!!!! And my apologies for leaving the great states of Kansas and Iowa out of the TV market comments at the end of the first paragraph. Tacky brain freeze — my apologies to you KU, KSU, and ISU fans. The thing should have read:
Under that awful circumstance, would you rather face the network execs with a TV market of Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and West Virginia only, or have 12 teams, two divisions, a championship game, and TV markets that include not only all of those states, but also Ohio, Central Florida, Louisiana, Utah, and the rest of 15 million Mormons around the country and world?
Sorry!
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If Brigham Young says no, should the Big Ten substitute South Florida? And how would divisions stack up? (In my 14-team scenario, place Tulane in the West with the Texas and Oklahoma schools, with an East division of Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Central Florida and South Florida — making certain the football schedule is adjusted so the five other East teams visit UCF or USF every year.)
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I meant Big 12, not Big Ten. Oopsie.
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long as hell but thanks for taking the time to share. Love the discussion going on here. much better than one of the team forums where people end up attacking one another the entire time for having different opinions
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Amen to that. The guy wrote a well thought out article on the topic, and started a good dialog. Bunch of good comments on here. Mine was waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too long. Your patience is much appreciated! 🙂
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I fail to see how adding BYU and three Conference USA/AAC schools will do anything more than further convince Texas and Oklahoma to flee to the Pac 12. The Big East tried this strategy already, and all it did was force Syracuse and Pitt–by no means on UT or Okla’s level, mind you–to flee for the ACC. Backfilling is a sign of desperation, not strength.
How would this massive expansion benefit Texas and Oklahoma? How does this help them? And yes, if they flee, the whole conference is hurt badly, so how does angering Texas and Oklahoma serve anyone’s interest?
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Tulane made a presentation to the Big 12 a year or so ago and it was Texas and OU that invited them.
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That makes the school sounds more like an Amway salesman than a candidate for expansion.
What are Tulane’s TV ratings like in New Orleans? What about ratings from recent (last few years) from games on ESPN or another network? Is there an upward or downward ratings trend? What about attendance? is it trending one way or another?
I have no idea, so I am curious.
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Look, I know people have a hard time with Tulane making the list but look at the list and the talk and The Tank must know something and some other players. Even Andy Katz w ESPN mentioned Tulane and the Big 12 about two years ago. According to most fans Tulane does not belong in this class or on this list but the name has popped up every single time. Obviously these schools/presidents have a pretty good interest in Tulane or the name would not be popping up again. Don’t take my word for it – just look at the fact that they are even cracking the list and this is not the first time. Look at the fact that Texas and OU were very much interested in them to ask them to show them what they have planned in terms of overall emphasis and investments. It is about new ground and potential. Tulane would never be invited alone but with a another school they would and with the addition of WVU and TCU it helps because now you can take someone like Tulane. There are a lot of schools that can make arguments, I get it – I also get that some people cannot fathom the thought of Tulane but like The Tank says – “keep an eye on them and Tulane has the best chance out of anyone to realize its Tremendous Upside Potential and moving up to the top.”
I know the guys that put this together, it was done about a year and a half ago – I gave them some input – it is not updated over the last year but it does a good job showing what people don’t see or know https://www.dropbox.com/s/lkhekl9u0bqn5jc/Tulane%20University%20Athletics%20%26%20NOLA%20%E2%80%93%20a%20Renaissance%2C%20a%20Revolution%202013.pdf
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I have no problem with Tulane making the list, just if that list if for expansion similar to that of the Big Ten or SEC–market driven, with an eye towards demographics and academics, as well as athletics..
As I wrote above,
“Nobody disputes that New Orleans is a fun city to road trip to, and one easily accessible via car, plane, and train. But since B12 expansion is focused primarily on national television value, Tulane’s long history of craptastic football is a big negative.
If the B12 had a longer-term focus, with building an academic counterpart to the athletic conference, and also had designs of a cable network, then Tulane would have much excellent value and would have to be seriously considered.
But Tulane’s value as a national brand in athletics is negligible, which hampers the school as of now. If it strings together a Boise State-esque run (or even a TCU-type run), then its value increases markedly as a national brand.”
If the Big 12 was planning on starting a conference TV network, and an academic consortium like the CIC, then Tulane should be on a short list of schools.
But Big 12 is doing none of that, and probably won’t even exist in its present form after 10 years or so. The conference members seem to want to maximize money from national TV deals now, meaning any potential school would have to add to the annual haul per school. I just don’t think Tulane does that. At least not in 2013. Maybe it would in 2019, but that’s 6 years away.
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The unofficial response. Commit to improved FB and athletics and we would welcome the addition of Tulane and New Orleans to the Big XII.
New Stadiums don’t just materialize for no reason.
http://www.yulmanstadium.com/
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The Big East was on the tail end of a wholesale turnover that started long before with Miami, Virginia Tech, BC, etc; the situations aren’t comparable at all. I don’t think that this would motivate Texas and Oklahoma to move to the PAC-12, at least not beyond any baseline motivation that already exists, especially if you maintain a formula whereby the money is divided so that the schools collect reasonably in accordance with what they draw to the league. I also don’t think that the addition would necessarily be revenue-negative on a total-total basis in any case, since you add the title game and expand the markets. BYU is almost certainly revenue positive; ESPN isn’t doing the current deal with them out of charity. So start with BYU / Cincinnati first, plus the title game, and run that past the TV partners. Move it to all four if the deal money works. My guess is that you have at worst a revenue-neutral deal. (I know this is a funny way to look at it, but how much dilution do you think you get here versus what is contributed to the pot by Ames, Manhattan, Lubbock, and Morgantown?) So where does this push UT and OU out of the league? You just picked up a whole bunch of TV audience out West — far more than Colorado ever brought into the league (BYU draws TVs from Idaho to Arizona to California, not just Utah), and you picked up a big chunk of Ohio, and your money is “equal to” or “greater than” immediately, and more over the long haul. No one’s gonna bolt over that deal.
BTW, I agree that the PAC-12 is a threat to come after UT and OU again; they will certainly do so. However, the Longhorn Network and UT autonomy was a huge stumbling block for the PAC-12 bluebloods — they weren’t anywhere near a deal. I’m not saying a deal couldn’t be done, but the primary intent of the UT interest at the time was as leverage to bend the rest of the Big-12 into submission regarding the Longhorn Network and 3rd Tier rights. UT’s primary objective wasn’t really ever to shatter the Big-12 and become California Cool. They might do it in extremis, but for lots of good and valid political and practical reasons, I seriously doubt that that was (or is) high on their list of desired courses of actions. (Holy Bevo would the State Legislature go crazy if UT blew up the Big-12, at least all the Baylor and TCU alum legislators, and potentially the Tech alums also, unless the PAC-12 decided to take Lubbock along for the ride as well.) Nah, being directly responsible for the death of the Big-12 and once again turning Baylor and TCU into orphans isn’t Texas’ first choice, I don’t think. Could happen, but it would have to be for something really, really serious to the future of the program.
As far as backfilling versus not backfilling is concerned, I still think that the league is at maximum vulnerability by staying where they are. Lose one team, and they’re in the middle of an instant crisis. They just finished going through this, and the league almost collapsed. Do you think that the loss of their title game increased their prestige, or decreased it? One way or the other, its absence is extremely noticeable every year, and it’s not noted as a good thing. It makes the league look like the junior partner compared to four major leagues, on the same rung as the Big East used to be, and just waiting to be cannibalized when the winds start to blow again. And that’s exactly what it is. They’re fools not to fix it now, while they can do so, and have time to stabilize it before the world turns upside down again.
Sorry, way too long yet again. I’m done on this topic and will now shut up and yield the floor.
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I didn’t think of the Big 10 and Pac 10 as junior partners when they had big games on ccg Saturday while the others had ccgs.
The problem with A&M and Missouri leaving is they did it so late in the year. A&M announced at the end of August. Missouri announced they were thinking about it in the last half of September and took forever to finally make up their mind. That was what left the Big 12 in a crisis. Had they left in May or June like Nebraska and Colorado, there would have been more time to vet schools and arrange the deals. The BE didn’t sue TCU. But when WVU left they did because it put them in a bind. And eventually the MAC and CUSA.
The Big 12 could easily replace anyone but Texas and Oklahoma. The impact would be marginal even losing Kansas. Now if they left in December for the next fall, it would be difficult. But with a normal time frame, it would be no problem.
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“the impact would be marginal”. Hilarious. Bullet is still in total denial.
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Bullet:
“I didn’t think of the Big 10 and Pac 10 as junior partners when they had big games on ccg Saturday while the others had ccgs.”
And both the B1G and PAC have added CCGs. Apparently they felt it important enough.
Andy:
Are you attributing greater impact by a Kansas exit than Missouri caused? I’m surprised.
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The only problem with this theory is of course, Texas. It does not matter if they made bad decisions (see TCU), as long as things are acceptable in Austin (or OU makes noises about leaving) things will not change. I would bet that if there was a choice between Tulane & Rice, the Owls would be selected because the UT Game @ Rice will be played @ Reliant Stadium, with 75% (or more) Longhorn fans in attendance, to be broadcast on the Longhorn Network. As far as saving programs such as Nebraska & A&M are concerned, that was not happening. Too many 11-1 Anti-Cornhusker votes to keep Nebraska happy, and A&M not only saw an an opportunity to get out of Bevo’s shadow, but knows financially what happened with Arkansas. That “Hog” did not exactly get slaughtered.
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If a B12 expansion choice came down to Tulane or Rice, and if you bet that Texas would support Rice over Tulane, be prepared to lose some money.
But this is moot. The schools of the B12 will not expand at all if expanding means losing money.
Expanding with any schools on Frank’s list means every school in the B12 would lose money.
This ain’t nuclear science, as the cliche goes.
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There a heckuva lot more to the BYU situation than just “game forfeiture” (no Sunday play). More importantly, there’s TV replay issues, there’s BYU announcers in place of FOX or ESPN announcers (yea, that’s going to happen), there’s a demanded guarantee of way too many nationally televised games. Game forfeiture is only a sliver of the BYU problem.
Look, adding BYU, Cincinnati, UCF and Tulane is sort of like a young adult buying health insurance. The guys knows that health insurance is a good thing, but he figures he’s healthy, and he doesn’t want to take a hit in his pocket book.
When the B1G added Maryland and Rutgers, they had already calculated the numbers and Delany is supremely confident he just added money into the pocket of every single B1G school.
If the B12 added the schools you suggest, all Big 12 schools would take a hit in their respective pocket books. Texas can afford to take a hit in the television revenue. Texas nets around 10.8M per year off the LHN. Texas generally packs over 100,000 folks into DKR each football weekend. Texas can take a hit.
But Kansas State, and TCU, and Baylor, and on and on do not want to take a hit in their pocket book. They can’t afford to take a hit because they don’t draw like Texas or Oklahoma. They other B12 members have no meaningful way to make up the lost income from television contract dilution due to expansion.
Now this situation is still Texas’ fault, but can you tell me why? It’s not because Texas is “blocking” expansion, because Texas is not.
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The Big XII could add 2 schools or 20, and its survival would still come down to the same question: do Texas and Oklahoma want to stay?
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With the ACC, Do FSU and Miami want to stay?
Or even, does UNC want to stay?
With the Pac 12, they would survive because of geography, but would be gutted if USC and UCLA left.
If the SEC lost Georgia and Florida they would still be competitive-but only as long as they could keep recruiting those 2 states.
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I was not saying that the Big XII is the only league with one or two linchpin schools.
The question just never arises for the Pac-12 and SEC, because no one has seriously suggested that those leagues are vulnerable. When the GORs get closer to expiration, a lot of people will start wondering what Texas and Oklahama plan to do. No one will be asking that about Georgia or USC.
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Losing prominent members would hurt, but none of those would be crippling whereas losing UT/OU would be fatal. Even if the rest soldiered on it would not be as a power conference. There was an ACC long before FSU and Miami joined.
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There was an ACC long before FSU and Miami joined.
But there wouldn’t be afterwards…
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If they left I mean.
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If FSU and Miami left, the ACC would be relegated to the G5. They would be a football playing version of the Big East. Of course, everyone else would try to leave as well. Minus those two there is really no difference between them and the Mountain West in football.
Without Texas and OU the Big 12 would not be financially competitive with the rest of the P5. Competitively, they would still be comparable to the ACC based on the BCS era. ACC schools averaged 51.9 points in the final AP Poll. Big 12 w/o OU and Texas-49.9.
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Bullet:
This is the disagreement. Without FSU and Miami they are still the ACC, but deserving of the FB derision they’ve been subjected to over years. They are a basket and baseball conference that plays adequate FB at times. Only the frequency of adequacy would be effected.
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@cc
I fail to see the difference between the ACC leftovers and the Big 12 leftovers, except that the ACC might still be the top basketball conference (the Big 12 would merely be one of the top).
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Without FSU and Miami they are still the ACC
Yes, and the rest of the Big XII could keep the name, so I don’t see a difference.
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Bullet:
Enormous demographic disparity.
Non reliance on FB as identity.
Tobacco Road stands or falls by its own choice (and holds others together), regardless of Mia or FSU. What’s the B12 equivalent? Kansas?
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ESPN and Fox. The leftover Big 12 would be much more valuable than the AAC and MWC. Just not nearly as valuable as the current Big 12.
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The Big-12 is still the least stabile of the majors (by far),
No, the ACC is probably worse. Not only is it significantly behind financially, the fact that it has bunch of pieces that are attractive to other conferences, but none strong enough to form a core to hold the whole thing together, makes it quite untenable. Really, its like Jenga tower; it won’t collapse on its own and it could afford to lose some pieces, but pull the right one and the whole thing comes crashing down.
The Big XII’s stars and scrubs philosophy is much easier to sustain; hold UT and OU and the conference will survive no matter what happens.
(Note, another way to look at it is this; the ACC schools are together because they want to be; the Big XII is together because they have to be. Literally ever current Big XII school has tried to leave but was turned down meaning they are stuck together come Hell or highwater. On the other hand, UNC, UVA, V-Tech, and FSU (unquestionably), Clemson, Miami and G-Tech (probably), and Pitt, Louisville and NCSU (possibly) have at least one other power conference that would take them today given the chance and offer them a raise.)
Then if you end up losing UT and OU (horrors), you still have 12 teams, a title game, a TV contract (which would be reduced in value, but would still exist), and a major bowl tie-in.
Yeah, if you think that the Big XII is going to keep its Sugar Bowl tie in if it loses OU and UT then I’ve got a bridge you might be interested in.
Also, the TV contract wouldn’t just be reduced; it would be voided.
—-
Of course those two specific issues simply allude to a bigger point; if OU or UT bolt then whatever Big XII leftovers don’t get picked up are screwed no matter what. As such, the best strategy for the conference’s have nots is to do whatever is necessary to keep those two schools and if staying at 10 is what they want, they staying at 10 is what should happen.
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Strongly agree with Back East concerning BYU & Cincy. But wait a few years before going to 14. After all Big 12 is locked in until 2025.
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Go Blue!
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As a Texas fan, it does get tiresome to read this never-ending theme of Texas as the “bully”. “Texas doesn’t care at all about its’ conference partners or the future of the Big 12″…and yet, it was Nebraska who left, because of domineering Texas. I thought all those conference votes that the Huskers lost were 11-1? Doesn’t Texas just have one vote like everybody else? And here we are in 2013 and Texas is still in the Big 12. I really thought the original Big 12 was a great conference, and wish it was still together. Those schools that left were entirely within their rights to go wherever they wanted to go, but quit blaming Texas. I’m not sure why everyone thinks it’s OK for NU or A&M to leave their conference mates for what they believe to be a better situation, but anything Texas does out of self interest is considered an assault on their conference brethren. I still do believe it would serve Texas better to be in the PAC 12 and hope that happens, with or without the LHN (which I enjoy watching here in North Carolina immensely–first class network)
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As a Texas fan, it does get tiresome to read this never-ending theme of Texas as the “bully”. “Texas doesn’t care at all about its’ conference partners or the future of the Big 12″…and yet, it was Nebraska who left, because of domineering Texas. I thought all those conference votes that the Huskers lost were 11-1? Doesn’t Texas just have one vote like everybody else?
Nominally, Texas has one vote. But how often has the Big XII made a consequential decision on which Texas voted no? I don’t think Texas has bullied anyone. It’s just a reality that without Texas, there is no Big XII (as we have known it), and therefore they’re going to get what they want.
As I recall, when Dan Beebe got fired, one of the ADs said publicly, “There was a sense that he listened to only one school.” Care to guess which school that was?
I don’t think anyone has said that Texas “doesn’t care about its conference partners or the future of the Big 12.” To the contrary, Texas wants the Big XII to survive. The fact that it has a de facto veto there (and wouldn’t in any other league) is one of the reasons — although there are others.
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On the most important vote in league history, around the 2005 time-frame, Texas brought in the guy who set up the BTN just before he migrated to the B1G for the purpose of setting up the BTN.
Texas proposed to the league that the B12 set up a league network. The B12 shot down the Texas proposal 1-11, Texas being the lonely “1” vote. Nobody thought a league network had any merit but Texas. But Texas didn’t up and bail from the B12.
Instead, Texas studied the league bylaws and gave thought to so-called television Tier 3 rights. At the time Texas made about a quarter million per year off television Tier 3, while Kansas was making millions off its basketball. Eventually Texas partnered with ESPN to set up the LHN and here we are today.
The point is that Texas does not “run” the B12. Is there a sort of “first among equals”? Well, I’m sure there is. But Texas loses plenty of league battles. The most recent battle Texas lost was the addition of TCU — a really bad move on the part of the B12.
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Texas and Nebraska had to fund a study of a conference network. Noone else was interested.
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Texas wanted Jack Swarbick as conference commissioner. The Big 12 chose Beebe. Texas was ok with keeping Beebe. The rest of the conference wanted to fire him and did. As Loki says, TCU was NOT the choice of Texas.
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I very carefully avoided saying that Texas wins every vote. But they win most, and always will. They simply have to.
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They didn’t become the most profitable program in the country by making a lot of bad decisions.
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Do disrespecting A&M & Nebraska qualify as bad decisions?
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That is only in their imaginations.
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Bullet:
Serious question. Do you think UT could/should have done things differently in order to retain UNL and aTm? Not trying to be provocative but without them wouldn’t you agree the B12 is at best the fourth of the big five? With them, arguably in the two/three range?
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@ Bullet:
I know this particular thread is dying, but one more long thought.
You said:
“The unequal share of exit fees is one of my pet peeves. MSM keep repeating that Texas got their share of the exit fees. That is not true. They offered Texas, Texas A&M and OU their share of the exit fees. Texas immediately said it wasn’t in the by-laws and they would refuse. OU also said that they shouldn’t get it. The greedy ones were A&M and Tech. When hearing of the offer, Tech’s president asked why they wouldn’t get a share as well. A&M whined when the league didn’t give them the left behind 5′s share.”
To me, your statement only proves how difficult it is to the error-prone media and how difficult it is to change a developing or “set” narrative.
Your statement suggests that I got a detail wrong. You are suggesting only 5 schools offered their share of the Exit Fees; I thought 7. In fact, is it 5, 7 or 4? What IS the number? KS, KState, Mizzou, IowaSt for sure. Baylor as the 5th? Did the Orphans offer the $$ to the full Departing 5 or only to TX, A&M and OKLA?
My memory is that the MSM used the phrase “other schools” which, based on the math at the time was 7. Colorado and Nebraska had left or were leaving. That left 10; UT, OKLA and A&M were offered more of the Exit Fees by the “other schools.” Now, maybe the MSM was clear at first; and then the MSM shifted to the short-hand of the “other schools.” I will google.
The point is that, from the get-go, the MSM does not always get the details correct. Then the MSM muddies the details. No wonder we are all confused.
There is a larger point here too. When trying to change a media narrative, arguments have to be focused and being focused is difficult. Being descriptive and not critical here, you Bullet, made two arguments, neither of which really dented the narrative that “Texas is greedy.” You said first that Texas didn’t take the $$ because the Bylaws didn’t allow it. That does not defeat “Texas is greedy”; that merely shows that Texas is rule-bound. A non-greedy Texas would have said: “No, thanks. Share and share alike.”
Second, you say that A&M and TTech are the greedy ones. Again, that does not work. That A&M and TTech are greedy is not probative (either way) on the question of whether Texas is greedy.
Again, not being critical here, just again trying to highlight how difficult it can be to change perception.
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You’re still unfairly generalizing. If Texas happens to vote with the winning block, then Texas is bullying the league. If Texas happens to vote with the losing block, then no one is saying Texas wins every vote. You’re argument is simply disingenuous.
At most, Texas has a position of “first among equals”, BUT when it comes to the bottom lines of the other schools ($$$), the other schools vote in what they perceive to be their own self-interest. I understand you don’t believe that.
Down here in Texas we perceive Ohio State as the big dog of the B1G. Is the B1G a lap dog of tOSU?
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No one thinks Ohio State has a realistic option to improve its position by leaving for another conference. It simply has to color people’s votes when they know that possibility is hanging over the proceedings.
Your “first among equals” comment is simply another way of putting what we are trying to say. It’s a difference of degree, not kind. And as a UT fan, you might not be neutral on how to characterize it.
As far as I know, not even the most delusional Ohio State fans think their school has that status in the Big Ten. Needless to say, no one else in the conference does.
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Lol. So tOSU “simply has to color people’s votes”, eh? Hmmm, that reads to me a lot like “first among equals”.
Nothing came of it, but last spring I was sure reading a lot of stuff on tOSU blogs and elsewhere where tOSU was “calling in their B1G chits” they had accumulated through the years to try to force a B1G offer to FSU, a non-AAU football power.
Were all those tOSU posters lying to us?
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Where is the offer then? UT would have made it happen in the B12, if they wanted it.
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XOVERX,
“Nothing came of it, but last spring I was sure reading a lot of stuff on tOSU blogs and elsewhere”
Only a fool listens to OSU fans on an OSU blog. They are uninformed and completely biased.
“where tOSU was “calling in their B1G chits” they had accumulated through the years to try to force a B1G offer to FSU, a non-AAU football power.”
There’s no such thing. Gee may have had some friends he’d try to lean on or sway, but that’s it. Presidents have to consider the needs of their school first.
“Were all those tOSU posters lying to us?”
Yes. They were making stuff up to fit their worldview.
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I will throw out my 2 cents.
@XoverX: perception and reality can be different. you are arguing that the reality does not match the perception, but changing that perception can be an arduous task. (Ask any Penn State fan.)
The perception is that Texas is excessively greedy to the detriment of the BXII.
That perception might not fit reality, but there is a long list of “facts” that support the perception.
~~~ Four schools voluntarily left the BXII, each in their own way, pointing at Texas as the problem. That is a lot of people ~~~ hundreds of thousands of fans, players, administrators and message board denizens all saying something pretty similar.
Despite it being only one “bullet point” on my list, it is actually about 10,000 “facts” supporting the perception of Texas’ greed and narcissism.
~~~ Unequal revenue sharing. (see below).
~~~ In the midst of the almost-collapse of the BXII, the Seven Would-Be Orphans all agreed to give Texas their share of the Exit Money paid by Nebraska and Colorado to entice Texas to remain.
Please do not underestimate how that was viewed in every conference in America. I honestly cannot see IL or Purdue or Northwestern or Indiana or any school in the B1G debasing themselves is such as way to keep tOSU (or Michigan) in the B1G.
This “fact” cemented the media narrative about the disparity of power within the BXII.
The original media reports were that Texas demanded it. Subsequent media reports were that Texas gladly and greedily accepted the payments. My guess is that most people still think Texas demanded the payments and accepted them.
~~~~ The LHN. This “fits” the narrative in several ways.
First, ESPN gave Texas $300 million dollars for their own special network, dedicated solely to all things UT Austin. That was and remains shocking both in the $$ number and in uniqueness (who else has ESPN running their network?). It was another “data point” highlighting the power disparity in the BXII and furthered the meme that Texas was a money machine not at all concerned about its fellow conference mates. With unequal revenue sharing, the difference in revenue and spending between, say, Texas and Iowa State was staggering before the LHN. Now, Texas not only wanted an higher share of the conference TV $$$ but was going to receive another $15 million a year? Texas was just going to rake in the $$, buy a few Titles and use that money-making machine to grind the Seven Would-Be-Orphans (and OKLA and A&M) into the dust.
A related but different point is this: at a time when the B1G is making a network called the Big Ten Network and when the PAC was doing the same, Texas wanted something just for itself. The Conference networks (and now add in the SECN and the ACCN) are marketed as helping ALL the schools/teams. No one was told and no one remembers that Texas tried to get the BXII to look at a conference-wide network in 2005. But that fact doesn’t matter anyway because Texas should have tried again in 2009 (or so the meme goes).
3rd, Scott’s package deal to bring over six schools was, rightly or wrongly, portrayed as a great deal for Texas and the other schools. Everyone was going to be rolling in $$$. But the deal fell through because of the LHN. Texas wanted to have its own special network (greed) and so Texas’ LHN caused the deal to fall through. The triumph of self-interest.
4th, the LHN, a network dedicated solely to UT Austin, was going to broadcast high school games. Anyone with a brain could see the recruiting advantage that would provide which would only further distance Texas from A&M, OKLA and the Would-Be-Orphans. Not only more $$$, but now more recruiting advantages. Greedy greedy greedy.
~~~~ Beebe: the way he behaved as Commissioner was seen as pro-Texas and then when Beebe was replaced, a BXII AD actually said that Beebe was too focused on one school.
~~~~ Minor things like moving the BXII HQ to Dallas.
~~~~ Conspiracy things like how BXII referees always seem to give Texas the benefit of the doubt, ya know, adding time to the clock and all that.
~~~~ Texas fans and the UT Austin administration do not seem to object to this perception. Dodds has certainly made no effort to change the narrative and have Texas cast in a more collegial light. Even on this Board, an occasional Texas fan will opine that Texas has no obligation to allow the Would-Be-Orphans to feast at the Texas teat.
~~~~ etc. etc. i could add more, but this post is already very long.
I am not saying this narrative is true.
I am saying that, sometimes, perception becomes reality.
I am also saying that you are going to have a tough time changing the perception.
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One more thought: “Bullying” is the wrong word. That brings to mind some 200 pound brute giving the 90-lb weakling a wedgie or a swirly.
Texas does not overtly bully the other schools in the BXII. But everyone knows that Texas has all the cards. Every school (including OKLA) is dependent on Texas; dependency begets boot-licking; Texas doesn’t mind having its boots licked.
Btw, have you seen the new BXII Bylaws. The Would-Be-Orphans have no options and better keep their mouths shut. There will be no repeat of all that sassing and trash-talking done by Missouri.
Article 3.2:
“A Member (a “Withdrawing Member”) … shall be deemed to have Withdrawn … (ii) if a Supermajority of Disinterested Directors by affirmative vote determines that such Member: (A) makes statements or takes actions that are determined by a Supermajority of Disinterested Directors to evidence the intent of such Member to withdraw from the Conference either currently or in the future; (B) breaches or evidences its intent to breach or not honor and fully comply with its obligations to the Conference under these Bylaws or the Grant of Rights Agreement for the entirety of the respective terms thereof; (C) if a third party offers to, or attempts to induce a Member to, leave the Conference and/or breach or not to fully perform its future obligations under the Grant of Rights Agreement and the Member does not both (1) inform the Conference of such action as promptly as possible (but in any event not later than twelve (12) hours after such action) and (2) immediately and unconditionally reject that offer in a form and manner reasonably acceptable to the Commissioner; or (D) if a Member otherwise takes or fails to take actions that are determined by a Supermajority of Disinterested Directors to be contrary to the best interests of the Conference taken as a whole.”
Hat tip to Wainscott for the link in the previous thread.
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So tOSU “simply has to color people’s votes”, eh? Hmmm, that reads to me a lot like “first among equals”.
No, you misread me. I was saying it WOULD color the votes IF they had that status. But they do not.
Nothing came of it, but last spring I was sure reading a lot of stuff on tOSU blogs and elsewhere where tOSU was “calling in their B1G chits” they had accumulated through the years to try to force a B1G offer to FSU, a non-AAU football power.
The first four words of your comment (even assuming the rumors are true), say it all: nothing came of it.
Were all those tOSU posters lying to us?
People circulate a lot of water-cooler rumors. Those who spread them may think they’re true. It doesn’t mean they are.
For instance, I don’t think the Dude of West Virginia is a liar, even though he has predicted dozens of things that never happened. He believed his sources, and his sources weren’t very good.
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@BB
Texas hasn’t done a good job stating its side of the case. President Powers has been classy, stayed above the fray and not engaged in tit for tat and always said good things about the other schools. Dodds hasn’t said anything bad except about Missouri (which everyone in the Big 12 has-deservedly so in view of their governor’s comments and how late they left despite the SEC being willing to wait and the B12, BE and CUSA all asking them to delay).
Your comments display the problem. MSM has presented as facts many things that were totally wrong. In many other cases totally misleading. You post is filled with things that aren’t true and in many cases misleading.
Texas as the problem-Colorado and Missouri said nothing of the sort. Missouri wanted stability and $ (in that order). Colorado wanted to connect to its alumni. Nebraska blamed Texas, but a year later President Pearlman it was about money and stability (in that order) and that they always had good relations with Texas. Pearlman and Osborne were doing talking points to negotiate down the exit fee. A&M blamed Texas, but they always do that. That’s a reflection on A&M, not Texas. In any event, a year later, President Bowen said he had planned the SEC move all along, not to get away from Texas, but to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Texas public schools (i.e. get away from Texas Tech).
Unequal revenue sharing. It was really performance based, which, of course, Texas had advantages in. Would it surprise you that sometimes Texas was behind both Oklahoma and Kansas in that revenue sharing? Would it surprise you to know that the BE and Pac 10 were far more unequal? USC made 3 times what WSU did. The spread in the Big 12 was more like $7 million for the bottom school and $11 for the top. And TEXAS proposed shifting to equal revenue sharing on the new contract. They didn’t feel the need to get $20 million while the bottom schools were getting $14. With the bigger contract, everyone could get more.
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The unequal share of exit fees is one of my pet peeves. MSM keep repeating that Texas got their share of the exit fees. That is not true. They offered Texas, Texas A&M and OU their share of the exit fees. Texas immediately said it wasn’t in the by-laws and they would refuse. OU also said that they shouldn’t get it. The greedy ones were A&M and Tech. When hearing of the offer, Tech’s president asked why they wouldn’t get a share as well. A&M whined when the league didn’t give them the left behind 5’s share.
Taking it would have been wrong. But Texas and OU understood that. A&M didn’t.
As for greed, is group greed better? The Big 10 destabilized conferences all over the country and nearly led to the collapse of the Big 12 and ACC, did ultimately collapse the WAC and split the Big East. All for more money for their Big 10 network. Big 10 fans talking about Texas greed are REALLY hypocritical.
We’ve had the discussion on why the Pac 16 fell apart. At the time, Scott said it wasn’t an issue in 2010. It wasn’t even in place then. Scott made some different comments later.
High school games-I don’t see how its a recruiting advantage if there is no bias in selecting the games. The University Interscholastic League (HS athletics coordinating body) in Texas is a division of the University of Texas. Now obviously, the ESPN announcer indicated there would be an emphasis on Texas recruits. It was only then that people got upset.
HQ in Dallas. It makes sense to have HQ in a geographically spread conference in a city with a major airport. KC is a small airport and not geographically central. OKC would be the most central. Dallas is somewhat more central than KC.
Referee conspiracies. Texas fans have the point of view that the refs are more likely to be against Texas. There have been some horrendous calls against Texas in recent years and a lack of pass interference calls. There have really just been the two questionable non-fumble calls in UT’s favor.
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“Scott said it wasn’t an issue in 2010. It wasn’t even in place then.”
True. The actual form and makeup didn’t exist. That wasn’t the issue. The PAC required signing over ALL media rights, a GOR, eliminating any LHN like channel possibly happening. And at the time it was assumed one would be worth only a few mil/yr.
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Michigan’s vote carries the most weight in the Big Ten. Always has, always will. Athletic + Academic/Research = Power. I guess you’re basing your opinion on recent football success. Ridiculous.
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@ Bullet:
To be clear, I was describing what I see to be the national perception. I was also attempting to describe some of the “facts” that the perception is built upon.
I am not supporting or agreeing with or advocating on behalf of that perception. Just trying to describe it as an outsider.
I tend to follow CFB news pretty closely, so I know that facts are often skewed, if not flat wrong. I know, for instance, that Texas did not ultimately take the Exit Monies from the Orphan Seven.
But perceptions are hard to change once “set” by the MSM.
One problem is that, even where the “facts” are dead wrong, those “facts” still tend to have some kernel of truth and often legitimately support some aspect of the perception.
Case in point, no one denies that the Orphan Seven offered up their share of the Exit Monies. IMO, that legitimately supports the part of the perception where power in the BXII is mostly lodged with Texas.
Again, I have no dog in this race. Just describing what I see as the national narrative and pointing out how tough it is to change perception.
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@GreatLakeState
Debatable, as Michigan has repeatedly been against most (all?) expansion attempts since time immemorial. Either way, the point remains: the Big Ten is egalitarian.
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reposting this in its proper place: Sorry.
@ Bullet:
I know this particular thread is dying, but one more long thought.
You said:
“The unequal share of exit fees is one of my pet peeves. MSM keep repeating that Texas got their share of the exit fees. That is not true. They offered Texas, Texas A&M and OU their share of the exit fees. Texas immediately said it wasn’t in the by-laws and they would refuse. OU also said that they shouldn’t get it. The greedy ones were A&M and Tech. When hearing of the offer, Tech’s president asked why they wouldn’t get a share as well. A&M whined when the league didn’t give them the left behind 5′s share.”
To me, your statement only proves how difficult it is to the error-prone media and how difficult it is to change a developing or “set” narrative.
Your statement suggests that I got a detail wrong. You are suggesting only 5 schools offered their share of the Exit Fees; I thought 7. In fact, is it 5, 7 or 4? What IS the number? KS, KState, Mizzou, IowaSt for sure. Baylor as the 5th? Did the Orphans offer the $$ to the full Departing 5 or only to TX, A&M and OKLA?
My memory is that the MSM used the phrase “other schools” which, based on the math at the time was 7. Colorado and Nebraska had left or were leaving. That left 10; UT, OKLA and A&M were offered more of the Exit Fees by the “other schools.” Now, maybe the MSM was clear at first; and then the MSM shifted to the short-hand of the “other schools.” I will google.
The point is that, from the get-go, the MSM does not always get the details correct. Then the MSM muddies the details. No wonder we are all confused.
There is a larger point here too. When trying to change a media narrative, arguments have to be focused and being focused is difficult. Being descriptive and not critical here, you Bullet, made two arguments, neither of which really dented the narrative that “Texas is greedy.” You said first that Texas didn’t take the $$ because the Bylaws didn’t allow it. That does not defeat “Texas is greedy”; that merely shows that Texas is rule-bound. A non-greedy Texas would have said: “No, thanks. Share and share alike.”
Second, you say that A&M and TTech are the greedy ones. Again, that does not work. That A&M and TTech are greedy is not probative (either way) on the question of whether Texas is greedy.
Again, not being critical here, just again trying to highlight how difficult it can be to change perception.
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FWIW, I googled. The MSM was pretty consist in saying KS, KState, Iowa State, Baylor and Mizzou. The phrase used a lot was “the schools not receiving interest from other conferences.”
So, my bad. Got my details wrong. Not “Orphan Seven” but “Remaining Five.”
Btw, here’s Pat Forde’s take. Clear example of the “Texas is Greedy” narrative. from June 15, 2010.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=5287646
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Finally, here is what Texas actually said on June 16, 2010:
“There have been reports that there’s going to be a special deal for some of us using penalty money or other money,” [Texas president Bill] Powers said. “We were not part of that. We have heard about that. … It was not part of our consideration and we oppose that kind of deal.”
http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_/id/13493/clarifying-the-distribution-of-withdrawal-fees
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Marc, I guarantee you they bullied everyone (not named Nebraska). You mean Kansas & Missouri WANTED to move Big XII Headquarters from Kansas City to Dallas? That vote went 11-1 care to guess who opposed it? Isn’t it funny how they have only 10 teams so they Cannot have a Conference Championship Game? Could not possibly have anything to do with extra Scheduling Games for UT could it? I would wager the power difference is > for Texas>Texas Tech (not even mentioning Baylor or Iowa State) than Ohio State>Purdue or even Alabama>Mississippi State or USC>Washington State. Are things perfect in Austin? No they wish A&M never left the reservation, but they can live with it…………. Unless A&M and the SEC destroy Texas Recruiting and (or) Oklahoma wants to leave. Basically this is the “Big Two & Little Eight” of Bo & Woody Days on steroids. The Big Two here are UT & OU.
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The KC/Dallas vote was 7-5 or 8-4. The schools close to KC wanted KC. The 5 schools close to DFW wanted Dallas. Colorado and Texas Tech wanted the 3rd largest airport in the country instead of a minor one. So it moved to a much more accessible place to anyone not within driving distance.
At the end they decided to quit rotating the ccg and move it to Dallas because Jerry offered them $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Everyone wanted that but Nebraska who wanted a home field advantage some years and was willing to take less $. Noone else wanted to take less $ so Nebraska could have a home field advantage.
There was an 11-1 vote on limiting partial qualifiers. Yes, the Big 12 was one of 2 conferences with that rule, but Nebraska had more partial qualifiers than any other CONFERENCE in the country. The whole NCAA banned them a couple years later. It didn’t make sense to have “student”-athletes who had no business in a 4 year university.
They moved to a 9 game schedule so your comment about scheduling extra games for UT is pretty bizarre. Everyone likes the round robin. Everything I have read is that the schools most opposed to expansion are the lower revenue schools, but the feeling is pretty much unanimous. WVU would like a neighbor but doesn’t want a pay cut either.
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Round-robin schedules are pretty nice. I’d give up the Big Ten’s championship game for a thirteenth regular season game, or just more conference play period.
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SDSU is ranked higher in USNWR (152) and better numbers in acceptance rate (31percent) and yield than many of the schools you give points to.
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Academics isn’t the problem with SDSU; distance is.
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The people talking about the Big 12 needing to expand for recruiting purposes are completely off base. There is no market the Big 12 can expand into that would really change recruiting demographics for the Big 12.
Sorry, folks, a minor directional school on an island in Florida isn’t suddenly going to get big time recruits to decline offers from SEC and ACC schools to head to the heartland to play in Iowa, Kansas, or Oklahoma. Not happening. Look, the SEC wanted into Texas for the longest time because of TV sets and recruiting. They could have picked up any old dog any time they wanted to like Houston, TCU, SMU, etc. Why didn’t they? That did NOTHING for them. Texas A&M did because it was huge school with a huge fan base.
For recruiting to get a boost you need two things. First, a major recruiting state that is contiguous with your current footprint. Secondly, you need to have a big time school located in that state. Directional schools from Florida do neither. Same with Cincinnati, etc.
If the Big 12 looks to expand because it is hoping to expand its recruiting grounds then there will be no expansion. There isn’t a school that realistically helps Big 12 recruiting that would even remotely consider the Big 12.
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Nope, I think you’re off-base.
If one of Texas and Oklahoma played in Orlando each year, that exposure would definitely help both UT and OU recruit Florida better. Ditto Cincinnati and Ohio. Ditto Tulane and Louisiana. Ditto California and SDSU.
Furthermore, those new recruiting grounds would also help the rest of the conference. Take WVU. WVU historically has pulled recruits out of Florida. You do realize that you’re saying WVU would recruit Florida no better than they do now even though with, say, UCF in the B12 WVU would be playing games in Florida? That’s just wrong.
Your argument is simply nonsensical.
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The question is, how many FL kids would WV get, beyond what it was going to get anyway, just because WV plays in Orlando one game every other year? It’s not enough to influence the decision to expand.
Having decided to expand, would it be wise to consider states with good recruiting territory? Of course. That’s why FTT gave that factor 20 out of 100 possible points in his scoring. But the decision is still dominated by the factors adding up to the other 80 points.
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Of course there is no way of knowing with certainty, but I would venture to guess WVU could sign an extra one or two nice Florida prospects per year with conference exposure in, say, Orlando. You can only sign 25 per year.
I’d bet Texas and Oklahoma could recruit at least one excellent Florida recruit per year with exposure in Florida. Oklahoma already spends some energy in Florida, IIRC, so they’d probably do better than Texas, but I expect Texas would ramp up Florida efforts if Orlanda were in the B12 mix.
Texas has recruited Louisiana pretty hard in the last few years. This year we’ve verballed two LA prospects. With Tulane in the league I’d imagine we could get more and better quality LA recruits.
Texas’ best linebacker is the Hicks kid from Ohio. 5-star Ohio prep star. One of the best RBs in Texas history (Jones) was out of Ohio. With Cincinnati in the B12, I can assure you Texas would spend more time on Ohio, absolutely.
It’s just silly to say that the B12 will get little or no interest from recruits in other states if the B12 had a flag planted in that state.
That’s like saying the B1G would get little or no benefit in recruiting the State of Texas if UT was a B1G member. Preposterous.
Of course this is all moot because the schools of the B12 are myopic. That are apparently not willing to grow a UCF, or a Cincy, or a Tulane, or any of the others. It seems to be ND, FSU or nothing. Guess it’s nothing.
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Texas will continue to put almost all its efforts into Texas. There’s no need to spread themselves thin. Adding Florida schools won’t help any of the 6 Big 12 south schools. OU can recruit w/o a Florida team. The rest won’t try much. It might help WVU, ISU and the Kansas schools.
Under Mackovic, Texas did try to recruit Florida. They had no success. While that was John Mackovic (if Mack Brown is Mr. February, Mackovic was Mr. anti-February), Texas did try to recruit California then and had some success. Ricky Williams for one.
Florida schools add another island. There’s no guarantee they get decent penetration. And they will be #4 and #5 in the state. Nothing will change that for a very long time. They may be among the better choices, but that’s why the Big 12 won’t expand.
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Nope, you are wrong. Occasionally kids leave state and move far way to play. That happens occasionally. Kansas or Kansas State or Iowa State or TCU or Baylor, etc. etc. etc. playing a single game in Orland every second or third or fourth year is not going to get some kid with offers from FSU and Florida and wants to play close to home to suddenly change course and go to these Big 12 schools. That is the epitome of being non-sensical.
Kids living in Florida with big time offers in Florida are not suddenly going to change course and move half a continent away simply because a podunk directional Florida school is playing in Kansas or Iowa. Do you even think about what you are saying?
This is akin to the SEC adding San Jose State because it thinks it’s going to receive some major recruiting windfall. The SEC was wise enough to know that even though the state of Texas was contiguous to its footprint and Texas produced the most D-1 football players in the country that adding inconsequential junk out of the state did them no good. And the SEC wanted in Texas BADLY. They have for a long time.
The Big 12 is in the same boat. However, Florida is far off island (unlike Texas was to the SEC) and produces even less D-1 talent than Texas. Plus, the Big 12 is not the SEC in prestige or allure. Not even close. Don’t make yourself look desperate.
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Watch how many Louisiana kids start flocking to aTM
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Not entirely true. Despite the tough season, USF still is bringing in a top 40 recruiting class-and this despite the fact that next year USF will be in the G5 and essentially demoted to the second tier of football!
In addition you underrate USF and UCF’s potential. In 2007 and 2008, at the peak of our teams, USF was regularly putting 50k in the stands. A return to winning, and playing meaningful games against meaningful competition (even schools like WVU) will bring that back. UCF regularly packs it’s stadium as well, and they’re making room for expansions. The big 3 out here all have down cycles. Florida is currently going through one, in fact. Put two schools on the I-4 corridor, and when either of us has good years as we’re likely to do, and we can take it away from them. We’ve shown before we are capable of winning. Give us a chance and we’ll reward you.
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What are the odds that the Big12 expanding does nothing to solidify the league?
None of the expansion candidates seem like it would keep Kansas or Oklahoma from leaving if they got an invite. IMO the only chance the Big12 had was to convince Notre Dame to join.
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No school wants to take money out of their pockets by expanding just for the sake of expanding.
By expanding with the schools listed by Frank, that’s exactly what the B12 schools would be doing: lessening their bottom lines.
Hence, expansion would not solidify the league in the short run.
And nobody in the B12 is thinking about the long run. I think they feel like they can’t afford to think about the long run.
The B12 is likely doomed because it may well be that their current television contract is overpaid.
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Blackmon stays at Indiana.
http://www.crimsonquarry.com/2013/10/31/5053026/james-blackmon-jr-re-commits-to-indiana
The Tan One has pulled another rabbit out of his hat
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Speaking of hoops.
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2013/10/28015/four-team-mens-basketball-event-featuring-ohio-state-kentucky-north-carolina-and-ucla-#more
OSU, UK, UNC and UCLA have agreed to a 3 year basketball event. They will rotate through playing each other at neutral sites in 2014-2016. It’s just 1 game each year, but still an interesting idea. OSU seems like the odd school out on that list, though, based on history.
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I think it was due to the current event ending between Michigan State, Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas. If Michigan State was getting dropped then the next B1G school probably should have been Indiana, but maybe dropping the series moved Ohio State into that slot. Keeps the event with a Big 5 school in each series. First set had ACC, B1G, B12, and SEC and this will have ACC, B1G, PAC, and SEC. It may seem odd but Ohio State is not totally out of place. The more interesting issue was not replacing Kentucky with Florida as the SEC representative.
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It’s Kentucky’s event.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9879552/kentucky-wildcats-john-calipari-finalizing-champions-classic-unc-tar-heels-ucla-bruins-ohio-state-buckeyes?ex_cid=espnapi_public
The old series is renewing and Kentucky is starting a new one with 3 new teams. Kentucky and Indiana have some issues going right now as I seem to recall.
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Yeah, googling that, I guess that last year the UK/Indiana series was not renewed as Indiana wanted UK home and home, and UK wanted Indiana at a neutral site. If they wanted Indiana for their Champions Classic and Indiana refused, picking the Buckeyes as one of Kentucky’s “other Big Ten neighbors” instead would be a bit of a snub to Indiana.
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One each from four of the big five.
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Not as “odd” as you think. OSU’s football perception is in large part due to its own fan base, which is undebatable – you can’t stop such passion, it is what it is. But if the fans had similar zeal with their basketball, I think OSU would have multiple NCs at this point.
OSU does have 11 FF’s, 3 in the 64+ team era, one with a * next to it, though I thought that penalty was too harsh for O’Brien and company. No other BIG school has double digit FF appearances. However, OSU has the distinction of being the only school w/double digit FF’s and not at least 3 NCs to show for it. KU, Duke, UCLA, UNC, & now Lville each have 3 NCs, as well as 10 or more FFs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men's_Division_I_Final_Four_appearances_by_school
Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Bob Knight, as well as many others, will resonate with CB historians til the end of time. Heck, Lucas and Havlicek were outstanding NBA players – two of NBA’s 50 Greatest of All Time, albeit Lucas may fall from that list if the next update sticks with only 50. But I see the NBA only expanding such a future list.
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gfunk,
“Not as “odd” as you think.”
Really?
#1 UCLA – 11 titles
#2 UK – 8 titles
#3t UNC – 5 titles
#15t OSU – 1 title
I think OSU is clearly the odd team out. The other 3 are king programs, OSU is a prince at best (depends how many kings and princes you choose, I suppose).
“But if the fans had similar zeal with their basketball, I think OSU would have multiple NCs at this point.”
Fans don’t win or lose NCAA tournament games for you. OSU should have beaten UC one of those 2 times, and the odds say they should have converted another Final 4 into a title, but they haven’t. Besides, OSU has always had plenty of hoops fans. The majority favor football, but hoops has always been well supported. Don’t forget that the state borders IN and KY and many people share their sensibilities in terms of sports preference.
“No other BIG school has double digit FF appearances.”
#3t IN – 5 titles, 8 FFs
#9t MSU – 2 titles, 8 FFs
#15t OSU – 1 title, 10 FFs
I’d take IN’s or MSU’s numbers any day.
“Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Bob Knight, as well as many others, will resonate with CB historians til the end of time.”
Our most famous player now being known for being IN’s coach is part of the problem.
It’s not like I don’t know OSU’s history. But it’s hardly a stretch to say they aren’t in the same club as UCLA, UK and UNC.
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Foremost, the premise of the Champions Classic is not just for basketball kings.
But here we go again Brian. Your misunderstandings of me continue you on here. You really need things explained in excruciating detail and pure, literal logic, which doesn’t help you in the blogosphere. And please cut the textual analysis and quote captures, please, I mean please, just stop doing it – way too serious and anal-retentive for my taste. I’m not the only visitor that finds this annoying. I’m not here for score-based, formal debate & if I was, you’d truly hate me, because many of your past posts are filled with pure opinion w/o much logic and lacking in the credible evidence department.
“Not as odd as you think” means I agree with you to a point. You’re talking to someone who clearly knows the history of the game. I do unquestionably know the other 3 programs are definitely kings & OSU is not, so spare me your insulting tone & learn to read between lines young man. But I am also suggesting that OSU has a pretty damn good basketball resume in the 2000s, not all-time blue blood-king status mind you. So be proud as a Buckeye fan. There are at most 6 kings in CB: UCLA, UNC, Duke, Ky, KU and IU. Of these 6, UCLA has simply not measured up in the modern era, though not far behind IU. They’re drop-off, post Wooden, is staggering, but to be expected. He was called the “Wizard” for good reason & the tourney format has clearly changed and home court games and first round byes are gone. As for king status, Lville is getting really close. MSU and UConn are a tad further back. Btw, OSU and I believe one other program (perhaps Villanova) are the only schools to appear in a NCAA tourney in every decade since the beginning.
It’s pretty clear to me, w/o my post, that this Champions Classic format is ALSO, repeat ALSO, again ALSO, looking at the stronger programs of the past 15 years, as well as big brands that attract viewership – not Kings only. OSU, is therefore more than qualified to participate. They don’t measure up to Ky and UNC over the past 15 years, but they’re on par or better than UCLA. OSU is clearly one of the 10 strongest programs of the past decade.
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gfunk,
“Foremost, the premise of the Champions Classic is not just for basketball kings.”
I didn’t say it was. Maybe you should try reading what I actually wrote instead of what you want me to have written.
I said OSU seems like the odd team out based on history. Not that they didn’t belong. Not that their recent performance hasn’t been on par. That their history was not on par.
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Throughout this thread I have repeatedly made the point that if the B12 expanded today with any of the schools on Frank’s list, the schools of the B12 would make less money due to television contract dilution. All available evidence that I am aware of seems to bear out contract dilution.
So … should the B12 expand anyway?
The problem with the B12 is that it operates on the “television Tier 3” paradigm and not on the “league network” paradigm, such as a BTN. Hence, the B12 appears to be hemmed in by a sort of “divided we fall” and not “united we stand”. Thus it may be that expansion is the very thing that destroys the B12 due to increased contract dilution.
If you were running Texas, or Oklahoma, or Kansas, wouldn’t you be persuaded to keep the “Tier 3” model in place since it appears today to be successful for your school? As the GOR reaches the time for re-upping (about 3 or 4 years before it expires), you know that at that time you could read the money, see what you’re making, and see what the other big leagues are paying. Personally, I don’t think the B12 big 3 have much incentive in changing the status quo off of a 10-team league.
But what about the B12 schools other than Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas? Should the thinking be different for, say, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Iowa State, and the others?
I wonder if there might be more strength in the long-run for the B12 non-big 3 if the B12 expanded today? By accepting less money today on the television contract, but adding new schools and markets, the non-big 3 have the opportunity to “grow” other schools and other markets. Plus, the big 3 have no choice but to hang around the B12 until at least June 2025.
By June 2025, might an expanded B12 have had the time to “grow” schools such as Cincinnati, UCF, USF, SDSU, UNLV, Tulane, Memphis, or others? The non-big 3 might be able to grow such schools at the expense of the big 3, and in June 2025 these new (now old) schools might act as a hedge against the big 3 if the big 3 leave for better pastures.
Furthermore, might an expanded B12 by June 2025 be sufficiently mature, and profitable, perhaps to entice the big 3 to stay in the B12? In other words, might an expanded B12 be in the best interest of the big 3 as well as the non-big 3?
Clearly, in the short run, an addition of 2, 4, or 6 of the listed schools would be a drag on the B12 financial fortunes. The more schools, the more the drag. But the B12 today is the State of Texas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and part of Kansas City. Is that footprint really a recipe for long-term stability?
And if you’re running a non-big 3 school, might you have concerns about where your school might land if the big 3 bolt at the end of the GOR? Since your non-big 3 school would probably land in the middle of nowhere, why isn’t it a good bet to try to develop other schools now while Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas are still in the league? Isn’t there a better opportunity to develop “lesser” schools now, while the big 3 are part of the B12 for the next 12 years?
The B12 seems to be in a very complicated situation, especially if you’re running a non-big 3 school. The big 3 schools are fine, both now and in the future. Each of them can find a league to take them in, as needed. But if you’re a non-big 3 school, might you gamble, take a flyer, take a hit financially in the short run, and hope you shore up the long run? Just a suggestion.
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Schools such as Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas Christian and Baylor need to bolster the Big 12 as best they can in preparation for any defections by the “big boys” — whether it be Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Okie State joining the Pac, Texas and Kansas joining the Big Ten or OU?OkSU heading to the SEC.
This might give West Virginia the chance to bring in Cincinnati as the nearby rival it seeks. ISU did quite a bit of recruiting in Florida in the ’70s and ’80s, and with UCF and USF,it could complement Texas as a recruiting ground. If the Big 12 post-defections is seen as sufficiently strong, it could lure the best of the second-tier conferences (Tulane, New Mexico) and even possibly Brigham Young, but that would be a long shot.
The non-power Big 12 members must be proactive and united, as even the weakest would still have more value than schools in weaker leagues. Think of the earlier food chain of ACC > Big East > C-USA.
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Schools such as Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas Christian and Baylor need to bolster the Big 12 as best they can in preparation for any defections by the “big boys” — whether it be Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Okie State joining the Pac, Texas and Kansas joining the Big Ten or OU?OkSU heading to the SEC.
Except that by bolstering the league, they risk pushing out the Big Boys.
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Exactly right.
Texas and Oklahoma might leave anyways in 10-12 years, but by backfilling with lesser programs, that likelihood increases exponentially.
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There is another factor that people have to consider and that is affinity. Presidents and other academic types like to hang around certain company. Fans like to talk about attendance, brand, travel, competitiveness. Academics like to talk academic fit. With respect to the Big 12, after the flagships of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, the other schools in that league don’t get a lot of respect in other conferences. I wish it was not the case but that is the reality. Tech is a decent school with potential to be even better for the next 20 years but the B1G elitists have a big problem with Tech academics or they would have been the #18 school by now. WVU, correct me if I’m wrong, has a mandate to not automatically turn away any applicant from that state. Then there are the private schools with religious foundation, which drive the extreme secularists at several locations *coughPAC*cough* up the proverbial wall.
What grates me (and this applies to situations in other conferences as well) is that fans have adopted the same type of elitism that the academics have been known for quite a long time. How many times have you heard the same qualm about “X will never get to Y conference”? How does one know? We are just fans here with opinions. Some of us don’t even have a degree from a school we support (SECSECSEC) but still feel a connection to that school. If you ask an average fan what project a particular school is engaged in today, he/she would have a very hard time answering. Yet, that same person brags about academics.
I wish I knew the answer to what ails the Big 12 but I do have some suggestions:
– If you’re going to be the fifth wheel in the P5 then you may as well be a rebel league. The Big East failed to take that tact and they suffered as a result. They thought they’d remain part of the club and had to learn the hard way. If you’re the league that’s constantly disrespected then do something to defy those who are against you.
– Make a name change. It makes no sense for the Big XII to have a name that includes a number. Same would go for the Big Ten but at least they have the foresight to come up with “B1G”, while not the best logo, at least gives the appearance of possibility.
– Play games in other recruiting states. I would give the same advice to the B1G schools. It’s no use whining about where people are moving. Texas did play one game at UCF’s stadium but Texas is Texas. The other B12 schools should do everything they can to play OOC in Georgia, Florida, California and Louisiana, as well as Texas. Hell, why not play a game in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey (like Kansas is doing in a few years) and Pennsylvania? Get the conference name out there. You have the promotional vehicles. Use them. A P5 conference has a lot more cache to pull this off than a G5 conference. With so many games on TV these days, the schools need to do more that put the game on. Talk about Kansas State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State in the other regions.
– The schools just can’t live in fear. That’s what happened to the Big East. Get a commissioner that is going to talk up the conference like it’s nobody’s business. I don’t know much about Bowlsby but I tend to think he’s not the type that has the ability to promote the conference. Networks have other conferences to answer to, so they can’t be of much help, either. I know you’re constrained regionally right now but that doesn’t mean you have no room to promote your product. Notre Dame doesn’t let South Bend, IN, constrain them, either.
Hopefully, these suggestions would be helpful to you.
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If you’re going to be the fifth wheel in the P5 then you may as well be a rebel league. The Big East failed to take that tact and they suffered as a result. They thought they’d remain part of the club and had to learn the hard way. If you’re the league that’s constantly disrespected then do something to defy those who are against you.
Who said the Big XII was the fifth wheel? The ACC is significantly worse both competitively and financially and was officially to relegated to second tier status when they had to accept a vastly inferior tie in for their champ.
Seriously, who has been disrespecting the Big XII?
Make a name change. It makes no sense for the Big XII to have a name that includes a number. Same would go for the Big Ten but at least they have the foresight to come up with “B1G”, while not the best logo, at least gives the appearance of possibility.
Should the ACC change its name because it includes two schools from landlocked states? Should the SEC change its name because it added schools from the Midwest and Southwest? Should the PAC change its name because it has two schools in the middle of the desert, one in Salt Lake City and another that is located closer to the Gulf of Mexico than the Pacific Ocean?
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Seriously, who has been disrespecting the Big XII?
ESPN. They are the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to creating perception. Yes, the P5 schools have their reason for including the B12 but when you take both the fall and spring semesters into consideration, the ESPiN hype machine puts the ACC in a much better light than the B12. It’s only because of their (ACC) recent struggles (before this year) in football that the two leagues have been neck-and-neck in the fans’ minds.
This doesn’t change my opinion of the ACC. I personally hate it and love it when their teams lose.
Should the ACC change its name because it includes two schools from landlocked states? Should the SEC change its name because it added schools from the Midwest and Southwest? Should the PAC change its name because it has two schools in the middle of the desert, one in Salt Lake City and another that is located closer to the Gulf of Mexico than the Pacific Ocean?
I guess we’re going to have a difference of opinion as to how we’d define region. The PAC may well be “The West Conference” (no disrespect to MWC intended), the ACC “The Eastern Standard Conference”, the SEC “The Southern Comfort Conference” and the B1G “The Northern Conference”. The XII may be “The Middle America Conference”. Older people’s definition of region is much more conservative, I would admit.
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“Middle America Conference”? Sounds too much (and has the same initials) as another league we know.
And Transic, I note in your earlier post you didn’t mention ISU. It’s AAU (though perhaps tottering a bit a la Kansas), is a respected institution and does quite well given the resources it’s been given (17 or so consecutive home football games with 50,000+ attendance, sellouts for most men’s basketball games, women’s hoops average attendance just below 10,000). That’s pretty good fan support, and yet many here want to throw it out of the BCS and ship it to the Mid-American or Mountain West, which is simply absurd.
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I guess you and I just have different perceptions have the level of “respect” the Big XII receives.
And on the second issue, I think your point is that names to have to be literal which would mean the Big XII should be ok.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/10/31/big-ten-commissioner-jim-delany-endorses-ncaa-approach-to-change/3328041/
Jim Delany supports the NCAA restructuring plans that involve just giving the Big 5 conferences more voting power but not leaving the NCAA nor forming a D-IV.
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Below are the top 25 USA universities hosting international students in 2011/12.
(Source: Institute of International Education. (2012). “Top 25 Institutions Hosting International Students, 2011/12.” Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. Retrieved from http://www.iie.org/opendoors.)
1 University of Southern California Los Angeles CA => 9,269
2 University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign Champaign IL => 8,997
3 New York University New York NY => 8,660
4 Purdue University – Main Campus West Lafayette IN => 8,563
5 Columbia University New York NY => 8,024
6 University of California – Los Angeles Los Angeles CA => 6,703
7 Northeastern University Boston MA => 6,486
8 University of Michigan – Ann Arbor Ann Arbor MI => 6,382
9 Michigan State University East Lansing MI => 6,209
10 Ohio State University – Main Campus Columbus OH => 6,142
11 Indiana University – Bloomington Bloomington IN => 6,123
12 Penn State University – University Park University Park PA => 6,075
13 Boston University Boston MA => 6,041
14 University of Minnesota – Twin Cities Minneapolis MN => 5,661
15 Arizona State University Tempe AZ => 5,616
16 University of Florida Gainesville FL => 5,588
17 Harvard University Cambridge MA => 5,453
18 University of Washington Seattle WA => 5,372
19 SUNY University at Buffalo Buffalo NY => 5,357
20 University of Texas – Austin Austin TX => 5,324
21 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia PA => 5,296
22 Texas A&M University College Station TX => 5,013
23 University of California – Berkeley Berkeley CA => 5,004
24 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta GA => 4,973
25 University of Houston Houston TX => 4,879
The Texas Longhorns are not only a national brand.
The University of Texas is also a global brand.
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It would seem that Northeastern University, my alma mater and a school that dropped football, is even a bigger global brand than UT.
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Wow, Big10 freakin’ay. 8 of the top 14. The top 14 is essentially the B10 and some privates (mostly big ones) in major cities (and UCLA).
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Reminds me of the reply of Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division, when told of the German demand to surrender during the Battle of the Bulge:
“Nuts!”
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Just be Thankful (if you are reading this and your team ‘Is Not’ a Big XII team) that you are not in that cesspool of a conference
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Go Bucks.
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Frank,
As always, I enjoyed your analysis. One factor that perhaps should be quantified in addition to the ones you chose is an athletic department’s ability to sustain itself independent of conference affiliation. Beyond TV appeal, current football prowess, location, etc., candidates need to answer, “How strong are you WITHOUT us?”
TCU would have scored highly in these areas. Before it ever got a Big 12 invitation, and before it even got a Big East invitation, it raised the money to completely re-create Amon-Carter stadium from an utterly outdated artifact to a beautiful, modern facility. They did this without any significant conference revenue, and, most impressively, they paid for it straight-up. No loans. No debt. The athletic department was very financially solvent without being in a major conference. This was one of the tgings that made TCU a power conference program without being in a power conference. Regardless of other factors, their strength independent of conference affiliation made them a safe pick for the Big 12.
Similar things coukd have been said for Utah and Louisville. Both were power conference-ready, as you once described TCU.
BYU fits this bill. They’re power conference ready by almost any measure.
With Cincinnati, I think they’d still fall a little short. Their attendance for football is in the low 30K’s. They are having trouble financing expansions and renovations to Nippert Stadium. They have trouble holding onto good football coaches, and while some may argue that Dantonio, Kelly, and Jones all left for better jobs, consider how other programs have been able to keep their best coaches. Chris Petersen is stillbat Boise. Charlie Strong stayed at Louisville rather than go to Tennessee. Heck, Davis Cutcliffe stayed at freaking Duke rather than take the Tennessee job, which is why UT wound up with Derek Dooley. Jim Grobe stayed at Wake Forest rather than going to Arkansas. Gary Patterson stayed at TCU in spite of numerous other opportunities. Cincinnati’s inability to keep good coaches should be cause for concern for a power conference like the Big 12.
Would it make sense to add a measure that factors strength independent of conference affiliation, and if so, how would you quantify it?
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Athletic budget (and if you had more information like the conferences do-facilities). Cincinnati and USF have been the bottom of the AQ schools. Schools like BYU and Memphis have larger budgets. As you point out, UL rates highly. Houston and Rice haven’t been quite at the level of Cincinnati and USF, but are very high among the remaining schools.
Without looking at the USA Today report, I believe UConn and BYU are the only ones who are ahead of more than a couple of the bottom P5 schools in budget.
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You realize Cincinnati’s stadium only seats 35K right? A couple thousand seats in their stadium are basically obstructed so when they put 32,33K in their stadium it is basically a sell out. Despite playing a subpar schedule this year, they are still brining in a strong crowd.
They are not having difficulty financing their stadium project. They have already sold all of the luxury boxes they added to the stadium (the new stadium will have ~ 20 boxes at $100K a pop).
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Poster X is correct. Cincinnati’s $86 million stadium rebuild is being done with private support and will open in 2015. More important than increasing to 40,000 seats will be millions of dollars in incremental revenue from luxury boxes and club seats. This substantially improves the athletic budget. Nippert is truly the Wrigley Field of BCS football and anyone who hasn’t experienced a game there has missed out. Attendance and fan interest are at an all-time high and in a metro of 2 million plus there is huge upside.
Last time I checked Duke’s 10,000 seat basketball arena hasn’t hindered them from winning at the highest level. Stadium/arena size is only one of many factors in evaluating expansion candidates.
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Yes I realize it only seats 35,000. That is part of the problem.
Even if Nippert could be expanded, setting aside the difficulties of doing so given thay it is completely surrounded by other campus buildings, how big could it get and still reasonably sell out? The games at Paul Brown against WVU and Louisville only sold in the low 40K’s. Would Nippert be able to sell out as a 45K seat stadium when some opponents would be Oklahoma and Texas, but others Iowa State, Kansas, a down TCU, and some FCS cupcake? Even if they could, that stadium is still a major hurdle because the reality is that we CAN’T set aside the obstacles to an expanded Nippert. It physically cannot be done, beyond the luxury boxes they’re adding.
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The stadium will be over 40K when completed in 2015. There is speculation the enhancements to the stadium will allow for additional seating as well in the future. When Oklahoma came to Cincinnati in 2010 there were over 58K people at Paul Brown Stadium (during a year were the Bearcats started out poorly and was suffering from the post-Brian Kelly depression). I would expect the crowd to be similar if not greater if and when Texas came to town and I would venture the crowds for some other schools would be fairly strong. If UC could pack them in like they have this year for an FCS school and Temple, I doubt they would have trouble for any of the B12 schools.
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Some actual numbers from USA Today, #42 UConn ($63.5m), #47 UNLV ($55.8m), #53 Cincy ($48.9m), #54 Memphis ($46.8m), #55 Air Force ($44.5m), #56 USF ($43.6m), #57 Boise St ($43.4m), #58 New Mexico ($43.3m), #60 UCF ($40.9m), #62 SDSU ($38m), #64 Houston ($36.4m)
Louisville had a budget of $87.8m, placing them 20th in the nation. Terrible move by the Big XII not taking them as an 11th.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/schools/finances/
Tulane’s budget was only $24m in 2011-12, and I seriously doubt it doubled in two years. That is a MAC level budget, which makes them a non-starter for the Big XII (Frank flat missed this). BYU’s budget seems to be rumored a bit lower than $40m, but is profitable.
The Florida schools are disappointing. South Florida is in much better budget situation than Central Florida when you look at the subsidy level.
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Tulane has been slowly building back up from Katrina. They’ve had some waivers.
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I’d eliminate any other Texas schools. Tulane makes no sense. The school everyone dismisses is NIU. Close to Chicago. Adds a huge TV market. Football is strong, the rest of the sports are not, but steps are being taken. Football facility needs upgrades but those are in planning. Is NIU ready right now? No. But in 3-5 years, they will be. Right now, NIU is stronger than Memphis in everything but basketball. The Big 12 needs to expand its footprint. NIU and Cincy do that.
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Yes, NIU, with that legendary national following. A true monster in the ratings, NIU is.
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I personally have a lot of affinity for NIU (my wife is finishing her Ed.D. there, my father-in-law went there for college and it’s fairly short drive from where I live in Naperville), but it’s a quintessential MAC school in every way (i.e. types of undergrad students, athletic budget, level of fan support, TV coverage, academics, etc.). They’re a good story and I’ll root for them, yet they are quite far away from being a power conference athletic department. Plus, the Chicago area is an extremely competitive college sports market with the proximity of Illinois and Northwestern and the rest of the Big Ten plus Notre Dame (and then adding that it’s one of the strongest pro markets that you’ll find anywhere on top of that).
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Yes, as someone who lives about 25 minutes from NIU and grew up in Oklahoma I would love to see the Huskies in the Big XII but the fact they can’t even get an AAC invite should be a pretty clear indication they have neither the level of support nor the infrastructure in place to compete in a major conference.
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NIU would not make a LATERAL move to the AAC. It’s ridiculous to say that they “couldn’t get” an AAC invite, when the AAC probably reached out to NIU before it eventually settled for ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, etc.
By the nonsensical criteria listed here, NIU would have no less than 90 points, or tied with Cincy for the “best fit” for the Big 12 and a true evaluation would render NIU as the top choice for #11 with #12 TBD.
NIU and Cincy are the obvious options on almost every front.
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AAC wouldn’t be a lateral; it would be an upgrade. It pays better and is stronger competitively.
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“when the AAC probably reached out to NIU before it eventually settled for ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, etc”.
it probably did not, but if you have proof, I’m sure everyone would love to see it.
Its almost like the NIU posters are all the same person with different names…
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Not even the AAC wants Northern Illinois.
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The Big 12’s TV deal expires in 2025, the ACC’s expires in 2027 & the existing BCS TV money expires in 2026. I could see this as an end-game & as 1 of the few results I would personally be happy with as a Clemson alumnus & a college football fan. B1G, PAC & SEC have their own TV networks & ACC/XII don’t. It’s possible B1G, PAC & SEC will be paying their schools $50M each by 2025-27, while Big XII is still at $29.2M & the ACC is at $24.8M (average/not prorated).
Virginia, North Carolina, Duke & Georgia Tech to B1G 18. B1G gets the AAU schools.
Virginia Tech, NC State, Clemson & Florida State to SEC 18. SEC gets the football brands.
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, OK State, Kansas, K-State to PAC 18. PAC gets the heartland.
6 leftover ACC teams join 4 leftover Big XII teams & the 8 current American teams for New 18.
Basically 8 conferences with 9 members combined into 4 super conferences. Only the 8 division games count towards conference record so everyone has a fair shot at the conference championship game. Ohio State would still play Michigan, Tenn/Bama & Georgia/Auburn could continue playing but the result wouldn’t effect the teams’ chances of making the CCG (except as a distant tie breaker).
B1G East
Georgia Tech. North Carolina. Duke.
Virginia. Maryland. Rutgers
Penn State. Ohio State. Indiana.
B1G West
Michigan. Michigan State. Purdue.
Illinois. Northwestern. Wisconsin.
Minnesota. Iowa. Nebraska.
SEC East
Florida. Florida State. Georgia.
South Carolina. Clemson. Tennessee.
NC State. Virginia Tech. Kentucky.
SEC West
Vanderbilt. Alabama. Auburn.
Mississippi. Mississippi State. Louisiana State.
Arkansas. Missouri. Texas A&M.
PAC East
Texas. Texas Tech. Oklahoma.
Kansas. Kansas State. Oklahoma State.
Colorado. Arizona. Arizona State.
PAC West
UCLA. USC. California.
Stanford. Oregon. Oregon State.
Washington. Washington State. Utah.
ACC/XII/AAC East
Boston College. Connecticut. Syracuse.
Temple. Pittsburgh. Wake Forest.
Central Florida. South Florida. Miami.
ACC/XII/AAC West
West Virginia. Cincinnati. Louisville.
Iowa State. Memphis. Houston.
Baylor. Southern Methodist. Texas Christian.
Notre Dame, Brigham Young, Army & Navy stay independent. Navy, East Carolina, Tulane (sorry Frank) & Tulsa don’t join the American & aren’t promoted to the ACC/Big XII/AAC.
14 of the 18 teams in ACC/XII/AAC would be former BCS teams. UCF, Memphis, Houston & SMU are the other 4 & are BCS teams for 2013-only. I could see the champion having an automatic spot in a BCS bowl like the Orange Bowl & receive a lesser payday than the Big 3 (like the ACC’s current $27.5 million vs everyone elses’ $40M). Play would be kept regionally, a division championship would be a big deal & a conference championship would be huge. The top 4 as voted by the committee would continue to make the playoffs for the national championship. I’d like to see a 4th division because no school outside of the 4-18 team conferences, Notre Dame & BYU (74 teams) would have a chance.
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Tigertails,
“The Big 12′s TV deal expires in 2025, the ACC’s expires in 2027 & the existing BCS TV money expires in 2026.”
Other important years:
2024 – P12 tier 1 TV deal ends, SEC tier 1 and tier 2 TV deals end
2032 – BTN deal ends
??? – whenever the next B10 tier 1 TV deal ends (10 years = 2027)
??? – whenever the first SECN deal ends
“I could see this as an end-game & as 1 of the few results I would personally be happy with as a Clemson alumnus & a college football fan.”
You may be happy with it, but millions of others wouldn’t be.
“Virginia, North Carolina, Duke & Georgia Tech to B1G 18. B1G gets the AAU schools.”
Plausible, but the talk of 16 being a sweet spot may mean something.
“Virginia Tech, NC State, Clemson & Florida State to SEC 18. SEC gets the football brands.”
The SEC has shown zero interest in FSU or Clemson recently. They already own those 2 states for the SECN. They might take VT and NCSU, but they’ll fight hard for UNC first.
“Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, OK State, Kansas, K-State to PAC 18. PAC gets the heartland.”
I don’t see them wanting that group because too many schools dilute the value of UT. UT, TT, OU and OkSU? Sure (if they have to take OkSU, they will). OK is not a large state and KS is small. Besides, going to 16 lets them split into geographic regions and regain the old Pac 8 as one division.
“6 leftover ACC teams join 4 leftover Big XII teams & the 8 current American teams for New 18.”
I doubt there is enough value in 18 for them.
“Basically 8 conferences with 9 members combined into 4 super conferences.”
Real life almost never works out that conveniently. I doubt it will now, either.
“Only the 8 division games count towards conference record so everyone has a fair shot at the conference championship game.”
Why impose a universal rule? I’m guessing some of those leagues would want to count all the games.
“Ohio State would still play Michigan, Tenn/Bama & Georgia/Auburn could continue playing but the result wouldn’t effect the teams’ chances of making the CCG (except as a distant tie breaker).”
That’s 9 games. Does that mean OSU never plays the rest of the B10? Or do they go to 10 B10 games so they play everyone once every 8 years? Or are you expecting more than 10 conference games?
“B1G East
Georgia Tech. North Carolina. Duke.
Virginia. Maryland. Rutgers
Penn State. Ohio State. Indiana.
B1G West
Michigan. Michigan State. Purdue.
Illinois. Northwestern. Wisconsin.
Minnesota. Iowa. Nebraska.”
No. Just no. Why on earth would OSU, IN and PSU accept being kicked out of the B10 for all practical purposes? If OSU or PSU wanted to be in the ACC, they would have moved there.
3 pods of 6:
W = NE, WI, IA, MN, NW, IL
C1 = OSU, PSU, IN
C2 = MI, MSU, PU
E = RU, UMD, UVA, UNC, Duke, GT
C1 and C2 switch divisions every 2 years.
Locked games = OSU/MI, PSU/MSU, IN/PU
Teams in the E and W play 1 team from the opposite pod each year, rotated annually.
That maintains geography while spreading the pain and getting big names into the stadiums of the new additions.
Better would be getting the CCG rule changed and then dropping divisions. Then you could lock 2 or 3 teams per school and rotate through the rest equally.
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Brian already gave a comprehensive answer, but I’ll just add a few exclamation points to it.
The leagues aren’t going to neatly and conveniently agree to all expand to 18 teams. They don’t have equal numbers today, and never have. Each conference is an independent entity, and decides for itself the ideal number of members — based, of course, on the availability of teams they want.
Assuming the Big Ten gets the four teams you named, the SEC might simply decide that none of the remainders are good enough. Or it might decide to add the two that bring new markets (VT and NC State), and not the two that duplicate markets it already owns (FSU and Clemson).
Of course, as Brian pointed out, they’re also not going to agree to the same scheduling format or the same qualification rules for the conference championship games. Just like the number of members, these are decisions that each league makes for itself, and you’d probably see a wide variety, as you do today.
I also agree with Brian that there’s no way the Big Ten would relegate OSU, PSU, and Indiana to a division consisting mainly of ACC cast-offs. A worse idea would be difficult to imagine.
“Virginia, North Carolina, Duke & Georgia Tech to B1G 18. B1G gets the AAU schools.”
Plausible, but the talk of 16 being a sweet spot may mean something.
The Big Ten ADs have not spoken with one voice on this. I believe others have said that they could see 18 or 20, assuming of course that it’s the right 18 or 20. I do think that if the Big Ten could get those four schools, they’d take them.
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Agree with everything, except for “…or the same qualification rules for the conference championship games.” Those are not (currently) a conference decision and all abide by the same requirements.
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ccrider55,
Agree with everything, except for “…or the same qualification rules for the conference championship games.” Those are not (currently) a conference decision and all abide by the same requirements.
He was referring to whether only division games count or if all conference games count. That is up to the conferences although they’ve all made the same decision so far.
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Brian’s got it. The only rule OUT of the leagues’ control, is that every team in the same division must play all of the others (a round robin). How many teams they play in the other division, whether those games count toward the division championship, and how ties are resolved, are within the leagues’ control.
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Plausible, but the talk of 16 being a sweet spot may mean something.
I think this is the key point in Brian’s response.
If the ACC and B12 merge it will mean the Disney folks will gain, not lose in the equation. Any scenario putting UNC in FOX country at the expense of ESPN seems very unlikely. The groundswell for UNC to the SEC fueled by ESPN if it ever comes to that would preclude them from joining the FOX / B1G alliance. I have been on the edge thinking Notre Dame will never join the B1G but so far that is just what has happened.
If the B1G really gets to 16 – forget 18 – my guess is you see a Missouri + Kansas or Kansas + Duke type end game. This would allow for a merger of the ACC with the Big 12 and just a few Big 5 schools get left behind.
#1 BTN / FOX = B1G + Kansas + Duke
#2 SECTV / ESPN = SEC + Virginia Tech + NC State
#3 PTN / BOTH = PAC + Oklahoma + Oklahoma State + Kansas State + Iowa State
(this would allow for B1G vs PAC OOC games with old Big 8 rivals)
Oklahoma vs Nebraska
Iowa State vs Iowa
Kansas State vs Kansas
#4 ACC / ESPN = ACC (8) = Core 4 : UNC + UVA + Ga Tech + Clemson
#4 ACC / ESPN = ACC (8) = North 4 : Notre Dame + Pitt + BC + Syracuse or Wake
#4 B 12 / ESPN = B 12 (8) = Texas Four : Texas + Texas Tech + Baylor + TCU
#4 B 12 / ESPN = B 12 (8) = Non Texas Four : Louisville + WVU + Miami + FSU
The point in all this is no single conference gets all the “golden eggs” and with UNC + Texas + Notre Dame you really would have 4 power conferences.
Look at it by conference
B1G gets into KS and NY with their additions and both would help the BTN without forcing the folks at Disney to go to Defcon 1. Not a home run, but more realistic than the B1G going to 18 and UNC joining the B1G.
B1G has football brands Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska, and Penn State
B1G has basketball brands Indiana, Kansas, michigan State, and Duke
SEC gets into VA and NC but they do not get the flagships. The bigger deal is ESPN adds cross conference rival games and cements the ACC and SEC in piggybacking carriage deals in split states. ACC ESPN and SEC ESPN can cross brand in GA, NC, SC, and VA. They can do the same with B 12 ESPN and SEC ESPN in FL, KY, and TX.
SEC has football brands Alabama and several floaters
SEC has basketball brands Kentucky and several potentials
PAC gets into OK, KS, and IA but only gets 1 flagship. The geographic moat of the PAC is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is they can not pick off the very top as their additions of Colorado and Utah showed. The blessing is getting into any new western states is a long term net gain. The renewal of Big 8 games as B1G vs PAC OOC probably has value.
PAC has football brands Southern Cal and Oklahoma and potential ones
PAC has basketball brands UCLA and near brands like Oklahoma State
ACC B 12 merger survives and gets more on par with the other Big 4 conferences. Having an east and west division allows UNC basketball and Notre Dame football to control the East. Louisville basketball and texas football would then control the West. Based on the behavior and history of these 4 schools it allows conferences inside a much stronger shell conference. The big takeaway tho is ESPN locks down both the SEC and the reformed ACC + B 12. That alone makes the mouse happy and they write the big checks.
ACC+B 12 has football brands Texas & Notre Dame and near brand FSU
ACC+B 12 has basketball brand UNC and a near brands Louisville and Syracuse
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duffman, I don’t see any way that the Big Ten takes Duke over Virginia. Despite what Cutcliffe has done the past 1 3/4 seasons, UVa still has more football upside than Duke, and football remains the raison d’etre for expansion/realignment, more so than basketball. A 16-team B1G probably would take in UVa and Kansas. And as much as I would love to see Iowa State land on its feet in the Pac, its best — and perhaps only — hope is to be included in a mix of Big 12/ACC leftovers that’s ensured some sort of seat at the BCS table.
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@vp19 – I agree that the Big Ten likely wouldn’t take UVA over Duke if that type of choice even existed. However, I do think that they’d take Duke over Kansas in that type of head-to-head hypothetical. Duke’s private school status really doesn’t mean much when put into the context that it’s a massive elite research institution (actually more so than the public UVA and UNC) that has the same or better national basketball brand name value as Kansas while being located in a much more demographically-friendly region. Duke also has a heavy Northeastern fan base, so there are a lot more network effects in play with them combined with Rutgers/Penn State/Maryland similar to Notre Dame.
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duffman,
Why do you list the B10 as FOX? All the best B10 games are owned by ESPN except for the CCG, and they can bid for that, too. The new TV deal may be a split deal like the P12 has or mostly ESPN. I doubt it’ll be mostly FOX as long as ESPN is the WWL for CFB.
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@Brian – Yes, I’ll repeat again that Big Ten/Fox connection is often extremely overstated. Even with the comprehensive SEC and ACC deals along with the existence of the Big Ten Network, ESPN’s most valuable college sports package is *still* the Big Ten’s first tier rights. There’s is very little chance whatsoever that the Big Ten will exit ESPN completely in the next deal and at most, you’d see a split between ESPN and Fox like the Pac-12 (with a tilt toward ESPN for the best games). Besides, the main thing (outside of a huge pile of money) that Fox could have conceivably offered up until 2 years ago was more nationwide over-the-air coverage on the “Big” Fox network, but those slots are now going to end up being as shared as much with the Big 12 and Pac-12 as they would be on ABC/ESPN with the ACC/Big 12/Pac-12. The Big Ten has maintained the most valuable TV time slot real estate in all of college football on ABC and ESPN even with the new ACC and SEC deals being signed, so that’s not something you walk away from lightly as conference where long-term prestige and exposure means quite a bit to the league’s brand.
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Frank the Tank,
“I agree that the Big Ten likely wouldn’t take UVA over Duke if that type of choice even existed.”
Really? I agree Duke is the bigger brand by a mile and a better research school. But doesn’t the contiguous state of VA and the access to the VA markets trump it? Duke doesn’t guarantee the BTN on everywhere in NC does it? The research triangle yes, but the rest of the state probably not. That’s why I think UVA would get the nod.
Also, would the B10 take Duke knowing that would drive UNC to the SEC? It seems better to leave the ACC alone than risk that. I don’t think taking UVA would drive UNC out, so that might be worth the risk. I also don’t think UVA would leave without UNC leaving at the same time, though, so this is purely hypothetical to me.
“However, I do think that they’d take Duke over Kansas in that type of head-to-head hypothetical. Duke’s private school status really doesn’t mean much when put into the context that it’s a massive elite research institution (actually more so than the public UVA and UNC) that has the same or better national basketball brand name value as Kansas while being located in a much more demographically-friendly region. Duke also has a heavy Northeastern fan base, so there are a lot more network effects in play with them combined with Rutgers/Penn State/Maryland similar to Notre Dame.”
I think it’s as simple as the B10 wanting to expand in the east, not the west. They’d make an exception for a king like UT, but not for KU I don’t think.
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@Brian – Total iPhone type there. The Big Ten would definitely want UVA over Duke all things being equal, while I believe they’d prefer Duke over Kansas.
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Speaking of AAC and Mountain West schools that want to move up the realignment totem pole, why don’t the AAC and Mountain West have their champions play in a bowl game? Between the two conferences they have the locations to do one anywhere in the country Vegas, Miami, NYC, Las Angeles, Dallas, etc. Chances are those would be the two best non-power five schools in the country every year, which is probably going to be the best opponent those two conferences are likely to get. If one of those two’s champion is the non-P5 representative in the playoff bowls (which will likely be 90% of the time at least), then that conference’s championship game loser could take it’s place. That would be a pretty solid consolation prize. I bet that bowl could draw fairly decent television ratings too.
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I think that would be a good game most years too. Central Florida or Houston vs. Fresno State would be a top matchup. Sure, I’d watch that.
There are reasons this hasn’t happened yet, though. They probably wanted to use existing bowl games but none of them took them. The Liberty, for instance, elected to sign contracts with the SEC and Big 12 that will get them two teams who likely barely finish bowl eligible, rather than one of the American’s top teams… even though the Liberty Bowl stadium is home to AAC member Memphis. Other sites like the Texas Bowl in Houston, the Heart of Dallas Bowl, and theArmed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth all took Power Five conferences for at least one of their opponents.
The other thing might be that the Mountain West might rather face the Pac-12 in Las Vegas and at other western bowl games rather than meet some AAC team on the east coast.
It would have been nice if they could have taken over the New Orleans Bowl or something and turned it into a big event.
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Michael – for a few years back in the 90s, the Liberty Bowl featured the champions of CUSA and the MWC. I guess that business model just didn’t work out for Memphis convention and visitors bureau.
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If it was in the 90’s, that must’ve been between C-USA and the WAC, not the MWC. The MWC didn’t exist unti 1999. Sheesh, Alan, you should know that. We’re talking about The American and the Mountain West, not the WAC and Conference USA. Those are two very different entities. Nevermind that 12 of 12 Mountain West members used to be in the WAC and 9 out of 12 future AAC members used to be in C-USA. This would be a COMPLETELY different business model.
In all seriousness, that’s a good point, Alan. Bowl games by and large need power conferences in order to be financially successful. Hence Las Vegas needs the No. 6 or 7 Pac-12 team as much or more than the No. 1 MWC team in order to sell enough tickets. It is a shame, though, that there can’t be a game between AAC and MWC champs because I think that wouod be better television.
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It was the 00s and was the Mountain West.
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That’s funny. Like VT would leave the ACC for the B12. VT’s preferences are:
1. Wherever UVA is.
2. ACC (assumes UVA left them behind but ACC survives)
3. SEC (assumes UVA left them behind and ACC collapsed)
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SI giving its list of realignment winners and losers in terms of basketball:
http://college-basketball.si.com/2013/10/29/winners-and-losers-conference-realignment/
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http://www.vanquishthefoe.com/2013/10/31/5027896/byu-football-joining-conference-pac-12-big-10-sec
Evaluation of potential conference affiliations for BYU.
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http://www.vanquishthefoe.com/2013/11/1/5051490/byu-football-big12-mountain-west-conference-joining
Part 2
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Rutgers lawsuit against former Big East conference headed to Rhode Island
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/11/rutgers_lawsuit_against_former_big_east_conference_headed_to_rhode_island.html
When coupled with the actions taken so far in the Maryland/ACC lawsuit, it would seem to me that judges are showing bias in favor of conferences over individual schools when it comes to money. It makes you wonder how weak the Big 12 was that they had to let 4 schools go with relatively minor penalties when even the AAC can show better strength in the legal arena.
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Only the Big East and ACC try to force schools to stay or pay outrageous penalties. The rest of conferences are less coercive.
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When coupled with the actions taken so far in the Maryland/ACC lawsuit, it would seem to me that judges are showing bias in favor of conferences over individual schools when it comes to money.
I wouldn’t say the judges are biased. Generally, when you make a deal, you have to abide by it. That includes the deal of joining a conference and promising to follow its bylaws.
It makes you wonder how weak the Big 12 was that they had to let 4 schools go with relatively minor penalties when even the AAC can show better strength in the legal arena.
Ironically, it’s because the Big XII overestimated its strength. After all, the league with the weakest exit penalties is the SEC: zero. The issue has simply has never arisen, because nobody in their right mind is going to leave the SEC. The AAC (formerly Big East) had hefty exit penalties because it knew many of its members would probably be tempted to leave.
Only the Big East and ACC try to force schools to stay or pay outrageous penalties. The rest of conferences are less coercive.
The Big Ten, Pac-12, Big XII, and now the ACC, all have GORs, which are far more coercive than any exit penalty.
But remember, it’s not as if the leagues are foisting these penalties on unwilling members. In many cases, the schools paying the penalties had voted for them only a few short years earlier. (I know Maryland is an exception to that.)
This is the inherent contradiction when you’re in a weak conference. You want to be able to move up, if the opportunity arises. But if there’s no opportunity, you want to discourage your fellow members from leaving.
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Purdue AD Morgan Burke Discusses Future Of NCAA Division I Athletics
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2013/11/01/Colleges/Burke.aspx
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I think the last part (about Pell grants) is very important. People seem to not know (or conveniently forget) that athletes that are poor can get a Pell grant every year, valued at over $5000. That seems like sufficient pocket money for a college student, even after paying the full cost to attend school. Add in the new full value scholarship, and they should be fine.
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no.
the Pell Grant is “up to” $5,000. you are spinning by using the words “valued at over.”
Based on reports, very very very few CFB players qualify for ANY Grant and only a tiny fraction qualify for the full Grant.
I don’t believe the players are being exploited; but I also don’t object to getting them more $$. One of my proposals for getting the student-athletes more money is to (i) either fully fund the Pell Grants for any qualifying applicant or (ii) seriously reduce the criteria for qualification to that more student-athletes will qualify for at least some portion of a Pell Grant.
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Anyone have any statistics on Pell grants for Div I athletes across the board? Is it more frequently used by one sport or gender over another? Limiting the debate to football doesn’t answer the question.
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http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2011-08-28/College-football-players-collecting-millions-in-grants/50170388/1
this is from 2011. As reported by USA Today, the Des Moines Register Newspaper surveyed 23 schools in the B1G, BXII and SEC.
Quote:
“A Des Moines Register analysis shows that needy athletes in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern conferences alone received financial benefits beyond scholarships of nearly $5 million, with individual grants sometimes exceeding $5,000 during the 2010-11 school year.”
So, maybe a poor student-athlete CAN receive “more than” $5,000. To date, everything else I’ve read said $5,000 was the max.
Quote:
“The Register’s look into finances revealed that 1,064 football players at the 23 responding schools last year received a combined $4.7 million through Pell Grants, a federally funded program “that provides need-based grants to low-income students,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.”
So, that’s an average of about 46 athletes per school. Note, not just football players.
Quotes:
“That’s an average of $4,442 per recipient beyond his full athletic scholarship, which includes tuition, room and board, and books.”
“At Iowa during the last school year, 22 football players received Pell Grants worth a combined $94,334 — an average of $4,287 per recipient. At Iowa State, 40 football players received Pell Grants worth a total of $180,121 — an average of $4,503 per recipient.
In comparison, 423 scholarship football players from eight responding schools in the Southeastern Conference received an average of $4,602.”
That is more in line with what Brian said above; definitely NOT what I have read in other places.
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I am wrong again.
According to this, May 2011, 27% of student-athletes received a Pell Grant. (See page 5 chart at top).
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEIQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.finaid.org%2Feducators%2F20110505athleticscholarships.pdf&ei=IvZ0UoWZN6fIsAS474GwCg&usg=AFQjCNEhcmb5i2J1piMbmCDgkLkWHl7b7Q&bvm=bv.55819444,d.b2I
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I am wrong yet again. (Not a good morning so far.)
The Pell Grant apparently caps at $5,500.
FWIW, here is the source of much of my errors.
http://www.holyturf.com/2011/05/football-players-receive-17000-annually-in-cash-all-within-ncaa-rules/
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The Pell will max out at $5,645 for award year 2013-14.
http://www.aascu.org/pa/pdfarchives.aspx?id=2917&taxid=3709
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Here’s this from the US DOE. Doesn’t seem to break out athletes, but gives the macro data. On part 5 of the spreadsheet, for 2011-12, there were 13,412,848 valid Pell Applications; 9,444,368 recipients; average grant: $3,555
http://www2.ed.gov/finaid/prof/resources/data/pell-data.html
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@ Brian. Sorry. Lesson: I should research before chewing on my own foot.
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Pell Grant maximum is currently $5645.
The USA Today article you linked shows how widespread the Pell Grant usage is. It shows 46% of the players from the schools surveyed received a grant. SEC once again the winner at 52%.
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I don’t know why I posted those as percentages. Its 46 players per school, 52 at SEC. If they are only counting scholarship players, its a little over 50%. If they count all players including walkons, its a little under 50%.
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right about the Pell Grant max for this coming year. I just found that.
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BuckeyeBeau,
“the Pell Grant is “up to” $5,000. you are spinning by using the words “valued at over.””
For 2013, the max value is $5600+.
Based on reports, very very very few CFB players qualify for ANY Grant and only a tiny fraction qualify for the full Grant.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2011-08-28/College-football-players-collecting-millions-in-grants/50170388/1
A Des Moines Register analysis shows that needy athletes in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern conferences alone received financial benefits beyond scholarships of nearly $5 million, with individual grants sometimes exceeding $5,000 during the 2010-11 school year.
…
The Register’s look into finances revealed that 1,064 football players at the 23 responding schools last year received a combined $4.7 million through Pell Grants, a federally funded program “that provides need-based grants to low-income students,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.
That’s an average of $4,442 per recipient beyond his full athletic scholarship, which includes tuition, room and board, and books.
That’s also over 46 players per school.
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Oops, I see you beat me to it.
The self-correction is appreciated. We all make mistakes.
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Yep. My foot was tasty yesterday. LOL
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ESPN announcers don’t even know that breaking the plane is all that’s required to score…
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9313_NCAA_conference_realignment
FWIW, here is the wikipedia link for conference realignment.
While we here have focused mainly on realignment at the top, other folks have been tabulating ALL the changes.
The charts lower down in the wikipedia entry are really something.
All 20 football conferences (at all levels) had a change in membership during 2010-13. 14 out of the 20 lost at least one member.
Of the 28 total preexisting conferences (including Bball only), all had changes; 21 lost a member; one died (Great West) and one was born (bball-only “new” Big East).
Interesting quote: “Karl Benson, who was commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) when the cycle started and since March 2012 has held the same position with the Sun Belt Conference, stated in a May 2012 interview that about 90 percent of his workload since taking over the Sun Belt position has been taken up by realignment-related issues—either recruiting new members or trying to keep current members in the conference.”
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It is hard to imagine that all of that change was triggered by the B1G’s simple statement in December 2009 that it would explore expansion.
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Reading up on the University of Cincinnati and it all really points towards a very good fit with the Big XII. It’s a surprisingly large (student body @ 40k) school. It’s a great bridge for WVU that is conviently accessible to all the other schools. It sponsors 19 NCAA teams and has a good track record with both football and basketball. It’s a solid #2 program in a large, fertile state. The build-out at Nippert Stadium seems well funded and planned. The Athletic Department seems to have its act together to handle a higher-level of competition…last 3 football coaches have been excellent.
UC is well positioned, it just needs the Big XII to agree to expand.
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Actually, it’s in CIncitucky, not Ohio. That little area is quite different from true Ohio in terms of college sports allegiances amongst other things.
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The football roster has 46 kids from OH, 19 from FL, 9 from IN, 6 from MI, 4 from KY & several from each of IL,PA&NY. It’s a new region for recruits.
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UC is well positioned, it just needs the Big XII to agree to expand.
The main problem is that, other than BYU, none of the potential 12th schools is attractive enough. I’m not even sure Cincy is attractive enough, although it’s clearly the best of the lot.
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“Reading up on the University of Cincinnati and it all really points towards a very good fit with the Big XII.”
That assumes WVU (and a needed bridge to them) is a good fit.
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Is BuckeyeBeau a librarian? He should be.
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LOL. no, I only play a librarian on FtT’s Slant. 🙂
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Question about BTN ownership.
As a Nebraska fan with no business sense, I’ve always wondered what the true value of the BTN is to my school. Of course there is the annual payouts and that is important, and growing. However, in a few years there will be 14 fully vested schools who each own a share of what, 49%. What is the value of that ownership if a school wanted to sell their portion of it and leave the conference?
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Not sure you can sell a piece of a conference owned entity.
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That’s an interesting question. I would assume that the conference would then default as the ownership interest holder of the parting member.
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I’m pretty sure it’s sort of like renting (the conference being the owner).
Would the leaving team have their media rights (GOR)?
The conference can, if it chooses to, not enter into any new ownership agreements with Fox and become 100% owner at the expiration of the current one.
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My understanding is that the BTN is a separate corporate entity, a Limited Liability Corporation, where Fox (through a specific entity) owns 51% of the shares and the Big Ten (itself a not-for-profit corporation) owns 49%. I don’t know if the schools own equal shares of the BTN LLC or if its just the conference who then distributes money evenly among the schools. But regardless, as a private corporation, the corporate governing documents can restrict the transferability of shares in any way it desires (case in point: read up on the limits on shares of the Green Bay Packers–no dividends, no resale market at all, no transferability unless through a will/estate).
As for Nebraska, it would lose its portion of the revenues, but assuming it owns 1/14 of the 49%, there is likely a buyout provision in the corporate governing documents that sets a price or method of valuating the shares for the buyout. Those documents can (and likely do) limit who can buy those shares (which is legal if set forth in a contract, especially one with sophisticated parties like a large cable company, college athletic conference, and large university).
Does this answer your question?
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Frank,
I believe it would be easier to prioritize values than to cat