Last week, the Pac-12 announced that it was not seeking any expansion at this time in the wake of its announced Big Paclantic Alliance with the Big Ten and ACC. While some fans of schools remaining in the Big 12 that are hoping for another power conference home may cling to the “at this time” qualifier from the Pac-12, the practical reality is “at this time” really means, “We’re not expanding unless Notre Dame and schools such as, well, Texas and Oklahoma are coming through that door.”
Therefore, reality is setting in for the Big 12 that it will ultimately need to expand and, to that end, the league has formed an expansion subcommittee. At a minimum, the Big 12 will need to have at least 10 conference members after Texas and Oklahoma officially leave for the SEC in order for the league to maintain its current TV contracts with ESPN and Fox. Note that everyone from the Big 12, SEC, Texas and Oklahoma will all publicly state that no one is moving until 2025 in order to comply with their existing agreements. No one can even hint anonymously that there’s a possibility that UT and OU will leave the Big 12 prior to that time. However, in practicality, everyone knows that there will eventually be a settlement so that those schools aren’t spending the next 4 years in lame duck status that isn’t good for anyone. This means that the Big 12 has to be ready to act once it knows the UT/OU exit timeline and staying at 8 members simply isn’t an option.
Over the past decade (decade?!) in writing about conference realignment, I’ve had multiple posts about examining Big 12 expansion candidates complete with dated pop culture references ranging from Avicii to The Bachelor. In reviewing Big 12 expansion this time around, though, I felt that a straight ranking of the candidates really wouldn’t add much to the analysis. The interesting opportunity that the Big 12 has is that, as a result of its current roster of members with a potpourri of institutional types and geographic placement in the center of the country (except for West Virginia), the league can legitimately expand in any direction both philosophically and geographically. With only a small handful of exceptions, the realistic expansion candidates for the Big 12 essentially all have, in baseball terms, the same Wins Above Replacement Value where there aren’t glaring differences. As a result, expansion should be looked at holistically in terms of the overall strategies that the Big 12 could use. Putting on my consulting hat, here are 11 different Big 12 expansion strategies:
1. Lazy AF Bare Minimum Backfilling Strategy – Cincinnati and BYU
If it’s true that no realistic combination of expansion options for the Big 12 can bring in additional revenue and would only dilute per school shares, then it stands to reason that doing just the bare minimum to backfill to 10 members simply to keep the current conference TV contracts intact is high on the list of potential strategies. Cincinnati and BYU were generally looked at as the top targets for Big 12 expansion 5 years ago and that’s likely going to be the same today. (Heck, Cincinnati and BYU were even the two top schools in my Big 12 Expansion Index from 2013.) It’s not the most explosive or Armageddon-like path for the conference realignmentologists out there, but it might be the most realistic.
Out of all of the available schools, Cincinnati is the school that I believe is most likely to get a Big 12 invite. The Bearcats have a solid TV market, an excellent football recruiting area (which would be the best in the Big 12 outside of Texas), as good of an overall athletic history in both football and basketball as any other candidate, a great football program today, and (maybe most importantly) absolutely no baggage of potential issues with religious stances or in-state conflicts with current members. These are all reasons why Cincinnati is the only school that is listed in every single one of the strategies in this post.
Now, from a pure financial value standpoint, BYU is typically viewed to be the most valuable potential addition to the Big 12 due to its TV viewership history and fanbase size. The challenge with BYU is the “baggage” in past objections from other Big 12 members regarding BYU’s Honor Code and its treatment of members of the LGBTQ+ community and the real or perceived difficulty of negotiating with the school in its past conference realignment discussions with both the old Big East football conference and Big 12. That being said, The Athletic quoted a Big 12 source stating that the ones that opposed adding BYU 5 years ago are the ones “leaving the conference”, so the barriers to BYU getting an invite to the league might have come down.
Of course, the flip side is that BYU, with its independent TV contract with ESPN and BYUtv, might be the only school outside of the Power Five that could conceivably turn down a Big 12 invite. Personally, I find that prospect to be doubtful if/when we have an expanded 12-team playoff system with guaranteed spots to the top 6 conference champs, but no one should discount the fact that BYU has different institutional goals compared to any other place in the country. If BYU won’t come or can’t get into the Big 12 for any reason, look for one of either Houston or UCF (both of which will be discussed in the next strategy) to take their place.
2. You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, Houston, and UCF
One of the cardinal rules that we have learned over many years of expansion analysis: S**t ALWAYS rolls downhill in conference realignment. That is, any time that a league lower on the pecking order thinks that it could poach a conference that’s higher on the pecking order, that’s exactly when the lower league gets completely demolished. (See the old Big East football conference, Mountain West Conference and WAC in the early 2010s.) When Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby publicly accused ESPN of engaging in a conspiracy to get the AAC to raid the Big 12, I wrote that this might have changed the Big 12’s attitude from taking as few AAC schools as possible (see the Lazy AF Bare Minimum Backfilling Strategy above) to trying to take as many AAC schools of value as possible. This ensures that there’s no chance that a reverse raid occurs in the future or that the CFP committee in a 12-team playoff world is trying to debate whether the Big 12 or AAC champion faced a tougher conference schedule in fighting for a playoff spot.
Houston is a school that should be in the Big 12 with its institutional and geographic fit combined with being directly located in one of the most important markets for the conference and an excellent athletic program for both football and basketball (including a New Year’s Six Bowl win in 2015 and a Final Four appearance this past year). If Houston (the school) was located anywhere outside of the state of Texas, it would essentially be a lock for Big 12 expansion. The one major wrinkle is that Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU may very well not want to elevate an in-state competitor, which is a theme that we have seen throughout conference realignment history. The Athletic mentioned that some in the Big 12 had issues with in dealing with UH board chair Tilman Fertitta in 2016, although my intuition is that’s cover for the more likely reason of in-state conflicts of interests. If I were running the Big 12, I would absolutely add Houston and this particular strategy would be the one that I’d favor the most.
When the Big 12 was looking at expansion in 2016, the league essentially looked at UCF and USF as effectively tied in a coin flip. That’s not the case any longer with UCF’s on-the-field success and building of its brand over the past several years. Today, UCF arguably brings the most pure football value of any option in the AAC along with new entry into the Orlando TV market and recruiting grounds.
3. TV Executives Will Tell Us What to Do Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, UCF, Boise State
In the above-referenced article from The Athletic on the Big 12 expansion process, the schools in this strategy were ones specifically named as possibly maximizing football and TV value for the league. Whether that was pure writer speculation or more of an informed opinion is unknown (although my gut feeling is that those names were just thrown against the wall within the context of that article). From a pure football perspective, Boise State might have the best brand value of any Group of 5 team (despite not performing as well on-the-field compared to several AAC options recently), so they are one of the few expansion options with a solid recent history of on-the-field success and corresponding TV viewership.
4. Life After Death Southwest Conference Strategy – Cincinnati, Houston, SMU, and Rice
My head says that this expansion strategy won’t be used by the Big 12, but my heart really wishes that it would. In most conference realignment situations, the reality is that the resulting matchups when games finally get played lack any history or general emotions at all. (Recall the Civil Conflict “rivalry” between UCF and UConn in the AAC where UCF didn’t even acknowledge the existence of the trophy that UConn created.) That won’t be the case here: nothing will be forced. The hate will be real with Houston, SMU and Rice (yes, Rice!) getting into the very league whose creation destroyed the Southwest Conference and demoted them to non-power status for the past 25 years. The rivalries between the those 3 schools and Baylor, Texas Tech and TCU are longstanding and, in some cases, date back over a century. While the main weakness of the Big 12 up to this point has been its overconcentration in the Texas market, that may now be its greatest asset going forward as it rebuilds. So, the strategy here would be to lean into that asset. It may be better to be the clear #2 conference in the State of Texas than to be the #3 conference in Florida or even the #2 conference anywhere else. Honestly, this is the most fun option for me as a sports fan.
5. Stealing Magnolias Strategy- Cincinnati, SMU, Rice, and Tulane
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, there were various discussions of the creation of a “Southern Ivy League” of top academic private schools that was colloquially known as the “Magnolia League” and involved SMU, Rice and Tulane. As I’ve noted previously as the most important rule in conference realignment: Think like a university president and not like a sports fan. This strategy would fit into the university president’s typical desire to raise the academic pedigree of a league. While this may not be the best path to improve football quality, the argument here would be that getting AAU members like Rice (yes, Rice again!) and Tulane would have a greater institutional impact in being academic peers to a critical mass of members of the other power conferences. Even with the defections of Texas and Oklahoma, the actual on-the-field football product for the Big 12 will likely still be very good, but the challenge is about how the league’s members are perceived as overall institutions compared to the rest of the Power 5. Tulane provides a bonus of being directly located in a solid TV market (and world class road trip destination) of New Orleans and opens up another fertile recruiting area.
6. All My Exes Live in Texas Blackballing Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, UCF, and 1 of either Memphis or USF
Going in the other direction from the Life After Death Southwest Conference strategy, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech form a voting bloc that would blackball any other Texas-based additions to the Big 12 altogether. As noted in the initial discussion on Houston, whether it’s fair or not, protecting the home territory of existing conference members has long been a major factor in realignment decisions. Essentially, this is the You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss Strategy with Houston removed and the last spot being a choice between Memphis and USF. Memphis is in an excellent college sports market that brings a fair amount of historical pedigree for both football and basketball. Meanwhile, USF creates synergy as a pair with UCF in solidifying a presence in the Central Florida region where any school that isn’t Florida or Florida State can’t carry on its won. My feeling is that Memphis would win out due to it being stronger as an overall athletic program, although there might be an overarching desire of the Big 12 to create a more impactful presence in Florida.
7. The Mountains Win Again Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, Colorado State, and Boise State
The options discussed up to this point have focused on the Big 12 adding schools to the East outside of BYU. However, there’s a fair argument that going West would be better long-term in order to get the conference into a less competitive region of the country that is also fast-growing. The Big 12 (and old Big 8, for that matter) used to have Colorado as a key member before they defected to the Pac-12. This strategy works best with building around BYU and Boise State. Colorado State has long been at the top of the list of schools that would improve its conference realignment prospects drastically if it could be merely consistently competent in football since it has so many off-the-field factors in favor of it in terms of academic profile and a location in a state that is exploding with growth. .
8. Return of the WAC Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, Colorado State, Boise State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, and Air Force (alternate: anyone else from the Mountain West Conference)
Taking The Mountains Win Again Strategy one step further, once upon a time, the WAC was a 16-team superconference with games going on at all hours of the evening. The Big 12 could resurrect that model by going big with many of the same teams that were involved in that WAC format. Essentially, this is a full-on raid of the Mountain West Conference. San Diego and Las Vegas markets are two of the largest TV markets that don’t have a direct or de facto connection to a power conference team, so the Big 12 could serve a need in those areas with San Diego State and UNLV, respectively. (Recall that Boise State and San Diego State were willing to join the old Big East football conference for a few moments before conference realignment further took its toll and they decided to re-up with the Mountain West.) Air Force further solidifies the Rocky Mountain region with some national brand value as a military academy. The Falcons have also been willing to play a higher level of competition for basketball and other non-football sports compared to their other military academy brothers of Army and Navy (who will be discussed later on in this post), although the school expressed concern about competing in a power conference in the past. In the event that Air Force doesn’t want to move, the Big 12 would effectively being throwing at a dartboard at a map of the MWC for which school gets the last spot. (Fresno State? San Jose State? Nevada? Wyoming? Utah State? Heck, Hawaii? It’s totally unclear who would win that battle.)
9. Big Country Conference Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, UCF, Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, UNLV, and Houston (alternate: either Memphis or USF)
Further to my last point, the old Big East attempted to put together a coast-to-coast football conference in 2012 in the wake of the ACC raiding that league of Syracuse and Pitt and the Big 12 grabbing West Virginia. However, the plan was killed when the league was raided again by the Big Ten (Rutgers) and ACC part 2 (Louisville) shortly thereafter. That’s too bad since they were employing a variation of one of my favorite blue sky ideas from the crazy conference realignment days of 2010: a coast-to-coast football-only Big Country Conference of the Big East plus the best of the then-non-AQ conference schools. For football purposes, today’s proposed Big Country Conference would be a super-fun league that can deliver 14-plus hours of games for TV networks every Saturday (plus plenty of willingness to fill weeknight time slots). The challenge would be that this may not be realistic as an all-sports league for the West members since there isn’t a critical mass of schools in that part of the country (unlike the Return of the WAC option). If those schools As a result, football-only memberships for those schools would require some coordination with a league like the Big West or West Coast Conference to take those Western schools as members for basketball and other sports.
10. I Wish I Was a Little Bit Taller, I Wish I Was a Baller Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, Houston, Memphis, Temple, and UConn
It is a common refrain that “football is all that matters for conference realignment.” However, I would push back on the universality of that statement. While it’s true that the top power conferences such as the Big Ten and SEC are making so much revenue that football is really the only sport that can make a material difference, that isn’t necessarily true at the lower levels. Case in point is the new Big East that has been able to thrive both on-the-court and off-the-court financially based on basketball and no longer needing to deal with football members.
Also note the situation in the Big 12 where the most valuable school left for conference realignment purposes happens to be Kansas… and that is due entirely to its status as a blue blood basketball program. As a result, Kansas may very well have the most influence in Big 12 expansion discussions, which means that basketball prowess could become more of a factor in the decision-making. In this case, 3 AAC schools that we have discussed at length already (Cincinnati, Houston and Memphis) are included along with UConn, Temple and BYU. Granted, it’s hard to see UConn switching conferences again after leaving the AAC and going “home” to the Big East for basketball last year while turning independent for football. However, if the Big 12 is looking to really focus on its basketball brand (which will still be excellent with blue blood Kansas, reigning national champion Baylor, alma mater of the latest #1 pick of the NBA Draft in Cade Cunningham in Oklahoma State, and the national runner-up from 2 years ago in Texas Tech), then UConn has the best available brand on the table. Temple also has an excellent basketball history and would bring in the Philadelphia area that, while being perceived as a weak college football fan market, is actually a strong college basketball region with great rivalries in the Big 5.
11. Shock and Awe Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU, Air Force, Navy (football-only), Army (football-only), and 1 of either Houston or UCF
Andy Staples of The Athletic recently wrote about the importance of the 4 Million Club, where TV value is driven by games that draw more than 4 million viewers. The SEC and Big Ten have excelled on this measure since 2015, so it’s not a surprise that they draw in the most TV revenue of any conferences by far. The weakness of the Pac-12 and Big 12 (not counting Texas and Oklahoma games) by comparison was also stark. In looking through the source ratings data at Sports Media Watch, one interesting tidbit is that out of 193 college football telecasts that drew more than 4 million viewers since 2015, only 6 didn’t involve at least one Power Five team (including Notre Dame)… and 5 of those 6 games were Army-Navy games. If the Big 12 could actually make the Army-Navy game into a contest that falls under the conference contract, that may be worth more from a TV value standpoint than any other possible addition. Add in Air Force on top of that and the Big 12 would have all three service academies under its wing. Cincinnati, BYU and Houston or UCF can also be added for depth across all sports.
Now, the Army-Navy game currently has a separate TV contract with CBS, which was a requirement of Navy upon joining the AAC as a football-only member and means that league doesn’t receive any revenue from that matchup. Whether that can be adjusted would make a significant difference as to whether going for an expansion strategy focused on adding the service academies would be financially viable. In any event, Navy, Army and Air Force all do bring national brands that are hard to come by outside of the power conferences.
If I’m handicapping the field, I’d rank the following strategies in terms of likelihood: (1) You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss Strategy, (2) Lazy AF Bare Minimum Backfilling Strategy, (3) TV Executives Will Tell Us What to Do Strategy, and (4) the rest of the field. (EDIT: Thinking about this further, the All My Exes Live in Texas Blackballing Strategy ought to be included on this list. I would move that up to the #3 choice.) It’s not an accident that the same schools such as Cincinnati, BYU, UCF, Houston and Boise State are the ones that are being discussed the most along with a small handful of others. The Big 12 already went through an expansion evaluation in 2016, which would seem to make the process this time around much more efficient in theory. The real question is where the Big 12 wants to go, both literally and figuratively, as their strategies are all across the map.
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FRANK THE TANK'S SLANT 
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Two days ago I sent the following email to UWV president Gordon Gee and his AD staff. I received a response thanking me for my thoughts.
Dr. Gee, Mr. Lyons, Ms. Zinn and Mr. Uryasz:
I am writing to convey a conference expansion proposal for the Big XII that I believe would enhance the stature of the conference following the departure of Oklahoma and Texas. As an introduction, please be aware that following the first major exodus from the Big XII in 2016 (Nebraska, Colorado, A&M and Mizzou left) the conference invited the Air Force Academy to join. The AFA athletic director said “no thanks” because he didn’t believe that AFA could recruit with the likes of Oklahoma and Texas (link). Given their imminent departure, recruiting against OU and UT will no longer be a concern after 2025.
https://swcroundup.com/news/2016/7/28/the-time-air-force-said-no-to-the-big-12
Obviously, most of the Big XII presidents are receptive to the concept of adding a service academy to the conference. I propose that the Big XII regroup by expanding back to twelve schools with the addition of Army, Navy, Air Force and the University of Cincinnati. I believe this endeavor would be of particular benefit to the University of West Virginia as an outlier in the East.
The service academies now play each other every year but within different conference alignments. Navy is in the American Conference, the AFA is in the Mountain West and Army is independent. The football schedules and national exposure of all three academies would be considerably enhanced by playing the remaining members of the Big XII vs their statuses quo. Please see for yourself:
https://fbschedules.com/army-football-schedule/
https://fbschedules.com/navy-football-schedule/
https://goairforcefalcons.com/sports/football/schedule/2021
If the service academies all played within the same conference, their rivalries games would also become in-conference games for them. This would free them up to play two additional out-of-conference games, an important consideration for the academies as they typically seek to achieve a good deal of national exposure. Also, the Big XII could showcase the most classic rivalry in college football, the Army-Navy game, as a conference game of even more national interest than the Red River Rivalry that is now moving to the SEC. The Big XII would also gain considerable bragging rights for its exemplary support of our nation’s armed forces.
With the addition of the service academies, the Big XII would be gaining three Ivy League caliber academic institutions. The University of Cincinnati would also be a prestigious addition and would seemingly become West Virginia’s end-of-season football opponent. Cincy would also bridge the gap from the Central Zone schools to those in the East. Cincinnati currently has a top ten ranked football team and is also a perennial basketball power and would certainly be a worthy addition to the Big XII Conference. The Bearcats could possibly give Dr. Gee’s old Buckeye buddies something to think about if they moved up to a P5 conference.
Kindly forgive me for providing unsolicited advice as I’m sure you receive more than enough on a routine basis. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Regards,
Colin Meyer, DVM, PhD
Colonel, US Army (ret.)
440 Fairmount Drive
Madison, IN 47250
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Calling it “UWV” doesn’t get you off to the most auspicious of starts.
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I didn’t say “UWV” in the email although if I had, it probably wouldn’t be too much of a problem
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On the “add no Texas schools” voting bloc, you really need to include Oklahoma State along with Tech, TCU and Baylor, as both Gundy and the AD have made statements to the effect that they absolutely don’t want more Texas recruiting competition. Oklahoma is sort of an extension of Texas too.
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You are mistaken on the opposition to Texas schools. Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU and Texas all came out publicly supportive of Houston last time. OU did also.
They will be supportive again. The opposition came from the old Big 8 schools-Ok. St., KU, KSU, ISU. They didn’t want any more competition in Texas.
Texas Tech is playing at Houston this week. They have played Houston several times recently.
I think the Big 12 will realize they need UH. They just don’t have enough pull and exposure in Houston without them (now that Texas is leaving).
Colorado St. got interest from the northern Big 12 schools. KU, KSU and ISU said they had a lot of alumni in Colorado. It would be similar to a major part of the Big 10 strategy with Rutgers and Maryland. Expanding to the alumni base more than expanding for the school.
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Except that the RU – MD expansion also brought about 30 million sets of eyeballs and a presence in NYC and DC. It also blocked the ACC from controlling the Eastern seaboard. A post made in the prior thread quoted the statistics showing that the addition of those two schools increased the income of the B1G as a whole by about 33%, so the two more than paid for themselves and increased income to the other 12 teams by a meaningful amount.
(As an irrelevant aside, Delany saw the value of grabbing the NY/NJ market while the ACC left the opening while going to Boston, upstate NY and Pittsburgh. I never understood why the ACC did not grab Rutgers, even with lousy sports, just to seal off the entire Atlantic Coast. Delany was shrewd enough to close that gap.)
Clearly alumni were important to the B1G, but Delany had other major strategic motivations. Not quite sure that Colorado State adds anything other than a presence in the state, where CSU is presumably the second place major school after U Colorado.
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Can I propose the Mr. Bowlsby goes to Washington strategy?
Adds: Boise St., SDSU, BYU, Nevada, New Mexico, UCF, USF and Cincinnati
This approach also maximizes recruiting value by being the only conference with schools in each of the 3 largest talent producing state and also provides critical mass in each of the time zones with logical pods for East, Midwest, South and West.
But the main thesis behind this plan is to just add as much political clout as possible. This is why you might take New Mexico, Nevada and Boise which adds three new states to Power 5 status. Along with BYUs political clout in Utah and existing states like Kansas and West Virginia you’d have 12 senators that could make it extremely difficult for CFB to leave demote the Big12 from Power 5 status.
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I posted this at the end of the previous thread but it was only up for a couple hours before this thread got started so I’ll repost it here. Also, I accidentally left out a few schools so I added them here. I just got news that Missouri’s average ACT score went up from 26 to 27. I wanted to see how that compared to other public P5 schools:
Michigan 33
Cal 33
UCLA 32
Georgia Tech 32
Maryland 32
Virginia 32
Florida 31
North Carolina 31
Texas 30
Wisconsin 30
Ohio State 30
Georgia 30
Washington 30
Clemson 30
North Carolina State 30
Pitt 30
Illinois 29
Minnesota 29
Purdue 29
Rutgers 29
Texas A&M 28
Indiana 28
Colorado 28
Virginia Tech 28
Florida State 28
South Carolina 28
Auburn 28
***Missouri 27
Penn State 27
Tennessee 27
Alabama 27
Michigan State 26
Iowa 26
Oklahoma 26
Kentucky 26
Mississippi State 26
Arkansas 26
LSU 26
kansas 26
Arizona State 26
Utah 26
Nebraska 25
Iowa State 25
Oklahoma State 25
Ole Miss 25
Arizona 25
Orgon 25
Oregon State 25
Kansas State 24
Washington State 23
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You should probably tell Missouri. Their website says 26.
https://missouri.edu/about/facts
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Like I said, it as of last year was 26, I just found out the new average is 27. As in this news just came out this week. I’m sure they’ll update the website at some point.
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https://www.kfvs12.com/2021/08/23/mizzou-enrollment-goes-up-fall-semester-begins/
“The university says the average ACT score among freshmen is a measure of the quality of the freshman class that increased the number to 27 which is one of the highest ACT averages on record for MU”
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And here’s a look at some of the Big 12 candidates
BYU 29
Cincinnati 27
UCF 27
USF 27
Colorado State 26
SDSU 26
Houston 25
Memphis 23
Boise State 23
UNLV 22
New Mexico 22
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One thing to keep in mind is the prevalence of different tests in different parts of the country. The ACT has long been the main test in the midwest, but when I was in school the SAT was king in Texas. I believe it was similar in most of the south. Only those going out of state took the ACT. More people take the ACT in the south than in the past, but SAT still is predominate.
So if you only have a small population of admitted students who took the ACT, it can distort the average.
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With a recent HS graduate, I can tell you Cincinnati, UCF, USF, Houston and Temple all require a tougher combination of grades and scores than most of the SEC and most of the Big 12. Of course, Rice, Tulane and SMU do as well. We didn’t look at the others mentioned.
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Is there some sort of ACT inflation calculator for scores received in a given past year? I have heard that x score earned today is = about x-2 a score from the 1980s / early 1990s.
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@urbanleftbehind – There has definitely been a larger increase in higher test scores. It’s not so much score inflation but rather students (at least at upper middle class income levels) spend a *lot* more time preparing for them compared to the 1980s/1990s. It’s a vicious circle – as the average scores go up, that puts even more pressure on kids to get even higher scores in order to stand out from the crowd. Our local high school has been averaging over a dozen kids per year scoring a perfect 36 on the ACT. It used to be that having 1 kid per year in that same high school getting a perfect score was a rarity. Yet, even with all of those higher scores, it has gotten exponentially more difficult to get into the Ivy League/Ivy-level schools (e.g. Northwestern, University of Chicago), which in turn has raised admissions standards for public flagships and “flagship equivalents” (e.g. UCLA, Georgia Tech, Purdue) and schools down the line. I’m glad that I’m not applying to college today.
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Head to California:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/edsource.org/2021/university-of-california-must-drop-sat-act-scores-for-admissions-and-scholarships/654842/amp
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Machiavellian strategy, hurt both the Mountain West and American conferences by taking 2-3 from each and leave behind very weakened competition as the #5 conference.
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Thanks for the effort in compiling these data. They add another dimension to understanding conference realignment. ACT/SAT are strong indicators of the overall intellectual quality of a school’s undergraduate student body, just as AAU status indicates faculty quality. These are important factors in judging compatibility with one’s peers. Maryland and Rutgers were superb additions by these criteria.
Northwestern has a mean ACT of 34 and a minimum acceptable of 33. That adds to the humiliation of last weeks Nebraska loss (25). Although count me as skeptical that any school (especially ND) applies admission criteria uniformly over all applicants.
The B1G average is 29, ranging from Nebraska at 25 to Northwestern at 34.
Kansas U (26), KSU (24), and ISU (25) would appear to be academically marginal for admission to the B1G, but the cultural fit would be good, and there is a AAU fit as well.
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PAC “at this time” means when either the B1G or SEC destabilizes another P4 conference, with the Little8 only getting a look if the PAC is the one raided.
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Right, I assume the main hope for schools like Kansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, and Iowa State is if the Pac 12 or ACC get raided. Then those conferences would need replacement schools and they’d look to the Big 12 for those replacements. Short of that I think they’re going to stay in the Big 12.
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Reading through that, I think the one that ends up happening is: 6. All My Exes Live in Texas Blackballing Strategy – Cincinnati, BYU , UCF, and 1 of either Memphis or USF
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Andy, there is one factor that you guys aren’t considering. The service academies do not need TV revenue. They don’t need a dime. They have infinite revenue to support their athletic programs and it is chock full of equality and equity and whatever mumbo jumbo comes along next. The addition of all three service academies could be contingent upon them getting scheduling preference and zero TV revenue payouts. They have no reason to quibble about TV revenue payouts.
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If they got a deal like that it would be hard to turn down, but I don’t know how realistic it is.
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Go big 12 n good or go home.
For television markets in growing cities the Big 20 adds 12 universities with large endowments, medical business and law schools such as Cincinnati, VCU, Georgia State, UAB, UCF, Tulane, Rice, SMU, North Dakota State, Colorado State, San Diego State, and BYU to the 8 remaining schools.
Add 12 plus 8. With 20 teams, play like quad NFL.. top best 5 play each other the next year plus the bottom 5. The above middle 5 play one another and the below middle 5.
Football schedule is 9 games (4 + 5) with 3 for rivalry or money games outside the conference.
Should any team finish in last place 3 out of 5 years, it will be replaced with a nonconference foe who beat the most conference teams over prior 5 years. The league championship game is the two highest rated teams in the top 5 polls.
With 20 basketball teams, there are 19 teams to play once per season. Only the top 12 teams make the conference tournament.
All other sports play in East West split conference of 10 schools. Best 4 teams in each half play for league championship.
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The addition of all three service academies could be contingent upon them getting scheduling preference and zero TV revenue payouts. They have no reason to quibble about TV revenue payouts.
The academies’ TV payouts are greater than zero today. You feel they would take a cut to zero, in exchange for joining a conference where they’ll get slaughtered? Seriously??
I made this point on the previous thread, but it bears repeating. Kansas is the worst football program in the Big 12. If they played Army this year, they’d be the Black Knights’ second- or third-toughest opponent. Even without Texas and Oklahoma, the remaining Big 12 programs are a BIG step up from the schedule the academies now play.
There dozens of mid-majors that would take a Power Five invite in a heartbeat. The service academies, which could have had an invite anytime they wanted it, have never sought one. They know they cannot compete at that level. They want games they can win.
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OMG!
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The mountain strategy is very interesting. You could add 6. Take BYU, CSU and Boise. Along with Cincy, Houston and UCF in the east. Pair the old big 8 schools with the mountain for travel purposes and the Texas schools and WV with the east additions and it’s not a bad little conference. With the monster asterisk of course being, will the money be there.
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https://pac-12.com/article/2021/08/30/pac-12-networks-announces-launch-new-nil-licensing-program-partnership-veritone?amp&__twitter_impression=true
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I would guess the most likely would be a variation of #1. 2 out of BYU, Cincinnati, or Houston.
Then the come at the king would be #2-those 3 plus UCF.
Then 3rd would be the “We just want our name back!” BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and then either Colorado St. or SMU. CSU for northern Big 12 alumni groups and a bridge to BYU. SMU because they have the biggest budget of the non-indie G5. They are one of the few schools with enough money to get a death penalty!
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…a bridge to BYU…
Whenever I hear “a bridge to X,” I know that option is not happening.
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This is the average distance to the R8. Note that the Florida schools are further than BYU on average and about 50% further than most of the other schools from the 2016 final 11. Florida is also a big cultural gap in addition to geographic.
SMU — 462
Memphis — 594.4
Rice — 594
Houston — 660.5
Air Force — 731
Cincinnati — 783
Colorado St. — 805
Tulane — 807
BYU — 1,183
UCF — 1,233
USF — 1,256
Uconn — 1,456
Boise — 1,530
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The military schools have already said in the last few years that they don’t want to join a P5 conference. They can’t physically keep up, given the academies various academic and physical restrictions that affects their recruiting. Google it.
TV ratings for Colorado St. and Colorado are terrible compared to their peers. I’d be shocked if CSU gets an invite.
If academic perception/fit carries any weight, Boise and Memphis may get eliminated early again. The perception of P5 peers could be important in the B12’s attempt to stay a P5. A P4/P5 split from the rest of FCS might happen much sooner than many think. UH, Cincinnati, UCF, and USF are probably the best institution fits of the realistic candidates. SD State perhaps, too.
Memphis is overrated in basketball. SD St has performed better in the last decade, and comparable in football. San Diego is more than double the size of the Memphis market. I was pretty high on Memphis if the B12 went to 14, now I think SD St would be a better addition. Yes it is a long trip to the Pacific time zone, but the B12 could do football only or require them to have earlier start times for non-fb sports.
If going to 16, Fresno State might be a surprise addition, that with SD St, BYU, and Boise make a west pod that helps reduce the amount of travel in all sports.
Temple and now UNLV are hurt by being in pro towns, especially with Las Vegas’s tv market still being pretty small. There are no neighboring hinterland markets of size to draw on, as opposed to Texas (east half0 and further east. It’s an island. Look at attendance figures for the candidates, it’s not a perfect proxy for tv ratings, but helps put candidates in ranges.
If anyone thinks U Conn might be a candidate, look at Saturday’s Fresno St game. It’s over, they’re in the Big East where they belong.
I don’t think the B12 goes to 16, so probably the only schools that will be chosen are in a pool of:
UCF
Cincinnati
BYU
Houston
Boise
and maybe
SD St
USF
Memphis
Slight chance Temple if TV thinks a P5 upgrade will finally draw in viewers in the Northeast. I’m skeptical.
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Slight chance Temple if TV thinks a P5 upgrade will finally draw in viewers in the Northeast. I’m skeptical.
As you should be. Temple has been in a lot of conferences, including the Big East when it was considered a power conference. Different company, same outcome.
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Think you have a good point about a P5 split. With Memphis and Boise, the Big 12 looks less like a group of peers in the eyes of the Pac 12 and Big 10 presidents and even the ACC and SEC presidents.
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After Texas and Oklahoma leave the Big XII, that will mean that the original conference has lost its top six colleges: UT, OU, A&M, Colorado, Mizzou and Nebraska. Adding TCU and West Virginia to the bottom half does not make a P5 conference. There are no viable additions that will make the Big XII a P5 conference again. The Big XII leftovers are nothing like the Big Ten or the SEC.
If the Big XII added the service academies, their inter-service rivalries would become conference games. That would then free up four out-of-conference games every year for each academy to beat up cupcakes like UConn, Liberty and Colorado State.
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Adding TCU and West Virginia to the bottom half does not make a P5 conference.
Let’s do a bit of basic math. TCU finished in the top half of the B12 football standings in 7 of 9 years since it joined. WVU finished in the top half in 6 out of 9. Hence, both schools strengthened the conference; they did not weaken it.
Would the B12 have preferred to keep Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, and Texas A&M? Of course!! But given the emergency, they took the best replacements. That’s a roadmap to what they’ll do this time.
There are no viable additions that will make the Big XII a P5 conference again.The Big XII leftovers are nothing like the Big Ten or the SEC.
Sure, there isn’t another Texas or Oklahoma out there. That doesn’t mean they’ll capitulate. The most plausible additions in Frank’s list, are the ones that are the most competitive in football. That is not a coincidence.
If the Big XII added the service academies, their inter-service rivalries would become conference games. That would then free up four out-of-conference games every year for each academy to beat up cupcakes like UConn, Liberty and Colorado State.
Math again. Since there are only two academy games on each of their schedules, joining a conference “frees up” two games, not four. But only for Navy and Air Force. Army is independent, so joining a conference doesn’t free up anything.
If you look at their actual schedules, they are already cupcake-laden. Imagine a knapsack. If you add 100 pounds and take off 20. No one would say, “Wow, this knapsack is 20 pounds lighter!” No, it’s 80 pounds heavier.
We’ve already patiently explained, over and over again, that the academies don’t want to get slaughtered like that. And Army and Navy don’t want to be playing so many games halfway across the country. The Big 12 probably doesn’t want to weaken their conference schedules to that extent, either.
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Marc, Navy this year Navy plays Cincy, Memphis, Tulsa, Houston and SMU. Explain to us how that is different than playing Cincy, Kansas, OK State, Baylor and TCU.
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SMU and Tulsa are both below .500 all-time in AAC play. In other words, even in a weaker conference, they lose most of the time.
Houston has been on a nice run in the AAC, but let’s put that in perspective: since joining, they’ve lost 4–5 games every year but one, and have been unranked every year but one. In other words, they are better than average against AAC competition, but below average against everyone else. It wasn’t an accident that when the B12 was formed, they were among the four former SWC schools that didn’t get an invite.
So yeah: Kansas, Okahoma State, Baylor, and TCU >>> Memphis, Tulsa, Houston, and SMU. I will grant you that Cincinnati = Cincinnati. And that’s only Navy. Your plan is predicated on Army joining too, and the difference for them is even more dramatic.
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What may be relevant to some of these decisions are the grants of rights. The AAC extended its TV contract, but there is no grant of rights, so AAC teams are free to leave.
UConn on the other hand has a $30 million payout to the Big East if they leave within the first six years, which ends in 2025.
Colin, I am not sure that any of the three military academies would want to join a major college football league due to the major upgrade in competition, but your suggestion of trading money for flexibility is creative.
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I don’t think Frank was being serious with UConn — it appeared only once, in the 10th option out of 11. Football is 85% of the revenue, and the more important sport for most of the eight remaining schools. They aren’t going to add a program so weak that it makes Kansas look like Ohio State.
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Marc
I agree that UConn is really not viable for anything other than the Big East. I think that it is more likely that UConn downgrades football to FCS than that it gets an offer from any other football conference. The buyout number is interesting since it is timed to end at the same time the B1G TV contract. I wonder if that was a consideration.
Even UConn mens basketball is not what it was under Coach Calhoun. Will it ever be?
UConn womens basketball is an undisputed KING. Unfortunately for them, not a whole lot of major conferences are built around womens bball.
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I suggested something like a You Come at the King strategy in one of the previous comment threads. Basically the best way to solidify the Big 12’s position as the 5th best conference is to deliberately weaken the 6th best conference.
One other thing that echoes the demise of the Big East – let’s say The Big 12 takes Cincy, Houston and UCF and the AAC backfills to return to 12. Then over the next several years, a couple AAC schools emerge and dominate the conference. Maybe Memphis and USF are consistently wining 10-11 games a year and occasionally sneaking into the playoffs when Big 12 schools beat up on each other and all go 9-3. The Big 12 could just poach those two and go to 14. Nothing says “we’re power 5 and you are not” like making the AAC their feeder league.
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It’s a case where correlation is not causation. The B12 won’t raid the AAC out of spite or revenge — it’s simply the conference where most of the logical expansion candidates reside.
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I’d like to suggest we simply list the schools instead of using Frank’s, uh, creative titles for the options, so we don’t have to keep scrolling all the way up to see what schools are being talked about.
I have trouble remembering the 8 schools in the You Have to Burger the King Before You Steal All My Exes Strategy.
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Geaux Tigers!
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Go Bucks
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I’m humbled to think that I have influenced the debate enough to get Rice mentioned so many times. A man can dream, but I always wake up.
In other news, the Owls extended our AD in spite of the horrid state of the big three sports. I guess we just want to dominate CUSA on the women’s side.
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Would love to see a west coast cluster of BYU, Boise St, and San Diego St to go with a more eastern cluster of Cinci, UCF, and then either Memphis, Houston, or even UConn.
Would be a fun league. Great basketball, solid football. But 14 makes most sense to me. Not for per school payout, but for long-term survival.
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Looking again at the Magnolia League I think it has a decent chance of happening. Just not with the remains of the Big 8. If the B8 takes the top AAC teams (say Houston, Cincy, UCF, and Memphis) that league becomes the core of the Magnolia. You have Tulane, SMU, Tulsa, Temple, and Navy already. Add Rice and a couple of others, maybe UAB, and you would be there. Wichita may leave for better basketball elsewhere, and ECU and USF don’t really fit the mold, but it could work.
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The dream would be that ECU and USF decide to go elsewhere and they’re replaced by Army and Air Force. We get a nice somewhat homogenous nine team Magnolia.
Air Force
Army
Navy
Rice
SMU
Temple
Tulane
Tulsa
UAB
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Temple is close to Annapolis and West Point, but it’s not as preppy or bro/douche as Lehigh or some of the other possible schools in VA/NC or SC. Too bad U of Jac, Stetson, Rollins and Eckhart in FL are not precipice of D1 schools.
Also, explain in what ways UAB is different than Memphis and say, Georgia State, is it more focused on the lucrative “pre-____” liberal arts majors (they do have a good med school) and do the HBCUs siphon off enough other students that may signal more of a grittier urban school? Indeed the Blazers have come back pretty strong after the football hiatus.
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In the admittedly flawed USNews rankings,
UAB 153
Memphis 258
Plus, the med school, as you noted. In most discussions on the CUSA board UAB is acknowledged as the second best school in the conference. And ahead of any in the Sun Belt.
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I’m not convinced BYU would (or should) accept an invite to the B12. The details of college football playoff expansion and P12/B1G/ACC Alliance scheduling will likely play a significant role.
There’s been alot of discussion over the years about the P10 (now P12) and BYU related to cultural differences. They don’t see eye to eye on big issues, but that has not prevented them from playing alot of football. As an independent BYU can schedule whoever they want that’s willing. They’ve played the P12 way more often than the B12, and not just the annual game with Utah. AZ, ASU, CO, and UCLA have all played BYU more than any B12 school.
Follow Rule #1 (Think Like a University President) and look at where BYU students are from.
State Perrcent
Utah 34.32%
California 9.81%
Texas 6.34%
Idaho 5.97%
Washington 5.46%
Arizona 5.03%
Colorado 2.81%
Virginia 2.50%
Oregon 2.30%
Nevada 2.09%
https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/brigham-young-university-provo/student-life/diversity/chart-geographic-breakdown.html
BYU schedules games where they get the most students. It’s no accident that UVA is on the schedule this year.
What type of playoff access will BYU have as an independent? How many conference winners will get auto-bids? Will the “new” B12 be one of them? If the Alliance follows thru on the P12 Commissioner’s recent quote and plays 10 Alliance games (8+1+1) that would effectively cut off BYU’s access to P12 games. I can’t see anyone other than Utah willing to play 10 Alliance games and then BYU OOC.
It makes sense for BYU to wait and see what shakes out with CFP expansion and the Alliance. As long as BYU can continue to schedule a mix of mostly P12 and MWC games (plus a few B12 games if needed) there isn’t much reason to join the B12. If the Alliance goes to 10 games they may need the B12.
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What type of playoff access will BYU have as an independent? How many conference winners will get auto-bids?
In the proposal, the top six conference champs get auto-bids. The B12 champ will usually be among the top six. Hence, by joining the B12, BYU would have two paths to the playoff: as the B12 champ or as an at-large. As an independent, their only path would be at-large, but with the schedule they play, they’d need to go 12–0, and how often will that happen? Maybe once in a generation.
Besides that, as a conference member they’d get shared bowl and playoff money; as an independent, they’d get no playoff money and they’d only get bowl money for the games they are in. I would be surprised if BYU’s prospects are better as an independent.
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Based on history, they probably cringe at scheduling games in the B10 west and the northern fringe of the SEC east.
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“I’m not convinced BYU would (or should) accept an invite to the B12.”
If the Big 12 had offered them a football-only invitation, I think they might have declined it, unless they feared the “Alliance” effectively blackballing them (along with the SEC and BIg 12) by not leaving schools any slots to schedule them. I’d imagine the average BYU fan will find the Big 12 football schedule less interesting than what they’ve had as an independent.
But the opportunity to improve their competition in the other sports, even with increased travel, has to be a big plus for the athletic program. The Big 12 has top-level basketball, and is pretty good in several other sports.
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” I’d imagine the average BYU fan will find the Big 12 football schedule less interesting than what they’ve had as an independent.”
I agree. It wouldn’t be possible for the Big XII to cobble together a better schedule than BYU has this year. Six opponents either in-state or in contiguous states. Five Pac-12 teams on the schedule including Southern Cal. Boise State and Utah State are annual rivals plus they play Utah just about every year.
https://fbschedules.com/byu-football-schedule/
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And the BYU AD has talked in interviews about how difficult it is to be an independent in football these days.
I took another look at Colorado State’s football record. It’s awful, worse that USF. Other than 2013 & 2014 under Coach Sharkhumper, it’s been mostly losing records or a 7-6 ceiling for the last 18 years. They’d be a terrible addition.
Anyways, it won’t happen because it may not have quite as high a per school payout, but if I were Kennesaw Mountain McLonghornFace taking over the B12, I’d go with ‘They’ve Earned It On The Field’ pods of:
SD St, Fresno St, BYU, Boise St
TxTech, TCU, Baylor, U.Hou
Ok.St, KSU, KS, IA St
Memphis, Cincy, WVU, UCF
Easier travel, all the new schools have shown a commitment to doing what it takes to win, and that’s a pretty good cutoff line if the P5 breaks away.
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That 4th spot in the West Pod could go a few ways, but I concur with Fresno St in that spot as the on-field performance pick. Maybe the Valley can even wrest itself from the Bear by the latter part of this decade.
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CSU is not a whole lot better historically than UTEP, New Mexico and New Mexico St.
But they have had some good years including a top 10 finish and they have a new stadium and they are spending with the top of the G5.
If you add them, you are adding them both as a project and for alumni connections in Colorado.
They only get in as a #12 or #14 or #16.
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New AWRU rankings are out. Here are the AAU member rankings:
https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2021
AWRU US Rank of AAU Members
Harvard University 1
Stanford University 2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3
University of California, Berkeley 4
Princeton University 5
Columbia University 6
California Institute of Technology 7
The University of Chicago 8
Yale University 9
Cornell University 10
University of California, Los Angeles 11
University of Pennsylvania 12
Johns Hopkins University 13
University of California, San Diego 14
University of Washington 15
Washington University in St. Louis 17
University of Michigan 18
New York University 19
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 20
University of Wisconsin–Madison 21
Duke University 22
Northwestern University 23
University of Minnesota 24
The University of Texas at Austin 25
University of Colorado Boulder 27
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign 29
University of Maryland, College Park 30
University of California, Santa Barbara 31
University of Southern California 32
Vanderbilt University 33
University of California, Irvine35
Purdue University 36
Boston University 37
Carnegie Mellon University 38
University of Florida 39
University of California, Davis 40
Brown University 41-56
Case Western Reserve University 41-56
Emory University 41-56
Georgia Institute of Technology 41-56
Indiana University Bloomington 41-56
Michigan State University 41-56
The Pennsylvania State University 41-56
Rice University 41-56
Rutgers University–New Brunswick 41-56
Ohio State University 41-56
The University of Arizona 41-56
University of Pittsburgh 41-56
University of Utah 41-56
Texas A&M University 57-62
UC Santa Cruz 57-62
University of Rochester 57-62
University of Virginia 57-62
University of Iowa 63-89
University of Kansas 63-89
University of Missouri 63-89
Brandeis University 90-110
Iowa State University 90-110
Stony Brook University 90-110
State University of New York at Buffalo 90-110
University of Oregon 90-110
Tulane University 153-168
I know these aren’t the same as the AAU rankings but they are similar. It seems like the schools that have the most to worry about are Iowa State, Oregon, Buffalo, and Tulane. It seems like maybe Missouri and Kansas are safer than I thought. Also, as I’ve said repeatedly, Missouri is investing heavily and trending up at a high pace, so I see them probably moving up to the next block (57-62) over the next several years at this rate. So they seem tot be very safe.
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It seems like the schools that have the most to worry about are Iowa State, Oregon, Buffalo, and Tulane. It seems like maybe Missouri and Kansas are safer than I thought.
Does this survey use the same metrics the AAU does? Unless they do, those schools have nothing to worry about.
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There’s some overlap, yes, but it’s not exactly the same, no. I think the AAU rankings would come out similarly but somewhat different.
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https://twitter.com/TimShep_/status/1432774996280086528
The general chatter I’m hearing is that the Big 12 is definitely adding Cincinnati and UCF. They’re deciding on whether to also add two of BYU, Boise State, and Memphis, or to just stay at 10.
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‘Tim Shepherd’, based on his prior tweets, appears to be another twit phony with no inside info. He’s thrown out a lot of conflicting info the last few months.
He’s just guessing.
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I’d think, looking forward to the 2023 legislative session, Texas politics would incentivize the three remaining Texas Big 12 schools to play nice with Houston. There are always pet projects and legislative priorities that don’t get the political blood boiling that require legislative horse trading in order to get passed. They might not be able to get Houston an invite, but they would be well-served to at least speak well of Houston so as not to tick off representatives in the area for other petty sorts of retaliation.
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Do you believe that there will be anything in the legislative session related to the departure of UT from the leftover Texas schools?
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UT has alumni as Speaker of the House and in the governor’s mansion. I don’t think the face imminent risk of any retribution—particularly with the UT-A&M game coming back.
Of course, the 2022 elections will occur before the 2023 legislative session (the lege is in a special session right now called by the governor to address only certain topics), so there’s always the possibility of some surprises.
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After watching UT walk away alone from the Big 12 with the only political response being to call some hearings to get a few on-the-record quotes (but no actual action), I would think that Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU legitimately DGAF what Texas politicians say about Big 12 expansion at this point (and they honestly shouldn’t). Now, I believe that Houston is one of the 4 most valuable schools available for the Big 12 to add, so it makes sense for the league to add them from that standpoint. However, any outside political pressure is effectively gone.
By the same token, while UT and OU leaving the Big 12 was certainly bad for Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU, it may end up being very good for other Texas-based schools that could move up the conference realignment ladder. Houston is certainly on that list and maybe SMU if they get Big 12 consideration. Rice could step into the AAC if Houston moves. Consolidation in the G5 ranks could end up helping schools like UTSA, UNT and UTEP long-term. Once you get past the specific partisans that support Texas Tech/Baylor/TCU, there could be several other Texas-based institutions that end up being better off when all is said and done.
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I also did not consider that the return of the UT v TAMU game might be more important to many in TX than the minor collateral damage to Texas Tech, Baylor or TCU. Thanks for that significant reminder.
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Right – the “T-shirt” fans in the State of Texas that aren’t alums of any prominent program are overwhelmingly either Texas or Texas A&M fans. My guess is that they’re completely jacked to see the UT-A&M rivalry reinstated and simply having Texas in the SEC (the preeminent football league on-the-field) in general. I mean, I’m the furthest thing from either a Texas native or an SEC guy, but as a pure football fan, anyone that denies that adding UT and OU on top of the existing SEC matchups is just straight-up exciting is fooling themselves. The SEC is going to have multiple monster matchups every single week.
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@Frank
as a pure football fan, anyone that denies that adding UT and OU on top of the existing SEC matchups is just straight-up exciting is fooling themselves. The SEC is going to have multiple monster matchups every single week.
I think that is big reason for Texas wanting to leave that gets overlooked. UT’s biggest game of the the year is in Dallas leaving the games in Austin lacking. Baylor, TCU and Tech are historical rivals, but don’t inspire the buzz like A&M does. KU, KSU, ISU, OSU, and WV are considered by fans to be lesser teams that Texas should blow out. There are still going to get some of those games in the SEC, but the games in Austin just got a lot better.
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The Texas legislature may strong arm the 3 Texas schools to vote for Houston, but the remaining 5 won’t vote yes. They need 6 yes votes to get in (75% of 8).
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@Eric – They need 8 votes. OU and UT still have their votes. I’m sure they’ll abstain but they count in the 75% calculation.
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Big 12 expansion talks focused on BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Houston: Sources
https://theathletic.com/news/big-12-expansion-talks-focused-on-byu-ucf-cincinnati-houston-sources/5CZvjXPK0mL1
– “BYU, UCF, Cincinnati and Houston are the four schools that have been most seriously discussed and are considered the leading contenders”
– No Timeline
– Considered best four available
– Lots of details need to be worked out.
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Those 4 make the most sense. I had been hearing Houston wouldn’t get in, but I think they’re a stronger candidate than Memphis or Boise.
UCF, Cincinnati and Houston all have average ACT scores of 27 and decent but not great research numbers. BYU isn’t a research institution but their ACT average is 29 so they’re kind of like a Notre Dame-lite. All four of them are above average at sports compared to the Big 12. They all make the Big 12 better overall rather than worse.
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My wife attended BYU. Cost of attendance is stunningly cheap. Undergraduate tuition and fees for 2021-22 is $5,790 and total cost including room and board is $19,236 before financial aid. However all students get some financial aid based upon household income and even the wealthy pay only $17,113.
Household income Average cost after aid
Less than $30,000 $8,694
$30,001–48,000 $9,858
$48,001–75,000 $12,386
$75,001–110,000 $16,004
Over $110,001 $17,113
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It the Athletic story is accurate it looks like Frank nailed it.
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Assuming the Athletic story is correct, here are the conferences ranked by ACT average:
1. ACC Top Half
Duke 34
Boston College 33
Georgia Tech 32
Virginia 32
Wake Forest 31
Miami 31
North Carolina 31
Average: 32.0
2. Pac 12 Top Half
Stanford 35
Cal 33
USC 33
UCLA 32
Washington 30
Colorado 28
Average: 31.8
3. Big Ten Top Half
Northwestern 34
Michigan 33
Maryland 32
Wisconsin 30
Ohio State 30
Illinois 29
Minnesota 29
Average: 31.0
4. SEC Top Half
Vanderbilt 34
Florida 31
Texas 30
Georgia 30
Texas A&M 28
South Carolina 28
Auburn 28
Missouri 27
Average: 29.5
5. ACC Bottom Half:
Clemson 30
NC State 30
Pitt 30
Virginia Tech 28
Florida State 28
Syracuse 28
Louisville 26
Average: 28.5
6. Big 12 Top Half
BYU 29
Baylor 29
TCU 28
Cincinnati 27
UCF 27
Houston 27
Average 27.8
7. Big Ten Bottom Half
Purdue 29
Rutgers 29
Indiana 28
Penn State 27
Michigan State 26
Iowa 26
Nebraska 25
Average: 27.1
8. SEC Bottom Half
Alabama 27
Tennesse 27
Oklahoma 26
Kentucky 26
Mississippi State 26
Arkansas 26
LSU 26
Ole Miss 25
Average: 26.1
9. Pac 12 Bottom Half
Arizona State 26
Utah 26
Arizona 25
Oregon 25
Oregon State 25
Washington State 25
Average: 25.3
10. Big 12 Bottom Half
Kansas 26
Texas Tech 25
Oklahoma State 25
Iowa State 25
Kansas State 24
West Virginia 24
Average: 24.8
The top half of the SEC is pretty decent, ranking 4th out of 10. The bottom half, not so much, ranking 8th out of 10. But look at 10th place out of 10. That’s the bottom half of the Big 12. That’s a big reason why those schools aren’t getting any invites. They would bring down the average of literally any conference they join.
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Average ACT scores by themselves ignore enrollment size. Many of the bigger schools could increase the average score dramatically by reducing the enrollment levels. Plus most of these schools only report initial freshman enrollment scores and not the significant numbers that transfer into the schools.
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OK, but UC Berkeley has 42K enrollment, UCLA has 44k, Texas has over 50k, Ohio State has 46k, Michigan has almost 45k, Wisconsin has almost 44k, etc. So it’s certainly possible to have a huge enrollment and a high ACT average.
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Yes, that’s what makes it impressive. But you want to look at undergrad enrollment for a better comparison.
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For as long as I’ve written about conference realignment, I’ve been careful to make this clear: clearing the academic hurdle for whichever conference is expanding (whether it’s the Big Ten, Pac-12 or Big 12) is Step 1. Once Step 1 is cleared, though, then Step 2 to getting an invite is *entirely* about athletic and financial value. Otherwise, Rice would have been in the Big Ten many years ago (much to the delight of loki_the_bubba).
Now, I do think there’s realistically going to be a sliding scale. For instance, I firmly believe that if the Big Ten were presented with an offer to take Texas and Oklahoma in the same manner as the SEC, then the Big Ten would have taken that offer within two seconds regardless of the AAU status (or lack thereof) of OU. (No one should buy any Twitter/message board rumors that the Big Ten turned down OU for academic reasons for a single second.) The value of that move from a conference realignment standpoint would have been so overwhelming that it’s a no-brainer. Even then, though, Oklahoma is still a flagship university with a national brand.
Further to that point, there’s always a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg calculus in how much academics are a consideration since, not so coincidentally, a disproportionate number of the most valuable brands are flagship universities that generally have higher academic standards than most of their FBS peers or schools that otherwise have academic standards that are as high or higher than many flagships (e.g. Notre Dame, USC, UCLA, Texas A&M, etc.). If most (if not all) of the top brands are schools that have either flagship status or are academically on par with flagships, then the top conferences can use academics as genteel way of eliminating schools that they would never consider on football value itself, anyway.
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That’s a big reason why those schools aren’t getting any invites. They would bring down the average of literally any conference they join.
That’s not the reason at all. If Kansas and Iowa State had the football records and the state demographics of Texas, they would be in the Big Ten, assuming some other conference had not already beat them to it.
The Big Ten already took Nebraska, with no signs of regretting it. KU and ISU are academically better than Nebraska. They have not received invites because the football product and the state demographics aren’t attractive.
The situation with the Pac-12 is even more obvious, since unlike the Big Ten they have clear weaknesses they’d like to address, if they could get the right schools. KU and ISU are right at the Pac-12 median academically. It is because they don’t bring enough football viewers, not because of academics, that they haven’t been considered.
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I think it’s like Frank said, it’s a sliding scale. If they had football programs like Oklahoma they’d be okay. But they have a combination of below average academics AND below average football programs. So they’re going to be on the outside looking in.
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That’s not the way the sliding scale works. KU and ISU’s football programs are financially worthless to the Big Ten, which means that even with Harvard’s academics, they would not get in.
In other words, there is no conceivable setting on the “slider” where their academics would be good enough to offset the lack of athletic value. That is why Rice has never been considered.
When you say that academics are “a big reason why those schools aren’t getting any invites,” it is just. not. true. at. all. Their horrible football programs are the entire reason.
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Iowa State is currently ranked in the top 10 in football. Their basketball history is okay. They average almost 60k fans per game in football and 15k per game in basketball lately. They’re not that bad. And they’re in the AAU, although ranked near the bottom of the AAU. If their school had an average ACT of 31 instead of 25 and did $600M per year in research instead of $300M (basically, give them the academic profile of a Maryland or a Rutgrs), it would probably help their cause some. But I guess for them probably the bigger deal is that the Big Ten already has a school in Iowa.
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“But I guess for them probably the bigger deal is that the Big Ten already has a school in Iowa.”
Of course it is.That is also why the B1G doesn’t go after Pitt.
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If their school had an average ACT of 31 instead of 25 and did $600M per year in research instead of $300M (basically, give them the academic profile of a Maryland or a Rutgers), it would probably help their cause some.
No, not in the least.
I guess for them probably the bigger deal is that the Big Ten already has a school in Iowa.
Yes, you’ve got it! That, and Iowa is a very low-population and low-growth state.
Although ISU is currently in the top 10, they have finished the season ranked just once in the last 20 years. In college sports, programs have a pronounced tendency to return to their historical norm.
I’ve no beef with ISU — to the contrary, it would be cool to see them succeed. But they’re a long way from proving that last year’s 9–3 campaign is the new normal in Ames. They have an all-time losing record and last won a conference championship in 1912. (Not a typo.)
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Iowa St. won the Big 12 in football last year. I think that was their first title since 1912. They have historically been pretty bad in football.
Academics are a floor primarily. They can be a tie-breaker. But sliding scale is not really the best way to describe it.
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@Bullet: No, they lost to Oklahoma in the CCG. It was their best season ever, but not a championship.
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Andy, just wondering. Do you think that it is relevant that Maryland and Rutgers brought 30 million more people into the B1G footprint and resulted in significantly higher income to every team in the league? How about all of the B1G alumni located between DC and NYC?
Iowa State brings a handful of extra people and probably almost no extra money to the B1G. The State of Iowa is already in the B1G, so how does Iowa State pay for itself, much less add value to the B1G?
Though it is an academic conference with lots of sports, no one gets an admission ticket without also bringing significant value to the sports league. PSU brought Pennsylvania and great football. Nebraska was expected to bring great football and both had national football reputations. MD and RU brought money, eyeballs, B1G alums, and stopped the ACC from controlling the Atlantic coast by creating the ONLY college football presence from DC to NYC (not counting PSU fans in the Philly area).
I doubt that Iowa State was on Delany’s short list of additions when any of those were invited.
Iowa State brings what exactly compared to any of the four newer teams?
I am sure that Iowa State is a perfectly fine university, which recently has also had excellent football, but they bring no upside to the B1G.
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Iowa State is probably a bad example for all the reasons you’re listing.
Kansas is more relevant. They would bring a new state and a primo basketball brand. If their ACT average were 31 like UNC’s then I bet they’d be a more serious candidate. As it is they’d have one of the worst academic profiles in the Big Ten.
And I think it goes for the Big 12 as well. Notice they’re apparently adding 3 schools with an ACT average of 27 and one with an ACT average of 29. Notice who they’re not inviting:
Boise State – ACT average 23
Memphis – ACT average 23
UNLV – ACT average 22
I think they’re shying away from weak academic schools.
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Kansas is more relevant. They would bring a new state and a primo basketball brand. If their ACT average were 31 like UNC’s then I bet they’d be a more serious candidate.
No league with football expands for basketball. Football is 85% of the TV revenue. Even with Stanford’s academics, Kansas wouldn’t get in. It’s true, they’re in a state the Big Ten doesn’t have, but it’s a low-population state.
We don’t know if UNC is a serious candidate. But NC is 9th in population, more than all but three states in the B1G footprint. It is also growing faster than any state in the footprint. Kansas is 36th with well below-average growth.
Notice they’re apparently adding 3 schools with an ACT average of 27 and one with an ACT average of 29. Notice who they’re not inviting:
Boise State – ACT average 23
Memphis – ACT average 23
UNLV – ACT average 22
I think they’re shying away from weak academic schools.
The rumored choices are all better for football, television, recruiting, etc. In other words, they are doing what Frank has preached on this blog for the last 15 years or so. While your academic hypothesis happens to work in this case, how does it explain the ACC replacing Maryland with Louisville? How does it explain the B12 adding West Virginia?
Even if the schools were all equal academically, there are a bunch of purely athletic reasons why Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati would be best. When a sports league makes a sports decision, don’t invent other reasons for it.
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ACC taking Louisville was simple. Clemson and FSU demanded a football school, with an implicit threat of picking up their own footballs and leaving. Louisville had been 12-1 the prior season and they were ranked in the top 20. Simple.
Academics at NC, VA, Duke, etc. had to bite their respective tongues and take the top football school available.
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But Louisville was not an exception. It proved the rule that football value drives almost all realignment decisions. The ACC (Louisville), the Big 12 (West Virginia), and the Big Ten (Nebraska) all made a football decision to take schools that were academically worse than the members they already had.
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If Kansas had the academics of Stanford, like you suggested, plus a new, contiguous state and a top 5 basketball program, I think there’s a high chance they’d be added to the Big Ten right now. As it is, they don’t. Their academics are basically the same as Nebraska’s, maybe slightly better.
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If Kansas had the academics of Stanford, like you suggested, plus a new, contiguous state and a top 5 basketball program, I think there’s a high chance they’d be added to the Big Ten right now.
Which past realignment decision by any football conference is consistent with this?
Why are you suggesting a newfangled explanation that many past realignments flatly contradict, when the one that Frank put out there 15 years ago continues to explain everything?
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If you give Kansas the academics of Stanford then they are basically Duke. Don’t you think the Big Ten would take Duke? I do. There’s no proof that they wouldn’t. In fact, I think not only would the Big Ten take Duke, but the SEC would gladly take them as well.
Butt Kansas is not Duke so it’s all hypothetical.
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If you give Kansas the academics of Stanford then they are basically Duke. Don’t you think the Big Ten would take Duke?
In that case, they’d be getting into North Carolina, the country’s 9th-most populous state, and one of its fastest-growing. There’d also be an obvious school to pair Duke with, UNC. All of that Kansas can’t offer, even if it had Duke’s academics.
In fact, I think not only would the Big Ten take Duke, but the SEC would gladly take them as well.
I doubt we will ever know, but I suspect not. Unlike the Big Ten, the SEC does not have the problem of being concentrated in slow-growing states. It has four states growing faster than NC is (Texas, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina).
With football being ~85% of the revenue, I’ve got to think UNC+Duke would be a net negative for the SEC and possibly even for the Big Ten. The nation’s best MBB rivalry might not be enough to compensate for their mediocre-to-poor football product.
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It’s all hypothetical, but you have to think like a university president and think about the prestige factor.
If the SEC adds UNC and Duke, they add a major contiguous state, but also they do two more things: they instantly make the SEC as good of a basketball conference as any other league, and also they remove any remaining questions about the SEC academically. A league with Duke, Vanderbilt, UNC, Florida, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Georgia is unquestionably a solid league academically, and all of the university presidents could feel good about that.
I absolutely think the SEC would take both UNC and Duke if they had the chance. Can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
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The B12 invited WV because it needed to get back to 10 teams to fulfill its TV contract commitments. #1 candidate Pitt was angling for and got an ACC invite, B12 powers deemed #2 candidate BYU made too many unique demands. That left WV and Louisville as the best available that would accept a B12 invite. The B12 chose WV. When the B1G poached Maryland the ACC had the same choice and picked Louisville (WV would have left the B12 in an instant for the ACC). If the ACC had picked WV than Louisville would probably be in the B12 now. Yes athletics played a major role in the decisions to the extent that Rice or Tulane were not considered by either ACC or B12 but it is always a multi-factor decision. On a pure athletic choice the B12 should have picked BYU.
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It’s all hypothetical, but you have to think like a university president and think about the prestige factor.
Folks trot out Frank’s “think like a university president line” but don’t always work out the details. The real #1 rule of the presidents is that nobody voluntarily realigns to lose money. It is not absolutely clear to me that Duke and UNC could be financially accretive to the SEC. Granted, it’s not a crazy idea and they might take that deal, but it’s not clear-cut.
The B12 invited WV because it needed to get back to 10 teams to fulfill its TV contract commitments.
We all know why the B12 expanded. The point is they made an athletic decision to take a school that was academically worse than every member they had. They were not looking at ACT scores.
On a pure athletic choice the B12 should have picked BYU.
Incorrect. WVU was the better football school at the time. In the decade before they joined the B12, WVU had 10 bowl appearances and 7 ranked seasons, including 3 in the top ten. They also had 3 BCS appearances, the gold standard at the time. Over the same 10 seasons, BYU had 7 bowl appearances, 6 ranked seasons, none in the top 10, and no BCS bowls.
WVU was clearly the better football product, and better still, they also didn’t have the Sunday play issue in other sports. It was the best athletic decision.
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Four P5 TV networks in one state? That’s what were’s actually looking at in Florida. The ACC and SEC networks are already there. A couple of years ago Comcast tried dropping the Big Ten Network from their basic package and they had so many cancelations from B1G alumni that they brought the BTN back in a couple of months.
So if UCF joins the B12, how many people will pay for yet another P5 TV network?
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The R8 are all on ESPN+ for their Tier III.
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Thinking about the Alliance & 8 conference games vs 9, I agree that for the B10, dropping to 8 conference games and substituting in an Alliance game by itself wouldn’t do much of anything. What dropping to 8 conference games does is give you flexibility, though (even if the schools that have big stadiums desire 7 home games a year). With 8 conference games, I would expect 3 protected rivalry games and playing the other 10 schools half the time. You could then stage OOC games between B10 schools while still allowing Iowa its precious 7 home games and ISU rivalry game. When they aren’t meeting in conference play, have one game a year where 2 of OSU/UMich/PSU/MSU/Wisconsin/UNL play each other (on a home field). 2 of the other 7 (besides Iowa) also play each other each year OOC in a kickoff classic that is either held in Chicago or the East Coast. I would make both games kickoff classics (either Week 1 or Week 0).
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@Richard – There is one way to play nine conference games and give everyone seven home games, invite the SEC to the Alliance. Teams that have 5 conference home games get two away Alliance games (four at home get one away). It solves the ACC vs SEC problems the current arrangement has (just lock those rivals) and makes for a fair scheduling arraignment.
9 Big Ten
1 ACC
1 P12
1 SEC
Yes the math doesn’t work out for a 16, 14, 14, and 12 member conferences, but the extra teams could just play each other. Also, it completely screws Notre Dame unless they join a conference. Assuming they do, a week 0 game could be added to accommodate “games of regional importance” like ND-Navy, Iowa-Iowa St, Utah-BYU, etc.
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??? That gives you 6 home games a year as the regular season is 12 games.
5 home conference games means 4 away conference games. Add on 2 more away Alliance games and you have 6 away games, meaning only 6 home games a year.
4 home conference games means 5 away conference games. Add on another away Alliance game and you have 6 away and 6 home games.
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@Richard – completely botched that one. Not sure how.
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Houston (and others) in next week?
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/college/article/UH-expected-to-make-leap-to-Big-12-16432110.php
SMU and Memphis are still in the discussion.
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…as #13 and #14 or as replacements of 2 the original favored #9 thru #12? Maybe the UCF prez won this year’s Fertitta Award and BYU is backing out as much for not being able to schedule PAC and other overall recruiting grounds as in regards to Honor Code.
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Interesting that one of their sources says that Houston has unanimous support.
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A lot of people thought Texas A&M would vote against Texas joining the SEC, but they did not.
Conference realignment decisions in FBS are almost invariably driven by football money. If Houston is the best financial choice, they’re going to get the nod, no matter what the other considerations may be.
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Did ESPN double cross the AAC (again)?
So if cbssports report is correct , the top 3 AAC programs – Cindy, UCF, UH and Byu are the Big 12’s preferred candidates. Option 2. I wonder if ESPN goaded AAC earlier to solicit big 12 schools knowing that this would upset the big 12 to go aggressive back Speculation, but I can see some kind of backroom deal to free up Oklahoma, Texas early with less penalty in exchange for a revenue package close to existing for Big 12. ESPN gets what it wants for SEC , Byu contract rolled into the big12 and reduced contract for AAC. ESPN and Sec get exactly what they want. , big 12 is stabilized, the 4 newbies are happy. AAC gets holding the bag.
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The B12 is simply doing what every league does in realignment, whether ESPN suggests it or not. They go to the next conference down the food chain. Or, as Frank put it, the sh*t rolls downhill.
I don’t think we can credit ESPN with any Machiavellian insights, when the B12 is just doing the obvious things that realigning conferences always do.
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Matt is the longtime sports anchor for the Houston CBS station.
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” . . . the proposed move by the #Big12 to bring BYU, Houston, Central Florida and Cincinnati into the league is basically a “done deal.” Formal invitations are expected to go out within the next 7-10 days . . .”
The Big XII will be moving fron a conference with two outliers – ISU and WV – to at conference with five outliers – BYU, ISU, Cincy, WV and UCF. Will that enhance TV revenue?
And adding Houston to a conference that already has lost its Texas state flagship and its little brother – will that enhance TV revenue?
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The Big XII will be moving fron a conference with two outliers – ISU and WV – to at conference with five outliers – BYU, ISU, Cincy, WV and UCF.
ISU isn’t an outlier: it has been a conference mate with Kansas, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State since 1958. It has been with Kansas and Kansas State since 1913.
But anyhow, you’re the guy who suggested they invite Army and Navy, which would have been more obvious outliers than any of the schools you mentioned.
Will that enhance TV revenue?
And adding Houston to a conference that already has lost its Texas state flagship and its little brother – will that enhance TV revenue?
Yes, without a doubt. Nobody in the last 25 years has made a conference realignment move without confirming the value with TV partners. They’ll make less than the old Big 12, but there’s nothing they can do about that. With the hand they’ve been dealt, these are the best cards to play.
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Assuming these four are invited and accept, a bunch of questions come to mind.
How will B12 expansion impact the timing and exit fees for OU & UT’s move to the SEC?
Will the “new” B12 still be considered a P5 league or just the best of the rest?
Will the SEC and B1G/P12/ACC Alliance (if that turns into anything) still schedule B12 home and home OOC games or will the be relegated to buy-games?
How will B12 expansion impact upcoming discussions on playoff expansion in September?
Will the B12 still be considered an Automony league by the NCAA?
What other reshuffling and consolidation will occur in the other G5 leagues?
How will all of this impact the planned NCAA Constitutional Convention in November?
Grab some popcorn it’s going to be an interesting football season on and off the field.
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I think the new Big 12 will be kind of on the boarder between P5 and G5 status. When the playoff expands, they take the top 6 conference champs. So the Big 12 would pretty much always get a spot in the playoffs. The way they can establish themselves as a solid P5 conference is if they win playoff games. If they make the playoffs and then lose badly every year, they won’t be taken seriously. It will be up to schools like UCF, Cincinnati, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State to actually win some playoff games agains the OUs and Georgias and Ohio States and Oregons of the world in the playoffs. If they do that, they’ll be taken seriously as a P5 conference.
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How will B12 expansion impact the timing and exit fees for OU & UT’s move to the SEC?
If OU and UT want to leave much before 2025, the exit costs are stratospheric. I don’t see the Little 8 being very generous to them. If they want to leave early, it will cost them. These four additions are the best the Big 12 can do. They are still no substitute for Oklahoma and Texas.
Will the “new” B12 still be considered a P5 league or just the best of the rest?
There is no formal process for that to be revoked. At some point, if they do not carry their weight, the other four might push to expel them. It’s going to be important that they win their fair share against the other leagues.
Will the SEC and B1G/P12/ACC Alliance (if that turns into anything) still schedule B12 home and home OOC games or will the be relegated to buy-games?
The distinction isn’t as clear as you’re suggesting. Even today, Power Five teams sometimes schedule home-and-homes with non-P5 opponents, and sometimes schedule buy games within the P5. Oklahoma State might be in a position to make more demands than UCF.
How will B12 expansion impact upcoming discussions on playoff expansion in September?
The B12 should be desperately wanting expansion to pass.
Will the B12 still be considered an Automony league by the NCAA?
Much like P5 status, there isn’t any provision for that status to be revoked. Given that the NCAA is getting weaker, I do not see any league losing autonomy status.
What other reshuffling and consolidation will occur in the other G5 leagues?
In the past, almost every move sets off a domino chain of others. The ACC, as the strongest of the G5 leagues, will probably be looking to poach its nearest neighbors.
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“There is no formal process fo [P5 status] to be revoked. At some point, if they do not carry their weight, the other four might push to expel them. It’s going to be important that they win their fair share against the other leagues.”
The term “Power 5” came with the current playoff system, replacing the term “AQ conferences”, which represented the 6 conferences that automatically qualified for the BCS bowls. While the term P5 doesn’t have an official definition, it was created to refer to the 5 conferences that signed contracts with the bowls in current playoff system. The AAC (née Big East) was the AQ conference that didn’t make the cut.
If we still have the current playoff system when the Longhorns and Sooners move to the SEC, I could see the Sugar Bowl seeking to terminate their contract with the Big 12 (1). I would consider that officially “losing Power 5 status.” Of course, that won’t have any meaning if we’ve already started the new playoff system.
In any event, I don’t see anyone trying to strip the Big 12 of “autonomy status”, as long as it votes like a *relatively* rich conference. That status was created so the wealthier conferences aren’t bound by the poorer conferences trying to keep spending down to “even the playing field.” Judging from comments by the P5 commissioners (which have been overshadowed since the realignment news broke), this NCAA convention better strengthen that independence or we may have a breakaway.
(1) I believe someone suggested this on this board when the news of realignment first broke, but I could see the Big 10, SEC, ND, Sugar Bowl, and Orange Bowl getting together and agreeing to this: Sugar Bowl: Sec #1 vs. Big 10 #2 or ND; Orange Bowl: ACC #1 vs SEC #2 or ND. The SEC/Big 10/ND would get a bit less money for each appearance for their #2 team than they currently get from the Orange Bowl, but they’d be likely to get more appearances. If they wanted to cheer up the ACC and Pac 12, you could have the ACC #2 vie with the Big 10 for the Sugar Bowl 2nd spot, while the Pac 12 #2 vies with the SEC for the Orange Bowl #2 spot, but I don’t know that the bowls would really want that (the #2 team from the ACC or Pac 12 is more likely to not have a large fanbase than the BIg 10 or SEC #2 team, especially since this might actually be team #3 if the conference gets a team in the playoffs).
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I could see the Sugar Bowl seeking to terminate their contract with the Big 12 (1). I would consider that officially “losing Power 5 status.” Of course, that won’t have any meaning if we’ve already started the new playoff system.
That makes a lot of sense! The term “Power Five,” as you’ve noted, has no real legal meaning—it’s just the leagues that had (historically) the best bowl access.
If the playoff proposal passes, the top six conference champs will get playoff bids, which amounts to the same thing. It’s fairly probable that new Big 12 would almost always be in the top six.
Now, if the playoff proposal is modified, we’ll have to see how they treat the B12. The Pac-12 commissioner has said he wants an autobid for power conference champs. He didn’t say if he still considers the B12 a member of that group.
I don’t see anyone trying to strip the Big 12 of “autonomy status”, as long as it votes like a *relatively* rich conference. That status was created so the wealthier conferences aren’t bound by the poorer conferences trying to keep spending down to “even the playing field.”
Also very sensible. Nobody’s going to tell the Big 12 it can’t spend like a big boy, and I doubt it would choose to self-demote.
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I have a sense that this NCAA convention is being driven by everyone BUT the P5.
Not sure that anything happens with it.
The Knight commission had a survey saying most schools wanted to split off football but keep basketball in the NCAA. However, the P5 (and you had to look to find that data) strongly opposed that option. Not sure there isn’t a big clash about to happen.
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I’m not predicting what’ll happen, but I think there’s near-universal disgust at the NCAA’s wastefulness, mismanagement and bureaucracy. The trouble is, everyone agrees that at least some of its functions are necessary. The schools have tolerated the NCAA’s ineptitude because they didn’t have the stomach for creating something brand new that might just trade the current problems for new ones.
Interesting tidbit: for decades, the NCAA insisted that if players could monetize their NIL rights, it would destroy college athletics. Now, suddenly the players are doing exactly that, and the sky has not fallen down. How many tens of millions did the NCAA spend enforcing and litigating the former rule, only to let it drop so quickly when they finally realized the issue was lost?
That’s not the first time it has happened. For years, the NCAA insisted that universally televised games would be the end of college football. It spent millions litigating that position up to the Supreme Court—and lost. Would anyone now prefer to go back to the days when almost all games weren’t on TV?
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NIL may well destroy college sports. But I don’t know how it could have been avoided. Like that gymnast being a social influencer on instagram. How do you justify preventing that? Any other student could do that, including those on scholarships.
There is going to be even more of a rush of athletes to the bigger, richer schools. You won’t see those occasional stars stay at home. The imbalance will get bigger.
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The impact of NIL remains to be seen. OSU recruit Quinn Evers was the top rated QB in high school football, so he skipped his high school senior year to enroll at OSU, where he is expected to earn about one million dollars or more from licensing this year. Not bad for a kid who was supposed to be playing high school football right now.
I do not know how many other times that has occurred this year, but it has now happened at Rutgers. Gavin Wimsatt is the number one recruit in Kentucky, ranked nationally in the top 150 and the number eleven rated QB by 247 and he ranked in the top 100 by Rivals.
While being number 11 QB and top 100 recruit (by Rivals) might be irrelevant to OSU and others, he is the second highest ranked QB recruited by RU since 247 started its ranking system.
Last weekend he played his third high school game of the season for Owensboro, Kentucky, and then formally graduated from high school. (He had taken a number of accelerated courses and was qualified to graduate whenever he wanted.) Wimsatt was expected to enroll at Rutgers in January. Instead, this week he will be in classes at RU and start practice with the team. It appears likely that he was advised that he will earn well into six digits from NIL. It will not be the million earned by Quinn Evers, but he is also not the top ranked QB in this year’s ratings.
After the Friday night game, Wimsatt told his high school teammates that he had leave them to take the money.
Was that an unexpected and unintended consequence of NIL and does anyone care?
As a total aside, is this also a message to other relatively top recruits that they can even go to RU and earn big money from licensing?
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I was surprised just how big the money was. I didn’t think the impact would be that dramatic, but I was thinking 4 and 5 digits, not 6 and 7.
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The impact of NIL remains to be seen.
I agree—it’s early innings. Actually, the top of the first with nobody out.
The NCAA and its member schools have repeatedly claimed that a particular rule was an existential necessity, only to change it later when they were forced to. Their credibility is long past shot.
I don’t think NIL is an existential threat to college sports. Will there be changes that some people don’t like? Absolutely.
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Marc:
“… only to change it later when they were forced to.”
Are you saying the ncaa should defy the ruling?
“ Their credibility is long past shot.”
I may have (many) disagreements with a number of ncaa positions, but this acquiescence certainly doesn’t destroy credibility.
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Are you saying the ncaa should defy the ruling? . . . I may have (many) disagreements with a number of ncaa positions, but this acquiescence certainly doesn’t destroy credibility.
Look at their litigating position. They always say, “if we lose, college athletics won’t survive!!” — or words to that effect. They say it in every case, going back decades.
That’s what I mean, when I say their credibility is shot. Clearly, they had to comply when they lost.
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What other reshuffling and consolidation will occur in the other G5 leagues?
AAC will be down to 8 football members if they lose 3. AAC will target either Mountain West, CUSA, or the Military Academies as football only members. Colin should already be writing Aresco. Navy is already a football only member of the AAC. After the defections the AAC will be weaker than CUSA was at the time Army was a football only member (CUSA had TCU, Houston, Louisville, Cincinnati). It may be hard to convince Air Force to leave the MW conference due to other sports and increased travel. If the AAC invites the best teams from the MW they could be more far flung than the B12 with members from California to Florida.to Pennsylvania to Idaho.
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If the AAC refills with the three best available football schools, which ones would it take?
Colin should already be writing Aresco.
Because his last letter was so influential?
Navy is already a football only member of the AAC. After the defections the AAC will be weaker than CUSA was at the time Army was a football only member (CUSA had TCU, Houston, Louisville, Cincinnati).
It’s not crazy that Army would join the defanged AAC. It’s a step up in competition for them, but not as big as the B12 would have been, and the geography is better. Ultimately, I still think they’d be a no.
It may be hard to convince Air Force to leave the MW conference due to other sports and increased travel.
Without Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati, the MW is probably the more desirable conference, so I suspect they’d say no thanks.
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OU and UT’s move and Big 12 autonomy are probably tied together. They reach an amicable agreement for early departure and SEC supports Big 12 retaining autonomy.
There’s a LOT of downsides if the Big 12 tries to play hardball on the exit. They could make enemies in the NCAA and in the Texas and Oklahoma legislatures.
I suspect the speed of the Big 12 additions is an indication that deal making is well under way on the exit.
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Bullet,
“ There’s a LOT of downsides if the Big 12 tries to play hardball on the exit. They could make enemies in the NCAA…”
The ncaa is going to have a major over haul, if not a complete remake, a primary reason for the formation of the Big Paclantic.
“…and in the Texas and Oklahoma legislatures.”
Are you saying those legislators are supporting the demotion even if only reputation, for now) of TT, Baylor, TCU, and OkSU?
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You need friends in the legislature for pet projects and funding. You don’t want to make enemies of the many Longhorns and Sooners in the legislatures.
I’m not talking about the legislature as a whole. I’m talking about individual votes and important committee chairmen.
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They reach an amicable agreement for early departure and SEC supports Big 12 retaining autonomy.
That’s an empty gesture because the SEC cannot take autonomy away if the Big Paclantic supports them keeping it, which it probably does.
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https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32141325/byu-houston-ucf-cincinnati-planning-submit-applications-big-12-sources-confirm
BYU, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati are planning to submit applications next week to join the Big 12, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The schools could be approved for admission as early as a Sept. 10 meeting of Big 12 presidents, according to Sports Illustrated, which first reported the story.
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Also
American Athletic Conference bylaws require schools to give a 27-month notice before they leave and pay a $10 million buyout fee. In that scenario, joining by the 2023 season would be a long shot, but an earlier exit and higher buyout could be negotiated. The most realistic timeline, sources said, is 2024.
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Were the Sooners and Longhorns to stick around til the end (however unlikely) both should be scheduled to visit BYU, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati in 2023/24.
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That’s a development which supports the ESPN theory from a few posts above..lard up the 2023-24 aggregate B12’s schedules with attractive non-G5/payout games.
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The new college football world we’re entering looks a lot like the BCS era, when the BE was clearly the poorest of the Automatic Qualifying conferences (just like the new B12 will be the poorest, by far, of the Power 5 now). But that doesn’t mean that the new B12 can’t win on the field. While in the BE, Miami, a smallish private school that was forever financially outgunned by the super-kings in college football, still managed to win 2 national titles by taking advantage of its positive attributes (a goldmine of local talent in a football-mad state coupled with nice weather and a desirable location). In the new B12, I see UCF and Houston having the same advantages, and unlike smallish Miami, those 2 schools are as big as major flagships (though they have been typically commuter schools, but they can change that). We could see the battles between UCF, Houston and Cindy (and maybe OK St., maybe TCU and/or TTech too) become as nationally relevant as the games Miami played against Beamer’s VTech (and sometimes Syracuse).
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While in the BE, Miami, a smallish private school that was forever financially outgunned by the super-kings in college football, still managed to win 2 national titles by taking advantage of its positive attributes (a goldmine of local talent in a football-mad state coupled with nice weather and a desirable location).
Miami became a national power as an independent. As they entered the Big East, they’d already won 3 national championships in the preceding 8 years. They won it in again in their first season as a BE member, giving them 4 in 9 years. No Big 12 team, current or incoming, has a record remotely like that.
I’m not saying it couldn’t happen—of course it could. Alabama is having a similar run right now, but they’re not really a relevant comparison. Nick Saban has been outstanding, but rebuilding an historically elite program is not the same as creating one where it never existed.
For a recent case like Miami, you need to look at Clemson, which was historically pedestrian before Swinney got there. How often does a program make that kind of leap? Maybe once every 20 years or so. And remember, there are dozens of other programs that are trying to do the same, to say nothing of fallen angels like Michigan and USC that are trying to get back.
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When you’re in a region rich in HS football talent, you just need the right coach to take your school to the next level. Miami, FSU and VTech were nothing in football before Schnellenberger, Bowden and Beamer came (Miami was thinking of shutting down their football program before Schnellenberger came) and Clemson wasn’t much before Dabo.
In 1976, how much Canes gear (or even Noles gear) was worn around FL?
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Pitt is an example of urban program rise and fall. Things came together in the Dorsett-Marino decade (73-82) – rich recruiting area, mixed in with targeted recruiting of southern states by southern head coaches. All with an NFL dynasty nearby. Unfortunately, they became eclipsed by the state flagship( +,ND/OSU resurgence), the area has dropped in relative population and thus # of HS players, the BE became subpar after 04.
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Richard, the problem is that Cincy, UCF and Houston ARE commuter schools. I live near Cincinnati and travel into the metro area every month of so. I see plenty of Ohio State T-shirts, baseball hats and bumper stickers, ditto the Reds and the Bengals. I have never see one person displaying Bearcat gear.
I’m retired military and have also lived in Florida and Texas. Same situation. Texas has lots of Longhorn fans and Aggie fans and you’ll see a few TX Tech fans, but I never saw one person in Houston gear. Florida is about evenly split between Gators and Noles and Canes but a UCF fan was never seen.
Cincy, UCF and Houston are in high school football hotbeds and all three recruit well locally and have good teams. But they will never develop enough of a fanbase to even earn the honor of being called a Little Brother. Cincy is way too far behing Ohio State. UCF and Houston are, at best, the Number Four teams in their respective states.
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You do see Cougar gear in Houston. Not in DFW.
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Sure, they started as commuter schools and still have a heavy commuter population but times do change. Most people on here may not realize it, as this is several decades in the past, but UCLA use to be a commuter school as well. For that matter, so was UW-Seattle.
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Do you see any Miami (OH) gear in Cincy? I see a lot on the north side of Chicago and in the suburbs. More so than the Bearcats. OH may not have a singular little brother, but many step brothers (MAC schools) in distinct corners of and communities in the state .
It could be the garish bearcat claw logo and also the local old-timey contention the UC is barely above a juco. “Houston High” also shares that issue.
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@urbanleftbehind – Miami (OH) has long been a popular out-of-state destination for suburban Chicago students (historically much more so than Ohio State), so it doesn’t surprise me that you see a lot of their gear around here. I think it has a fairly unique atmosphere for a public university – it looks and feels a lot more like a private liberal arts school than it does a public research institution despite its size. So, that has long been attractive to a lot of Chicagoland students that are looking for a larger school but still has more of a (for lack of a better term) preppy vibe.
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My son is a senior at Miami – he said that 80% of the kids there come from the “5 C’s” – Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago and China.
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Yes, I do see some Miami OH gear in my boondock area. I live about halfway between Louisville and Cincinnati on the Ohio River. Miami is a highly regarded academic school, certainly more prestigious than Cincy or Louisville.
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Replacements for AAC: Rice, UTSA, FAU,FIU – sounds more like a recipe for alphabet soup, Southern Miss?
Probably only need to get back to 10 . Certainly a Texas school to replace Houston. Also a Florida school to replace UCF.
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Not a great day for Indiana. In addition to getting clocked by Iowa, running back David Holloman was given a jersey indicating that he played for “Indinia”. Minor typo on the face of his jersey,
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Well he does have a patch saying he plays in the Big 10, a conference with 14 schools.
Can’t do math or English.
There’s a good chance with realignment we get rid of one of the mathematically challenged conferences with the Big 12 fixing their numbers. Now we need the Atlantic 10 to blow up as things roll downhill. Not sure how we fix the Big 10. Trade Maryland for Pitt? Then you could at least claim 10 states.
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B1G = B16
Spent over a decade with the subliminal 11 hidden in the name. We can wait another decade (or two) to make this one correct.
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They will call themselves “The Big Ten” regardless of how many teams are in the conference. “Ten” is not a number. It is part of a trademark. Just like “Coke” is not an ingredient. It is a trademark.
People, even highly educated ones, keep confusing English with algebra, and worse, confusing formal written English with spoken English. For example, spoken English uses multiple negatives for emphasis. This is well understood by high school drop outs who haven’t yet taken algebra, but not by math professors at MIT. (I would name the culprit, but I forget his name.)
Anyway, I love the subliminal 16 in B1G. Wish I had seen it first. Now I can’t unsee it.
Thanks.
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“ Just like “Coke” is not an ingredient.”
Just like “Coke” is not currently an ingredient.
Fixed that.
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Marc:
I’d bet the majority of fans never saw the subliminal 11. I admit to being one of them for quite a few years.
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Bob, not Marc…
🙄. Sorry
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Flag football in the Olympics?
https://swimswam.com/cricket-flag-football-among-sports-vying-for-la-2028-inclusion/
A rule change in 2020 allows host nations to add sports based on local interest. For Tokyo that meant skateboarding, surfing, karate, sport climbing, 3×3 basketball, freestyle BMX, and baseball and softball.
In Paris in 2024 sport climbing, skateboarding, and surfing will return and break dancing (aka “breaking”) will be added.
While no official decision has been made for LA, baseball and softball seem all but certain to return and skateboarding and surfing would make a lot of sense given their popularity in Southern California. The International International Cricket Council has announced they plan to pursue addition of cricket for either 2028 or 2032.
The most interesting potential addition though is 5×5 flag football. The NFL is making a big push to have the sport added. Given the NFL’s desire to spread football’s popularity internationally this would be a marketing coup, but the fact the sport has so little following outside of North America could make it a tough sell to the IOC.
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I’m a 40% disabled veteran as rated by the VA and my disability is a compressed disc between my 5th and 6th cervical vertebrae and subsequent arthritis. I was injured playing flag football in the Army. Here are the rules to Army flag football:
1. Knock ’em to the ground as hard as you can.
2. Jump on top of ’em.
3. Pull flag from belt.
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First bone I ever broke was my wrist playing “touch” football in 6th grade gym class. I was on the O-Line blocking and I got run over by like 3 guys.
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One thing to keep in mind is that for every sport added to an Olympics, one other sport is removed. The total number of sports does not change. That is why the article discusses sports being added or dropped.
For reasons that I still cannot understand, there was a serious proposal to remove the discus throw from the 2016 Olympics in Rio. This was notwithstanding the fact that the discus was an original Olympic sport in 1896 and was part of the pentathlon in the ancient Greek Olympics, mentioned in both the Iliad and in the Odyssey. The Greek statue of the discus thrower is an iconic Olympic symbol.
The discus throw did survive due to the overwhelming support worldwide.
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The big thing is they are trying to keep the total number of athletes relatively flat. The IOC added mixed medley relays/events to triathlon, T&F, swimming, shooting, archery and table tennis along with the women’s 1500 freestyle and men’s 800 freestyle to the swimming program largely because they (correctly) assumed virtually all the participants in those events were likely to competing in other events anyways. And some of the brand new sports had a small number of athletes (like BMX free which only had 18 participants men and women.)
The big problem for football and cricket is that they use 15 person rosters which is fairly large, especially since baseball and softball (with their 25 person rosters) are virtually certain to return in LA.
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*which only had 18 participants men and women combined
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There use to be 10 weight classes per style (men’s Greco and men’s Freestyle) but with the addition of women’s Freestyle in 2004 there began a reduction. There are now 6 Olympic weights in each style (18 total). But they do now give double bronze now which increases the medals awarded…🙄
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Matt Brown on the Big 12
https://www.extrapointsmb.com/big-12-expansion-power-conference-ncaa-college-football/
– Is the Big 12 still a power conference?
– What metrics the Big 12 used
– Institutional Fit
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Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels.
At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233
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I’m a veterinarian. In 1960 the veterinary profession was 98% male. Today, it’s about 50/50 and in the future it will be mostly female. Since 1984 more women have been admitted to veterinary school and more have been graduating since 1988. Right now about 80% of the current vet students are women.
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Accounting is trending the same way. Not 80%, but moving to majority female from being male dominated. We didn’t have any female audit partners or managers in my 80s Big 8 (then 8) firm. Seniors/Supervisors were probably about 25%.
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@bullet – Yes – I see that in accounting, consulting and law where it’s generally at least 50% female for new hires out of undergrad. To be sure, though, it has a looooooong way to go to be anywhere near as balanced at the leadership/partner/executive levels. All of those professions are still very male-dominated at the higher levels.
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“. . . balanced . . .” ? So 80% female is balanced?
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In a generation, engineering will be the only major white-collar profession that remains male-dominated. You’ll have affirmative action for guys (which already occurs at liberal arts colleges) at most privates (though probably not the top ones).
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In a generation, engineering will be the only major white-collar profession that remains male-dominated. You’ll have affirmative action for guys (which already occurs at many liberal arts colleges outside the very top) at most privates (though probably not the top ones).
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Balanced, like diverse, means no White guys.
As to quotas and affirmative action for men, Kenyon College has a quiet policy of keeping each class at least 45% male. Until 1970 Kenyon was a males-only college.
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I sat on several US Army promotion boards in the 1990s. Back then, an Officer Record Brief (ORB) contained photos and also stated the ethnicity/race of the officer in the narrative. The boards also had racial “goals”.
Now, these goals walked like quotas and swam like quotas and quacked like quotas. But you dare not call them quotas. They were goals. Every promotion board was tasked to meet the ethnic and gender “goals”.
Circa 2000, several white officers sued the Army because there we’re any “goals” for white men. They won and several hundred were promoted retroactively but the damage was already done. Many had their careers cut short by being passed over and left the service.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/05/judge-halts-an-army-policy-on-promotion/b26d18fa-ffa8-4393-8ac2-f4b2b603bd22/
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Ironically, the groups most impacted by affirmative action college admissions are NOT white males. Its Asians and white females.
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Frank,
With all due respect, there probably won’t ever be “balanced” gender demographics at the leadership levels.
Leadership positions are stressful and lucrative, which explains why we have a married men vs everyone else pay gap, *not a gender pay gap*
Married men earn every dollar that they can because they have to. If a man doesn’t earn every dollar that he can, his wife can divorce him and the family court system can force him to work for every dollar that he can.
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Money quote:
“Will the Big 12 remain a P5 conference after expansion? Technically, yes, although what that actually means could completely change in three years.”
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In addition to the eleven combos that Frank put together, I’ll throw another hat in the ring – Wyoming. If Colorado State is a viable candidate for the Big XII then Wyoming certainly should also be one. Laramie and Fort Collins are only 65 miles apart and CSU and UW are annual rivals. UW is a state flagship and would actually double the number of flagship universities in the conference. The Cowboys have had several 8-win seasons in recent years and knocked off Mizzou a couple of years ago.
So I humbly submit the Intercontinental Railroad Option – BYU, Wyoming, Colorado State & Cincy.
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Oops. Transcontinental Railroad Option.
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One ticket from Houston to London, please.
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It is a little late for B12 candidate lists. Will the AAC be able to get any of the teams from the Mountain West such as Colorado State to fill its depleted ranks? AAC will be down to 8 schools after Cincy, Houston, and UCF leave. AAC will probably invite 4.
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Realigning schools usually don’t move voluntarily unless it’s a step up. I would argue that MWC to (new) AAC is at best a lateral move, and maybe even a step down.
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Seems like Rice, Army, and Coastal Carolina would be options. Other than that IDK.
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I posted this Brett McMurphy article on Friday, but it never showed up, so I’ll try again.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/big-12-conference-expansion-byu-cincinnati-houston-ucf-could-receive-league-invite-this-month?utm_source=article&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=brettmcmurphy
It contradicts some common realignment myths that keep getting repeated. Each realignment episode is different.
Key excerpts:
“…After BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, the next four schools that previously received the most consideration from the Big 12 were Boise State, Memphis, SMU and USF, sources said.
Although several other schools contacted the Big 12 about potential membership, no other universities other than those eight were seriously considered, a source said.
The most important factors the Big 12 is considering for its expansion candidates are “TV audience, football relevancy and certainly market size is a factor,” a source said. “Men’s basketball brand also is extremely important. The Big 12 is one of the best — if not the best basketball league in the country.”
The Big 12’s decision was based “75 percent on (the school’s) football success and 25 percent (men’s) basketball,” a source said…”
“…A source said the Big 12 adding eight schools to get to a 16-team league is not a realistic possibility….”
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It contradicts some common realignment myths that keep getting repeated.
I’d say it’s broadly consistent with Frank’s thesis over the last 15 years or so. The myths are coming from people who either didn’t read Frank, or who read him but thought they were smarter.
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A little off topic, but with NIL out there… https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/32167191/shaedon-sharpe-top-ranked-prospect-class-2022-commits-kentucky-wildcats
“…I get the sense that I can grow to reach my potential on and off the court at Kentucky given the platform, atmosphere and legacy.”
Sharpe was choosing between a group that also included the G League Ignite, Arizona, Kansas and Oklahoma State….”
Note that the G league was considered.
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So…college BB is now officially professional, at least to recruits.
Great……
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I expect them to abstain, but I wonder if we’ll see Texas and OU vote no. Since we know from the last time the Big 12 explored expansion no one brings in enough to increase revenues, Texas and OU could claim that the expansion violates the Big 12 bylaws* and use that as the basis for a lawsuit and subsequent settlement.
*Big 12 Bylaw 1.3.1.4 [The mission of the Conference is to] Optimize revenues and provide supporting services compatible with both academic and competitive excellence.
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A note on the source.
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An interesting article from Pete Thamel suggesting the rest of the G5 completely realign based on geography.
https://sports.yahoo.com/alabama-aside-college-football-appears-bunched-together-and-that-should-invite-common-sense-conference-realignment-202704848.html
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The Big XII, ACC and Mountain West should also realign based on geography. ACC and B12 should swap Louisville and WV. Then the B12 should forget about Cincy and UCF and add a contiguous and concise group of Colorado State/Wyoming/AFA/BYU to get to 12 or an additional group of Boise St/UNLV/Houston/Memphis to get to 16. If you look at it on a map, it makes a lot of sense.
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The ACC has had plenty of chances to add WV and has shown no interest. Why should they start now?
I assume that the Big12 is much more interested in Cincy and USF than Colorado State and Wyoming.
There are lots more people in the Orlando metro area than in the entire state of Wyoming. UCF has an undergraduate student body of more than 60,000. UWyoming has closer to 12,000 students. Other than being in a pretty very empty state, what does U Wyoming offer?
None of the service academies, including AFA, have never shown an interest in being in a P5 league, as discussed at length on this site.
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JB, he ACC has had plenty of chances to add WV and showed no interest before the B1G poached Maryland and before the ACC added academic skank Looville. It’s a different world now.
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UCF is definitely massive – their latest enrollment is actually at around 72,000 (!) students, which makes it the largest school in the US.
To put that into perspective, Wyoming’s 2020 census population figure is 576,851. The UCF student body by itself would be the largest city in Wyoming (the population of Cheyenne is at around 65,000) and is equivalent to 12.5% of entire population of that state.
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Frank, here’s the football attendance for the largest school in the US:
All-Time UCF Single-Season Spectrum Stadium Attendance
Year Games Total Attendance Average Sellouts
2007 *7 (6-1) 308,129 44,018 3
2008 6 (2-4) 237,576 39,596 1
2009 7 (6-1) 266,543 38,077 1
2010 *7 (5-2) 277,301 39,614 0
2011 6 (5-1) 205,695 34,282 1
2012 6 (5-1) 207,646 34,607 0
2013 6 (5-1) 252,505 42,084 2
2014 6 (6-0) 226,869 37,811 1
2015 6 (0-6) 180,388 30,064 0
2016 6 (3-3) 214,814 35,802 0
2017 +7 (7-0) 257,924 36,846 1
2018 +8 (8-0) 352,144 44,018 5
2019 6 (6-0) 262,728 43,788 2
Total 84 (64-20) 3,250,262 38,693 17
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@Colin: Correct, but stadium attendance has never been a big factor in conference realignment. Note that their stadium only seats about 44k. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it expand if they keep filling it.
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Colin, you’re making fun of UCF for only averaging around 38k in attendance, while you are advocating for Wyoming 23k, Colorado State 23k, and AFA 27k.
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Greg, I’m not ridiculing UCF but the largest school in the nation is obviously a commuter school without a rabid fanbase. UCF will also be a rather distant outlier in the Big XII and they will probably lose archrival USF. BYU + Wyoming + Colorado State + AFA is a cozy collection of long-time rivals that will bring more eyeballs to TV sets than BYU/Cincy/UCF/Houston.
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I’m not ridiculing UCF but the largest school in the nation is obviously a commuter school without a rabid fanbase.
Whatever UCF’s fanbase might be, the schools you’re proposing to replace them with have less.
UCF will also be a rather distant outlier in the Big XII and they will probably lose archrival USF.
UCF is already in a conference with other schools from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The Big 12 will be more of the same. If Texas A&M, Nebraska, and Maryland were willing to give up much older rivalries, I think UCF will survive the loss of USF on their schedule.
BYU + Wyoming + Colorado State + AFA is a cozy collection of long-time rivals that will bring more eyeballs to TV sets than BYU/Cincy/UCF/Houston.
There is very low interest in Colorado State and Wyoming football, no matter who they play. AFA would have been a good idea on their own, but not good enough to justify taking Wyoming and Colorado State too.
I assume you’re using the word “cozy” to refer to geography, which is usually not a top factor in the eyes of realigning conferences and schools.
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Frank:
“… enrollment is actually at around 72,000 (!) students, which makes it the largest school in the US.”
I thought I saw AzSU was at 75k or more.
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If you look at it on a map, it makes a lot of sense.
This assumes you ignore the revenue, TV drawing power, and football strength, of the candidate schools. The B12 does not have the luxury to focus on a map that looks good, over economics that do not.
The ACC has had plenty of chances to add WV and showed no interest before the B1G poached Maryland and before the ACC added academic skank Looville. It’s a different world now.
None of the factors that led the ACC to choose Louisville have changed. Besides, how is the B12 better off with Louisville?
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It sounds good and fans would probably like it, but does (for example) Tulane want to be seen as equals with the rest of the Louisiana schools or does it like being the only AAC school in LA*? Most people may not see much of a difference between the AAC and CUSA but any distinction will be used in recruiting.
*Feel free to sub in USF and Florida, ECU and the Carolinas, etc.
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Most people may not see much of a difference between the AAC and CUSA but any distinction will be used in recruiting.
I think most fans do understand that the AAC is the top dog among the gang-of-five conferences. That is not difficult to see. Indeed, you’ll almost certainly see the AAC expand by poaching other G5 conferences, not the other way around.
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I think most fans do understand that the AAC is the top dog among the gang-of-five conferences.
That’s why Thamel’s idea won’t get off the ground. Anything that can be used to differentiate will be. Thanks to Aresco’s pronouncements some fans may some vague idea that the AAC is better, but how many know which schools are actually in the American? I had to look up who was actually in the AAC to finish my post out.
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I agree. Thamel’s plan is certainly good for the Sunbelt and C-USA schools (and possibly for the MAC), but it doesn’t help the AAC or MWC at all.
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That’s why Thamel’s idea won’t get off the ground. Anything that can be used to differentiate will be.
His proposal requires the G5 schools to magically cooperate to create geographically compact conferences. Anytime you see such an idea, you know it’s dead in the water. The conferences are competitors, and will do what suits themselves.
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“I think most fans do understand that the AAC is the top dog among the gang-of-five conferences.”
Actually an AAC minus Cincy, UCF and Houston isn’t going to be a top dog. We’re now looking at Memphis, SMU, East Carolina, Navy, South Florida, Temple, Tulane and Tulsa.
Compare that to the Mountain West: Air Force, New Mexico, Utah State, Wyoming, Boise State, Colorado State, Nevada, San Diego State, Fresno State, Hawai‘i, San José State, & UNLV.
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Actually an AAC minus Cincy, UCF and Houston isn’t going to be a top dog.
It’s a jump ball now. In the Playoff era, the following schools have received the G5’s New Year’s Six autobid: Boise State, Cincinnati, Houston, UCFx2, Memphis, Western Michigan.
So, four of the seven bids went to schools going to the B12. The other three were schools now in the MWC, MAC, and AAC. Boise is the only one with anything resembling a sustained history of success; still, they only did it one year out of seven—and it was 2014, so not especially recent.
But the champ is the champ until beaten, meaning AAC is the top dog in the G5 until another league supplants it.
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From a TV standpoint per year per member ESPN Tier1/2 rights payout is $3.75 M for MW vs. $6.95 M for ACC. The MW agreement was new in 2020 and is about triple their old agreement. So AAC has a $3.2 M advantage with current membership. Even at the top of the G5 travel and other costs must be weighted in conference affiliation decisions. That may be enough to hold the MW together. It could be hard for the AAC to attract MW prospects if ESPN lowers the AAC payout significantly based on the new composition. The other G5 leagues have payouts of about $1M so the AAC will be a big move up for any CUSA, MAC, or Sunbelt team.
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I’ve seen some proposed East/West divisions for the new Big 12 that split the Texas schools to guarantee access to the state for recruiting.
East: UCF, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Houston, Baylor, Iowa State
West: Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, BYU, TCU, Texas Tech
With 9 conference games, the Big 12 could make the Texas cross-divisional games permanent, similar to how the Pac-12 protects the UCLA/USC vs Cal/Stanford games.
The major downside would be the elimination of some long-time rivalries between the Cyclones and the Jayhawks and Wildcats (Farmageddon!). They could make those rivalries permanent as well, but that limits access to Texas.
I’d eliminate divisions and play 1 vs 2 in the title game. Use (3) 4-team pods as a basis of scheduling, keeping the 4 Texas schools in a pod, the 4 “Big 8” schools in a pod, and BYU unfortunately thrown in with the 3 schools in the eastern time zone. Play 3 pod games every year and 3 of the 4 teams in each of the other pods on a rotating basis. That still gives non-Texas schools 3 games per year against Texas opponents, with 3 every 2 years played in Texas.
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I’d eliminate divisions and play 1 vs 2 in the title game.
I am crossing my fingers that the rule requiring divisions is repealed in the next year or two. That rule is inhibiting the most useful schedule format for a number of leagues.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 were the main opposition the last time CCG deregulation came up, and they still have the least motivation to change it.
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If divisions are required the expanded B12 should (but won’t) have:
Southwest Division: old SWC members (TT, TCU, Baylor, & Houston) plus the South most (UCF) and West most (BYU) schools in the conference.
Big6 Division: KS, KSU, ISU (all old Big6 members), OkSt (became Big8 when they joined), WV, & Cincinnati
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About the relationship between UCF/USF
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I just happened to look at 247sports college football recruiting. Air Force has 28 commits for this years. Two of them are low three stars. The others are all two stars or lower.
It would be nut for AFA to join a P5 league with that level recruits.
For the past few years, AFA has had slightly better classes, but almost always ranked below 100.
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Bernie, I’m not so sure about that. If you look at the AFA record against P5 opponents over the past 20 seasons, they’re 8-16. But that includes 1-5 vs Notre Dame, 0-2 vs Michigan and 0-2 vs Oklahoma. Against the other P5 teams, including many bowl opponents, they’re 7-8.
2019-Air Force (MWC)
9/14 @ Colorado (5-7) W 30 23
12/27 vs. Washington State (6-7) W 31 21 @ Tempe, AZ Cheez-It Bowl
2017-Air Force (MWC)
9/16 @ Michigan (8-5) L 13 29
2015-Air Force (MWC)
9/19 @ Michigan State (12-2) L 21 35
12/29 vs. California (8-5) L 36 55 @ Fort Lauderdale, FL Armed Forces Bowl
2013-Air Force (MWC)
10/26 vs. Notre Dame (9-4) L 10 45
2012-Air Force (MWC)
9/8 @ Michigan (8-5) L 25 31
2011-Air Force (MWC)
10/8 @ Notre Dame (8-5) L 33 59
2010-Air Force (MWC)
9/18 @ Oklahoma (12-2) L 24 27
12/27 vs. Georgia Tech (6-7) W 14 7 @ Shreveport, LA Independence Bowl
2009-Air Force (MWC)
9/12 @ Minnesota (6-7) L 13 20
2007-Air Force (MWC)
11/10 @ Notre Dame (3-9) W 41 24
12/31 vs. California (7-6) L 36 42 @ Fort Worth, TX Armed Forces Bowl
2006-Air Force (MWC)
9/9 @ Tennessee (9-4) L 30 31
11/11 vs. Notre Dame (10-3) L 17 39
2005-Air Force (MWC)
9/3 vs. Washington (2-9) W 20 17 @ Seattle, WA
2004-Air Force (MWC)
9/4 vs. California (10-2) L 14 56
2003-Air Force (MWC)
9/6 @ Northwestern (6-7) W 22 21
2002-Air Force (MWC)
8/31 vs. Northwestern (3-9) W 52 3
9/21 @ California (7-5) W 23 21
10/19 vs. Notre Dame (10-3) L 14 21
12/31 vs. Virginia Tech (10-4) L 13 20 @ San Francisco, CA San Francisco Bowl
2001-Air Force (MWC)
9/1 vs. Oklahoma (11-2) L 3 44
2000-Air Force (MWC)
10/28 @ Notre Dame (9-3) L 31 34
1999-Air Force (MWC)
9/18 @ Washington (7-5) W 31 21
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If you look at the AFA record against P5 opponents over the past 20 seasons, they’re 8-16. But that includes 1-5 vs Notre Dame, 0-2 vs Michigan and 0-2 vs Oklahoma. Against the other P5 teams, including many bowl opponents, they’re 7-8.
The service academies could’ve applied to join the Power Five at any time—and never did. AFA’s coach said that the B12 would be too tough. If you look at their occasional success against the P5, the wins are concentrated against bad teams. The Big 12 minus Texas and Oklahoma is still a big schedule upgrade, relative to what the AFA has played.
The AFA (like all the academies) plays an unconventional style that can be a challenge for teams that seldom see it. They would not do as well against prepared opponents who face it every year. Remember, the AFA only has to worry about playing (perhaps) one top-tier game every season. The grind is very different when it’s only once. This year, they aren’t even doing that: their discretionary games are Lafayette and Florida Atlantic.
Jersey Bernie is of course correct about recruiting. There is obviously some imprecision in forecasting the future athletic performance of teenagers. But statistically, the recruiting rankings are overwhelmingly predictive. Over the long haul, the one- and two-stars will not be competitive with the three- and four-stars.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/Forbes/status/1435661364056543238
UC Berkeley first public U to top Forbes list of best.
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With the elimination of ACT/SAT scores and a few other interesting educational innovations going on in California, I wonder how tis will look in 10 or 15 years.
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During the pandemic, the NCAA suspended its usual rule requiring a minimum SAT or ACT score (on a sliding scale, depending on the student’s GPA). The suspension is in place through at least the 2022–23 academic year.
In April, the NCAA announced that a new task force will evaluate the continuing use of standardized test scores. With many of its members moving to permanent test-optional admission policies, I cannot see the former requirements being reinstated without some changes.
I recognize the bind they’re in. The NCAA wants to know that student–athletes are real students in some sense. They’ve got no way directly to police thousands of high schools, where grades might be manipulated for star athletes. They have enough trouble policing their own members, where at least they have some enforcement powers.
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It is not pandemic related. the UCal system is phasing out SAT/ACT over the next few years.
Say what you wish, but those are the only sort of objective standards. Studies have shown that students with higher SAT scores do better in college. Are they smarter? Do you work harder? I have no clue, but given Berkeley and UCLA a few years and lets see how they are rated.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/05/17/no-more-sat-or-act-u-california
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Bernie, the SAT/ACT is being dropped because minorities score lower than whites. To the Woke, this is solid evidence of racism and no other explanation will be tolerated.
“In 1926, the SAT was created to give talented students, regardless of income, the chance to compete for college admission and scholarships. Nearly 100 years later, it often excludes the lower-income students it was created to help. Although the original exam was primarily aimed at economic diversity, part of its stated modern mission is to help increase racial diversity, too.
“But Black and Hispanic or Latino students routinely score lower on the math section of the SAT — a likely result of generations of exclusionary housing, education, and economic policy — which too often means that, rather than reducing existing race gaps, using the test in college admissions reinforces them.”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/12/01/sat-math-scores-mirror-and-maintain-racial-inequity/
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To the Woke, this is solid evidence of racism and no other explanation will be tolerated.
I do not see the word “racism” in any of the passages you quoted. I do see “race,” but the words are not synonyms.
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Here ya go, Marc. This is from the NEA.
“The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing”
“From grade school to college, students of color have suffered from the effects of biased testing.”
https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing
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It is not pandemic related. the UCal system is phasing out SAT/ACT over the next few years.
The NCAA claimed that the suspension was due to the pandemic. Like a lot of things they say, it might not have been entirely true.
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U Cal was eliminating the tests prior to COVID.
The ncaa temporarily eliminated due to COVID for different reason than U Cal.
Note: it’s the U Cal system and their seven AAU members. I think they are more than able to find a more fair method to evaluate potential success, other than depending on one size fits all strategies.
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The differences in SAT test scores are not due to differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, it’s due to differences in culture. My brother was a teacher and basketball coach in Chicago Heights for 21 years and that school was as diverse as they get. Black kids who were seen carrying books home were often ridiculed for “acting white” or being a “Tom”. My bro actually had basketball players who hid their homework inside clothing or gym bags when leaving the school.
Asian kids are the polar opposite. They get together and study in herds and they don’t quit until everyone ‘gets it’.
Hispanic kids are often learning and taking SAT tests in a second language and even if English is their primary language, what they hear at home and among their peers is often Spanish. That in itself is enough to weigh down the test scores. Again, it is not a “racist” test.
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Colin,
You do realize you are citing different races to demonstrate different cultural influences resulting in inaccurate or unreliable scores, don’t you?
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The top UCs have always been sink-or-swim.
Cal isn’t so easy to get in to now, but a couple generations ago (when their faculty was winning Nobels about every year or so), the tough part wasn’t getting in to Cal but getting out.
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Eh. In every powerhouse football program, you can find a player or several who are functionally illiterate.
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Invites are out, and acceptances are tricking in.
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Memphis expects to be left out.
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They are putting the best spin on it that they can. It’s kind of funny that, on the one hand, they are proclaiming loyalty to the American, while expressing intense disappointment at their failure to get out of it.
Realignment isn’t over. The remaining G5 schools will compete for the right to upgrade when the next chance comes around.
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It is going on now. Most CUSA, MAC, Sunbelt (and maybe even some MW) schools would rather be in the AAC. That window has opened.
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https://big12sports.com/news/2021/9/10/conference-big-12-extends-membership-invitations.aspx
Today’s actions were in accordance with Big 12 Conference Bylaw 1.5.2.b.3 requiring an affirmative vote of a supermajority of Directors, and was approved unanimously by the eight continuing members.
I wonder if that means UT/OU didn’t vote or voted no.
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I suspect they abstained, and very likely didn’t even attend the meeting.
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Of course; no need to qualify if TX and OU were allowed to vote and voted yes. I assume they either voted no or were not allowed to vote. This keeps any potential legal arguments open.
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It was unanimous. They abstained or voted yes.
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Former Boise St. President.
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Either BYU is very private in its dealings or it is dealing/dealt with cold feet/internal opposition. No application letter is out there. Could the Boise State rumors be an attempt to assuage BYU about geographic isolation and reduction in possible PAC schedule slots? Maybe they realized that they have a similar if not official relationship with the PAC-12 as Notre Dame with the ACC football-wise.
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Urban, I fully agree. BYU should not jump to join the Big XII leftovers. And as I have previously stated, I believe the Pac-12 is foolish not to invite BYU to join.
Consider TV. Let’s imagine BYU + Hawaii in the Pac12. BYU already has a TV network and a cult of millions in the West. Hawaii is two (2) time zones west of the Pacific Coast. A game that starts at 7:00pm in Honolulu will start at 9:00 in LA, 10:00 in Denver, 11:00 in Chicago and midnight in New York. It will be pretty much the only game on TV at that time of night and half the football junkies in the country will be up watching.
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“ Hawaii is two (2) time zones west of the Pacific Coast.”
Nitpick: Hawaii doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so three hours difference until switch to standard time.
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Either BYU is very private in its dealings or it is dealing/dealt with cold feet/internal opposition.
BYU is joining the Big 12. It’s on their school website, and has been for many hours. I suspect it’s the former — they were just being private about it. The other three are public institutions that are subject to FOIA requests, a problem BYU does not have. If they had any cold feet, there is no evidence of it whatsoever.
BYU should not jump to join the Big XII leftovers. And as I have previously stated, I believe the Pac-12 is foolish not to invite BYU to join.
Much as you believe that, the Pac-12 announced that they are not expanding.
A game that starts at 7:00pm in Honolulu will start at 9:00 in LA, 10:00 in Denver, 11:00 in Chicago and midnight in New York. It will be pretty much the only game on TV at that time of night and half the football junkies in the country will be up watching.
Pac-12 members have said repeatedly that late games are a problem. They don’t want more of these. There is no national audience for Hawaii football.
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The Pac has 6 teams starting at 7 pacific time (Az doesn’t do daylight time so same as pacific) and another at 5 (night start at U Mich).. Tomorrow, not this month or this season. Tomorrow night.
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The Pac has 6 teams starting at 7 pacific time…
They’ve got TV contracts that require them to do this. They’ve said it is a problem.
…and another at 5 (night start at U Mich).
5pm starts are not a problem.
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Marc,
5 pacific is 8 eastern. Still not a great start time if at home. If the issue is partly visibility in the east, over half of your games starting after 10:00 eastern and another at 8:00 seems excessive.
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There were reports on the BYU board that the contract was already signed yesterday. They were not that private about it.
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What UCF’s application looks like
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I expect all 3 AAC schools will be able to get released at 21 months notice vs. 27 at a price where both these schools and the AAC benefit. That should become the target date for TX and OU to leave unless FOX or ESPN gives the B12 a massive increase for adding these 4 schools (I expect $0). If $0 that will decrease an $80M B12 exit fee to $57M (14 way vs. 10 way split) if TX/OU stay through 2024 since it is based on the last 2 years distributions. If the exit is finalized before the new members join it will be split 8 ways, not 12. Lots of financial incentive for the Little8 to reach a reasonable settlement on the grant of rights.
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L8, I believe that the Pac-12 made a HUGE mistake by not bringing BYU into the conference. The Cougars are clearly the bell cow among BYU/UCF/Houston/Cincy. The increase in TV eyeballs in the West would justify any of Boise/AFA/UNLV/Hawaii as the go-along. Or perhaps even the second largest university west of Chicago, UBC.
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UBC = British Colombia?
That would be like Toronto joing the B1G.
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The Cougars are clearly the bell cow among BYU/UCF/Houston/Cincy. The increase in TV eyeballs in the West would justify any of Boise/AFA/UNLV/Hawaii as the go-along.
Do you have any data to support that? Any conference considering realignment consults with its TV partners. If the Pac-12 didn’t expand, I can practically guarantee the networks told them the money wasn’t there.
BYU is the best of the expansion candidates available today, and a very good one indeed, but let’s not overstate their value. Remember, both the Pac and the B12 have expanded (or looked at expansion) multiple times in the past, and did not choose them.
If BYU is a no-brainer for the Big 12 today, it’s only because the B12 is in the worst shape of all the P5 conferences, and now needs to take schools it rejected only a few years ago.
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” If the Pac-12 didn’t expand, I can practically guarantee the networks told them the money wasn’t there.”
The Pac-12 Network doesn’t have a Sugar Daddy like the BTN (Fox) and the SECN (Disney). It is entirely owned by the conference and that’s why it’s a train wreck. It doesn’t get ‘bundled’ with other programming.
The major networks have no interest in helping the Pac-12 Network expand.
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The Pac-12 Network doesn’t have a Sugar Daddy like the BTN (Fox) and the SECN (Disney). The major networks have no interest in helping the Pac-12 Network expand.
You are correct that the Pac-12 network has been a train wreck. However, the Pac-12 gets most of its TV money from the major networks. They’re the ones who’ll say whether the league can increase its payout by expanding. The answer is clearly no.
Bear in mind, the Pac-12 contracts are up for renegotiation within the next couple of years. Leagues are in constant dialog with their TV partners about scheduling and expansion options. The conference wants more money; the networks are happy to pay, provided they get the inventory that justifies it.
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“However, the Pac-12 gets most of its TV money from the major networks. They’re the ones who’ll say whether the league can increase its payout by expanding.”
Marc, the P12 does indeed get most of its TV revenue from the networks. That’s for the big games like UCLA-USC. However those networks have no reason at all to expand the P12 Network. To them, that’s just another competitor in an already overcrowded sports cable field. The networks would probably love to kill it off altogether.
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Marc, the P12 does indeed get most of its TV revenue from the networks. That’s for the big games like UCLA-USC. However those networks have no reason at all to expand the P12 Network. To them, that’s just another competitor in an already overcrowded sports cable field. The networks would probably love to kill it off altogether.
Even if you are correct, how does it support your case? Conferences don’t voluntarily expand to lose money. You acknowledge the Pac-12’s network, which it owns, is a disaster. That means the money would have to come from the major networks. If the networks will not pay, then where is the financial case to make the expansion you are suggesting they should have done?
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Marc, I didn’t say “Expand. Period.” I specifically said to expand with BYU + someone else, whoever would bring the most TV eyeballs. BYU has a large fan base in the West. The Pac-12 will rue the day they let the Cougars get away and allow the Big XII to get a foothold in the region.
Here are the 10 states with the highest Mormon populations:
Utah (2,126,216)
California (756,507)
Idaho (462,069)
Arizona (436,521)
Texas (362,037)
Washington (289,479)
Nevada (184,703)
Florida (160,266)
Oregon (153,540)
Colorado (150,059)
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Marc, I didn’t say “Expand. Period.” I specifically said to expand with BYU + someone else, whoever would bring the most TV eyeballs.
And yet, the Pac-12 has considered expansion repeatedly, and passed over BYU every time. If BYU had the value you are imagining, the networks would have encouraged it. After all, they want what the leagues want—more people watching.
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Marc, BYU was passed over repeatedly because they are considered a fringe religious cult by many of the uberliberal schools of the Pac-12, not because they lack fans or athletic success.
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BYU was passed over repeatedly because they are considered a fringe religious cult by many of the uberliberal schools of the Pac-12, not because they lack fans or athletic success.
You are right that BYU did not fit culturally. But there is zero evidence that the Pac-12 is turning down revenue for that reason alone. The world of college athletics is notoriously full of leaks. If a major network had told the Pac-12 they could increase revenue per school by adding BYU and Hawaii, and the league turned it down, you would’ve heard that.
At some point, you’ve got to ask yourself, if schools and leagues keep making the “wrong” moves, are you really that much better at sports administration than they are? I’m sure you’re a great veterinarian, but your training does not typically prepare somebody to be a director of athletics.
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Marc, in addition to being a veterinarian, I also have a PhD in food science and I’m board certified in preventive medicine. Both doctorates were funded by the US Army and I had eleven years of payback time, which might well be all-time record. I served 28 years as an active duty US Army officer including eight years overseas and was twice the commander of overseas detachments. My wife and I were stationed overseas for eight years: Philippines, Germany and Italy.
After retiring from the Army I worked within the military rations industry in Detroit and then became a research engineer in the Mechanical Engineering Dept of Texas A&M University for five years. My primary job was writing research grants and no one at A&M did it better.
And yeah, you and I probably hear different drummers.
Colin Meyer, DVM, PhD, DACVPM
Colonel, US Army (ret.)
Emeritus Professor, Texas A&M University
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If the exit is finalized before the new members join it will be split 8 ways, not 12. Lots of financial incentive for the Little8 to reach a reasonable settlement on the grant of rights.
We have not seen the financial terms for the joiners. Schools “stepping up” often do not get a full share immediately. The contract could very well state that the four joiners do not receive any Texas or Oklahoma early-exit money. That would be fair — why should they get a payout when they were not parties to the agreement that produced it?
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I agree that there is zero chance that any of the four new schools get UT or OK exit money. Why should they? The next question is what happens to the existing contract before the UT/OU exit. (The TOxit?) Clearly neither UT nor OU will be asked to take one cent less before they leave. That would certainly be a breach of contract and get out of B12 free card.
So there are now 12 teams to split the 8 remaining teams money before TOxit. I would imagine that the new teams will either get less money, or money that they get will be a loan from the league to be repaid under the new contract, post TOxit. That will help with buyouts to the AAC.
Will the new four have a buy in to the next contract, similar to NE, RU, UMd and the B1G? I sort of doubt it, since the B12 does not have nearly as much to offer as the B1G, particularly for BYU finances. The three AAC schools could take a small haircut for a while since even the new Big12 contract will be much more than the AAC pays.
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“ Will the new four have a buy in to the next contract, similar to NE, RU, UMd and the B1G?”
No. There’s no B12Network to buy into.
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The buy in does not require purchase of an interest in a network. The Big12 could demand an entry fee, which is the equivalent of a buy in. UConn was required to pay a $3.5 million buy in to join the Big East. The Big East offered UConn a piece of a bigger TV contract.
Here the Big12 needs the new teams as much as they need the new league, so I doubt that there will be a buy in.
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Here the Big12 needs the new teams as much as they need the new league, so I doubt that there will be a buy in.
Just quickly found on Google that UCF is paying a $2.5 million fee to enter the Big 12. I suspect Cincinnati and Houston are similar, if not BYU as well.
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Marc,
Link? You sure that isn’t the fee in order to leave their current conference early, which would have to happen before entering the B12
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Here it is, but in case it doesn’t work, just Google “UCF fee to join the big 12”.
link
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Marc,
Thanks.
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It’s a deposit into an escrow account. “ In addition to having to pay an exit fee, UCF will have to pay an escrow to go into the Big 12, UCF President Alexander Cartwright said. That fee will cost $2.5 million.” Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t escrow account still your money unless you don’t satisfy the contract terms? Sort af a deposit (possibly refundable).
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We have not seen the financial terms for the joiners. Schools “stepping up” often do not get a full share immediately.
I thought I saw somewhere that BYU said they would get half distributions for two years. I can not find that link tho.
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A 50% conference payout for the first two years (7/23-6/25) for new members lines up with the end of the current B12 contract. It is also closer to estimates ($20M-$25M) of the Little8+4 B12 payout (includes BB, etc.) with a new TV contract. The 2019 B12 payout was $40M. TCU and WV had a 3 years phase in at 40%, 60% and 80% before full payout in year 4. I could not find any confirmation of the 50%, but it makes sense based on TV contract expiration and past B12 practice.
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I saw that somewhere as well.
TCU and WVU had a buy in. I don’t remember the exact terms, but it was something like 50% share the first year, then 67%, then 75%, then 83% then 100%. There may have been an 85% thrown in before getting to 100%. I suspect the new members will get something similar.
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“TCU and WVU had a buy in. . . . I suspect the new members will get something similar.”
It ain’t the same at all. TCU and WV bought into a conference that had four of its top six schools depart but retained the top two. This new batch is getting into a conference that had its two alpha dogs run off, no TV network and several commuter schools incoming. I think all twelve of them are whistling in the dark about maintaining status as a P5.
They won’t. It isn’t going to fall apart overnight but this new B12 will not be a peer with the B1G, SEC, ACC and the Pac-12. The best they can hope for is P4.5 and we may be looking at G6.
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UH President not here to play school
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Slight correction. Renu Khator is the UH President. Fertitta was chairmen of the Board of Regents until his term expired last week. I have not seen news that he was re-appointed. He’s still listed on the web site.
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My bad. I even knew that from previous posts.
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Thinks ESPN to be direct to consumer in less than five years.
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ESPN+ is the ballgame for ESPN’s future.
Everyone knows it. They’ve already started to move stuff there like T3 rights as well as other sports like international sports.
Amazon going after NFL’s Sunday Ticket package (as well as already taking the Thursday package) just proves it’s all got to go online/app anyway.
Within 10 years, direct to consumer is going to be how most people below 50 watch sports. And a big % of those over 50 as well even if not a majority.
It’s just the future, there’s no way around it.
Even my grandma uses apps (Sling/Roku/Hulu/Youtube) now to watch most of her international television programs. There’s just no avoiding that.
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The Tier III for all the R8 is on ESPN+
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Buy low and sell high. Okie state, Baylor, Kansas all want in B10 and would blend in academically and athletically just fine….and be happy in the B10 (I stress last point). Not much talk on her about keeping Nebraska happy like Penn State by adding some neighboring states.
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Okie state, Baylor, Kansas all want in B10 and would blend in academically and athletically just fine…
Kansas is the best of the 3 academically, and would nevertheless be near the bottom of the Big Ten. The others are worse. So no, they would not be an academic fit.
The Pac-12, which has far more reason to expand, just stated publicly that they were standing pat. I am sure it looked at those three schools, because they are the obvious ones. If the Pac-12, with its inferior TV deal, could not make the math work, the Big Ten with its richer TV deal won’t either.
Not much talk on her about keeping Nebraska happy like Penn State by adding some neighboring states.
“Keeping Penn State happy” was one of the factors cited off the record in adding Rutgers and Maryland. But only one. Those two schools checked many other boxes for the Big Ten that the three you mentioned do not. Penn State is also far more valuable to the Big Ten, and Nebraska is no threat to leave.
There is a good chance one of those 3 schools would win B10 west.
There is no chance Kansas would win the B10 west. They’ve averaged 2 wins a season for the last five years.
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There is a good chance one of those 3 schools would win B10 west
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Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff continues to make public statements regarding Alliance scheduling. Yesterday he offered some specific ideas including:
1. The P12 and B1G dropping from 9 to 8 conference games as quickly as next season
2. Canceling games with the SEC if they want to make room for games with OU/UT
3. Canceling games with BYU to allow them to make room for B12 conference games
Here is a link to the full interview:
https://247sports.com/college/oregon-state/LongFormArticle/Pac-12-Commissioner-George-Kliavkoff-listening-tour-Oregon-State-University-Beavers-2021-170626978/#170626978_10
Just don’t see how most of this helps the B1G. Also, Kliavkoff’s repeated comments about 10 total Alliance games doesn’t square with conference member’s requirement to have 7 home games. The only way that happens is if they never play OOC road games against anyone else. That contradicts Kliavkoff’s comments about keeping historic rivalries (e.g., IA-IASt., FL-FSU, Clemson-SC, etc.). Kevin Warren and Jim Phillips have been very quiet since the initial press conference.
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Kliavkoff speaks without a filter, which makes for good copy. He is too new for us to gauge whether the things he says are really happening, or it’s just his hopes and wishes.
Press conference comments can often be elliptical. I think he’s suggesting that teams would play two Alliance games per year, except where they’re bound to keep a non-Alliance rivalry, in which case they’d play one Alliance game. I believe he understands that if Iowa plays Iowa State, that’s one less Alliance game they can play.
How could this benefit the Big Ten? In a conference week, the league plays 7 games that it totally owns. In a non-conference week, it could play 14 games that it shares. The revenue of the 14 needs to be more than twice the revenue of the 7.
Could that work? Kliavkoff must have a basis for thinking that the sum is greater than its parts. Bear in mind, the Big Ten was willing to have a scheduling alliance in the past, and the Pac-12 called it off. That was about 10 years ago, but apparently the math worked then, or it would not have been considered.
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The math worked because the Big Ten was at 12 teams with 8 conference game schedules.
Once the alliance was called off, we moved to 14 teams with 9 conference games to make the package as desirable as possible for FOX/ESPN.
And now the Pac-12 is less valuable (relatively) than it was 10-12 years ago.
I just don’t see how any of this works out for the Big Ten short of taking 6-8 of the best Pac-12 schools into the conference as a Pacific division that plays 5-7 games against their division and then 2-4 cross-over games with the rest of the Big Ten.
Financially, that sounds like it expands the pot. Question is just whether the decision makers at USC/FOX/Big Ten/etc. come to that conclusion when the next TV deals start to be talked about next year.
Consolidation makes sense in this case just like it did for Texas/OU to the SEC.
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As far as Kliavkoff’s basis goes, yes it makes sense for the Pac-12.
Owning a half of 12 Pac-12 vs Big Ten crossover games is more valuable than 6 Pac-12 games.
For the Big Ten schools it’s way less clear. Owning 6 Big Ten games is probably more valuable than a half of the 12 Pac-12 vs Big Ten crossover games. That’s the problem.
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The Big 12 will be back to 12 schools and there is chatter they want to go to 14 by adding Boise St and Memphis.Seems like a lot of pieces for a smaller pie? I know the current tv contract there is incentive to add more schools as the revenue goes up accordingly but when the current contract ends, in ’25, Will ESPN, Fox,etc pay big dollars for West Virginia Vs Tech or BYU vs Iowa St? Kansas vs Cincy anyone? I suppose ESPN is driving this for inventory.
Not sure what appealing football games there will be. Boise St is an ESPN darling, so ESPN probably pushing BIg12 to add them as a travel partner for BYU.
Does anyone know if the current contract still incentivizes the Big 12 adding schools, if Texas and Oklahoma are out of the conference, seems like the networks may contest the current contract when those schools leave.
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The Big 12 will be back to 12 schools and there is chatter they want to go to 14 by adding Boise St and Memphis. Seems like a lot of pieces for a smaller pie?
Yes, that is why I am skeptical of this one.
Will ESPN, Fox,etc pay big dollars for West Virginia Vs Tech or BYU vs Iowa St? Kansas vs Cincy anyone?
That’s like asking whether Fox will pay big dollars for Purdue vs. Rutgers. There’s value in the Big 12, but the measuring stick is not the worst games. Of course, the dollars are relative. The Big 12 is going to be fifth among the Power Five, but it will still make more than any G5 league.
ESPN probably pushing Big12 to add them as a travel partner for BYU.
When you see the phrase “travel partner” in conference expansion, you know it is not happening. The Big 12 said that expansion is 75% a football decision. Adding Boise means that, once every two years, BYU will have a slightly shorter road trip for one game out of twelve. But not that short, as Provo and Boise aren’t especially close. That’s no reason to go from 12 schools to 14.
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“That’s like asking whether Fox will pay big dollars for Purdue vs. Rutgers.”
Marc, Fox is already paying big dollars for Purdue vs Rutgers. That’s why the BTN exists. Games like that previously had zero TV value but are now earning millions due the the BTN. That is the genius of the BTN. It earns cable TV money for games that previously had no TV value.
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Marc, Fox is already paying big dollars for Purdue vs Rutgers. That’s why the BTN exists.
The original post was asking about Tier 1 and 2 networks. It was not asking about the conference networks, because the Big 12 doesn’t have one.
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Good point about the travel partner, it isn’t exactly like the old MLB days when the Giants joined the Dodgers out on the west coast. It may be helpful with the minor sports but as you say this is football driven.
On the possible football matchups- other than Kansas- Cincy which is probably the worse possible matchup, the other examples i gave BYU-Iowa State which should be one of the more competitive series and WV-Tech would be kind of a routine series, neither compelling or dreadful. I just wonder what games would be year in year out great matches with Red River and Bedlam gone. I am sure each year there will be teams having great years that when they do meet it will be a fun game to watch. Lot of solid football schools but none of the circle the calender games like Michigan-Ohio St, FL-GA, LSU-Bama, Miami-FSU, etc.
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The B12 has been at 10 since Nebraska and Colorado left because there were not any schools the B12 could add that would pay for themselves. Bowlsby mention of 14 members in 2023 included Texas and Oklahoma.
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One reason why the B12 may stay at 12 instead of going to 14 is because staying at 12 with 9 conference games still allows everyone to get a decent number of games vs TX schools no matter how the divisions are split/games are protected, which I dare say most B12 schools would want for recruiting. Add Boise and Memphis, and that wouldn’t be true any more, and while Memphis is located in a talent-rich area, Boise is not.
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I think you are right. One of the problems with Boise, is that the the proposition for adding them rests almost entirely on their football success over the past 20 years. That’s more than a flash in the pan, but it’s not Oklahoma either. They’ve claimed their share of power five scalps, but they have never played a full season at that level. If they reverted to being merely average, or worse, there’d be no reason to be there.
Orlando, Houston, and Cincinnati are all places you’d want to be, even if the teams themselves have a bad year (or even a bad decade).
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“The Big 12 will be back to 12 schools and there is chatter they want to go to 14 by adding Boise St and Memphis.Seems like a lot of pieces for a smaller pie?”
It made no sense before to expand the Big 12 before because the Sooners and the Longhorns boosted the per-school value of the Big 12; noone would even approach that value except for BYU, who wasn’t going to get accepted at the time.
The situation is different now. The announced roster of 12 schools appear to all have roughly the same TV value, with BYU probably boosting the average, but not ridiculously so. All of the schools talked about for potential spots 13 to 14 (16?) appear to be more or less at that value, too. So a TV contract doesn’t seem to be a barrier to stopping expansion right now (and, in fact, there may be some extra value in increased inventory and/or the opportunity to play games in different time zones).
So other reasons may lead them to expand: the chance for more NCAA tournament credits (Memphis?), the chance for more exposure to recruits in Florida (USF?), exposure in California (SDSU? Fresno State?), another football mini-brand (Boise State?), have some traditional rivals to BYU to make them happier (any of the western schools), the opportunity to hurt conferences lower down the ladder to ensure that you remain well above them (any of the previous schools?). Or maybe they just want more peace of mind in case somebody does really well and gets invited to the Pac 12/ACC/etc. in 10 years.
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Frank,
I think your “Big Country” idea isn’t getting as much traction as it should.
The “Understandably Irate 8” are screwed in the short term and there really isn’t anything that they can do about that.
(The vast majority of Baylor and TTU fans have my sympathies…although how understandably irate Ann Richards, Steve Bullock, et al deserve to be is debatable.)
Playing the long game should be the primary goal of conference expansion for the UI8
As such, one thing to keep in mind is that there are limits to how much more ticket prices can be raised, particularly for “Michigan vs Eastern Michigan” schools. I imagine that Athletic Directors are slowly realizing that they need to bring in opponents that travel well with decent sized fanbases, but also aren’t going to be drastically harder to beat on the field than some random MAC or Sun Belt school.
If the UI8 can put together a conference with every team that Athletic Directors could possibly want to schedule in order to boost ticket sales, the UI8 and its new members can use that arrangement as leverage for revenue sharing with the P4.
Could a 20+ team conference be feasible financially?
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Could a 20+ team conference be feasible financially?
Almost certainly not. In conference finances, the name of the game is NOT revenue. It’s revenue per school. There aren’t eight more (realistically available) schools of comparable quality to the four they just added.
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You know, there is a way to have 7 home games (almost all the time) _and_ 9 conference games (if a conference wants that) _and_ 2 Alliance games _and_ Iowa to keep its precious rivalry game with ISU:
Simply allow conferences with 2 divisions to schedule interdivisional games between all schools in the conference (not just the CCG) during the traditional CCG week. So like what the B10 did in 2020. That means a 13 game regular season for everyone (not just the CCG participants). If the CCG is neutral site (and I really only see the SEC and maybe the B10 keeping it neutral site), simply reimburse the team who would have lost a 7th home game with the CCG ticket sales.
If there is a 12 team playoff, there would be interest in a bunch of those non-CCG games as they would have playoff implications. Yes, it would be more games for most players, but not actually an increase in the maximum number of possible games.
I would also allow conferences to play (only conference) games during Week 0 in years when there would have been only 1 bye week. And hold open 3 weeks in late October/early November for the 2 Alliance games.
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The 13th game for everyone is the Rubicon they apparently do not want to cross. I have not seen any proposals to that effect from the coaches and ADs.
The NCAA rules treat CCGs as “regular season games,” but in the eyes of the public they’re postseason games. Having other teams play that week would be like having a full slate of NFL games during the first week of the playoffs.
Obviously, there is nothing sacrosanct about 12 regular-season games, given that the sport once thought 10 was the right number (the Ivy League still does), and later 11. But I would be surprised to see 13 for everyone, outside of the strange 2020 season.
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I wouldn’t be surprised.
If a good number of administrators are proposing up to 17 games for some teams and players, what logic do they use to justify that 13 is too much?
They could mandate that 1 of the 13 has to be a FCS game if they want to.
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If a good number of administrators are proposing up to 17 games for some teams and players, what logic do they use to justify that 13 is too much?
Your proposal is so far outside the Overton Window that no administrators are even debating its pros and cons, at least not publicly. I am not saying it couldn’t happen, but this idea is evidently beyond the reasonable arguments that anyone today is willing to even consider.
Since they are not talking about it, I can only guess at their reasons, but I have a few ideas. All of the changes to the CFB postseason have been about “making it look like other sports.” For decades, FBS football was the only sport that decided its championship via a poll, rather than on the field. The long-standing battle was tradition vs. what every other sport does (and every other level of football does), and tradition eventually lost.
But other sports don’t play consolation games among eliminated teams during playoff weeks. It’s just not a natural thing to do. (As I mentioned, the CCG is functionally a “playoff,” and the public regards it as such, even if the NCAA rulebook considers it a “regular season game.”)
FBS instituted a playoff after years of debate and pent up demand. There is no visible demand for consolation games. To the extent anyone watches at all, they’d be siphoning off viewers from the CCGs that actually mean something.
While administrators are willing to consider adding one or two more rounds of playoff games with championships at stake, those games bring in disproportionate revenue that might be worth the risk of injuries and further wear and tear on the players’ bodies. Adding another game for Purdue, that is played at the same time as other far more relevant games, does not.
Imagine the Alabama/Auburn game decides the division championship. At that point, nobody has bought tickets for a home game the following week, because both schools’ fans want to be at the CCG. Then, the losing school has less than a week to get dispirited fans and players ready for a previously unannounced game that, in most years, would mean nothing.
It’s just not a very appealing prospect.
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Except that with a 12-team playoff, many of those games would not be consolation games. They would be for playoff spots. Many more would be for bowl bids/bowl positioning. And all would be Senior Day games.
Your other point can be addressed by having the CCG be a 13th game. That honestly makes sense for everyone except maybe the SEC because they get corporate sponsorships for their Atlanta CCG. Then, when you buy tickets to that last home game, you could be potentially getting tickets to a CCG game.
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Except that with a 12-team playoff, many of those games would not be consolation games.
Very few of those games would have playoff implications. Imagine we’d had a 12-team playoff all along. How many of the 12 each year would not have been CCG participants? The answer is very few. The vast majority of the games you’re talking about would not have playoff implications. Perhaps 5% of them would.
And all would be Senior Day games.
Senior day is the last scheduled home game. In your proposal, we don’t know the home and away teams until after the previous week’s games are played. Teams won’t plan Senior Day around a game that might not happen.
Since most CFB players will never sniff the NFL, Senior Day is not just their last game in the school uniform. It is the literally the last time in their lives that they will ever suit up at home. Those who don’t live nearby usually try to arrange for their parents to be there. It’s months in the making. It has to be on a known date.
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I think with the whole pay for play discussion, it is just a total non-starter. Its something that would drive players unions.
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??? Under my proposal, it’s always known whether the last game is home or away. The teams in one or the other division all host together, switching each year. That’s how you can guarantee 7 home games a year. And your argument about very few games mattering for the playoffs by the 13th game would be the same one to argue against the 12th game. Or the 11th, etc.
And
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Under my proposal, it’s always known whether the last game is home or away. The teams in one or the other division all host together, switching each year. That’s how you can guarantee 7 home games a year.
Right, but you could easily have multiple teams in the division with a mathematical chance of playing in the CCG, right up to the last weekend. They’re going to schedule Senior Day for the last home game that that they know will be played.
And your argument about very few games mattering for the playoffs by the 13th game would be the same one to argue against the 12th game. Or the 11th, etc.
Well, that’s true of all sports — teams keep playing the originally scheduled games after they are eliminated, whether it’s 162 in MLB or 12 in CFB. But no sport plays consolation games after its postseason has started. (And again, the CCG is functionally a playoff game and perceived as such, no matter what the NCAA may call it.) The reasons aren’t hard to see.
I mean…Michigan sells out the stadium for Ohio State, even though they have not won the game in years. But after they lose, what do you think would be the uptake for Michigan vs. Purdue the following week? How many of Michigan’s best players would even suit up for a game like that? How hard would they practice?
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The motivation for Michigan after losing to OSU would be potentially making the playoffs (many years with a 12 team playoff) and better bowls nearly all years.
You keep calling the CCG playoff games even though that won’t be true with a 12-team playoff.
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Also, as I would have the 13th game matchups be by how teams are in the standings (which only make sense), PU would have to be as good in the West as UMich was in the East to face UMich in the 13th game (both 2nd or both 3rd, etc.)
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The motivation for Michigan after losing to OSU would be potentially making the playoffs (many years with a 12 team playoff) and better bowls nearly all years.
Try backtesting your idea. Most years that Michigan has lost to OSU, it would have eliminated them from playoff contention, even with 12 teams. And that’s generally true across football. Most playoff teams would be CCG teams (or Notre Dame).
And consider the opposite proposition. Let’s say a team wins its rivalry-week game but is not in the CCG. Who would get excited to play again a week later, against what’s sure to be a less interesting opponent? That’s why rivalry week ends the regular season.
A little noticed footnote to the 12-team playoff proposal is…fewer bowls. The proposed first round eliminates four good bowl teams. The most prestigious bowls will be reserved for quarter-finals. That leaves just a couple of bowls that might be worth playing for.
For 95% of FBS, a consolation game that hardly anyone watches is not worth the potential to elevate from the Smucker’s Jam Bowl to the slightly better Hunts Tomato Bowl. Indeed, a lot of your suggested games would involve one or both teams with no serious prospects at all.
There are ~120 teams in FBS, so you’re talking about almost 60 totally redundant games that overstep the CCGs, so that you can play the few that might matter.
You keep calling the CCG playoff games even though that won’t be true with a 12-team playoff.
You kidding me? In the proposal, the top six conference champs will get playoff autobids. The CCGs will be the de facto first round of the playoff. The 12-team playoff makes the CCGs more important.
Also, as I would have the 13th game matchups be by how teams are in the standings (which only make sense), PU would have to be as good in the West as UMich was in the East to face UMich in the 13th game (both 2nd or both 3rd, etc.)
They would avoid rematches. This year, Michigan plays Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Northwestern. Iowa could very well reach the CCG. What’s left is…not very appealing.
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Marc:
1. In my proposal, there would be only 8 B10 games before CCG week, meaning 2 crossovers.
2. A CCG isn’t a playoff game if the loser doesn’t get eliminated from the playoffs (which would be the case for the SEC every year under a 12-team playoff and B10 many years).
3. And I did look at Michigan’s history (while it’s clear you haven’t). Under Harbaugh, UMich has been in the top 15 after the OSU game (so with a shot at a 12 team playoff if there was a 13th game) 4 out of 5 years after the OSU game (no OSU game in 2020; no shot at playoffs either)
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1. In my proposal, there would be only 8 B10 games before CCG week, meaning 2 crossovers.
Granted, I did not look at it that way. Still, no sane league would do this. If you want 13 games, schedule 13 games that count.
A CCG isn’t a playoff game if the loser doesn’t get eliminated from the playoffs (which would be the case for the SEC every year under a 12-team playoff and B10 many years).
It’s kind of a hybrid. You could call it a playoff game or a post-season game. It would be a true elimination game in some cases. It would certainly be treated as a post-season game, as it is today.
3. And I did look at Michigan’s history (while it’s clear you haven’t). Under Harbaugh, UMich has been in the top 15 after the OSU game (so with a shot at a 12 team playoff if there was a 13th game) 4 out of 5 years after the OSU game (no OSU game in 2020; no shot at playoffs either)
I am guessing I know Michigan football history better than you. You are forgetting that 6 of the 12 would be conference champs, Notre Dame is in the mix without putting its record at risk in a CCG or consolation game. And then the CCG participants have the advantage of a high profile game, so the losers will have an significant advantage over those who play a consolation game.
Put that all together, and very few of the ~60 games you are adding would have any real shot at putting someone in the playoff if they are not already in.
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The 13th game for everyone is what would drive players unions.
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Why? As opposed to an expanded playoff or anything else?
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Because it would be every team. And it wouldn’t be for a chance at a championship, merely another payday for the schools. So lots more players who would want a piece.
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It would be for a chance at a championship (via the expanded playoffs) for some and a better bowl for many/most.
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If they do ever go to 13 regular season games for everyone. I think rather than having floating games during conference championship weekend, (which as many have already pointed out is a bit of a logistical and scheduling headache to say the least) it would be more likely the powers that be would just take the week 0 exemption that currently allows for just Hawaii and teams that play at Hawaii to play 13 regular season games and apply it to everyone. Basically codifying the current week 0 as the new week 1 and allowing teams the choice of playing 13 games or having 2 bye weeks. Similar to how (back when they went from 11 to 12 regular season games) they use to allow only teams that played in sanctioned/licensed neutral site kickoff games to play12 games when the standard season was 11, then just gave up the ghost and let everyone have 12 games.
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Simply allow conferences with 2 divisions to schedule interdivisional games between all schools in the conference (not just the CCG) during the traditional CCG week. So like what the B10 did in 2020. That means a 13 game regular season for everyone (not just the CCG participants).
Unfortunately, those games are not going to be very valuable. They’ll be up against the ACC title game at noon, then the SEC title game, and then Big Ten title game. They make the PAC12 play their title game on Friday as it is.
I really like the idea of making the last game of the year scheduled late like they were last year. I also like the idea of a 4 team “tournament” to determine the CCG participants (yes its against the rules). I don’t see the alliance working out unless a 13th game is added. My earlier plan that I messed up transferring over and ended up not making sense was:
Add the SEC to the Alliance.
9 Conference Games (1/2 5H/4A and 1/2 4H/5A)
3 Alliance games* (1/2 1H/2A and 1/2 2H/1A)
1 OOC (games like Iowa – Iowa St, Texas-Texas Tech, Oklahoma-Oklahoma St, ND-Navy if ND joins the ACC)
*Lock rivals like the ACC-SEC rivals or anyone else that wants to
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Article claims the Big 12 was going to be 11 until a last minute push by Tilman Fertitta pushed UH in. Find this hard to believe, but: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/brian-t-smith/article/Smith-Big-12-nearly-passed-on-UH-again-until-16451474.php
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That just seems a bit silly; Fertitta selling himself a bit hard.
Big 12 sounds like they were always aiming to get back to 12 post OU/Texas exits with their rapid expansion.
Maybe they might have considered Memphis or Boise State alongside Houston for the last spot but doubt they were going to stay at 11.
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The New Big12- Curious what commenters would consider the most compelling rivalries once the Red River Rivalry is gone and to a lesser extent bedlam? Lot of solid football teams but neither the tradition or the fierce rivalries you see in the other P4.
Assuming that a 12 team conference would get $360million a year( for 30Mil a school) would adding 2 more schools give 420 million (for the same 30Mil/ school), 30 million is just a number to throw out. It seems at some point you can’t just adding schools like you having a printing press for money, at some point the pie stops growing proportionately. If it was just a matter of adding random schools, the other 4 conferences wouldn’t be so selective.
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Curious what commenters would consider the most compelling rivalries once the Red River Rivalry is gone and to a lesser extent bedlam?
The short answer is, they don’t have one. It needs to be created. No word yet on whether the two Oklahoma schools will keep their annual game, but if they do, it’s obviously non-conference.
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The Big 12 was trying to make Kansas State-Iowa State into a rivalry for awhile, for some reason. In the 80’s, Kansas-Kansas State was known as the Toilet Bowl. Other than those, WVU-Cincy seem like a natural pair and then Tech-TCU and/or Baylor-Houston. Will be interesting to see what the scheduling looks like for the new conference. Will they have divisions and what teams will play each other every year? Will the four Texas schools be split up?
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You disrespect Farmageddon? In the wake of the successful Mizzou-Kansas games at Arrowhead in 2007-08, the moved a couple ISU-KSU games to Arrowhead as well. It only lasted two seasons.
KU/KSU/ISU have all played each other for a long time. They didn’t play OSU as much when the Big 12 had its north/south split. I would imagine they would want to keep those rivalries alive, but just as much, all 4 of those schools want to play games in Texas. All four of the old Big 8 schools’ rosters are filled with former Texas high schoolers
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The best part about Farmageddon is the fact it was originally proposed as a name for Iowa-Nebraska, but after the same marketing geniuses that gave the world “Leaders and Legends” settled on the Heroes’ Game instead, ISU and KSU snatched up the moniker.
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The most desirable games for TV networks will be the non-conference games that they get the rights to when they’re at the home of the Big 12 team.
WVU/power conference teams (Maryland, Virginia Tech, Pitt, etc.)
Iowa/Iowa State
Oklahoma/Oklahoma State (assuming it continues)
BYU/power conference team
Texas/Texas Tech?
The Pac 12’s most valuable game each year is also probably a non-conference game (the home game against Notre Dame by USC or Stanford), but several of its conference games are also valuable.
Of course, if the Pac 12 commissioner has his way, the “Alliance” seems likely to eliminate space for some of these non-conference games.
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Not necessarily for the Pac. Because they mostly have smaller stadiums and often have trouble selling out, sheer number of home games are less valuable to them so they don’t need 7 home games every year (and many/most don’t have them). That’s true for the ACC as well. That means those schools can have 2 Alliance games + another meaningful/rivalry game (or 2, if they cut down to 8 conference games and are fine with 6 home games a year).
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The most desirable games for TV networks will be the non-conference games that they get the rights to when they’re at the home of the Big 12 team.
They are in a lot trouble then. None of the remaining teams are known for scheduling very compelling OOC match ups. A quick check 2011-2021 of OOC P5 games:
OSU – 7
Kansas – 6
Kansas St – 8
Iowa St – 10
Texas Tech – 6
TCU – 10
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None of the remaining teams are known for scheduling very compelling OOC match ups.
When they find out what their new TV deal is worth, they will have to decide whether to toughen up or accept a lot less money. I realize it’s an open question whether the other power leagues will have any open dates available if this Alliance really works.
As others have noted, many of these schools have been playing each other for decades, but the new B12 lacks a signature rivalry. Kansas and Kansas State will play each other every year, and so will the Texas schools, but in most years these games won’t generate much national interest.
Conferences sometimes try to invent rivalries, but that doesn’t always work either.
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@Marc
When they find out what their new TV deal is worth, they will have to decide whether to toughen up or accept a lot less money.
IIRC the TV networks only pay for conference games*. Unless they are willing to cede some control of scheduling of a game or two to ESPN I don’t think they’ll get anything more.
*They will pay you X per conference game. Its why the Big Ten went to nine games and the Dan Beebe was able to save the Big 12 in 2011 by going from 8 to 9.
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The networks pay for OOC games too (they’re not getting them for free).
They just are priced (and maybe negotiated) separately from the main TV contracts that we all see numbers for.
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TV coverage is driven by the home team’s media deal.
To give a basic example, if Notre Dame schedules a home-and-home with Michigan, then the game in South Bend will be on NBC, because they have ND’s home football rights. The game in Ann Arbor will be on one of the Big Ten’s partners (ESPN or Fox) by the same logic.
This is why most of the P5 conferences mandated at least one P5 non-conference game—to beef up their media inventory.
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@Richard –
The networks pay for OOC games too (they’re not getting them for free).
I thought that way too until someone on here pointed out (again IIRC) that the contracts are priced on a conference game basis. That “price” per game may include expected non-conference games but amounts are calculated on a conference game only basis. The reasoning was that non-conference games are not guaranteed* and neither side wants variability built into their contract if a marquee non-conference series is canceled or pushed out** few years.
*See Nebraska (stupidly) exploring dropping Oklahoma from the schedule this year.
**Nebraska and Tennessee scheduled a home and home for 2016-17 in 2006. In 2013 those games were postponed until 2026/27.
They just are priced (and maybe negotiated) separately from the main TV contracts that we all see numbers for.
Unless its a neutral site game, I don’t believe so.
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A major schedule step up would help. I added 2 Little8 that were left off at end.
BYU should have good OOC schedules; not sure about other 3 new members
A quick check 2011-2021 of OOC P5 games:
OSU – 7
Kansas – 6
Kansas St – 8
Iowa St – 10 (annual Iowa)
Texas Tech – 6
TCU – 10
West Virginia – 15 (by far best OOC schedule of Little8)
Baylor – 3? (counts BYU ’21; the other 2 were Duke)
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@Little8 – Thanks. I only counted current P5 teams.
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Some posters have already touched on this.
KSU-KU
KSU-ISU
Baylor-TCU
Are old rivalries.
WVU-Cincy seems like a natural one as well.
And why not Mormons vs Baptists? Milk drinkers vs soda drinkers.
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“ Curious what commenters would consider the most compelling rivalries once the Red River Rivalry is gone..:”
Is the SEC not going to schedule UT/OU?
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Gone from the B12
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So if we have to stay with 12 regular season games, how can the Alliance fit 2 games in the schedule yet allow B10 teams 7 home games and also be attractive enough to the B10 to sacrifice a B10 game (drop down to 8 from 9 conference games)?
Answer: add ND in to the mix.
The PAC is short 2 schools to make the numbers work, so have ND take up 2 PAC slots (meaning ND would face 2 B10 and 2 ACC teams every year as a “PAC” team). And since Iowa wants 7 home game as well as the ISU rivalry game, have ND take Iowa’s slot vs. the ACC (so Iowa only has 1 Alliance game a year, always vs. a PAC school).
Since takes means a decrease in ND games for the bottom part of the ACC, maybe still an ND-ACC game outside of the Alliance (ND typically plays 5 ACC and 1 B10 game currently, so this would simply switch it to 4 & 2).
The ACC loses 1 ND game a year, but gains top B10 (and PAC teams). B10 gets enough to justify going to an 8-game conference schedule. PAC upgrades it’s TV offerings.
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The PAC is short 2 schools to make the numbers work, so have ND take up 2 PAC slots (meaning ND would face 2 B10 and 2 ACC teams every year as a “PAC” team). And since Iowa wants 7 home game as well as the ISU rivalry game, have ND take Iowa’s slot vs. the ACC (so Iowa only has 1 Alliance game a year, always vs. a PAC school).
Would it make sense to allow two ACC teams (Georgia Tech and Clemson*) and two Big Ten teams (Iowa and ?) to miss the PAC games as long as they play their SEC rivals or Iowa St? This idea will limit ND’s P4 options to just the SEC though.
*Sorry Louisville
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Hmm. If Iowa misses the ACC, 1 of FSU/Clemson/GTech may miss the B10 while the other 2 miss the PAC (as the league that brings the most teams with heavy viewership, the B10 can insist that it’s GTech that misses the B10. That still leaves 14 B10 teams matched up to 12 PAC teams, however.
Unless ND is there for 2 more “PAC” slots.
That would give ND pretty much a complete schedule: 5 ACC games + 2 B10 games + Navy + USC + Stanford = 10 games. Also covers pretty much the entire parts of the country they’d want to visit besides TX and the Bayou. Maybe they can insist that Navy schedules ND games in TX or around there.
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Iowa plays an annual game with ISU. Clemson, GTech, FSU, and Louisville also have annual SEC rivalry games. The Pac will probably tell Utah to schedule BYU annually (because someone else has to play OOC when ND visits CA Thanksgiving week.
So
PAC+ND vs B10-Iowa means 13 v 13
B10 vs ACC + ND – 1 of the 4 ACC teams with SEC rivals means 14 v 14
PAC – Utah v ACC – 3 of the aforementioned 4 means 11 v 11.
The numbers work.
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@Frank –
Off topic, but of all the Chicago based Twitter feeds how did the @ChiPartyAunt end up getting a Netflix show? I assume your talk show is in development?
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Mike Bohn
@USC_mikebohn
We are making a change in the leadership of our football program. #FightOn
What a spoil sport. Depriving talking heads of weeks and weeks of being able to grade the level of hotness of Helton’s seat.
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Fake Dan Beebe
@DanBeebe
·
Sep 13
Welcome to the #BuyoutLife, Clay Helton.
Took you long enough.
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From Friday, KU’s AD talks realignment. They (just like everyone else in the Big 12) are not closing the door on “exploring opportunities.”
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2021/sep/10/big-12-expands-ad-travis-goff-vows-remain-pursuit-/
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If the ACC or Pac 12 ever lose any schools at some point then Kansas would probably be high on the list as a replacement school in those leagues. So I do think they’ll end up somewhere else some day. But not the Big Ten.
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Kansas presents the same problem to any league: it’s got a horrid football program in a low-population state. Football drives 75%+ of the decision.
I see that Kansas’s new AD has pledged to upgrade the football program. He won’t be the first Kansas AD who has tried. I wish him well. I think Kansas football would need to be a lot better, before it could hope for another Power Five invite.
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Could be. Apparntly, per the article below, the Pac 12 is interested in TCU and Houston but not Kansas.
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Kansas presents the same problem to any league: it’s got a horrid football program in a low-population state. Football drives 75%+ of the decision.
IMO – For the near term, Kansas has to hope the Big Paclantic makes finding P4 opponents difficult enough for Notre Dame that it decides to join the ACC and is a tag along #16.
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“ Kansas has to hope the Big Paclantic makes finding P4 opponents difficult enough for Notre Dame…”
ND is ACC in everything except FB.
ND already plays two Pac schools yearly and has had regular games with B1G schools.
I don’t see any possibility of ND having any trouble arranging games, or the Big Pacl ntic putting up barriers. They only need two to 4 having 5 ACC, 2 Pac and a B1G already scheduled. I’m sure any other schools in those conferences would make the “sacrifice” to help fill their schedule.
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Plus Navy yearly.
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I don’t see any possibility of ND having any trouble arranging games, or the Big Pacl ntic putting up barriers. They only need two to 4 having 5 ACC, 2 Pac and a B1G already scheduled. I’m sure any other schools in those conferences would make the “sacrifice” to help fill their schedule.
Where ND could have trouble is if the PAC and Big Ten drops down to 8 conference games but adds in two Big Paclantic games. That means any ND opponent would have to willingly give up a home game every other year to play at Notre Dame. I am not confident ND will find a lot of teams from those two conferences willing to agree to that. The ACC situation is worse with 8 conference games plus two Big Paclantic games. Three schools have SEC rivalries and five will be playing ND meaning eight teams* will lose a home game every two years.
That’s the squeeze that could cause ND to join** the ACC. With Limited access to PAC/B1G teams, are there enough SEC teams willing to fill out a competitive schedule? I don’t think ND is very excited about playing the future Big 12 teams since ND hasn’t played them very often historically. If 3/4 of the P4 is playing Ten P4 games they will have to follow suit. Can they find 5 P4 opponents to go with the 5 contractual ACC ones? I think it will be very tough, but not impossible.
*Unless Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Louisville are playing ND. Then they’ll lose two home games in a two year period when they play at ND.
**Finding enough opponents and access to National Championship are the two factors often cited by ND that would make them rethink independence.
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If it is a choice of joining a conference or playing B12 teams Notre Dame is going to play the B12. They already schedule 2 G5 pay games per year + Navy. The PAC is not going to tell USC who they can play (unless they want to be the next B12). Add in another G5 pay game with 2-3 SEC and 3-4 B12 games and ND has a full schedule. I think Stanford will also want to keep their annual game and ND will probably find a lot of takers in the lower half of the ACC.
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If there’s one thing that has been a running theme over the past 20 years, it’s that exceptions will *always* be made for Notre Dame. The Irish aren’t getting squeezed regardless of how the Big Paclantic Alliance scheduling ends up working out.
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Mike,
“ That means any ND opponent would have to willingly give up a home game every other year to play at Notre Dame.”
No, only one team per conference (excluding ACC) per decade would need to in order to add two games to their usual schedule. ND might even be up for H/H in a number of cases.
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If it is a choice of joining a conference or playing B12 teams Notre Dame is going to play the B12.
I’m sure they’ll be happy to buy home games vs Big 12 teams or even play return games at a neutral site, but I don’t see Notre Dame wanting to play in Stillwater, Lubbock, Waco, Manhattan, or Ames. They went to Provo twice as part of two for ones, but their latest BYU home game will be in Vegas. They have no real history with Cincinnati, Houston or UCF. I am not sure any of the new Big 12 teams will be willing to two for ones with ND. One of the reasons why Texas went to the SEC was because their fans thought their Big 12 home schedules were boring.
The PAC is not going to tell USC who they can play (unless they want to be the next B12).
My scenario was the 8 conference games plus the two Big Paclantic games would make USC and Stanford reluctant to schedule Notre Dame because it would limit them to six home games a year every year they went to ND.
They already schedule 2 G5 pay games per year + Navy. [snip]. Add in another G5 pay game with 2-3 SEC and 3-4 B12 games and ND has a full schedule
Balancing out the numbers a bit, They’ll end up with their contracted 5 ACC + 2-3 SEC + Navy + rounding out Big 12/G5. They’ll end up playing 8 P4 games when everyone else is playing more. That might hurt their playoff chances.
I think Stanford will also want to keep their annual game and ND will probably find a lot of takers in the lower half of the ACC
I think Stanford/USC would like to, but we’ll see how they value home games. Same with those non-contracted ACC teams.
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USC will keep its game with Notre Dame and 7 home games. There is a Little8 in the PAC12 and USC in the PAC is like Texas in the B12. Notre Dame has a longer football history with USC than any school except California (Stanford, UCLA are the same as ND). If the PAC is smart they will finesse the situation by counting Notre Dame as part of the ACC. That will let USC use the conference slot freed to play an alliance game and prevent a PAC implosion. It will also allow Stanford to use the same logic to keep its game even though that history only goes back to 1988.
As far as Cincinnati: Notre Dame has not played them in 100+ years, but have you looked at their 2021 schedule?
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@cc –
No, only one team per conference (excluding ACC) per decade would need to in order to add two games to their usual schedule. ND might even be up for H/H in a number of cases.
Assuming the Big Paclantic gets off the ground, and the Big Ten/ACC/PAC each have eight conference games and two Big Paclantic games, then anyone playing at ND will have a maximum six home games where most (if not all) P4 programs want seven. Its possible that USC/Stanford are willing to do that. I’m not sure a lot of other teams are.
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USC will keep its game with Notre Dame and 7 home games.
Not possible unless USC only plays ND in LA.
8 conference games (4H/4A) + 2 Big Paclantic (1H/1A) + 1 game at ND (A) + 1 guarantee game (H) = 6H and 6A.
If the PAC is smart they will finesse the situation by counting Notre Dame as part of the ACC
That just makes the entire Big Paclantic harder to do since now the Alliance has an odd number of teams. The entire point of the Big Paclantic was to make good TV match ups. It would be crazy to not include USC (and Stanford) in the ACC rotation. Two ACC teams already will be missing the PAC12 (14 teams vs 12) and the 8/2 model with the five game ND contact means the ACC teams playing at ND will be without their seven home games. Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Lousiville when they play ND will have a 12 game schedule of 8 conference, 2 Big Paclantic, ND, and their SEC rival. I don’t know how the ACC can ask another team (or two if you include Stanford) to skip out of Big Paclantic games to exclusively benefit ND when they are already giving up a lot.
As far as Cincinnati: Notre Dame has not played them in 100+ years, but have you looked at their 2021 schedule?
Yes. Cincinnati agreed to a guarantee game at ND. Twice in 100+ years is still no real history. Now that Cincinnati is headed to the Big 12, do you think they will still agree to buy games with ND? Will ND agree to a home and home if UC agrees to move their home games to Paul Brown Stadium? In a world where over 3/4 of the P4 is playing at least 10 P4 games does it hurt ND playoff chances to not play that many P4 games?
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@Frank –
If there’s one thing that has been a running theme over the past 20 years, it’s that exceptions will *always* be made for Notre Dame. The Irish aren’t getting squeezed regardless of how the Big Paclantic Alliance scheduling ends up working out.
I agree and I get how ND feels about independence. As unlikely as ND joining the ACC is, I still think tagging along with ND is KU’s (and West Virginia’s) best hope for joining the P4 in the near term.
Setting aside how skeptical I am that math will work out and make the Big Paclantic anything close to what they say it is, with an 8/2 model, how do you envision a ND exception working out? Assuming seven home games is important for Big Ten and PAC12 teams, if ND doesn’t count as an ACC team they’ll have to play 4 or 5 SEC teams* or find B1G/PAC teams willing to have six home games in years they play at ND. Counting ND as an ACC team is the best for ND, but as long as seven home games is important, it effectively locks them in to one Big Ten and one PAC12** team a year. The money will probably good enough that the ACC would willingly drop one of their teams out of the rotation, but it won’t be great for conference unity. As it is, 8/2 with the ACC’s current ND agreement means Clemson/Georgia Tech/Louisville will play 12 P4 teams in years they play ND with only six home games in years they play at ND. Not ideal for a Clemson team already rumored to have interest in the SEC.
*I don’t see them wanting to play home and home with most of the Big 12. @ND/@Neutral is a possibility, but are ND fans going to be excited about those games? Texas fans weren’t.
**Scheduled by a TV partner. Sure, you could lock ND and USC but how happy would Clemson/Miami/FSU be about being shut out of the best PAC12 brand.
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You hit on why there will be problems implementing alliance football scheduling past any reduction in conference games (It is still an open question if such a reduction can be made that does not reduce revenue). Do you think that tOSU, MI, or PSU want to play football at Syracuse, Wake Forest, Duke, WSU, or OrSt EVER? What gets implemented will probably be a goal to play 1 or 2 alliance games based on “best efforts” which the conference kings will ignore if it suites them. The alliance can be implemented for basketball since there are a lot more games, but that will only generates a fraction of football revenue.
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The Big Paclantic is described as 41 like minded universities which more than implies ND is a member of the alliance. Now whether that has extreme influence over ND FB scheduling remains to be seen.
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TCU and Houston to the Pac-12?
https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/article254113023.html
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“TCU and Houston to the Pac-12?”
Andy, the article says what it says but I’m not buying it. TCU may indeed be in a large metro area but the brutal truth is that very few people in the DFW area care about TCU football. TCU is among the five lowest schools in attendance among the entire P5 conferences (link).
I flat out do not believe that the Pac-12 would go after a low attendance religious school like TCU and an academic skank like Houston while ignoring religious school BYU with a far better following and more centric schools like UNLV and Boise.
https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mac-engel/article253962398.html
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Houston is better academically than Boise or UNLV. It’s also a bigger market and better recruiting territory. It’s totally believable that they would have been one of the Pac-12’s top choices.
The Big 12 was more desperate to expand and was willing to consider more distant schools, and even they didn’t take Boise or UNLV. If those schools don’t move the needle for the Big 12, they don’t for the Pac-12 either.
TCU partisans say that its religious emphasis has been significantly reduced over the years, even though “Christian” is still in the name. However, I agree that it is a small school, and its football success—almost the entire reason for considering it—is fairly recent.
With any expansion, you always have to ask what the value proposition is, if the football team doesn’t continue performing well. Houston is a place you’d probably want to be in any event. Boise is not.
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Marc, Houston & Boise & UNLV are all academic skanks. A debate about the least skanky vs skankier vs skankiest serves no purpose. They are academic skanks.
Now let’s consider a comparison of TV markets. When the B1G brought in Rutgers and MD that was done because the BTN captured the HUGE Nielsen Designated Market TV areas of NYC and Wash DC into the BTN (link). But the Big XII has no conference network thus they gain virtually nothing by bringing turkeys like TCU and Houston.
http://bl.ocks.org/simzou/6459889
Marc, I hope you don’t mind if I ask a personal question. Are you a school teacher?
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Big 12 needs bodies in Texas. They’re not focused on national brand or capturing local markets as much as they’re focused on inventory and just basic positioning; they don’t have a choice.
Big 12 is 2nd in Texas even if it’s a distant second. Houston at least helps them a bit there; it’s a solid choice.
Also let’s them have teams playing in Southeast Texas and playing more games in Texas for recruiting.
Texas recruiting is the lifeblood of most of their schools (except WVU/Cincy/UCF); an extra school there can only help.
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Marc, Houston & Boise & UNLV are all academic skanks. A debate about the least skanky vs skankier vs skankiest serves no purpose. They are academic skanks.
I agree that all three are below the Pac-12’s academic level. However, you seemed to be suggesting that Boise and UNLV would be suitable, whereas Houston would not. I am not following you there. The Pac-12 didn’t add any of them—probably the correct decision.
However, I am sure that they must have asked, “If we do expand, what are our best options?” I could realistically believe Houston was near the top of a bad list. Even among skanks, somebody has to be first.
When the B1G brought in Rutgers and MD that was done because the BTN captured the HUGE Nielsen Designated Market TV areas of NYC and Wash DC into the BTN (link). But the Big XII has no conference network thus they gain virtually nothing by bringing turkeys like TCU and Houston.
When the Big 12 added TCU, they were down to eight schools. They were going to face a reduction of their TV contract if they did not make additions, and concluded WVU/TCU were the two best schools available. I guarantee that the TV media partners were part of that choice, and also part of the choice to add Houston now.
Comparisons with the Big Ten are not really relevant. The Big Ten is the richest conference. It had the luxury to only make the choices it did. The Big 12 is just trying to stay afloat.
Are you a school teacher?
No.
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Hmmm, who to believe, Colin or Jon Wilner?
From a few weeks ago:
“All signs point to the #Pac12 standing down in the realignment game. But if it were to expand, there’s an obvious No. 1 pick: Houston.”
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Let’s believe the Wall Street Journal academic rankings.
Cincy 291
UCF 323
Houston 364
Lowest in the Big Ten: Nebraska 336. All others above Iowa at 162.
Lowest in the SEC Miss St 479, Bama 463, Ark 405. All others above Ole Miss at 298.
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Colin,
Houston ARWU rankings is in the 200’s world wide, and listed in the 77th position in the U.S. that’s ahead of Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Missouri, Oregon among the notable schools.
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All of these rankings use different metrics and have different results. However, I’ll stay with the Wall St Journal/London Times over Shanghai.
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Colin,
And yet, apparently, the Pac was in fact giving Houston consideration.
I know different ranking methods give different results. I’ll go with a highly respected ranking that some may criticize for emphasizing sciences and research, which coincidentally is a common emphasis of most of the Pac.
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ccrider, I do not believe that the Pac-12 was giving Houston serious consideration. Some sports journalist may have ponied that up and their ADs may have actually discussed it. However Houston is the little brother of the little brother of the little brother in the state of Texas and TCU is even worse. That is not serious consideration.
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There was a Pac delegation that visited Houston around half a decade ago. I’m not advocating for it, but I do see that in spite of the humorous pot shots taken at it, Houston is a school deserving of consideration.
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Houston is better academically than most of the SEC and Big 12. Its a Tier I research university and, despite its USNWR ratings, is tougher to get into than a good number of P5 schools. So are UCF and Cincinnati.
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Houston ARWU rankings in the two hundreds worldwide, and listed in 77th position on the USA list, ahead of Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Missouri, Oregon, among notable schools.
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And from having a son recently graduate from HS, I know that UH was harder to get into than anybody in the SEC other than Vandy, Florida, Georgia and A&M. We didn’t look that much at the Big 12 schools, but it was tougher than Missouri, which is probably tougher than WVU, OSU and KSU and comparable to KU and ISU.
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Colin,
TCU is founded by “religion” in a similar way as USC (original mascot was the Fighting Methodists). BYU, while a fine school, is directly controlled by the church hierarchy. Similarly Baylor, Liberty and others don’t operate in as secular a way as B1G or Pac conferences would be comfortable with.
Stanford only has around 8k undergraduate student. I know it’s a long shot but I’ve only half jokingly advocated for the Pac including Rice as a Houston based version of the Cardinal. TCU would add the Dallas/Fort Worth metro. USC, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, UCLA, etc making regular visits to both metro areas would attract attention, whoever they play.
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Let’s imagine the Pac-12 had no issues with BYU’s church-controlled governance. I’m still not convinced that there is any 14th school that, coupled with BYU, would be financially attractive.
Last time the Pac-12 expanded, they took Utah. At the time of the decision, Utah had better recent athletic success. Besides not being church-controlled, Utah was the better choice all around.
If the Pac-12 could significantly increase revenue-per-member by adding BYU and any 14th school, I suspect at least some members would be willing to consider that, and the controversy would become public knowledge.
One clear rule of college athletics, is that if money is being left on the table, there’s usually somebody that wants it. To be clear, BYU is a horrible cultural fit with the Pac-12. But I bet they are not a great financial fit either.
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” I’m still not convinced that there is any 14th school that, coupled with BYU, would be financially attractive. ”
Marc, you’re probably right but I’ll never be convinced that TCU + Houston would be financially attractive. TCU has pathetic football attendance and both schools are waaaaay behind UT, A&M and Texas Tech in the state.
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Colin – TCU’s 2019 average attendance was 42,881. The PAC 12’s average attendance for the same year was 46,080. Other than Washington, no one in the pac 12 school averaged more than 60k.
Click to access 2019.pdf
TCU out drew Stanford, Cal, Arizona, Oregon St & Washington St, and came within less than 1000 of UCLA.
TCU had a losing record, had only one attractive home game and still roughly had the same attendance as UCLA – a team playing in the second largest market in the Rose Bowl.
For the 2020 season, TCU also completed a stadium expansion to add more club seats and suites.
If the PAC 12 had chosen TCU, they probably only would have trailed Washington, USC, Oregon, Arizona State and Colorado in attendance.
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Alan, that is the ANNOUNCED attendance. It includes the tickets they give away to high schools and nursing homes to people who don’t show up for the games.
https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mac-engel/article253962398.html
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Colin – I have attended several games at TCU’s stadium over the last decade as well as many other games throughout the country. TCU is no different than any other non-elite program. Heck, many elite programs have trouble with no shows as well.
Do you think TCU is turning in tickets sold/distributed info to the NCAA and every other school in America is reporting actual butts in the seats?
I couldn’t open your link.
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Alan, in answer to your question I do not think that the big schools fudge on their football attendance and I believe most of them pass the eyeball test. As this article says, small privates like Wake Forest, Duke, Boston College, Baylor and TCU have serious attendance problems and more incentive to cook the numbers. Here’s the text of the article.
In changing college football landscape, TCU’s attendance challenge a potential problem
Despite the pleas from some donors and administrators to go bigger, one of the smarter decisions TCU has made in recent years was to not expand the seating capacity beyond 46,000.
Depending on what figure you believe, Amon G. Carter Stadium is the sixth or seventh smallest football stadium in the Power 5 landscape of college football, and while the venue is one of the best in the country it’s nearly impossible to fill.
Other than slap a roof or awning over the stands, TCU has done every single thing possible to make its game-day atmosphere attractive to fans, families with young children, players and recruits.
Packing at Amon G. Carter Stadium remains as much of a challenge today as ever. As college football goes about restructuring itself, one of the silent concerns for many schools is attendance.
It’s a concern for several schools, and leaves Power 5 members such as Wake Forest, Duke, Boston College, Baylor and TCU increasingly vulnerable in this new landscape. TCU opened its 2021 season on Saturday night against Duquesne. Needless to say, it was not a sellout.
Fans have minimal interest, although coaches from Power 5 schools do love a schedule with a Duquesne. (The final score was 45-3, and both head coaches took the rare step of shortening the game by six minutes.)
Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 for the SEC not just for ESPN’s money, but the need to load its home schedule with opponents that give them a better chance of bigger crowds.
With so many quality entertainment options now easily available, and the lure of that big hi-def flat screen in the living room so enticing, fans simply don’t care enough to pay much money to watch anything other than Big vs. Big.
When a Texas plays Texas A&M, no price is too high for a ticket, and no venue can be big enough. Conversely, a stadium can’t be small enough for Old Dominion at Wake Forest, Utah State at Washington State, or Duquesne at TCU. All three were opening-weekend matchups.
For the smaller schools not named Notre Dame that currently enjoy residence in the Power 5 football conferences, like TCU, Baylor, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Boston College and Duke, the attendance issue only complicates their status.
Each of these schools have poured millions into their athletic departments, and have, at times, fielded successful football programs. Selling out their stadiums is just difficult.
In the case of TCU, since Amon G. Carter Stadium’s renovation finished for the 2012 season, the announced average attendance for home games is 44,541. A good number. And the key word is “announced.” The eyes tell a dramatically different story than the reported figures.
The real average is likely closer to 30,000. Ish. For instance, when TCU hosted No. 9 Oklahoma and quarterback Kyler Murray on Oct. 20, 2018, finding a seat was not a problem.
Fudging, and or lying, on attendance figures is a staple in all of college athletics, not just TCU. When it comes to announced attendance, every athletic department in the nation relies on fuzzy math.
This is not an indictment on TCU, or its athletic department. It’s this way for most small universities that are in the Power 5. In 2019, Wake Forest averaged 26,999 at its home football games. Duke’s average was 25,811, and Boston College came in at 34,185.
TCU has an undergrad enrollment of 9,400 students. And as long as you compare TCU against the other small, private schools in the Power 5, it has done well. The concern for TCU, and every school like it in the Power 5, is when you compare them against the larger universities. That’s not only a challenge, but in this landscape it could be a major problem.
Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC is another step in the slow consolidation of revenue in college athletics. Where the likes of TCU, Wake Forest, Baylor, Duke, Northwestern and the few just like them fit in this evolving scheme of hoarding cash, and this master plan, no one knows.
A bunch of empty seats for a season opener never helps.
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I’ll never be convinced that TCU + Houston would be financially attractive.
I’m not sure anybody is. After all, this is the road the Pac-12 didn’t take.
TCU/Houston might have been their best expansion option, but that doesn’t make it good. Otherwise, they would’ve done it.
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So largely missed this weekend was Bowlsby’s comments that the B12 could eventually expand to 20 to 24 schools.
What the author seems to miss is that Bowlsby is likely not talking about adding 8 to 12 more G5’s. Rather that if the Pac12 and/or ACC have their top programs raided by the B1G and SEC, then the leftover P5 schools may become available:
https://www.heartlandcollegesports.com/2021/09/12/bob-bowlsby-suggests-big-12-could-expand-to-20-or-24-teams/?fbclid=IwAR30dKwPr46xUvUrC4Ds5Mzl0vwHhhliuWxSQzNa2-FggGKYMVr-gQo8-pU
Bowlsby said, “We’ll look for targets of opportunity. We might find out down the road that larger alignments are going to be the order of the day. We might find ourselves going to 20 or 24 (teams) at some point in time.”
And then the KU chancellor suggested big changes may happen to the NCAA in the next year. Lots of ways to speculate about that, but one end result could be the P5’s enacting financial benefits to players and program requirements that may cause most G5 programs to throw in the towel about trying to keep up. Perhaps the P5/G5 split long bandied about. So even if the SEC/B1G/ACC/Pac 12 don’t change much, there may be some G5 schools with enough booster commitment to make the final climb to P5 before the drawbridge is pulled up. B12 becomes the Poor But Proud Conference floor of the P5 division. Perhaps a lot of 2 for 1 OOC games for the B12 schools, replacing FCS and the lesser G5’s on the Alliance and SEC schedules.
I think in the long run most G5 schools would be financially better off breaking away, reorganizing into more regional conferences that minimize travel, and living off their own 16-team G5 playoff that ESPN (or perhaps another network) will buy for inventory. Discount priced playoffs, but still better than what most G5’s outside the AAC get now.
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2021/sep/13/ku-chancellor-girod-believes-ku-good-footing-follo/?football
“This is not your conference realignment of old,” Girod said. “This is not moving the deck chairs. We’re seeing major changes (and probably will see) a very different looking NCAA after the first of the year. College athletics is shifting pretty dramatically under our feet.”
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To clarify, I think the first option is more likely, that of the B1G taking 6 (maybe up to 8 or 9) of the best Pac12 AAU schools and then at some point (maybe quicker than many think) raiding the top ACC schools and the SEC also taking it’s share.
Yes the Pac12 is far away, but the travel isn’t so bad if it becomes a 6 or 8 school western division. Double (or even triple) round-robin in the division for sports like basketball, for example.
I think the B1G ends up with the 4 CA schools, Oregon, and Washington, plus UVA, UNC, G.Tech, and maybe Duke. SEC grabs Clemson, FSU, V.Tech, and NC.State (or Duke.) I don’t see why ND couldn’t continue as an independent in football. If the B1G remains to haughty to allow that, the SEC will probably be fine allowing ND to do that. The B12+++++ Island of Misfit Schools certainly would, so ND will have their choice.
Heck, I could see the SEC dropping divisions and allowing it’s top dog schools to have a semi-independent schedule, as long as they keep the money in conference. They aren’t afraid of innovation, and now I don’t think they’re afraid to walk away from the NCAA. I would not be shocked to see an SEC-Alliance showdown within a few years over SEC desire to expand football rosters.
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I think the first option is more likely, that of the B1G taking 6 (maybe up to 8 or 9) of the best Pac12 AAU schools…
How could they do this without diluting the payout of the existing members? The Big Ten makes much more per school than the Pac-12.
SEC grabs Clemson, FSU, V.Tech, and NC.State (or Duke.)
Similar situation. The SEC is in a position of strength. Adding the second-choice schools in Virginia and North Carolina would almost certainly be dilutive.
I would not be shocked to see an SEC-Alliance showdown within a few years over SEC desire to expand football rosters.
I agree, this is probably coming. The challenge for the SEC, is that if they want to be national champs, they have to play someone outside of their footprint. If they expand rosters unilaterally, then the SEC Championship Game ends their season.
I think there are other P5 football programs that would love to expand rosters too. The trouble is with the other ~75% of P5 athletic departments that are losing money, or at least not making money.
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I think in the long run most G5 schools would be financially better off breaking away, reorganizing into more regional conferences that minimize travel, and living off their own 16-team G5 playoff that ESPN (or perhaps another network) will buy for inventory.
The breakaway happened already when the “Autonomy Five” started making their own rules. And four of the five G5 leagues are already regional—the American is the only one that’s not. Granted, the Sun Belt and C-USA could each become a bit more compact if they traded schools, but what they’ve got is not unwieldy.
If the G5 formed their own playoff, the question is whether that would make more money than the bowl invites they get today. That’s the only way it would happen.
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It makes sense in the long term, since the Understandably Irate 8 are inevitably screwed financially in the short term.
Growing a nationwide fanbase for Big 12 football is the right move over the long term.
Whether the Big 12 teams can afford to make long-term decisions at the expense of the short-term financial situation remains to be seen, though
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Hard to see the P5/G5 split happening so long as P5 schools insist on 7 home games. They won’t get those additional home dates from other P5 schools. I do wonder though whether some G5 schools, especially as it gets harder to recruit under new NIL rules decide to drop down to the FCS where costs (or outright financial losses) may be more manageable.
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When people refer to a split, they just mean playing by different rules. FCS already does that, but it doesn’t prevent them from scheduling games against the P5.
G5 programs need P5 games, so there is no way they’d voluntarily stop playing them.
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Do G5 programs need P5 games? Only if they need the paycheck or want entree into a bowl. Dropping to FCS could lower program costs and the playoff series replaces the bowls. Not so sure if for some schools, FCS doesn’t become the better answer instead of continuing in the arms race.
No different than schools like Carnegie Tech and Chicago de-emphasizing football in the 30s-50s.
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Do G5 programs need P5 games? Only if they need the paycheck or want entree into a bowl.
They need it for the paycheck. Plenty of P5 teams schedule FCS opponents, so stepping down would not preclude those games, though they might be harder to get. Current rules limit FBS teams to just one FCS game a year, assuming their home conference doesn’t have a stricter rule (as the Big Ten does).
No different than schools like Carnegie Tech and Chicago de-emphasizing football in the 30s-50s.
Chicago didn’t de-emphasize football. They stopped playing it entirely. They are now in Division III, but there was a 60-year gap without a varsity team. There are many programs that were formerly at the top level and aren’t anymore, not just those two. Comparisons are difficult, because the current 3-division system didn’t exist then.
Since Division I split, the Idaho Vandals are the only team ever to downgrade from FBS to FCS, but they were FCS previously. No team that has been in FBS all along has ever downgraded, but it could happen.
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If you are interested in what will be important in G5 expansion this is a good breakdown.
https://theathletic.com/2826426/2021/09/15/conference-realignments-next-steps-what-im-hearing-about-the-american-sun-belt-and-more-in-the-group-of-5
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In reaction to the Big 12’s recent raid of Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, the AAC has focused on recruiting a group of schools that includes Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State and UAB, sources tell CBS Sports. UAB, a member of Conference USA, is the only non-Mountain West team on that short list.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/american-targeting-mountain-west-powers-among-handful-of-expansion-candidates-in-realignment/
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It’s hard to imagine why Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State would be better off in the AAC vs the Mountain West. Their travel logistics would be considerably worse and I don’t see an uptick in TV revenue. Seems like an AAC throes following the Big XII’s inquisition of UT and OU.
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I am not sure how excited I would be about a four time zone conference.
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Mike, I agree. Right now the Mountain West has Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State plus New Mexico, Utah State, Wyoming, Nevada, Fresno State, San José State, UNLV and Hawai‘i.
How does that get better for Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State to instead be in a conference with Memphis, SMU, Temple, Tulane, East Carolina, Navy, Tulsa and UAB?
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About the only thing I can think of is it gives the those teams the opportunity to be on ESPN instead of Fox/CBS Sports. I know Boise has its special home football deal with ESPN, but are those four willing to gamble that increased ESPN exposure will make them legit Big 12 candidates? If the next Big 12 expansion takes some but not all four are they willing to risk being left on an island? Tough call for not a lot of gain in money.
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“It’s hard to imagine why Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State would be better off in the AAC vs the Mountain West”
If the new playoff is adopted as proposed, there will probably be a huge advantage to getting that 6th conference championship bid. That probably leads directly to a much larger share of playoff money going to the conference. Regular appearances in the playoff (even if they always get blown out by the SEC or Big Ten 3rd place team), probably leads to their regular season being more desirable to TV networks than the other “G5” conferences, leading to more TV money.
My guess is, the AAC plans to make these 4 the first wave. If these 4 disagree, the idea is dead, and they focus on the region East of the Rockies. If they agree, they’ll then add even more schools to have more regional regular season play (especially in non-revenue sports): With these 4 on board, any others will accept an invitation immediately to stay relevant.
I would think the next schools asked would be Fresno State, UTSA,,and FAU or FIU (a national conference needs to be well-represented in every national recruiting spot to keep its schools happy), then 1 more school to make it an even 16 schools. Giving everyone 4 permanent rivals (since we all agree that every conference wants to do away with the divisional requirement to hold a championship game) would guarantee 2 home and 2 away games against “regional” opponents every year (Navy and Air Force would of course be rivals).
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I’m skeptical about any MWC to AAC moves, but I agree that if this were to occur, it’s going to be an extensive and almost wholesale addition of a Western wing instead of a dabble.
Don’t forget about UNLV sitting there in a major and fast-growing market without any other college sports competition. Football hasn’t been great lately, but they’ve got fairly good basketball pedigree.
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I just don’t see why they would add so much travel for so little extra money. Even more so since the Big 12 might not be done with the AAC.
But you have to think like a college president. There could be egos in the MWC that want to separate from 4 to 6 current conference mates or to guarantee that they are in the #6 conference. I do agree, its got to be a western wing with something like 6 schools.
But it would create a bit of a mess with scattered teams in the AAC and the surviving MWC.
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“I just don’t see why they would add so much travel for so little extra money. Even more so since the Big 12 might not be done with the AAC.”
-The Big 12 may take teams from the Mountain West as well, but the fear of losing schools actually might make this move more likely. If all the 1st and 2nd tier teams below the Big 12 band together, they’re sure that whatever happens, they’re in a “top 6” conference. Of course, everyone involved will insist on being able to accept a Big 12 invitation immediately (just like TCU did in the last round of realignment).
-For football, the travel won’t be too bad if they follow the formula I outlined above. I would envision 8 conference games: 2 of your 4 road conference games would be against rivals, leaving only 2 other trips. They could then add 1 pay game against a local P5, 1 buy game against an FCS team, and 2 home and home games against other G5 teams in their region.
They might do something unconventional in basketball: not playing everyone in your league every year. 8 games (home and home) against rivals + 4 more away games and 4 more home games against other conference schools, meaning you would skip 3 teams in a given year.
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For football, the travel won’t be too bad if they follow the formula I outlined above.
Football is almost never the problem for travel, because there are so few games, and they’re almost all on Saturdays. It’s the other sports where it becomes an issue.
Of course, West Virginia shows that geography doesn’t matter if the money is good enough. I wonder how that has affected their recruiting in the non-revenue sports? I don’t think football and men’s basketball players care so much, but it must be a real drag some of the other sports.
They might do something unconventional in basketball: not playing everyone in your league every year.
I would be surprised if they were willing to sacrifice basketball to that degree.
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Can conferences, within the framework of the NCAA, split in such a way that what we currently see as conferences (the Big XII, and all the G5 conferences that may be on the cusp of expanding their footprint geographically) get split into two tiers? Essentially what we have now are kept as “revenue generating” conferences (football, basketball) and then secondary conferences are created for the non-revenue generating sports. That should help alleviate some of the concerns about going a far-flung league if all you have to worry about is paying for football and basketball travel. In theory that help the non-revenue sports as their travel costs are considerably constrained.
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Can conferences, within the framework of the NCAA, split [into] “revenue generating” conferences (football, basketball) and then secondary conferences are created for the non-revenue generating sports.
The NCAA already has single-sport conferences. An example is Hockey East, which provides a home for Northeastern schools whose home conferences don’t have enough hockey-playing schools.
I’m not aware of a rule that would prohibit forming conferences just for revenue sports, although this has never been done to date. Would that actually work to the schools’ benefit? I have not tried to work out the details.
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I’m not aware of a rule that would prohibit forming conferences just for revenue sports, although this has never been done to date. Would that actually work to the schools’ benefit? I have not tried to work out the details.
There is (always) a rule. You can check out the NCAA handbook for details, but (IIRC) conferences are centered on basketball and X number of women’s and Y number men’s sports. If your conference doesn’t sponsor a sport you can join another conference that sponsors it. I am not sure if there is a specific exception for Hockey conferences or they just exist because so few primary conferences actually sponsor hockey.
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Long listener first time caller. Boise State’s special deal is with Fox now. All of its home games are on Fox or FS1, and they still get $1.8 million more than the other MW members, which with new CBS/Fox deal means about $5.8 million for BSU and $4 million for other MW schools except Hawaii. In terms of exposure, this year two of Boise’s road games are scheduled to be on regular CBS at noon (10:00 AM Mountain) and a couple of their home games could be on regular Fox not FS1. $5.8 M is not that far below the AAC revenue pay out of $7 M, And that $7M figure might not the true payout, according to an article about UConn’s move to the Big East. In that article they pointed out that some AAC FB and BB games were being moved to ESPN+ as part of the AAC’s deal with ESPN and that schools were on the hook for the production costs of those games, which the article figured could cost UConn $500,000 to a $1 million a year. All that being said BSU and the rest of the MW are not on the best of terms since the others, especially SDSU, resent the special treatment BSU gets, and BSU of course thinks their special treatment is justified. BSU threatened to sue the MW, and the MW commissioner said this was the last negotiation with a special deal. Lastly, because the revenue is so much less outside the P5, basketball does matter in G5 realignment in a way it does not in P5 realignment. (see the AAC adding Wichita State) The AAC doles out about $500,000 more to each school from NCAA tournament units than all other G5s except for the Mountain West. The MW payouts, however, have been dwindling, and in 2022 they will not be that much better than in the other G5 conferences.
. .
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I like your Yellow Lab Patrick! What’s his name?
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David, Her name is Greta and that was 12 years ago when she was a puppy. She is still going strong. BTW Have been in high ed my whole adult life. Wisconsin grad school (go badgers), lived in Ann Arbor near the big house when Brady was there, and now work for CU Boulder.
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Good post.
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Interesting read on NIL and TCU.
https://theathletic.com/news/tcu-coach-gary-patterson-sec-schools-promising-players-compensation-to-transfer/isgloiNuv1em
“…Speaking at an NIL event put on by the school Wednesday night, Patterson said if TCU doesn’t step up in that department, it’ll be left behind. He mentioned one freshman on his roster who’s being contacted by several SEC schools, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
“There’s five SEC schools calling him and telling him, ‘Here’s what we’ll give you if you come here and not stay at TCU,’” Patterson said, according to the paper. “At the end of the day, that’s just real life. If we don’t do anything about it, within a year we lose him. The rules have changed. There is no wrong anymore….””
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This is why the NCAA held the line on NIL for so long. They understood that once athletes can get NIL money, you might as well call them professionals. The school might not be writing the check, but the effect is very much the same.
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“This is why the NCAA held the line on NIL for so long.”
Another problem will surface when the men’s basketball players start getting paid more, probably a lot more, than women’s hoops. It will be more of the same that we’re hearing from the WNBA and women’s soccer except we’ll also have Title IX in the mix. Should be interesting.
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Title IX wouldn’t apply to an outside entity paying an individual for use of their NIL would it?
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“Title IX wouldn’t apply to an outside entity paying an individual for use of their NIL would it?”
Mike, that’s a provocative question. Title IX reads “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
I’m not a lawyer but the clause about ” . . . be subjected to discrimination . . . ” would seem to suggest equal payouts, regardless of source.
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The Knight Commission is talking about redistributing men’s basketball money. You never know on this stuff.
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The Knight Commission is talking about redistributing men’s basketball money. You never know on this stuff.
The entire edifice of college sports is built on redistributing money from the revenue sports to the non-revenue ones.
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Here is a link to the Knight Commission report. I think that the basic theme is equity, which as bullet said, seems to include a new type of distribution and point number 1 is gender equity. It seems to wish to end gender based awards, which means more for women’s basketball and non-income sports. The report also seems to think that College Football playoff funds should also be distributed differently (whatever that means).
There is also a link in the report to a law firm report on gender equity in NCAA basketball. I have not looked at it, but I suspect that the amount of income earned by mens’ bball compared to womens’ bball is not deemed to be relevant.
https://www.knightcommission.org/2021/09/knight-commission-releases-new-report-in-its-transforming-the-d-i-model-series/
Here is part of it:
Broad-Based Sports Opportunities: This principle would require the NCAA, CFP, or conferences to establish financial incentives to reward schools for sponsoring more teams than the Division I membership minimums and require that the incentive pool is as large as the financial incentives provided for athletics performance (i.e., winning games). For example, the hundreds of millions of dollars that are currently distributed by the NCAA for men’s basketball tournament wins and by the CFP for football teams’ selection for the playoff must be matched by incentives for providing broad-based sports opportunities—which is far from the case at present.
………
Specifically, each Division I conference would be required to implement both distribution and spending policies to ensure shared conference revenues are used primarily to support college athlete education, health, safety, and well-being, and athletics programs that provide broad-based opportunities and that achieve gender and racial equity.
Meaningful and mandatory incentives and penalties would encourage spending consistent with the educational mission of college sports. Congress or the conference governing bodies should adopt caps or minimum financial thresholds to limit sport-specific spending—especially spending related to athletics coaching and staff compensation, severance pay, and athletics facilities. The Commission recommends that these Division I conference policies be publicly released and approved by a new independent oversight entity.
………..
To illustrate one example, the Commission preliminarily modeled how the 229 Division I public institutions would perform if conferences required that institutions had to devote at least 50 percent of shared athletics revenues to directly support the education, health, safety, and well-being of college athletes and/or university academics.
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The new Knight report proposes to take money from schools that are generating revenue (MI, tOSU, TX, AL, GA, FL, PSU, OK etc.) and give it to schools that do not. It will reward participation rather than success. It is one thing to get approval for higher academic performance and graduation rates of student athletes (a past Knight proposal that was implemented) since how can a school object to its prime mission of education. That is different from taking money from successful programs to subsidize other schools. Nothing like this will get through congress. If the NCAA takes this up it will create the final split of the large high revenue schools. The report may result in small schools getting more of a subsidy and the NCAA throwing a few more $$$ to the woman’s basketball tournament.
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“The new Knight report proposes to take money from schools that are generating revenue (MI, tOSU, TX, AL, GA, FL, PSU, OK etc.) and give it to schools that do not.”
There’s a word for that: socialism.
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There’s a word for that: socialism.
The other word for it is: a conference.
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Huh. Who knew socialism was a voluntary system of structuring extracurricular activities, and only applies to those choosing to participate. Sounds terrible…(sarc)
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“Who knew socialism was a voluntary system . . .”
So the Michigans and Bamas will voluntarily share their revenue with the have-nots. Interesting.
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“ So the Michigans and Bamas will voluntarily share their revenue with the have-nots. Interesting.”
Yes, they probably will if that is the decision of the group they are voluntary members of. Or they could leave if the benefits no longer outweigh deficiencies. Staying is not compulsory.
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“ So the Michigans and Bamas will voluntarily share their revenue with the have-nots. Interesting.”
“Yes, they probably will if that is the decision of the group they are voluntary members of. Or they could leave if the benefits no longer outweigh deficiencies. Staying is not compulsory.”
cc, there is a third option: Your goofy scenario won’t happen.
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@Colin: The prosperous schools are already doing this voluntarily. The proposal is to do more of it. I am not saying I am in favor—I haven’t studied the proposal and don’t plan to. But in principle, it’s something they already do.
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Colin
“ there is a third option:…”
There are probably many options.
“…Your goofy scenario won’t happen.”
It’s not my scenario, just the one you were commenting on.
“Yes, they probably will IF that…”
You having difficulty with qualifiers?
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And mens’ sports will share with womens’ sports, without regard to the source of the revenue.
Somehow I see some serious resistance to this proposal on multiple levels from schools needing to give up money. While the very top athletic departments are profitable, how many mid or lower level FBS, even P5 schools, make very little profit. Asking them to kick money down the chain will be very problematical. Look at how many schools may need several years just to recover from 2020. Are they voluntarily going further into the hole?
Another part of their proposal is an increase in the number of sports. That should not matter to the PAC or B1G, but will the SEC do it?
If the smaller schools push this hard enough, that may be enough to finally force the FBS schools to split from the NCAA.
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“Somehow I see some serious resistance to this proposal on multiple levels from schools needing to give up money.”
Exactly Bernie. Why on earth would Texas A&M want to send revenue to SMU or North Texas? It’s a goofy idea.
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“Another part of their proposal is an increase in the number of sports. That should not matter to the PAC or B1G, but will the SEC do it?”
The SEC’s priority right now is to increase scholarship spending by switching partial scholarship sports to full scholarship sports; not by increasing the total number of sports offered:
” “The thing that amazes me is why we did not give every athlete in this day and time a full scholarship,” says Larry Templeton, a longtime SEC athletic director now in a consultant role with the league. “We missed the boat. We got equivalency sports busting at the seams. College baseball and softball, look at the viewership and excitement, and we’re treating them like second-class citizens.” ”
https://www.si.com/college/2021/07/19/ncaa-restructuring-greg-sankey-sec-mark-emmert
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https://www.si.com/college/2021/07/19/ncaa-restructuring-greg-sankey-sec-mark-emmert
I’m surprised that Greg Sankey didn’t endorse ccryder’s clever concept of the big schools simply handing over their revenue to the smaller schools.
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Right now Ohio State and Michigan share revenue with Northwestern, Rutgers, etc., since those other schools in the B1G provide reciprocal benefits. Would Michigan share money with Eastern Michigan? Why? Is that this new proposal in the name of equity?
Texas was not even willing to share equally with other Big12 schools, so can one even imagine a conversation about sharing with Texas Tech?
As far as Title IX, that is a great unanswered question. I am not sure how or when, but I would not be surprised if some Federal Judge decides that it is not enough to equalize scholarships, etc, but somehow the colleges should be able to move NIL funds to women athletes and teams. That will be fun.
The US women’s soccer team is a great example of the financial equity argument (though obviously without Title IX). They sued to make the same money as the men. When offered exactly the same contract as the men, they rejected it out of hand. The women demanded a base salary, insurance, etc. which the men do not get. The reason is that all the men play pro soccer in Europe or the US and have insurance and similar benefits through their teams. The women do not.
The other problem is that internationally FIFA puts up around $400,000,000 in men’s soccer money, while putting up about $50,000,000 for women. That is reflective of market value, based on TV revenues, attendance, etc.
There is no way that the US government sources will make up that difference. Unlike nearly all other countries, the US does not support US Olympic athletes. Top athletes can get up to $4,000 per month from USOPC and, of course, extra payment for Olympic/Para medals. In “hot” sports, stars can of course make millions in endorsements.
In many other countries, such as China, Olympic/Paralympic athletes are members of military and paid to train full time.
Very few Olympians/Paralympians have sponsorships and most basically have to support themselves while working and training.
https://www.insider.com/why-olympic-athletes-broke-how-they-make-money-tokyo-2020-2021-7
Why or how should the US Government give support to the women’s soccer team and not to the women’s rowing team for example? Or the javelin thrower?
The only way for USNWT in soccer to get more money would be to directly take it from the men’s team . So far, courts have been unwilling to order that, and I am not sure how it could be done, but leave it to the imagination of some Federal Judge.
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“… and while the USWNT advanced via penalty kicks in the Olympic quarterfinals, the USMNT union filed an amicus brief in full support of the USWNT’s fight. The group argued the women don’t deserve equal pay, but rather they deserve to be paid more than the men’s team. Specifically, they argued for “at least triple the compensation provided for in the men’s agreement.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/uswnt-union-calls-out-us-soccers-identical-contract-offer-as-pr-stunt-210448247.html
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There’s really not a need to have 35 intercollegiate sports.
Texas has
M/W golf
M/W tennis
M/W track
M/W indoor track
M/W cross country
M/W swimming & diving
M/W basketball
baseball
softball
football
W volleyball
W rowing
W soccer
The only sports they could add that would make any sense at all based on popularity among teenage Texans would be men’s soccer, women’s gymnastics and men’s wrestling. Rowing really doesn’t make sense except that it is an effort to comply with Title IX because it has large scholarship limits. There are a few regional sports that are popular, hockey in the north, lacrosse on the east coast and men’s volleyball on the west coast, but most P5 departments pretty much have all the sports that make sense.
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And Texas has dozens of club sports, ranging from soccer to hockey to Quidditch that serve the needs of students.
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Colin: “The new Knight report proposes to take money from schools that are generating revenue (MI, tOSU, TX, AL, GA, FL, PSU, OK etc.) and give it to schools that do not.”
Also Colin: “I’m surprised that Greg Sankey didn’t endorse ccryder’s clever concept of the big schools simply handing over their revenue…”
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ccryder: “Also Colin: “I’m surprised that Greg Sankey didn’t endorse ccryder’s clever concept of the big schools simply handing over their revenue…”
Seems like I hit a nerve. Are you now in denial regarding your endorsement of this goofy revenue-sharing concept?
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I’m denying I am the Knight commission, nothing more.
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NCAA task force recommends removing standardized test score requirement.
https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/general-ncaa-task-force-backs-removal-of-standardized-test-score-requirement
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Dumbing it down for diversity.
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https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32225468/lsu-becomes-first-sec-school-partner-gambling-company-agrees-caesars-sportsbook-deal?platform=amp&__twitter_impression=true
Left without comment.
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The 3rd rail. Only thing the NCAA fears more than agents. Kentucky basketball got one of the 5 NCAA death penalties because players were shaving points. Now they are bringing it closer.
The other 4 were ULL basketball paying players and academic fraud, SMU paying football players, Morehouse signing professionals for soccer who weren’t even students at the time and MacMurray tennis using scholarships in Div. III.
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I think that’s a fear in all sports, not just the NCAA. For decades, part of their approach was literally to pretend gambling didn’t exist. There are still vestiges of this attitude: most media deals prohibit announcers from mentioning point spreads.
I guess they decided that putting Caesar’s name on the LSU clubhouse wouldn’t make the players more likely to shave points. The gambling companies have the same vested interest in keeping the sports books honest. A cheating scandal could bring more regulation, just as the rules are being liberalized all over the country.
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This is what happens when all of the lineman sit in the back of the plane.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32230018/usc-trojans-team-plane-tips-backward-tarmac-coaches-staff-board
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Actually, a pretty common problem with the 737-900. Normally, you’d have a tailstand for the plane when it parks at the gate to avoid this issue.
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So now that BYU is a member of a “Power 5” conference, that leaves a question: which Power 5 team is going to play a non-power 5 team on Thanksgiving weekend?
We assume Notre Dame will continue to play a Pac 12 team every Thanksgiving, leaving one Pac 12 team without a partner. If that team plays BYU, that will leave 1 Big 12 team without a partner, if Oklahoma State plays Oklahoma that will leave 1 SEC team without a partner…anyway you manage it, one P5 team will have to play a G5 team or independent that weekend.
The most sensible thing would be to have BYU/Utah and UCF/USF that weekend, but 1) UCF has been publicly vindictive towards USF; they might not want to schedule them 2) the Big 12 might not want to solve the Pac 12 Thanksgiving problem when it’s forming a whole alliance to keep them down (and some reporters are saying they still might take some of their schools!) 3) if the Big 12 expands again (which some are reporting is likely), USF might be one of the first targets, which would continue the problem.
Another possibility: move Colorado/Colorado State to that weekend.
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So now that BYU is a member of a “Power 5” conference, that leaves a question: which Power 5 team is going to play a non-power 5 team on Thanksgiving weekend?
The Pac-12 deals with that problem already. BYU happens to be playing USC on Thanksgiving weekend this year and in 2023, but it’s not a traditional rivalry for them.
…the Big 12 might not want to solve the Pac 12 Thanksgiving problem when it’s forming a whole alliance to keep them down
I haven’t heard any news to this effect. I thought they left the Big 12 out because they don’t want to share their strategy with Oklahoma and Texas. Alliance commissioners have said they bear no ill will towards the Big 12 and want it to survive as a P5 league.
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Marc: “So now that BYU is a member of a “Power 5” conference . . .”
That “Power 5” designation remains to be seen. The Big XII is a P5 conference that has lost Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Mizzou and A&M. They were replaced with West Virginny, TCU, BYU, Cincy, UCF and Houston. I believe we can all agree that the “power” of this conference has diminished. I cannot believe that the network TV executives are looking at this as “Same Same”.
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That “Power 5” designation remains to be seen.
There is no authority that grants or revokes the “Power 5” designation. In the BCS era, six conferences were auto-qualifiers, but one of those six no longer exists, which left five. The expanded playoff proposal suggested that the top six conference champs would make the playoff. The new Big 12 is good enough that it would surely get one of the six in most years. No G5 league can say that.
I cannot believe that the network TV executives are looking at this as “Same Same”.
Agreed, but even today the Power Five do not have equal media rights. That was the very reason why Texas and Oklahoma left. The new Big 12 will be a distant fifth among the P5, but will still make a lot more than the AAC, and a lot more than BYU makes as a football independent.
Interesting that some people here thought BYU should take its time considering a B12 offer, but it did exactly the opposite. I think it’s highly likely that BYU understands the value of its conference alignment options far better than fans do.
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It’s worth noting that there are two aspects of Power 5 “Designations”
1. How much money you make from TV
2. How much say you have in how CFB as a whole operates aka the NCAA’s “autonomy vote”
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This is from the NY Times. I’m posting text instead of a link because it’s for subscribers only.
In a Scheduling First, Pac-12 and SWAC Plan Home-and-Home Basketball Games
The deal between a Power 5 league and the Southwestern Athletic Conference could help H.B.C.U. teams draw big crowds.
By Alan Blinder Sept. 20, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
The Southwestern Athletic Conference’s men’s basketball teams have, year after year, traveled west to play Pac-12 Conference schools. A twist is coming in 2022: Pac-12 teams will start to travel to play the SWAC’s historically Black colleges and universities.
Under a four-year scheduling arrangement that the leagues are expected to announce on Monday, Pac-12 and SWAC programs will stage home-and-home games beginning next year. The partnership is unusual because Power 5 programs usually build their nonconference schedules around neutral site matchups that are made-for-TV showdowns against big-name brands, or home games that involve paying less wealthy and prominent schools to play.
The new plan, which calls for no money to change hands, will see SWAC schools hosting at least one high-profile nonconference game, potentially attracting more attention and ticket-buying fans to their universities in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. League executives expect that all of the games, which are to be played early in each season, will be televised.
“It kind of evens the playing field,” said Charles McClelland, the SWAC commissioner, who noted his league’s protracted struggle to attract top-tier nonconference opponents for home games. “This is something that we have been waiting for within the Southwestern Athletic Conference.”
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Interview with Swarbick. Comments on NIL are interesting: https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/football/2021/09/20/q-and-a-part-ii-notre-dame-athletic-director-jack-swarbrick/8416182002/
“…JS: “The one thing I can say with great confidence is, we have a distinctive and well-defined strategy for how we’re doing this. And I could not be happier with the way in which members of our staff have worked to implement it.
“Our view of Name, Image and Likeness is not as some standalone, new aspect of college athletics. It’s just one more element of our commitment to develop our student-athletes — career services, study abroad, leadership development. Name, Image and Likeness — which by the way we refer to as Name, Image, Likeness and Ideas — is just part of that.
“We’re approaching it that way. We’ve built it into those other functions, and I’m really pleased with how it’s going. That’s not to say it’s not bumpy, but it’s mainly bumpy because we have no rules to guide it.
“It is going to be a mess in college athletics until we get that. And it’s going to get worse, because it’s going to start to infiltrate recruiting. And that’s the one thing we all agreed we didn’t want to see happen. But in the absence of a better rule system or structure, that’s exactly what’s starting to occur. And I hate everything about that.
“I hope that if the NCAA gets itself restructured, it can attack this. If not, I hope Congress will find a reason to get involved….””
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Also of note regarding his certainty playoff expansion will occur:
“Whether it’s something the working group proposed or something else, we will get there. And I don’t feel particularly strongly about whether it happens before the expiration of the current agreements (2025-26 bowl season) or later, but it will happen.”
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The reality is that if football and basketball players don’t have enough time in their busy schedule (in part because they weren’t consulted on lengthening the season) to complete a meaningful degree, the only moral, and now legal, alternative is to let them make money on the side.
If cutting back on the length of the season and raising admission standards was on the table, maybe CFB could get away with not allowing the players to make money on the side…
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Podcast on realignment.
Why Colorado St and Air Force want to move.
What will the Mountain West do?
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-for-two/id1549029012
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@Mike – This is an excellent look at the landscape of G5 and FCS realignment. Highly recommend this podcast.
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So, there was a meeting of the CFP governing committee today. They agreed to meet again next week. The Dellinger article is behind a paywall, but I read a few others. The chart above appears to be a good summary of the state of play.
I don’t see anyone (who has a say) arguing to leave it permanently at 4 teams.
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Iowa becomes first P5 school to add women’s wrestling as a varsity sport.
https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/7156213-breaking-iowa-adds-womens-wrestling
Breaking: Iowa Adds Women’s Wrestling
Iowa announced Thursday that it will add women’s wrestling, becoming the first Power Five conference school to add the emerging sport.
Sep 23, 2021 by Andy Hamilton
Iowa dropped a historic and sport-changing news release Thursday morning with the announcement that it will launch a women’s wrestling program, becoming the first Power Five conference school to adopt the emerging sport.
The Hawkeyes are joining Presbyterian and Sacred Heart at the Division I level and 44 other NCAA-affiliated women’s programs. Combining the NAIA and junior college squads, women’s wrestling is now up to 100 programs.
The newest, though, is unquestionably the biggest.
While the sport has seen exponential growth in recent years, women’s wrestling has been waiting for a Power Five conference school to take the leap and lead the pack. Iowa’s decision to press forward first could be the falling domino that creates a tidal wave of momentum at the major college level.
Last week’s edition of The Pulse outlined the steps the Hawkeyes were taking behind the scenes to set themselves up to make the historic move, the advantages to be gained by becoming the first school to make the move and what such a decision might mean for women’s wrestling.
“Every other big school will take notice and start pushing for programs,” USA Wrestling women’s freestyle coach Terry Steiner said. “Nobody wants to go first because they don’t know if somebody will follow. They just need one to step forward.”
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When it comes to Netflix and sports rights, Netflix wants to own the entire enterprise. Talking about bidding on F1 after the success of “Drive to Survive”:
“With sports broadcasts we have no control over the source,” he [Netflix CEO Reed Hastings] said. “We don’t own the Bundesliga, which can make deals with whomever it wants. But this kind of control would be a prerequisite for us to be able to offer our customers a secure deal.
https://jalopnik.com/netflix-would-be-dumb-not-to-buy-the-rights-to-stream-f-1847729395
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Update from the Athletic
https://theathletic.com/2844281/2021/09/23/conference-realignment-the-american-could-add-new-schools-soon-and-the-mountain-west-is-a-target/
– UAB at the top of the AAC’s list.
– Air Force and Colorado St are concerned about Boise St leaving for the Big 12 and want to get ahead of the move.
– No expected financial gain in moving from MWC to AAC
– Don’t count out MWC comish Craig Thompson (See the attempted 2010 WAC coup dubbed “The Project”)
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Saving you a google search.
https://www.mwcconnection.com/2010/8/27/1653432/byu-to-the-wac-was-code-named-the
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https://www.mwcconnection.com/2010/8/27/1653432/byu-to-the-wac-was-code-named-the
I’ll say it yet again: The Pac-12 will rue the day that they passed on BYU.
That comment is a play upon the statement that Big East Commish Mike Trangesse made after the BE voted to exclude Penn State. Just imagine how that vote by the BE changed the landscape of college football for decades thereafter.
“Mike Tranghese, who was then-commissioner Dave Gavitt’s right-hand man, said he told Gavitt the Big East would “rue the day” when it rejected Penn State.”
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2001004-how-penn-state-couldve-saved-big-east-football
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Tranghese was, of course, entirely correct that the Big East made a terrible mistake. However, it would only have delayed the Big East’s demise. The BleacherReport article is making a bunch of very generous assumptions, to reach the conclusion that the Big East would be thriving today if it only had Penn State.
Among the article’s ridiculous assumptions, is that Notre Dame would have joined as a full member. The ACC is a better conference than the Big East ever was, and Notre Dame has not joined the ACC as a full member.
The Big Ten would eventually have wanted to expand, and there was never a time when a Big East football school would have turned down a Big Ten invite. That is just one of many reasons why the Big East was probably doomed, though naturally it should have taken Penn State when it had the chance.
The Pac-12 will rue the day that they passed on BYU.
To give just one reason why this is obviously wrong… The Big 12 lags the Pac-12 in revenue. And yet, the Big 12 rejected BYU repeatedly. They only took BYU after they lost Oklahoma and Texas, and were forced to expand. If the poor Big 12 could not find a place for them before now, then it makes perfect sense that the much wealthier and more stable Pac-12 cannot either.
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Marc, you may be right about the ultimate demise of the Big East, but that is not clear. If Penn State had come on board with all of the other northeastern school, that would have been very big time football. The BE would have had all of the major markets in the north east, with NYC, Phila, Boston, etc., with moves into the mid-west. If the article is correct about Maryland, the DC and Baltimore markets would be there also. I am not sure why UMd would have left the ACC, but if that is a hypothetical in the article.
There is no way to know, but it is possible that the BE, as envisioned, would have been sufficiently competitive with the B1G to keep Penn State from flipping. If PSU wanted to stay as the king of the league, the BE would have done just fine as a P6.
In the early 80’s there were no enormous B1G contracts. Maybe as contracts grew, the BE money would have grown almost as much. (Though clearly the B1G would have been a better league, but by how much?)
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I’ll say it yet again: The Pac-12 will rue the day that they passed on BYU.
I’m not sure why they would. Setting aside the cultural issues, I think BYU would probably be competitive and they have a large, passionate fan base. However, if all of BYU’s positive attributes didn’t move the needle for the Big 12 until after UT and OU left, it likely wouldn’t move the needle for the PAC-12 either. I don’t see them as some sort of western lynchpin where peer schools look for leadership and direction like Tranghese felt the northeast football schools would with Penn St. In fact, most conference mates of BYU at the administrative level don’t particularly like BYU. What does BYU do for the PAC12 that Utah doesn’t?
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Belmont to the Missouri Valley Conference.
https://www.extrapointsmb.com/conference-realignment-mvc-belmont-ovc/
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Cool! Back when Frank The Host was pushing Davidson as a future Big East member, I felt Belmont would be a better prospect, or at least admitted with Davidson or Richmond as parallel W and E moves southward.
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DII Augustana in Sioux Falls is going to launch a DI hockey program.
https://www.argusleader.com/story/sports/college/augustana-university/2021/09/23/augustana-university-vikings-hockey-whats-next-division-i-athletics-plans/5789615001/
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One interesting historical is what if the U of Chicago doesn’t drop football nor leaves the Big 10 and how does it effect Michigan State. Does MSU still get in the Big 10 during the postwar era as an #11, does it need/bring a partner? Does it get a look from the Big 8 or linger as a Lambert Trophy independent until the early 90s becoming B10, BE or even ACC at that time.
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Before divisional play, odd numbers weren’t problematic. After PSU joined, the Big Ten had eleven members for 21 years. So I think MSU could have been considered on their own merits, even with Chicago still in the league. Still, it’s entirely possible that MSU might not have been invited.
MSU could have remained independent. There were a lot of major independents until the NCAA lost its TV monopoly. After that, most independents felt compelled to join conferences, rather than try to negotiate their own TV deals. Notre Dame was the most notable exception.
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Most independents had to join conferences to put together the kind of TV deals necessary to pay for Title IX costs that were escalating in the 1980s and 1990s.
The lawsuit to end the NCAA’s monopoly was part of the mad scramble for money to finance women’s sports.
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Murray St. looking to move to I assume the MVC.
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Also without comment:
Ryan Kartje
@Ryan_Kartje
· 1h
USC Athletics has announced a partnership with Pechanga Resort Casino to be the “Official Resort & Casino of the USC Trojans”.
What a journey the last couple years have been for college sports and gambling.
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https://twitter.com/SouthlandSports/status/1442878394883055622
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The most bizarre part of this report to me is the lack of confidence in MW commish Craig Thompson.
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This is funny
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The way to stop targeting during tackles plus the lessor evil of ‘knee chopping’ during tackles it to adopt the long-standing rugby rule of “Must attempt to wrap arms when tackling”. It has been a rugby rule for over a hundred years and helmetless rugby players have no where near the number of concussions that American football players have, nor the number of leg injuries.
It is as straightforward as it sounds. When tackling, you cannot lead with the head aimed at the opponent’s head, torso or legs. You must tackle by (attempting to) lead with the chest and wrapping your arms around the opponent.
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Here are comments from rugby websites about wrapping when tackling:
“A tackler can’t just slam into the ball carrier. He has to wrap his arms around and bring him to the ground. Tackling around the neck or head is illegal. … “In rugby we have to wrap, and that puts the tackler’s head to the side.”
“No arms: Failing to use arms in the tackle is also known as a shoulder charge. The defender leads with their shoulder and the arms don’t form part of the collision. So, if a player leads with their right shoulder, wrapping the left arm does not suffice. You need to wrap the arm of the shoulder you lead with.”
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Rugby players also wear minimal padding on the shoulders and shins.
There are a lot of broken fingers and noses in Rugby, but major injuries are rare. Minimization of padding and elimination of helmets might reduce the severity of injuries, because the players would have to minimize the violence of the collisions. Nowadays many football players seem t think that their armor makes them invincible, and they seek to maximize the force of contact, using pads as weapons.
Another improvement would be a maximum weight limit, say 250 ibs (once upon a time the weight of a down lineman), which would reduce the disparity in weight between players and the severity of injuries. A weight limit would also improve the health of all players, but especially the down linemen.
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Bob, what you said is true but there are a heck of a lot of rugby players with teeth missing.
American football needs two changes to the rules: (1) Wrap arms when tackling and (2) no cleats. I played four years of high school football with cleats (offensive guard and middle linebacker, team co-captain as a senior) and countless hours of sandlot football without cleats. You simply cannot work up a head of steam and whallop an opponent without cleats. Without cleats, there is far more emphasis on retaining your footing, much like ice hockey. You must retain an upright posture when tackling or you’ll fall down.
Both measures – wrap arms when tackling and ban of cleats – would save football.
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Mountain West commish Craig Thompson.
https://www.si.com/college/tmg/.amp/mark-blaudschun/mwc-thompson
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Money quote from the article: “In 2010, FBS football had 120 schools in 11 conferences… Of that original grouping in 2010, 46 of the 120 schools are in different conferences.”
Thompson’s main pitch to his schools, is that the AAC doesn’t make much more than the MWC, and the travel is a lot worse. He feels the two leagues could be at financial parity after the AAC’s next media deal without its three best football programs. (I don’t know if he is right.)
Boise State and San Diego State have evidently rebuffed the AAC. Boise thinks it could still get a Big 12 invite, and the travel for SDSU would be horrendous. That leaves Colorado State and Air Force still thinking it over.
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Article from Dan Wolken, “From top to bottom, conference realignment is gripping college sports. Here’s what’s next.”, ends with some big picture analysis.
https://sports.yahoo.com/top-bottom-conference-realignment-gripping-100149648.html
and
“One thing everybody agrees with is that Division I is too big,” one athletics director said. “At some point, there has to be a line.”
With realignment gripping college sports from top to bottom, the scramble to end up on the right side of that line is more intense than ever.
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NCAA bylaw 20.9 spells out that FBS teams need to have an average attendance of 15,000 over each two-year period.
This rule is not enforced, because if it was, all of the MAC and Sunbelt would drop down to FCS along with the majority of the rest of the G5.
I would argue that the attendance requirement should be increased to 25,000. What’s the point of trying to hire the next Urban Meyer or the next Nick Saban if, at the first sign of success, he bolts to another program that can afford to quadruple his salary without breaking a sweat?
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At Yahoo sports perhaps an even bigger story.
https://sports.yahoo.com/national-labor-relations-board-college-athletes-are-employees-of-their-schools-152813600.html
The general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board believes that college players are employees.
“NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo Wednesday outlining why she believes that college players are employees of their schools and afforded protections under the National Labor Relations Act.”
This turns the college sports world upside down, if eventually upheld. Would colleges have to pay minimum wage? Could athletes unions demand part of the broadcasting revenue? What about Title IX? Etc., etc.
Which schools would totally drop sports?
Does Jennifer Abruzzo understand anything about college sports?
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It’s an absurd rationale. Yes, football and men’s basketball as many P5 schools generate a good deal of revenue. But that money gets poured back into scholarships for softball, lacrosse, volleyball, tennis and many other sports that have a negative cash flow.
But the majority of colleges, the Ball States and Colorado States of the MACs and Mountain Wests and the Sunbelts, are struggling to keep their heads above water. Are they going to pay athletes minimum wage in addition to giving them free tuition, room and board?
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Does Jennifer Abruzzo understand anything about college sports?
Employment law is employment law. The players have a demanding job to do, for which they are handsomely compensated. The law doesn’t have an exception for college athletics. Maybe it should, and maybe it eventually will, but it doesn’t now.
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Yes employment law is employment law. I am not aware of any legal basis for Abruzzo’s opinion, other than a few words in a very different case.
Here the interpretation of one person may literally destroy that which she is attempting to “regulate”.
Among others, Notre Dame has stated that it will not treat athletes as employees. Stanford has said the same thing. I believe that Northwestern has taken a similar position, just as a starter.
If athletes are employees, what is the difference between Northwestern football players and the Chicago Bears, other that the Bears players are older and should be better (sorry Frank).
Will fans root for what are basically minor league teams with a university name attached?
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I wish I had a dollar every time someone in college athletics says, “If we do X, it will destroy the sport.” It has been said so often as to be meaningless.
Now, I am not saying college sports are indestructible, but their demise has been predicted so often that the predictions no longer carry any weight. Sooner or later they may be right, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Will fans root for what are basically minor league teams with a university name attached?
Alabama football and Kentucky basketball already are exactly that. They are still popular with the same kinds of fans they had before. (Those two schools are not the only ones, only the most prominent ones.)
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No, the football players at Bama or the basketball players are KY are not employees. As you said, “employment law is employment law”. As of this moment none of those players have the attributes of employees. Are the female track athletes at those two schools also employees? If not, why not? Title IX.
Without regard to how many times the boy has cried wolf, the wolf actually came.
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No, the football players at Bama or the basketball players are KY are not employees.
They are functionally the minor league feeder systems for the NFL and NBA respectively. As I recall, a few years ago Kentucky placed their entire freshman class in the NBA after just one year in school. You think the players went there and didn’t know this was a possibility? They aren’t at Kentucky to become accountants.
For their time in school, whether it’s one year or five, the players are well compensated. If you don’t think they’re being paid, look up the out-of-state full cost of attendance of these schools. Coming out of high school, my kids couldn’t gotten a job at that salary.
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I have long felt that college athletes (at least the revenue ones) are half employee/half student. Trying to call them all one or the other never seemed appropriate to me. That is why I think the fairest change has always been to go olympic model, let them make money over table where they can, but don’t pay directly.
Now legally, that doesn’t fly unless they change something and they either are or not employees.
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Agreed.
I’ve always considered athletes to be similar to ROTC cadets.
So, if football and basketball players are similar to ROTC cadets, are ROTC cadets employees?
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Are ROTC cadets employees?
They have similar time demands and similar compensation structures (scholarship, stipend, etc.)
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AFA and CSU staying put
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Does the Mountain West do its own version of “If you come after the King, you best not miss.”
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Unfortunately, I think this pretty much eliminates the chance of Rice moving to the MWC. The WAC memories are too fresh for the powers-that-be to want o expand to a larger group. And there is little chance the AAC wants more small privates when they’re carrying Tulane and Tulsa already. We’re in CUSA until a potential next round where the B12 takes Boise and one more.
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The Mountain West really should be talking to Gonzaga. Without BYU, the Zags could be looking for an upgrade.
From the football side, If I were the Mountain West, I would be talking to SMU right now. Making a Texas based pod out of SMU/Rice/UTEP/UTSA/Tulsa could help limit travel by sending the front range schools east more often than not and keeping CA/HI out west as much as possible. It would also make a 4 TV window Saturdays much easier.
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American response: “Nuh uh, we didn’t actually offer…”
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That’s a carefully worded denial. No conference formally offers membership unless it already knows the target will accept. Make no mistake about it—the MWC schools were the AAC’s best options, and they all said no.
The ACC today has a much larger payout than the MWC—probably enough to cover the travel burden for the other sports. But that payout probably won’t survive with the three best football schools gone.
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“ Jon Wilner
@wilnerhotline
·
4h
Good for the MW.
Never underestimate the role alignment (geographic, cultural, competitive, academic, etc) plays in decisions on realignment. The Front Range programs would not have fit in the AAC on many levels.”
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“Never underestimate the role alignment (geographic, cultural, competitive, academic, etc) plays in decisions on realignment.”
That is why the new Big XII is destined to fail as a P5. With regard to ” . . . geographic, cultural, academic . . .” cohesion, they score 3 on a scale of ten. If you want to add in TV viewership as an attribute, they score 2 on a scale fo ten.
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I don’t know what counts as “failure” in this new world, but none of the Little Eight had offers to move up to better conferences. Their only option was to add the best schools available—which they did. At least the four best schools were willing to accept, which is more than the AAC can say.
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Actually the new Big 12 is probably more cohesive than the ACC and Pac 12 now, which both have batches of very different schools. The Big 10 is the only conference that is really cohesive. Except for Northwestern its a bunch of Enormous State research Universities
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Bullet,
“ Actually the new Big 12 is probably more cohesive than the ACC and Pac 12 now,”
Seriously?
If you mean they share very strong concern over an existential threat that may have already begun in hopes of forestalling a power four division system, then yes. Otherwise…
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I mean really, nothing says cohesiveness more than inviting the “closely aligned” UCF and BYU. The geographic, cultural, and academic missions could be mirror images (sarc).
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They are very similar schools.
Contrast that with the core Pac-USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal, UW + CU
Then you have Utah, Arizona and Oregon
Then you have Oregon ST., Washington St. and Arizona St.
In the ACC, you have the privates-ND, BC, SU, WF, Duke and Miami.
You have the small restrictive admission state schools-UNC, UVA, GT
Big city research school in Pitt
Then you have FSU, Clemson, NCSU, VT
Then Louisville.
And the schools range from Little Cuba to deep south to mid-atlantic to northeast with Indiana and Kentucky thrown in for good measure.
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Bullet,
The Pac 12 core is the PCC (minus Idaho and Montana), with two additions about 40 years ago and two more almost a decade ago. The B12 ? Four aren’t even in yet, and the rest couldn’t find an escape path.
Don’t get me wrong, I really hope it comes together for them. And as much as I dislike the expansion of the playoff/invitational there is a possibility of it reducing the need for more consolidation. But if there is, I don’t see any other P5 members looking there (with the possible exception of UTx when they eventually realize aren’t going to get to dictate to the SEC).
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@bullet: You have a peculiar definition of the “core Pac-12.” Washington State and Oregon State have been in the same conference as Washington and Oregon for over a hundred years. Arizona and Arizona State joined the Pac-10 (as it then was) over 40 years ago.
If the rest of the conference considered those schools “non-core,” I have never noticed it.
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Marc,
“ Washington State and Oregon State have been in the same conference as Washington and Oregon for over a hundred years.”
Not just members, UO, OrSU, UW, and UCal are charter members. WSU and Stanford joined within two years, USC and UCLA during the ‘20s.
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You don’t know your Pac history. UCLA, USC, Cal, Stanford and Washington left Oregon St., Washington St., Oregon as well as Idaho behind in 1959 before gradually adding the first 3 back.
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Bullet,
No, you’ve got it backwards. UO, OrSU, Stanford, WSU forced the 1959 dissolution of the conference over continuing pay-for-play at the others. Independence was a viable situation at the time. A friends father (was a OrSU prof during tha period) told me they were more than happy to be independent. Arguably OrSU had their most successful athletics during that time and a few years on either side (Rose bowls, liberty bowl, hiesman, final four, hosting ncaa wrestling tournament, mens CC championship). It was the new reforming Conf that asked the others to rejoin, with assurances and rules to reduce abuses by the cheaters.
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Ouch, UTEP is singled out as the one with no chance for the MWC.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/mountain-west-staves-off-aac-boise-state-san-diego-state-air-force-colorado-state
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I wonder what UTEP ever did. Geographically their a fit. They draw slightly more fans than Nevada, Wyoming, SMU, Utah St, and New Mexico. If its not a personality issue, it could be due to their low athletics budget of ~33M. Its only slightly higher than the lowest in the MWC (San Jose St) with the rest of the MWC falling in between 40-60M.
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Since the mid-90s Rice is 15-8 against UTEP. I think that tells you how awful their football program has been for decades.
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@Loki –
They are not completely inept this year, but they have been much worse than I would have guessed.
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Expansion is 75% about football, and UTEP isn’t attractive in that sport at all. The fact they draw more fans than some current MWC members is not really helpful to their case. To be a desirable expansion candidate, they need to be a significantly better TV draw than the typical MWC school, as opposed to the worst ones. Otherwise, the league’s payout per school would go down.
The AAC has an existential problem, because they will be down to 8 football schools. They’re going to be taking in new members that are a lot worse than those leaving, but they have no choice. The MWC, with 12 members that are currently pledged to stick around a while, has no reason to make additions that would just be dilutive.
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In 2002 I attended the Sun Bowl in El Paso. At kickoff the stadium was virtually empty. After the first quarter they opened the doors and herds of people came pouring in without tickets. That when they counted attendance.
I asked one of the freebies if this was done at the Sun Bowl every year and he responded that it was. He also said that UTEP does it for every game.
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Not sure that is true at the G5 level. When you are talking that level of money, basketball is significant. The Big East is getting 4 million with no football. That’s more than anyone but the AAC among the G5.
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@bullet: I think you are right that the football/basketball imbalance is not as stark outside of the P5. However, I suspect no other league can replicate the Big East’s basketball strength. Mike Aresco, the AAC commissioner, is acting and talking as if expansion is largely a football decision, which is also the case for almost everyone else.
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@Marc –
Expansion is 75% about football, and UTEP isn’t attractive in that sport at all. The fact they draw more fans than some current MWC members is not really helpful to their case. To be a desirable expansion candidate, they need to be a significantly better TV draw than the typical MWC school, as opposed to the worst ones.
I don’t think a significantly better TV draw is realistic for the MWC, nor do I think the MWC should expand just for UTEP. IMO from a pure numbers perspective, the biggest drag on their MWC candidacy is their unwillingness to spend on athletics, as their budget lags behind MWC standards. However, I do think they are a better candidate in a multi-school expansion than the zero chance that report indicated. You can use attendance as an imperfect measure of their TV drawing power* compared to their peers. I would guess most people here would consider SMU a good add for the MWC. Despite being in a much bigger market and with significantly more wins, SMU manages to draw ~500 less** then UTEP. To steal a quote from the Extra Points blog post I linked below:
The conventional wisdom used to be that college football programs located in urban areas were more valuable to broadcast partners. That’s less true now, according to Deninger, who told me that these days, it doesn’t matter nearly as much where fans are located, so long as they actually tune in and remain engaged. After all, FCS and G5 leagues don’t have conference TV networks that appear on basic cable packages, like the Big Ten or SEC. There’s no inherent bonus to being located near say, Dallas, if you don’t have any fans.
Now, the MWC almost lost Colorado St and Air Force because they were concerned about what the MWC would be if Boise St and San Diego St ever got called up. IMO the MW should be thinking hard about some basketball adds (Gonzaga, St Mary’s, Wichita St) and claiming the state of Texas (SMU, Rice) to ensure that the AAC can’t come calling again. In any Texas expansion, I think UTEP at least belongs in the discussion. I don’t think UTEP is a net add, but I don’t think they’ll dilute too much either.
*Assuming a similar ratio of ticket buying fans to TV fans. Outside of Boise St, I think that is a decent enough approximation for MWC schools.
**I’m using a pre-pandemic 5 year average from CFN. My assumption is this is the paid attendance number reported to the NCAA. As Colin mentioned it may not be accurate, but its what I’ve got.
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I don’t think UTEP is a net add, but I don’t think they’ll dilute too much either.
You just explained perfectly why UTEP is hard no. Conferences don’t want to be diluted at all. “Won’t dilute too much” is still dilution. And in practice, nobody expands to stand still, either.
Any expansion needs to raise the payout per school significantly, or it is just not worth considering, especially for a league like the MWC that has been stable for almost a decade, and doesn’t face an immediate existential threat.. (Obviously, a “significant” addition to the MWC is a very different number than it is for the Big Ten — these things are relative.)
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Any expansion needs to raise the payout per school significantly, or it is just not worth considering
Right now their ceiling is a pro-rata addition as a partner in a larger expansion. If the MWC is considering a Texas expansion, they should at least be considered.
league like the MWC that has been stable for almost a decade, and doesn’t face an immediate existential threat..
They just fought off a pretty large one and the fundamentals that made it even possible haven’t changed. There are two members hoping to depart for greener pastures and one (Air Force) who is openly complaining about the American having more resources and exposure. At this point the MWC either needs to do something, or pray that the Big 12 stays put and American’s next media deal comes in at or below the MWC’s.
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“At this point the MWC either needs to do something, or pray that the Big 12 stays put and American’s next media deal comes in at or below the MWC’s.”
The MWC lost its MoJo in 2011 when Utah and BYU pulled out. Now its death by a thousand cuts.
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At this point the MWC either needs to do something, or pray that the Big 12 stays put and American’s next media deal comes in at or below the MWC’s.
“Doing something” only makes sense when it makes you better. An expansion that reduces the payout is not the way to keep your membership intact.
There is no conceivable expansion that would keep Boise State in the fold if they get a Big 12 offer.
The MWC lost its MoJo in 2011 when Utah and BYU pulled out. Now its death by a thousand cuts.
You could say that about every conference that’s not one of the top three. Only the SEC, the Big Ten, and the Pac-12 have never lost members in the modern realignment era.
Conferences switches are like Lays’ potato chips: you can never have just one. Every move prompts other moves, and it’s always conferences farther down the food chain that suffer.
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They just fought off a pretty large [existential threat] and the fundamentals that made it even possible haven’t changed.
The Mountain West didn’t do anything to “fight off” the existential threat, nor could they. The wavering institutions simply recognized that there is currently no better place for them. This was not because of anything the MWC did to retain them, but because the AAC is no longer as good as it used to be.
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How TV values mid majors
https://www.extrapointsmb.com/mid-major-tv-valuation-conference-realignment-streaming/
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Thanks for this link! It’s a good insight into valuations. Unfortunately, it appears to make Rice less valuable.
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Interesting 12-team playoff scenario. Methinks Wake and Michigan State would be in while Ohio State and Notre Dame would be out is far-fetched but I guess they’re using current standings.
https://www.si.com/college/2021/10/04/12-team-football-playoff-alabama-georgia
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That’s why the CFP committee doesn’t release its first rankings until November. Early-season standings don’t have enough data, and you’ve got strange results like Wake Forest having a better record than Ohio State.
If you’re going to produce a bracket on 5 weeks of games, you might as well take the top 12 in the two major human polls, and only break ties where they disagree. Right now, the two polls agree. It’s the same teams as in the article, except that Ohio State and Oklahoma State replace Wake Forest and Arkansas.
The polls voters don’t like Wake Forest, because although they are 5–0, they haven’t really beaten anyone good. I don’t know why the SI writers picked WF when Oklahoma State is also undefeated against a stronger schedule. Notre Dame is out of the top 12 in both human polls, so their omission makes sense.
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Matt Brown’s podcast episode “Football for Sickos” goes into the details on some programs that might be of interest in the next phase of realignment. First half is UConn/UMass and at 18:40 goes over the future of schools like UTEP, New Mexico St, Akron, Louisiana Monroe, Kansas and others.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-for-two/id1549029012
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Jim Delany and Kevin Weiberg pitching regionalization to CUSA, AAC, and the SBC on behalf of the CUSA.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/regionalization-concept-that-would-realign-teams-in-aac-conference-usa-sun-belt-to-be-presented-monday/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
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I think a more plausible reorganization would be along the lines of football strong college town campuses (SBC) and urban commuter schools (CUSA or AAC).
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The linked story is dated Sept 8 but was updated in Friday’s USA Today (Oct 8th) print edition. I can’t find the update online. Each member of MSU’s football team and men’s basketball team, a total of 133 athletes, will receive $500/month for NIL the entire 12 months of the year. It includes walk-ons. This payout will continue as long as they remain in the “Spartan family”. In return they are expected to use social media to promote United Wholesale Mortgage a few times each month.
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Every member of the men’s football and bball teams get $6,000 per year. No women get anything. I fully expect that some enterprising Federal judge will find this type of thing to be a violation of Title IX. Do not ask me why or how, it is just my prediction.
It does sound kind of wacky that every MSU walk on will be paid, but not one woman in any MSU sport.
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It’s not wacky.
The best female professional athlete will lose to the best high school male athlete.
Venus and Serena Williams, even in their primes, would be bench warmers on the best high school male tennis team.
Better athlete = better pay.
It’s not rocket science
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Title IX, as applied to college sports, is inherently wacky. If you review the original statute and legislative history, the application to sports scholarships is nuts, as the law is now construed. It was never the intent of the statute to reach this far. That was then, this is now.
Let us not even go into the academic support given to women at college, as the number of men in college declines, but specific help for men is verbotten.
It is easy to write that NILs should be irrelevant. As a legal matter, I totally agree with that. I am not advocating for a change, but.
Some US District Court Judge somewhere will disagree. One has to admit that the Michigan State situation really does not pass the smell test, whatever that is, under current Title IX. The donor could have thrown in a few dollars for a small group of female athletes.
As far as better athlete – better pay, tell that (for example) to male tennis players who saw schools drop their sport, but where there are still scholarship female tennis players. The worst male tennis player on a college team would destroy the best female tennis player, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, or they would be cut from the men’s team in total disgrace.
How many female basketball players could make the bench on the college men’s team? Probably close to zero in the entire country, but the women get their scholarships.
Guys who cannot make male college track teams would win gold medals against women. Hundreds of men have 100 meter times better than the existing women’s world record. And?
So what? Title IX cures those problems by looking at numbers of students, with some leeway given because of the large number of football scholarships.
Will Federal judges allow the huge disparity in NIL money? I doubt it. Do I think that judges should intervene? No, but what I think is irrelevant.
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The Title IX regulation states that “except for provided elsewhere in this part, no person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any academic, extracurricular, research, occupational training, or other education program or activity operated by a recipient which receives … Federal financial assistance ….”
Now that does not say that colleges must provide the same number of athletic scholarships to men as to women. But some judge has decided that is the intent and thus that’s what it means.
It’s probably going to be the same with these NIL payouts. The manner in which Michigan State is planning to do it does not violate the specific wording of Title IX. But some judge may decide that it violates the intent of Title IX.
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Title IX constrains schools that receive Federal funding. It does not constrain United Wholesale Mortgage. The issue is whether the school’s fingerprints are on this deal.
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Almost all schools intend to vet the deals and to have veto over them. The students will also be getting substantial training in what to do and not do. Loco parentis might be enough to invoke Title IX. It really depends on how creative the judges are.
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Yahoo’s Pete Thamel and the AP”s Ralph Russo both have playoff expansion articles this week. Each cites unnamed sources close to the process, who say a 12-team playoff will most likely be approved, and in time for the 2024 season. I’ve linked Russo below. I can’t link two articles in the same post, but the Thamel article is pretty easy to find.
Some of the highlights (paraphrasing):
1) The four P5 conferences that are NOT the SEC were initially hesitant about the proposal, given the perception (if not the reality) that Greg Sankey was double dealing. But they all stand to gain under this proposal. And the one sure rule of college sports is that when there’s money on the table, it doesn’t stay there forever.
2) In the current 4-team playoff, there are six bowls the committee controls, plus a championship game, for a total of 7 games. In an 8-team playoff, there’d still be 7 games—it’s just that all of the NY6 bowls would be part of the playoff. In that scenario, revenue doesn’t go up all that much. It’s the move to 12 that really makes the big difference.
3) ESPN has the rights to the aforementioned 7 games through the end of the 2025 season. But there appear to be no obstacles to letting other media partners bid on the additional 4 games that would be included in the 12-game format.
4) You can see why the ACC and the Pac-12 would want this with some urgency. Less than halfway through the season, neither league controls its own destiny for a playoff spot. The Big Ten has the opposite problem: it has multiple teams in position for a spot, but would have a great chance for more in an 8- or 12-team format.
5) Thamel touches on the Rose Bowl issue, but doesn’t explain how that would be resolved. Neither article says where the first-round games would be played in a 12-team format. The committee had recommended campus sites, but not everyone was on board with that.
Russo.
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Meant to post this a couple days ago, but Friday marked the 150th anniversary of the night Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire
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So, at this moment, the B1G East has four teams in the top ten, and the West has Iowa. As long as Iowa keeps rolling there should be a good championship game. Beyond that?
Is there an imbalance there?
Is this year a bit of an aberration? Only a little bit of one.
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Iowa has no ranked teams left on their schedule. They’ll be favored in every remaining game. Aside from them, the biggest threats to win the division are Purdue and Minnesota, because they have one conference loss apiece and have yet to face the Hawkeyes. The Hawkeyes also travel to Wisconsin and Nebraska.
Yes, the divisions are way unbalanced. This was the “problem” that the league was trying to solve with the much-ridiculed “Leaders” and “Legends” split. Since they went to a geographic split, East teams are 7–0 in the conference championship game.
But this year is also an aberration, as there have never been 5 Big Ten teams in the top 10. Nobody expected Michigan and Michigan State to be undefeated this deep into the season.
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B1G should have split North/South with one crossover rivalry. That balances quite well.
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Dispense with divisions; championship game, 1 v 2. Protect 2-4 rivals per school; everyone plays everyone else at least 2x every 4 years.
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Dispense with divisions; championship game, 1 v 2. Protect 2-4 rivals per school; everyone plays everyone else at least 2x every 4 years.
I suspect they are going that way eventually, but NCAA rules don’t allow it. The last time the rule was reconsidered, the Big Ten successfully opposed the change that would have made this possible. Now that Jim Delany is gone, I suspect the same vote will pass next time. I believe the Pac-12 wants to do this too, and they were a “no” vote before.
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B1G should have split North/South with one crossover rivalry. That balances quite well.
A north/south split puts Michigan and Ohio State in opposite divisions. This was one of the undesirable features (among others) of the Leaders/Legends split. A north/south split also looks odd, because the Big Ten footprint on a map is about twice as wide as it is tall.
If you want competitively balanced divisions, the option they seriously considered at the time was deemed “Inner/Outer”. The “Outer” division would have been Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The “Inner” would have been everyone else. (Yes, they would have needed better names than that.)
Because the fan response to Leaders/Legends was so negative, I think they were hesitant to choose any other option besides the obvious east/west geographical split, and competitive balance be damned.
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FCS realignment news. The OVC and Southland announce a scheduling alliance. Both have been losing members.
https://www.southland.org/news/2021/10/10/southland-and-ohio-valley-conferences-announce-football-scheduling-alliance.aspx
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If you are interested in the future of ESPN and sports on cable, there is a lot here.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/10/disney-shift-to-streaming-puts-espn-in-position-of-clinging-to-past.html
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Fanatics might be making a play for the RSNs.
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Cord cutting isn’t helping, but the Sinclair RSNs are leveraged excessively
“If you think about what they paid for it, how much debt they have on it, I mean, you think it’s over 80%, it’s a huge number.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2021/10/12/WCOS-Manfred.aspx
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CUSA’s proposal to the AAC
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Nothing surprising here.
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Any universities in the market for quality professors? Looking like Georgia is going to make a bunch willing to entertain offers.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/13/georgia-board-set-vote-controversial-tenure-changes
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I had an economics professor that was unquestionably senile. Don’t think there was any effort to deal with that. One comment he didn’t like on a test and he went off on a rant. Over half the undergraduate class dropped. Someone checked and discovered he had the lowest GPA in the whole department.
I’m not saying this is a good revision, but there definitely needs to be something done.
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Similarly, I know a guy who is a computer science prof in a reasonably good engineering school. Most of his classes are grad students. Great credentials – Ph.D. from MIT. He is nearly 80 years old and refuses to retire, notwithstanding “urging” by the university.
On a scale of 5 to 1 (with 5 as the best) his student evaluations every year are somewhere around 1.5. For his students, loss of tenure would be a wonderful thing.
On the other hand the daughter of friends has tenure at Kennesaw State as a psychology prof to MBA students. She transferred from a university in the north down to GA. I wonder if she would still have left her tenured position up north to move to Kennesaw. She publishes quite a bit, so I expect that her position is sound.
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“ She publishes quite a bit,
so I expect that her position is sound.”
So….you’re good with no tenure protection? What if BOR members disagree with what she publishes?
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ccrider, exactly where in my message did you ascertain my position on what may happen in GA?
I mentioned one instance where honestly tenure is a travesty due to the failure of computer science prof to accept his limitations and a second case where tenure is appropriate. I also mused over whether she would have accepted the position at Kennesaw had she known about legislation of this sort.
I could read your comment and conclude that you think that publishing is not an important factor in tenure, since an administration could object to the publication of studies that this psychology prof is writing. Would that be accurate? Probably not, but I cannot read your mind as clearly as you can read mine.
Explain how from this you can reach a conclusion about my position? You are obviously heavily invested in protecting tenure.
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“ I could read your comment and conclude that you think that publishing is not an important factor in tenure, ”
Sorry if you’re reading more into a question than intended.
I would ask in response to your conclusion above, what relevance publishing has to a possibly nonexistent protected status (tenure)?
Am I against “retirement” of those who (we’ve all known an example or two) I feel it’s time? No. But that method should not involve transferring that authority and reducing/removing of tenure protection overall. And I’m not sure my feelings should be considered. Let’s not apply a solution to an aging related issue across the board. Aging issues will resolve themselves, given a bit of time. We’ve dealt with them “forever.”
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Surprised no one else has picked up the thread that Frank called out on twitter of whether the Big East would look to add to its roster of urban Northeastern and Midwestern mostly Catholic schools without competitive D-1A football. There are definitely schools that fit the profile and could be seen as peers: Holy Cross, Duquesne, St Louis, maybe if you value market over competitiveness Detroit Mercy. Davidson fits the Butler mode of a non-Catholic school that checks the other boxes. Squint hard and you could see U Mass wanting to in, but probably not a fit even if U Conn would want to be in the same conference as them.
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Could it really be happening?
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Go Owls!!!!!!!!!
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Aresco: Let’s take the Owls.
Minion: Which ones?
Aresco: What the hell, let’s take them all.
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Didn’t see Kennesaw St. on the list! Maybe the Owls replace Memphis when the Big 12 calls.
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I’ve been waiting many years to be able to state that Rice is on the move. It’s happening!
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So now the Alliance appears to be backing down from their 8-team playoff plan. Their new plan is remarkably similar to the evil 12-team proposal concocted by that snake Greg Sankey.
Here’s the catch though: the Alliance wants all P5 champs and the highest ranked G5 champ as automatic qualifiers rather than taking the six highest ranked conference champs along with six at large teams.
The P12 must be so worried that their champ won’t consistently be among the six highest ranked champs that they need a guarantee. Say an unranked 8-4 Oregon State upsets an 11-1 USC in the P12 CCG, should that 8-5 Beaver team get a guaranteed spot over an undefeated Coastal Carolina Sunbelt champ that is ranked behind an undefeated SMU AAC champ?
Also, the rest of the Alliance has made such a big deal out of getting their feelings hurt that they have to make some slight modification to the original plan, just to save face. But there is no plan to cap the number of teams. I guess the B1G finally realized that they will get almost as many teams in as the SEC, if not more.
The original plan works to everyone’s benefit and is fair to all.
https://www.si.com/college/2021/11/11/college-football-playoff-12-teams-alternate-format-proposed
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The B1G realized if the East champ gets upset in the CCG they will be shut out of the playoff this year. There is also no reason for the SEC to move off the current format if there is not significantly more $$. If UGA gets upset in the CCG the SEC will probably get 2 of the 4 slots.
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“ Say an unranked 8-4 Oregon State upsets an 11-1 USC in the P12 CCG, should that 8-5 Beaver team get a guaranteed spot over an undefeated…”
Wouldn’t that team be 9-4 with the upset? My opinion is yes, they as the conference champs should be in. Why play the season if it isn’t going to be meaningful. Question would be an undefeated Coastal vs USC as a wildcard.
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You don’t need a hypothetical example. It would be hard to justify any ACC team getting into a 12-team format this year.
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“The B1G realized if the East champ gets upset in the CCG they will be shut out of the playoff this year. ”
“It would be hard to justify any ACC team getting into a 12-team format this year.”
If the original 12 team plan was in effect right now, those conferences would just need their champions to be ahead of the Conference USA and MWC champions, as they could fall behind the AAC champions and still get one of the 6 autobids. And that’s assuming the AAC champion doesn’t end up with a loss or two and fall back into the 20s (or unranked).
I think it’s highly likely all P5 champions would get an autobid. But in the Big Ten’s case, they would still likely get at least 1 team in the playoff from the Eastern division (if not 2) even if their champion (say an 8-5 Wisconsin) got left out.
But this is why we all thought this formal would lead to conferences abolishing their divisions and just having championship games featuring #1 v. #2. The winner would always have an extra quality win and get pushed higher, while the loser probably wouldn’t be punished with the way the committee currently ranks teams (big wins and bad losses are what really moves you around).
This new proposal encourages conferences to keep the divisions. If a conference had an 8-4 team from a weak division facing a 12-0 team from the other division, it would be rooting hard for it’s 8-4 team to win.
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Surprised the AAC would add 6 unless a couple were basketball only. This really dilutes basketball.
But one thing to note–It means if MAC and MWC both take two, the CUSA and Sun Belt combined have only 14 and probably merge.
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-Poor UTEP! If there’s no more realignment, they’re stuck in a conference with no western members and no Texas members. Google maps claims that UTEP to Louisiana Tech (their closest remaining conference mate) is a 3 hour 55 minute flight! San Diego is closer to them. They have to hope that the Big 12 expands again and they get a call from the Mountain West. The AAC would be their dream (especially if schools like Colorado State and Air Force changed their minds after), but that’s doubtful.
-will The AAC try to add any non-football members before the Big East?
-This seems like a defensive move:
1) get over 12 teams in case Memphis goes to the Big 12
2) keep the MWC out of Texas (outside of faraway UTEP, the only FBS school left is Texas State, which has to feel really rejected right now).
-But it seems like this could backfire on them:
1) if the Big 12 doesn’t expand after a few years, will SMU and UTSA consider going to the MWC? This expansion dilutes the football quality of the AAC. If the MWC pulls ahead it might take a notable lead in revenue once the new playoff proposal is implemented.
2) if the Big 12 does expand, will they wish they hadn’t invited some of these schools so more space was available to add leftover MWC schools?
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Poor UTEP
Just off the top of my head, UTEP might be one of the bigger FBS losers of realignment along with New Mexico St and Idaho. UConn and UMass were not able to use football to improve their position but their Athletic Departments were at least able to tread water conference wise. Somehow Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech, and Marshall got left behind and are in a worse position than they were 10-15 years ago.
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Oddly enough, every full member except Temple* is a former CUSA member.
*Navy and Wichita St are not full members and haven’t been in CUSA.
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https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/american-to-review-expansion-candidates-with-six-conference-usa-teams-expected-to-apply-for-membership/
MWC talked to UTSA, UNT and Rice. Apparently AAC beat them to the punch and MWC sources said tonight they are not expanding beyond 12 in football.
As for when this happens, it all depends on whether UT and OU get out sooner.
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Stumbled upon the site athleticdirectoru today. They make power ratings of conference members based off the following:
Dozens of sitting Athletic Directors or executive-level administrators who currently are or could soon be a Conference USA AD were invited to share feedback on each AD job in the league. The data was used to provide detailed insights about the potential for success at each school.
Here’ how they rated the teams realignment potential:
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Overall rankings for Conference USA AD jobs, graded on a scale of seven as ‘much better likelihood of success than peers’ & one as ‘much worse’:
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Full article is worth your time:
https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/athletic-department-power-index-conference-usa/
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(One last link in its own post to avoid moderation)
They have done other conferences, I didn’t see a good way on their site to find them all, but you can use this google link to find the others.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aathleticdirectoru.com+Athletic+Department+Power+Index
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After reviewing the details behind those rankings from “Athletic Directors” on the Rice board last week we came to the conclusion that they must have been authored in Denton, Texas. UNT #1 in brand perception? UNT #1 in donor support? UNT #1 in non-revenue success? UNT #2 in football success? UNT #2 in basketball?
Nah.
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Grats to Rice (and you).
Huge to move out of C-USA.
AAC will be a solid #6 conference and given ESPN has a vested interest in feeding its properties (especially ESPN+) with content, that’s a solid home to be in while the foundations of college athletics are changing so much.
And of course being conference-mates with SMU/Navy/etc. and those Texas schools is a solid regional deal.
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I felt they overrated UNT too. However, looking at their “full results” the questions were about potential in football/basketball/etc. and combined with the comments tab at least made its ranking plausible.
direct link to the full results:
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/athleteviewpoint/viz/AthleticDepartmentRanking/SchoolComparison
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Applications are in.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32432496/six-schools-officially-apply-join-american-athletic-conference‘
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What will C-USA will do? They will be down to 8 full members, but some of those schools don’t play every sport. For instance, they have only 6 institutions that play men’s soccer, but they’re losing three of them. West Virginia was supposed to join in men’s soccer in 2022, but I wonder if they still will?
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Sorry, they have 6 full members that play men’s soccer, of which they are losing three. They also have three affiliate members that play the sport.
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Discussion on the CUSA board I frequent seems to be about three things:
1. Are Southern Miss and Marshall really serious about leaving CUSA for the Sun Belt?
2. Is it possible to entice any SB teams to move to CUSA?
3. What other options are there, such as Liberty or James Madiso?
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The Athletic is reporting CUSA is looking at Liberty and James Madison but neither side is sure about the other.
Budget wise Southern Miss would be in the back half of the SBC. Marshall would be solidly in the middle.
I don’t see a merger happening mainly because I don’t see Louisiana Tech being too happy about joining the other UL schools and I am not sure either the CUSA or SBC want to keep UTEP around anymore. It wouldn’t shock me to see UTEP football go indy and park their other sports in the WAC with NM St.
IMO – Marshall, W Kentucky, and Middle Tennessee all look very similar to MAC schools in athletics budget, enrollment, etc. and are near the footprint. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the MAC kicking the tires on those schools.
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After these moves are done, Conference USA will have more former members (18) than current members (8). The Sun Belt already has more former members (18) than current members (12).
This is life as a G5 conference: almost every member would take a better deal if it were offered.
The MAC has been the most stable of the G5 conferences. Only one full member has left the MAC in the current realignment era, Marshall in 2005 — probably the worst voluntary conference switch in modern times.
The MWC is also pretty stable. It currently has 11 full members and has lost only three. The American has 11 full members and has lost six. That’s not very good, when you consider it has existed for less than a decade.
(For simplicity, I counted full members. The numbers would be a bit different if we counted football members of each conference, but the basic story remains similar.)
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And the Sun Belt may add 4. Looks like 14 is the new conference size.
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“Looks like 14 is the new conference size.”
Pac 12 messed up when they passed on BYU and Boise State
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The Big 12, which is by far the weakest of the so-called P5, has rejected Boise multiple times and previously rejected BYU. When Texas and Oklahoma were still there, BYU couldn’t get an invitation.
If the weakest conference rejected BYU before and still doesn’t want Boise, then it’s easy to see why the Pac-12 didn’t want them either.
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Assuming the Sun Belt adds 3 CUSA plus JMU:
16 – SEC
14 – Big Ten, ACC*, AAC, Sun Belt
12 – Big 12, Pac-12, Mountain West, MAC
5 – CUSA
6 – Independents
*excluding Notre Dame
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Good thing C-USA hired Jim Delany as their advisor. Where would they be without him?
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For those of us without an Athletic sub, which four do they think the Sun Belt will add?
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The follow up tweet from the author says Southern Miss and Marshall as the top 2, with Old Dominion and James Madison after that.
Potentially leaving CUSA with Mid Tenn St, Western Kentucky, Louisiana Tech, UTEP and Florida International.
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Up to four out of So Miss, Marshall, Old Dominion, James Madison, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, and Liberty.
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Actually it looks like the gunfight at the OK Corral. Both CUSA and Sun Belt are looking at expanding.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/sun-belt-conference-usa-considering-adding-teams-amid-aac-expansion/ar-AAPLiG0
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I don’t know who this is, but its been re-tweeted by legit reporters.
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It’s official.
https://theamerican.org/news/2021/10/21/general-american-athletic-conference-announces-the-addition-of-six-universities.aspx
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Congrats to Rice. A lot of us were pulling for the Owls to get out of purgatory.
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👍👍
Congratulations!
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Instead of the AAC they should call it the Three Owls Conference.
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Dare I recommend sponsorship opportunities from a restaurant chain in the news recently over uniform changes.
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UAB released a good video
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What FCS James Madison does will be interesting
There are many moving pieces darting all across this chessboard, but James Madison is the only school to appear on both C-USA and the Sun Belt’s wish lists. The same James Madison that is not currently in FBS.
To be sure, JMU has the profile of an FBS school. With 21,000 undergrads, the Harrisonburg, Va., based school plays in a 25,000-seat stadium and its $10.6 million in football revenue (2018-19) was the highest in FCS. Its $50+ million budget would be among the tops in the Sun Belt or C-USA right now. The Dukes were a target of realignment way back in 2013. JMU said no then, but in doing so they eased the door shut, they didn’t slam it.
https://footballscoop.com/news/latest-round-realignment-conference-usa-sun-belt-james-madison
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The hangup with JMU is probably that the Virginia legislature put some limits on student fees and institutional funding of athletics. Haven’t seen anything about it recently, but remember ODU and JMU having a very high % that exceeded the laws limits.
Virginia was trying to make sure university funds went for education. I think it really was a good idea in theory. Some schools are spending way too much. Think there are a lot of schools that would be better off just dropping football and emphasizing other sports.
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I was stationed at Fort Lee VA for three years. In Virginia they say the JMU stands for “Just missed UVA”.
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Brett McMurphy with this update.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/college-football-conference-realignment-scenarios-sun-belt-conference-usa
(edited for brevity)
Here are the two most likely scenarios as of Thursday morning, sources told the Action Network, regarding Conference USA and the Sun Belt with all the schools beginning play in their new conferences in 2023:
Sun Belt Adds Marshall, ODU, Southern Miss & JMU, Crippling C-USA
– or –
C-USA Keeps Marshall & ODU, Adds Liberty & James Madison
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If C-USA loses Marshall, ODU, and Southern Miss, they should
-stop sponsoring football
-immediately add Arkansas Little Rock and UT-Arlington, non-football schools that the Sun Belt is trying to get rid of.
-Let UTEP go to the WAC if it wants, though that leaves them at a dangerous 6 schools.
-Have the football members of C-USA join with the independents to form a new Football-only conference (FOC) that offers no other sports.
-If Army doesn’t join, your FOC members are:
FIU
Louisiana Tech
MTSU
WKU
UTEP
NMSU
UConn
UMass
Liberty
For a grouping of leftovers, it’s actually not bad. Sure, NMSU has historically been awful, but Louisiana Tech is consistently good for a midmajor, Liberty has obviously made a huge investment, and schools like WKU, MTSU, and UConn have all had good runs in recent memory.
-if there are any decent football schools in the South looking to move to FBS, the C-USA and FOC can work together to offer them membership in both conferences.
-The FOC doesn’t have to stop there, however. It can see if there are any decent football schools out West or in a conference like the Big East that want to join FBS football without moving their other sports.
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Bob Bowlsby, the Big 12 commissioner, thinks “it makes no sense” that Texas and Oklahoma are going to the SEC. Link here.
His arguments are…pretty selective. He says that the two schools initially won’t make any more money in the SEC. That may be true, but to paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, you want to skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.
He thinks both schools’ path to the playoff will be harder in the SEC, and that’s surely true in the current four-team model. Oklahoma has won the last six Big 12 championships, which it wouldn’t have done in the SEC. But nobody thinks the playoff is staying at four teams, so Bowlsby is again looking backwards.
He doesn’t consider the recruiting angle at all.
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Bowlsby’s comments are right up there with Aresco’s P6 narrative. We know you have to say it because its part of your job. As far as why Texas left:
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He has to put a Big 12 spin on it, but not to the point of being a laughing stock. This is embarrassing.
Aresco has toned down the “P6” rhetoric lately. The expansion press release made the best case possible for the incoming schools, without purporting that the AAC is on par with the other P5, because it clearly isn’t.
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Likewise, the Big XII clearly isn’t on par with the other P5 conferences, which is actually the P4 now.
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Well…what is “P5” exactly? They have two things the others don’t have: NCAA autonomy and a NY6 contract bowl. Nobody is talking about taking autonomy away, and in the most likely playoff proposal they’d have either an autobid for their champ or the practical equivalent of it.
So yes, they are still P5, even if they are the weakest of the bunch.
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More like the P4.5 or maybe I’d go as high as the 4.7.
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Well the R8 are better at basketball than the Pac 12 or SEC. Some years they will be better than the ACC. They are better at football than the Pac 12 and ACC. They have better football attendance than the Pac 12 and ACC.
They just don’t have a blueblood to headline the show. They are a whole lot closer to the Pac 12 and ACC than those two are to the SEC and Big 10.
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I do think its a long term mistake. I get why they are moving now, but with time schools rise up with more wins and fall with fewer no matter where they start. OU and Texas are giants and not leaving that spot in the Big 12, but if things don’t go well, the potential is there to drop in the SEC, especially for Oklahoma which doesnt have the huge state advantage and will now be on the periferary of the conference.
I get guaranteed money is guaranteed and the SEC will be regarded as best of the best, but the danger of losing king status is much more real now than it was in the Big 12, especially if you see more Oklahoma State/TCU/Baylor/etc teams in the CFP because of schedule than they are.
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I think one thing that gets overlooked is that with 14, you have a 14% less chance to win a title than you do with 12. And with 16, its another 13% less (assuming all teams equal). So fewer schools get to hang that championship banner in any sport.
12 is optimal. 14 is ok, but seems to be better for the media. 16 is stretching it. It makes championships in individual and team sports a lot more difficult logistically and reduces the opportunities to be a champ.
Beyond 16 and you are just a group united by a TV contract.
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Will CUSA make an invite to some of the independents? Liberty, New Mexico St, Umass, Uconn- football only, That would be a decent group of 5 conference.
UTEP, La Tech,MTSU, Western Kentucky, FIU plus the independents . The conference commissioner needs to show some leadership, otherwise the conference dissolves.
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UConn thinks that it is still an FBS school. This would make complete sense for UConn, which is why they probably would not do it. They are still waiting for a P5 invite in Storrs.
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I think it’s the opposite. When they went to the Big East, it was a capitulation: acknowledging they are a basketball school, and football won’t be back in the Fiesta Bowl anytime soon. All their actions show they have accepted this.
UConn leadership are not that delusional. With rare exceptions (Rutgers), schools don’t get P5 invites without demonstrating sustained football success.
Anyhow, joining a football conference would not preclude stepping up if they eventually prove they belong. It would simply be a vehicle for more convenient scheduling, pooling media rights, and having a championship to play for.
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UConn sports administration is that delusional. Here is an article from SI last spring predicting that UConn would drop 8 other sports to keep big time football alive. In fact, UConn has already dropped four sports, not 8, but the football disaster is not over yet. (men’s cross country, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis and women’s rowing.)
https://www.si.com/college/2020/05/26/uconn-football-sports-cuts
Here is a twitter thread including an explanation of why UConn will not downgrade football. A major part seems to be the ability to get major “premium guarantee games”. https://twitter.com/alexaphilippou/status/1275834484512960519
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UConn should drop 8 other sports to keep big time football alive. There is zero interest in men’s cross country, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s rowing, etc. Those should be club level sports with no scholarships.
UConn football may be terrible but it generates revenue and provides scholarsips for a lot of non-revenue sports. The tennis team does not.
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Tennis, cross-county and swimming and diving actually has real students, many local, who might get into UConn otherwise. Football not so much. Now women’s rowing is just a sport designed for Title IX. There’s not much demand from females for that sport, but it allows schools to give a lot of scholarships.
That’s the problem with putting so much in football. It just diverges from the original purpose of intercollegiate athletics and the mission of the university.
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But football remains the cash cow, even for bad teams like UConn. They get some attendance revenue, good TV money and payouts for to show up for clobberings at P5 schools like Purdue and UNC. A bad football program brings in more revenue than national championships in golf, rowing, tennis and cross country combined.
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When I said “delusional,” I was referring to the suggestion that they anticipate a P5 invite. Nowhere have I seen that UConn leadership believes that.
What you’ve described is the garden-variety mismanagement of the football program that has plagued many schools for a lot longer than UConn. The amounts they wasted on bad football coaches are chicken feed compared to what Kansas wasted on Charlie Weis and Les Miles. And Kansas has been failing miserably at football a lot longer than UConn has.
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More revenue, but more expenses. Pretty sure everyone outside the P5 loses money on football.
The UCs are doing fine without football. Davis and San Diego are among the top public universities in the country. UT Dallas has the 3rd strongest student body in Texas and they don’t play football (and I think they may have had the highest average GPA and SAT). Emory is doing fine and even has the T-shirt proclaiming they are still unbeaten in football. The Ivies and Chicago and Case Western and the like do fine with non-scholarship football.
Just how much is the advertising worth? I just don’t see how schools like San Jose and Eastern Michigan, with essentially no fan support, justify it.
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“ According to the NCAA, among the 65 autonomy schools in Division I, only 25 recorded a positive net generated revenue in 2019.”
“ It’s worse for Division I non-autonomy schools, or those outside the Power Five conferences. All 64 of these institutions lost money in 2019, with a median deficit of $23 million per school.”
It does seem that most schools are trying to support an athletic department, not simply a profitable football team, to the tune of actually subsidizing the rest as a part of the educational experience offered.
https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/do-college-sports-make-money/
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Did you notice the dichotomy here? The question was “Do colleges make money from athletics?” rather than “Do colleges make money from football?”
Football is the cash cow for many if not most college football programs. I readily acknowledge that most college athletic programs lose money after doling out Title IX scholies for softball, volleyball and soccer.
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I do know Cal St Fullerton and U of Pacific both quit FB to improve their athletic dept financial situation. Fullerton did so just as a new FB stadium was being completed. Now a nice soccer and other event arena.
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If one reads the CT papers, every single time there is a breath of realignment, there is discussion regarding UConn. For the moment (and only for the moment) that has quieted down with the switch over to the Big East and the virtual certainty that UConn football has zero chance of going elsewhere.
UConn faithful still are not quite sure why they are not in the B1G or the ACC. There was a desperate attempt to get invited to the Big 12 a few years ago, though not this time since they just committed to the Big East.
Here is a recent article from the CT Insider regarding UConn football. The consensus is that it is worth staying in FBS for now, but the team needs to start winning games. In 3 to 5 years they will have to take another look at where they are. There would be major issues dropping FBS football, but it is not off the table. (By the way, the sports economist mentions keeping FBS football hoping to get a P5 bid. That is always just below the surface at UConn)
According to the article , UConn is in a unique position, because it is not P5, but has the very strong national bball programs. Per Victor Matheson, Holy Cross prof and sports economist:
“They’re kind of in this no man’s land,” Matheson said. “They’ve stuck with football in the hopes, still, that having a football program makes it easier for them to eventually get invited to a Power Five conference. … It’s what a lot of schools around the country do. They stick with their very expensive program because at least they have some hopes of someday going up to that next level. But UConn is in a very unique spot.”
The chairman of the UConn Board of Trustees, Dan Toscano, said:
“If we can’t manage our way out of this, and the narrative is that when we go play FBS teams we get our [butt] kicked, well, that’s not good for anybody and it’s not sustainable,” UConn Board of Trustees chair Dan Toscano said last week. “I just don’t believe that’s going to be the narrative. We’re going to give it some time and see it play out. … It’s not short-term. It’s definitely not long-term. It’s somewhere in the middle. I don’t know if that’s 3-5 years or whatever. We’re going to be impatiently patient.”
“I know they have to start winning. That’s my view, that’s David’s view, that’s Randy’s view, it’s those student-athletes’ view. We have to find some success. I believe it’s out there. If you look at the last three years, it’s easy to say it’s the laughingstock. OK, but it shouldn’t be and I don’t think it will be and we’ll keep working on it until we get it right and I don’t know how long that’s going to take.”
Bottom line, if UConn can turn around its football program and be at least respectable, there will not be any dramatic changes to FBS status. On the other hand, if five years from now they are still winning one or two games a year, they might decide it is time to give up.
https://www.ctinsider.com/uconn/article/Should-UConn-abandon-big-time-college-football-16436306.php
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UConn will never be Penn State, but that’s no reason to be as bad as they are—especially with the powder puff schedule they play. I mean…they’re so bad they struggled to beat Yale. That just doesn’t make sense.
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Genuinely hope Liberty gets left out of any conference.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-liberty-way-how-liberty-university-discourages-and-dismisses-students-reports-of-sexual-assaults
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Not trying to be nasty but these G5 conference realignments are nothingburgers. All of these colleges are in a frothing frantic frenzy to get into the P5 (actually P4.7) and these permutations of MAC and Sunbelt and AAC and MWC and CUSA are the throes of an inquisition. They ain’t getting in.
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We have not seen the last school promoted to the P4.7. We just don’t know who the next Hunger Games winner will be.
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Frank – heard anymore about the WKU and MTSU to the MAC rumors? If La Tech is willing to drop to FCS, they might be a fit for the MVFC since they are relatively close to Mo State, SIU and Murray State.
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La Tech is a consistently good mid-major. They’ve been to a bowl every year since 2014.
I’m sure they’d rather go independent than drop down. They’d probably have an easier time getting games scheduled than NMSU and UMass do right now.
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I laughed…
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ODU moving from CUSA to Sun Belt. Announcement today.
https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/vp-sp-odu-sun-belt-20211027-vct6g5r5anartbemhvsr7ragha-story.html
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Marshall will be gone within a week or two. C-USA is now on life support, though it still has options. It could try to woo the remaining FBS independents (and I don’t mean Notre Dame), or it could try to entice a few more FCS programs to step up.
As ESPN noted yesterday, C-USA has has always been “a way station for programs moving either up or down in the college football hierarchy…. Twenty percent of FBS programs have belonged to C-USA at one point or another, and of its original football members, only Alabama–Birmingham and Southern Miss remain in the conference.”
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Yeah, Marshall is imminent. I don’t think it is weeks away. It should be announced by Friday. And the JMU board meets Friday. Lots of people expect their Sun Belt move to be announced then.
So what happens next? Does the MAC actually consider MTSU and WKU?
CUSA is down to:
MTSU
WKU
UTEP
LaTech
FIU
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Bowls executive director sent a letter to all movers and shakers in college football requesting that 1st round games be played at bowl sites.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32494945/bowl-season-group-argues-using-campus-sites-expanded-college-football-playoff
While this would place a great burden on the few thousand fans that want to travel, I can see this happening.
Here are my suggestions for 1st round sites.
North – Detroit Quick Lane Bowl
West – Las Vegas Bowl
South – San Antonio Alamo Bowl
East – Orlando Citrus Bowl or Tampa Outback Bowl.
Keep the NY6 for Quarters & Semis with the Rose being a permanent quarterfinal game with its NYD time slot. The Sugar may want to be a permanent semifinal game as New Orleans doesn’t need the game to sell out hotels for NYE.
Bid out the championship game as is the current practice. None of the playoff locations would be prohibited from bidding on the championship game.
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“Here are my suggestions for 1st round sites.
North – Detroit Quick Lane Bowl”
Have you been to Detroit? Do you have any inkling what you are takling about?
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Colin – about 15 years ago, I attended a few baseball games at Comerica Park, which is very near Ford Field. As I remember, that immediate area was nice, although the drive in looked like a DMZ.
As per the article I cited, the request was to play 1st round games at existing bowl sites. Shouldn’t a Northern or B1G playoff team be able to play a game within its footprint? Detroit is the only bowl location in the North in a domed stadium. Would Indianapolis or Minneapolis be better? Probably, but those cities don’t have bowls.
As someone from the South, I’m fine with all the opening round games being held in Orlando, Tampa, Houston, San Antonio, Las Vegas, LA, Shreveport, or wherever. I just made that suggestion so that the highest ranked team from the B1G, Northern ACC or Northern B-12 could have somewhat of a homefield advantage.
If you don’t like it, come on down!
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There may be no northern teams playing in the first round. Detroit could be far from everyone. Same for any particular site.
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Alan, I lived in the Detroit area for five years – Troy, Michigan. At that time there were actually two domed football stadiums in the Detroit metro area and they were about ten miles apart. You’re trying to tell me that the immediate area was nice??? What did you tell the guys who wanted ten bucks to ‘watch’ your car while you went to the ball game?
There are good domed stadiums in Minneapolis. Indianapolis, Toronto and Syracuse. You’d be crazy to go to Detroit.
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Colin – that wasn’t the request from the letter. I was making a suggestion based on the request.
bullet – I’m aware that no team may qualify from that area, but I think from a logistical standpoint, you would need to have these sights pre-determined.
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But the point is that 4 rounds of neutral site games won’t work.
First round really needs to be on campus. NYD 2nd round will do well. Final will always do well. Semis may suffer a little.
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Have you been to Detroit? Do you have any inkling what you are takling about?
Detroit has hosted the Super Bowl twice. I think it could host a college football quarterfinal without a problem.
There are good domed stadiums in Minneapolis. Indianapolis, Toronto and Syracuse. You’d be crazy to go to Detroit.
They’d probably put the game in places where bowls are played, which Detroit already does. None of those other cities hosts a bowl.
Toronto is out. They won’t put a playoff game in another country, however nice the stadium there. Syracuse is in the boondocks, not very close to any other FBS campus, and susceptible to getting snowed in. If they open it up to sites that don’t host bowls, Minneapolis and Indy deserve to be in the mix, but certainly not to the exclusion of others.
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Where to put the first round is a really hard question. Campus and neutral sites each have compelling arguments. The original proposal was to play on campus, but even the Ohio State athletic director had his doubts. That’s amazing, since OSU would tend to benefit more than most teams, and I suspect Ohio Stadium is better equipped for winter weather than most CFB venues.
A lot of northern CFB stadiums have never hosted a winter event, and the conditions could be truly miserable. Pipes could freeze. Some southern teams are full of kids who perhaps have never even seen snow, much less played in it. Those teams would need to acquire cold-weather gear on a week’s notice. Much as I’d love for my alma mater to be the host for that, is it really fair?
Attendance is the main problem with quarterfinal games at regional sites. Those sites obviously have to be chosen in advance. Inevitably, you’ll have games where neither team has a fanbase nearby. Getting fans to show up could be a problem, when they might have attended a neutral-site CCG a week earlier, and the winner has a NYD bowl a couple of weeks later.
With that said, I think they will ultimately agree on neutral sites the way Alan suggested: north, south, east west. It wouldn’t be fair if they are all in the south. But yeah, Las Vegas might be hosting a game, and the closest participating team is nowhere near there. That’s the drawback.
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UConn AD throwing cold water on the CUSA rumors.
https://mobile.twitter.com/alexaphilippou/status/1454081921026195462
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As the recent article from CT Insider said, UConn is staying FBS for another 3 to 5 years and then reevaluating where they are. From what the chairman of the UConn Board of Trustees said, it sounds as though they may stay FBS longer, if the football team starts having some success. If they stay at 1 or 2 wins a year, he indicated that they may very well downgrade. As the football economics expert said, in essence if the football team can start winning a bit, it will keep the dream of an FBS bid alive. If not, downgrading may be the only choice for financial reasons.
The CUSA bid would upset those plans. In addition, UConn is almost certainly making more money by being available to play other FBS schools than they would get form CUSA. The more restrictions on P5 teams playing FCS, the more value UConn (and UMass) have to P5 team scheduling.
https://www.ctinsider.com/uconn/article/Should-UConn-abandon-big-time-college-football-16436306.php
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Here’s a bit of color on UConn scheduling. From 2022–2026, they have three P5 opponents per year. In 2027, they have four P5 opponents. I don’t know if that’s a long term goal, or just an anomaly that year.
Usually, they schedule the lower half of the P5 — games that could be competitive if the program ever got its act together. They have visits to Michigan, Ohio State, and Tennessee once each. Otherwise, it’s mostly a diet of Syracuse, Duke, Boston College, Indiana, etc.
Some P5 teams are willing to schedule home-and-homes with them. Purdue came to Michie Stadium this year. Future home dates include Syracuse, Duke, BC, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Maryland, and even Ole Miss. Army is a regular guest, and the Black Knights are a P5 equivalent for scheduling purposes.
I guess they feel a C-USA schedule wouldn’t be very good and would take away their flexibility to schedule P5 opponents later in the season.
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3 or 4 and they need 8 or 9. It works fine. I’m sure whatever happens, CUSA surviving would mean scheduling flexibility. But only ACC and SEC and independents are playing a lot of ooc this time of year. At this point, only those 2 have more than 4 ooc games left. AAC and SB each have 4. Pac 12 has 2 and MWC 1. Big 10, Big 12, MAC and CUSA are done.
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3 or 4 and they need 8 or 9.
No G5 independent gets 8 or 9 P5 games, and they don’t need it either. Cincinnati is at #2 in the polls, and they had just two this year, Notre Dame and Indiana. Most years, the Bearcats schedule just one P5 opponent. So, UConn is doing pretty well to get 3–4, including a number of them willing to schedule home-and-homes. They’ve been able to do that through 2027, so for now it appears to be sustainable.
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You aren’t understanding. They have 3 or 4 P5 games which means they need 8 or 9 more games to complete the schedule. So a conference slate fits in just fine for those remaining games.
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You aren’t understanding. They have 3 or 4 P5 games which means they need 8 or 9 more games to complete the schedule. So a conference slate fits in just fine for those remaining games.
I thought you were referring to the P5 games, because those are the scarce ones. The G5 and FCS opponents, being more plentiful in aggregate, are easier to get — and UConn is not having trouble finding them. That, I gather, is why they were in no hurry to join C-USA. (That was before the news that two more members of that league are leaving for the MAC.)
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And now people are saying the JMU vote is done. They want the Sun Belt. Next stop for them is some legislative committee next week to finalize.
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Marshall is official to the Sun Belt.
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Et Tu Mac? – Julius CUSAer
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The CFB Playoff Management Committee is meeting next week to discuss the future of the playoff. The Committee consists of the ten FBS conference commissioners and the Notre Dame athletic director. If the group agrees, the current playoff format could be ditched in 2024, two years before the current contracts expire. Otherwise, the 4-team format would stick around until the 2026 season.
The biggest sticking point is whether to expand to 8 or 12. The Big Ten and the ACC are said to be the biggest proponents of the 8-team format. The Pac-12 could go either way. Most of the other conferences favor 12. Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, says that if he can’t have 12, he’d rather stay at 4.
There are two 8-team models under consideration, and both have problems. One option is to choose the 8 best teams. However, that means most years the “Gang of Five” conferences would be frozen out, so they won’t vote for that. The other option is to guarantee bids for the six best conference champs. However, in many years that means a highly ranked P5 team would be left on the sidelines. For instance, in 2019 the #19 Memphis Tigers would have been a playoff team, but the #8 Wisconsin Badgers would not have been.
One drawback of both 8-team models, is quite simply that they leave a lot of money on the table. In an 8-team model, the quarterfinals and both semi-finals would be bowl games. Since those games exist today, there’s not much more revenue to be made. The 12-team model creates four brand new games every season that could go to market for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Currently, every party at the table has leverage, because all 11 conferences (plus Notre Dame) and their partner bowls need to agree to tear up the current deal two years early. Even one no vote could scuttle everything. But they lose much of that leverage as the current deal approaches expiration. Since nobody favors staying at 4, there is a lot of incentive to find common ground, which is no guarantee at all.
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Its actually 3 years early, not 2.
Because of the bowl rotation, they really need to change in years 4, 7, 10 or 13 (after the current deal runs out). So they would change for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 fall football seasons. The quarterfinals, semis and finals would be played in January 2024, 2025 and 2026.
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I’ve read and re-read multiple articles on this. They all say the revised deal (if it can be agreed) would be the last two years of the current format, not the last three. For example, this article published in SI on Friday:
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2025 season finishes in January 2026. 2014-2016 seasons, 2017-2019, 2020-2022, 2023-2025 season are the 4 three year cycles. It can be amended at any time. But because of the bowl rotation, its very difficult to do it except in one of the 3 year cycles.
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An interesting hypothesis, and perhaps even true, but there don’t seem to be any sources that say so.
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Will espn allow open bidding (in spite of the current contract)?
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Apparently they’ve resolved that issue—at least for the 12-team format. ESPN seems to be willing to allow other broadcasters to compete for the four new first-round games.
It’s more problematic for the 8-team format. The most likely system is that four of “New Year’s Six” bowls would host the quarterfinals, and the other two would host the semis, as they do now. The Rose Bowl would be a permanent quarterfinal, so that it keeps its traditional time slot.
The trouble is, ESPN already has the rights the New Year’s Six. It’s one thing to allow open bidding for games that currently don’t exist. They’re sure-as-heck not going to re-open the bidding for bowls they already contracted for.
Since this is all based on what insiders are willing to tell reporters, there could be other views that we’re not getting, so take it with the usual grain of salt.
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I guess I am more curious about the contract extension beyond the current one (if there is an extension). I’m not as concerned about espn holdings rights through the current period.
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Agree with the writer, but he also should mention the likelihood that alums from the MAC schools have probably moved to greater Nashville in large numbers as well:
https://footballscoop.com/news/report-mac-death-blow-conferece-usa-middle-tennessee-western-kentucky
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When you mistype your name and realize there is not edit button…
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/street-artist-performing-gm486310559-38361372
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Its actually much more fitting with the realignment stuff going on now!
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CBS’s Dennis Dodd is not very optimistic that playoff expansion will be approved before the current contracts expire.
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Dodd immediately mentions that “Hurt feelings may have derailed business sense in CFP expansion talks”.
Would this all be different if Sankey and the SEC had been honest about UT and OU coming on board? Perhaps it would not have mattered, but this is another indication that a little more forth rightness might have been very helpful.
It may be a long time before B1G Paclantic trust Sankey or the SEC. Again, please do not repeat that any conference would have taken UT an OU. Of course that is correct. It was the was it was done and the timing.
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The subcommittee started looking at playoff formats 2 years earlier, when Sankey did not know that UT and OU would be joining the SEC.
Once that opportunity came along, what should he do? No one could reasonably expect Sankey to disclose confidential information. Had he recused from the committee, that in itself would have been a dead giveaway. There was literally no other way for him to handle it.
Bowlsby is the real goat of the story. How can you be the Big 12 commissioner and not know that your two keystone members are at risk of leaving? The fact he was taken totally by surprise is the most remarkable thing of all.
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Bowlsby knowing nothing may be unforgiveable, but the fact remains, four of the P5 conferences do not trust Sankey and it may be showing up in the playoff expansion discussions.
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Did Jim Delany give Dan Beebe a heads-up while he was secretly negotiating with Nebraska? I don’t believe so. They two weren’t sitting on a playoff expansion committee then, but if they were, I am positive Delany would’ve handled it exactly as Sankey did. There is no one in the recent history of college sports who was more ruthless than Jim Delany.
Bowlsby, who has the biggest reasons to be mad at Sankey, still favors the 12-team model he helped design. You could argue, that without Texas and Oklahoma, his league needs it more than anybody.
And that is Dennis Dodd’s point. You can be mad at Sankey for doing what any competent person in his position would do. Or, you can forget about it and make the decision that helps your own league get better.
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@Marc.
The B1G announced publicly that they were studying expansion. There were even emails released through FOIA with correspondence between Delany and Powers at Texas. If you applied that circumstance to the present everyone would view playoff expansion with an eye on conference expansion impact.
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@Kevin: If you look at the timeline of the FOIA disclosure about Texas, Nebraska was already a done deal. That never leaked, probably because Delany was smarter than Gordon Gee about what you should put in an email. I am pretty sure Gee didn’t mean for that to get out.
It’s true, the Big Ten said they were looking at expansion without naming their targets. But UT has always been very transparent about the fact that they were open to a better deal. Anyone in college sports administration who didn’t know that was an idiot, or spelled another way, Bob Bowlsby.
Among those of us who have been on this board a long time, we’ve all said repeatedly that we expected Texas to test the waters again as the grant of rights approached expiration. It’s not like we had any special insight. Everyone except (apparently) Bowlsby expected it.
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Marc it is all apples and oranges. Sankey (and Bowlsby) were negotiating major changes that would impact every team, not just in their two leagues, but throughout the P5 and G5. That is the entire issue, not “stealing” Nebraska.
There have been multiple articles from multiple sources making it clear that this has left a level of distrust by the other 4 of the P5 conferences. Even this story starts with “Hurt feelings may have derailed business sense in CFP expansion talks”.
You think that this is how things should be done, fine, so be it. The other four P5 commissioners seem to disagree with you. Tell them why they are wrong.
All I know is that having practiced law for 45 years, I feel that what Sankey did in these circumstances may be legal, but I would advise my clients to never trust him again.
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@Bernie: We are talking past each other a little bit. I am not saying other P5 conferences should trust Sankey. Quite the contrary: of course they shouldn’t trust him. They shouldn’t trust each other either, which is the only reason I mentioned Nebraska. If Kevin Warren has the chance to expand, do you think he’ll give his competitors a heads-up before he has to? Of course not! And they all know it.
Sure, they’re unhappy about being outfoxed. But no commissioner has actually said that Sankey should have done anything differently. And that is really my point—he had to play it exactly the way he did. The Pac-12’s Kliavkoff said directly that he would have done exactly the same thing, and that he thinks his colleagues would too.
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Marc, I simply totally disagree with you (and Frank). The P5 commissioners MUST trust each other. How does the system work if no one trusts anyone else? These five people are supposed to be virtually “partners”, working for some form of common good – not equal income or results, but an improvement for everyone. That is how the expansion to a 12 team playoff will have to work. Everyone needs some sort of confidence that others are not lying while negotiating.
Poaching schools is a special case, since schools have the right to change conferences. UT and OU had every right to move and the SEC had every right to take them. Any conference would have taken them.
The way that it was done, during the negotiations, was underhanded. You and Frank feel that the other four leagues, particularly the Big 12, should suck it up and accept that Sankey lied and pulled of a coup. Issue closed. It is pretty clear that the four P5 commissioners, and presumably most of their member universities, disagree with you.
Sankey, the SEC, and ESPN having broken trust with the other leagues, everyone else is treading very carefully. Personally, I do not blame them. Of course, whether I blame them, or whether you or Frank agree or disagree matters not. That is what is happening.
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Bernie, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. Some of the purported facts…I just wonder where they are coming from?
The P5 commissioners MUST trust each other. How does the system work if no one trusts anyone else? The P5 commissioners are, have always been, both partners and competitors.
Everyone needs some sort of confidence that others are not lying while negotiating. Nobody lied.
The way that it was done, during the negotiations, was underhanded. What should he have done differently? He’s already on the committee, and the two best expansion targets come calling. Is he supposed to say no? Is he supposed to tip his hand and possibly lose the deal of a lifetime? Seriously???
…accept that Sankey lied…. Lied about what? I am not aware he actually said anything that was false. Keep a confidential negotiation to yourself is not lying.
It is pretty clear that the four P5 commissioners, and presumably most of their member universities, disagree with you. That’s not stated anywhere that I have seen.
Sankey, the SEC, and ESPN having broken trust with the other leagues…. The SEC took two trophy schools that, you and everyone else agrees, anybody would have taken. No one actually has said that they wouldn’t have done what Sankey did.
I am struggling to comprehend what ESPN did to “break trust.” Bowlsby made an accusation that, even if true, applied to the Big 12 only. But in any event, ESPN denied it. Bowlsby’s accusation has not been proven true or false. If true, it affects only those two parties, not every other league.
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Marc – I agree 100%. Additionally, Sankey was most likely legally bound not to disclose any SEC negotiations with OU & UT by way of a non-disclosure agreement.
Bernie – The commissioners operate as lawyers do. They may extend professional courtesies to the other commissioners, but they represent their conferences. Sankey’s ultimate obligation is to his client – the SEC, not the CFP, and certainly not Bowlsby.
Putting current hurt feelings aside and the need to work out some minor points, such as the location of the 1st round games, and the length of the TV extension (if any), the 12-team playoff was almost universally haled as addressing everybody’s concerns. G-5, Notre Dame, ACC, P-12 & B-12 get almost guaranteed access. B1G & SEC get more teams. Everybody gets more money and everybody wins!
I have heard no logical defense of the suggested eight team format put forth by the “Alliance”. No new games outside of the current NY6, and only marginally more money, if at all.
Eight is dead on arrival. Twelve is wildly popular with the fans. The SEC, Notre Dame and the B1G will be fine whether its 4 or 12 and whenever the new format kicks in. The “Alliance” will be responsible for costing the G-5, B-12, and their own members ACC and P-12 millions of dollars that their schools could desperately use.
The Alliance is cutting off its nose to spite its face, while denying most college football fans what they really want.
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Marc, everything that you claim is my recitation of facts, is actually my opinion and your disagreements are your opinion. I am only watching what the other P5 commissioners are doing and saying. They obviously disagree with you.
I am assuming that Chris Dodd from CBS had a reason to start his article with a subhead,
“Hurt feelings may have derailed business sense in CFP expansion talks”. Did Dodd make up that “fact”.
Dodd is not the only one to write that. What are the hurt feelings? It may be that the other commissioners are not ready to put aside those feelings, or the feelings may be very deep. I do not know.
This could have been very simple. The talks should have been delayed a few weeks, so that OU and UT could announce. Then no confidences would have been breached. Very simple. There were stories written then that the news was intentionally being withheld, until it leaked (and no I am not going to research those articles). After the announcement, the talks could have moved forward.
Alan, if I were negotiating a commercial transaction and there was a material change in circumstances (which were only known by one party and withheld from others), there would be both a legal ethical obligation to disclose the same. That is not a matter of professional courtesy at all. Failure to disclose in some circumstances would be actual legal fraud.
There is no point in continuing this exchange. We will simply have to agree to disagree.
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“Wait a few weeks for OU & UT to announce”? More like a few months. There was no advantage in required notices/etc. for OU or UT to announce before the end of the 2021 football season. If this had not been leaked (probably by A&M) this would still be future news and all of the realignment would be in 2022.
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Congrats to the Braves and especially Alex Anthopoulos. That may have been the best mid-season personnel management in modern MLB history.
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Also, for the folks in the Atlanta area, how has the reaction been locally? Braves fans used to be notoriously fair weather and the team had a tough time selling out the stadium even in the playoffs during the run from ’91-’05. Have things improved at all with the new stadium?
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Well all the schools are shut down Friday for a parade. Atlanta was 2nd in baseball in attendance, but only 6 franchises cracked 2 million, none of whom were in NY, Chicago or Boston. Only the Cardinals and Dodgers of the 6 were old time pre-60s expansion franchises.
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Where exactly is the parade? Downtown Atlanta proper or will the Braves mimic the 1980s New York Islanders Long Isld Expy routing and do it on the 285?
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Haven’t seen the route, but they are closing streets in downtown and then afterwards go out to the ballpark (12 miles to the north) and parade on some streets there.and have a concert with Ludicrous and others.
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Rutgers is finally reaching mediocrity in many B1G sports.
Both basketball teams made the NCAA tournament last year and should this year too.
The number 4 ranked women’s soccer team finished undefeated in the B1G and finally won RU’s first B1G championship. They are, of course, the 1 seed in the upcoming B1G tournament.
The number 3 ranked field hockey team is the 2 seed in the B1G tournament.
The men’s soccer team is the 6 seed in the B1G tournament.
Other sports are looking up also.
It took a while to be able to afford decent coaches, but the increase in B1G money is finally turning into wins.
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The new Conference USA reminds me of the misfit and broken toys in i the polar express movie. So kind of like those unfortunate toys i hope that New Mexico St, UMass, Uconn (Football only) can finally have a home. Sounds like NMSU, Liberty, Sam Houston St, are a done deal. Umass and Uconn are a little of a distance reach, football wouldn’t be too big of an issue but all the other sports for Umass and Fiu that will be tricky.
Out West- UTEP, La Tech, Sam Houston,NMSU
Other- Jacksonville St, FIU, Liberty. Possible UMass
Hopefully it gets done, would tie a bow for all these independents and keep what was once a prominent mid-major football conference around.
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C-USA has always been the temporary landing spot for teams looking for a better home. They have far more former members than members.
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Four to CUSA today
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Alan wrote: I have heard no logical defense of the suggested eight team format put forth by the “Alliance”. No new games outside of the current NY6, and only marginally more money, if at all.
Perhaps the most substantial non-frivolous arguments are around lost academic time and the stress on players’ bodies. In my view, the academic argument doesn’t withstand serious scrutiny, given that FCS is now up to a 24-team playoff, which they have expanded repeatedly over the years. Yet, FBS presidents keep bringing up academics as an issue.
Player safety has been a concern for decades. And yet, in the 1940s teams routinely played eight- or nine-game seasons, and most didn’t go to a bowl. The regular season repeatedly got longer (now 12 games). Bowls became a minimal expectation for most teams, rather than a reward allotted to the very few. Then they added CCGs. Then they added the current playoff, which meant one extra game for two teams.
After you have rationalized expanding the length of the season so many times, how do you seriously say now that it may be too much? And yet, some do say that.
Because an 8-team format does not introduce any new games, there are far fewer decisions to make about how it would work. A 12-team format has a lot more parameters to consider: where and when to play the games. Parties may be holding out because those decisions are trending in a direction they don’t like.
For instance, in the committee proposal, first-round games would be at campus sites. First-round losers would not go to a bowl. Inevitably, the number of bowls would be reduced, because that’s four pretty good teams that would no longer be available. The bowl consortium wants to play the first round at bowl sites, but that would favor Southern teams, since most bowl sites are in the South.
In the committee proposal, in some respects it’s better to be the #13 team. You’re ranked high enough to get an attractive bowl invitation to a sunny place over the holidays. #12 is getting an invitation to a white-out in State College, PA, in the middle of December, where they will be overwhelming underdogs. The fact that first-round losers don’t get the reward of a bowl is a serious drawback for many people.
By the way, I have not heard anyone in authority making the “traditionalist” argument that an expanded playoff devalues the regular season. Erstwhile FTT poster Brian was the most passionate defender of that line of thinking. None of the commissioners are saying that. I know Brian thinks they are all wrong.
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I don’t watch much nfl anymore, and certainly no nba until March almost entirely because the games have little meaning other than seeding. And the seeds are worthless when the top teams are (rightfully) trying to be as healthy and ready for the actual season, i.e. the playoffs.
I do think the larger field to draw from in CFB causes retention of some regular season value, but only if you actually include more of “not the usual suspects” in the field. March madness viewership for the first two weekends is driven by the underrated lower seeds. The whole country watches a deep run by a Davidson, or really any 9 or lower, without having any other association. First round of CFP viewership could benefit from the same.
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I do think the larger field to draw from in CFB causes retention of some regular season value, but only if you actually include more of “not the usual suspects” in the field.
I think the 12-team format does that. To date, 20 of the 28 playoff berths have gone to just four programs: Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, and Ohio State. If you have 12 berths per year, by definition it won’t be just the usual suspects.
This year, with four weeks left in the season, the ACC is already (realistically) out of the playoff. The hopes of the Pac-12 are down (realistically) to just one team, Oregon. Oklahoma is probably the only Big 12 team with a shot. The entire Big Ten West cannot make the playoff, no matter what it does. Notre Dame can’t either. The Committee is giving Cincinnati no credit, and there are no remaining games on their schedule that could move the needle, meaning the G5 is frozen out again.
If the Committee had to fill its bracket today, all four playoff teams would be programs that had been there before. FTT has argued, and I agree, that a 12-team playoff would make exponentially more games concretely meaningful through the end of November.
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FTT retweeted approval of an an 11-team playoff proposal.
The broad outlines are that the P5 champs would be seeded to the quarterfinals, where they would play in their traditional bowls if possible (e.g., B1G/P12 to the Rose). There would be 3 opening-round games at campus sites. The losers of these games would still be bowl-eligible. A G5 champ or independent could get a first-round bye in place of a P5 champ if it outranked them.
This proposal has a nod to tradition. However, it is not as lucrative because there are only three first-round games, instead of four. I suspect that if they get over the hump of agreeing to more than 8 teams, they’ll want 12 because they’ll want the revenue. Once you’ve found room in the schedule for three new games, playing one more that same weekend is not much of a leap.
Of course, seeding to the traditional bowls can still be done in the 12-team format.
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I am in favor of a plan that pairs the B1G and PAC 12 Champs in the Rosebowl for quarterfinals. I can live with the possibility of a group of 4/5 league with a quarterfinal spot if they are ranked higher. I am not in favor of seeding quarterfinals based on rankings as they are generally highly flawed
Would not allow ND to have eligibility for quarterfinal auto-bid.
I am not sure there is much TV value difference between 11 and 12 teams. The value is mostly at the quarterfinal level.
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I am in favor of a plan that pairs the B1G and PAC 12 Champs in the Rosebowl for quarterfinals.
They already gave that up in the current system. They realize the seedings have to make sense. You might get a system where the more highly ranked of the two goes to the Rose Bowl as the “host” team against whomever is the logical lower seed. But if those two are ranked 1/2, for instance, they aren’t going to meet in the quarterfinals. That would make no sense.
I am not in favor of seeding quarterfinals based on rankings as they are generally highly flawed.
And yet, those who want a traditional Rose Bowl accepted championships decided on human polls that were more flawed still. No ranking system is perfect, but the rankings are much closer to the ZIP code of being right than ignoring them entirely.
Would not allow ND to have eligibility for quarterfinal auto-bid.
I do not care either way, but ND’s athletic director was on the committee, and he accepted this, so you will probably get your wish.
I am not sure there is much TV value difference between 11 and 12 teams. The value is mostly at the quarterfinal level.
It is exactly the opposite. The quarterfinals would be played in traditional NY6 bowls. Since those games already exist, there is not much value added. It would be the same games, with a different system for deciding who gets to play in them.
The entire value added is in the first round, since those games do not exist today.
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You can always re-seed after quarterfinals but I don’t think it’s a big factor in determining the Champ. I don’t care if the B1G and Pac 12 is 1 and 2 as that has maybe happened once over a 50 year period. That ranking is so highly flawed as there just isn’t that much interleague play.
The idea of providing for the higher of the rankings a spot at the Rose Bowl is not the same as guaranteeing the match-up between the leagues. Having a West Coast school and a Mid-west school in the Rose Bowl is very important to preserve its popularity. Probably similar with the Sugar Bowl and a SEC school. An ACC vs. SEC or Big 12 match-up or an ACC vs. B1G matchup in the Rose Bowl isn’t going to preserve what has been built over decades. Both the B1G and Pac 12 have given up access and value of the Rose Bowl to the CFP. I think there is a desire to take some of that back. I believe it was FSU complaining about having to travel all the way to California for it’s match-up with Oregon in 2014. B1G fans are accustom to traveling great distances for bowl games and benefit with the diaspora of their alums.
This 11 team idea is more similar to the “Plus One” but with a play-off flare.
Agreed that the current system doesn’t protect the traditional match-up. That is one reason to modify the current playoff beyond providing more geographical access.
Disagree on your assertion for the NY6 bowls. Having them as permanent quarterfinals within the playoff structure maximizes their value every year. Current system only has the Rose and Sugar Bowls on a rotation. In off years, while ratings are still good, they are not maximized. TV value will be maximized by having the traditional New Year’s Day bowls as part of the playoff.
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I don’t care if the B1G and Pac 12 is 1 and 2 as that has maybe happened once over a 50 year period.
That’s just an example. Quarterfinals of 2 vs 3 or 6 vs 8, would be equally nonsensical. Unless every last reporter writing a story on playoff expansion is being lied to by their sources, nobody in the Big Ten or Pac-12 is proposing to pair their leagues in the Rose Bowl regardless of seeding.
Having a West Coast school and a Mid-west school in the Rose Bowl is very important to preserve its popularity.
The Rose Bowl stopped guaranteeing a B10 vs P12 match-up over twenty years ago. You are pining for a tradition that has not existed in the lifetimes of the kids playing the game. If its popularity were going to suffer, I think we would have seen it by now.
Disagree on your assertion for the NY6 bowls. Having them as permanent quarterfinals within the playoff structure maximizes their value every year.
The assertion is not mine. Every story on playoff expansion — and there have been many of them — says that the primary value added is in the new round of games. You could be correct that there is marginal value in having NY6 bowls with stakes beyond the games themselves. But they were going to have that anyway. The huge value is in creating four new games that do not exist.
TV value will be maximized by having the traditional New Year’s Day bowls as part of the playoff.
What you appear to be missing, is that this feature is common to both the 8- and 12-team proposals. In the 12-team proposal, every NY6 bowl is part of the playoff, and then on top of that you have four new lucrative games that don’t exist today. In the 8-team proposal, you just get the NY6 bowls that already exist.
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The B1G and PAC 12 were matched up in the Rose during the BCS Era. That’s not all that long ago.
Need to look at the Playoff TV money through the lens of a conference. The more games the more likely the pie will be split with more parties including a bigger take from non power 5 leagues
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Actually we need to look at the Playoff through the lens of the Big Ten conference. In seven years, the Big Ten twice failed to place a team in the playoff. That’s a total of five B1G teams in seven years.
At the same time, the weakest football conference has placed nine teams in the playoffs: FSU 1, Clemson 6, ND 2.
If you have a strong conference with lots of good teams knocking off each other, you get punished. If you have a weak conference with only one good team, you get rewarded. And that will probably happen to the Big Ten yet again this year.
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The B1G and PAC 12 were matched up in the Rose during the BCS Era. That’s not all that long ago.
In the BCS era, the B1G and Pac-12 champs met in the Rose Bowl only in years when: A) Neither of them was #1 or #2; and B) The Rose Bowl itself was not hosting the championship game.
Stated differently, since 1998 the Rose Bowl the two B1G vs P12 champs only as a consolation game when neither participant was a NC contender.
Thus, in 2006 Michigan finished second in the Big Ten. It went to the Rose Bowl as a consolation for losing to Ohio State, which went to the BCS National Championship Game. I can assure you no player (nor any sane fan) of either team wanted those roles to be reversed. Everyone understood that the BCS game was the real prize, and the Rose Bowl the consolation for the loser. That was quite different from what it had been pre-1998.
To players and fans growing up in my era (and I suspect yours), the Rose Bowl was the capstone of a dominant season. Since 1998, the BCS championship or now the playoff is the goal. The Rose Bowl is just a really good consolation prize, aside from when it hosts a playoff game itself.
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…the weakest football conference has placed nine teams in the playoffs: FSU 1, Clemson 6, ND 2
Clemson is 4–2 in its first-round games and has won the overall championship twice. The overall ACC might be weak, but Clemson was not. Only one of ND’s two bids came as an ACC member.
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There’s a lot of value in the other 2 quarterfinal games being a game that means something vs. an exhibition. Just look at the rating difference.
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I did a little research on that, and yes: it appears NY6 bowls tend to do better in the years that they are semi-finals, i.e., that the game is not just an exhibition.
There are confounding variables: the semi-final participants have tended (overwhelmingly) to be storied programs with national fan bases who would watch them no matter what. And the semi-finals quite simply have better teams, which by definition usually means a more interesting game. (Former poster Brian once wondered what the audience would be for a quarterfinal of Alabama vs. Kent State.)
I suspect, even in the pre-BCS era, the Rose Bowl got better ratings in the years that one of the teams was in the top two, and worse ratings when it was #8 vs. #17.
Still, the key point is that no one (seemingly) disputes that the playoff will expand to at least eight, so they’ll have those games regardless. The argument is whether to get the revenue from four brand new games, or merely to settle for improvements at the margin to the NY6 games that they already have.
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Marc,
“ Brian once wondered what the audience would be for a quarterfinal of Alabama vs. Kent State.”
If Kent State has had a great year I’d bet on a significant number of just general fans would tune in at least for a while, like they do for 15 vs 2 seed matchups in March madness, looking for a David/Goliath story.
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Just thought it was worth mentioning that this week marks the 10th anniversary of the Sandusky scandal breaking. Doesn’t seem that long (at least to me).
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In happier news, today also marks the 50th anniversary of the album yours truly considers the greatest in rock; Led Zeppelin IV.
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I’d previously overlooked this article by Ralph Russo which explains another one of the obstacles of the 12-team playoff format: when to play the games.
One option is the second Saturday in December. However, it means you’d have games involving teams that played a CCG the week before vs. teams that had the week off. There’s a feeling that would be unfair. Also, it would deprive Army–Navy of their usual exclusivity on that day. Also, it would mean those two teams could never be in the playoff (however unlikely that may be).
Another option is to push it to the third Saturday in December. That would mute the advantage of teams that didn’t play a CCG, and it would also give fans time to make travel plans. However, that day is traditionally the start of bowl season. More importantly, the NFL most years has games scheduled that day. There’s an understandable hesitation to go head-to-head against the NFL.
Yet another option is to play midweek night games. I probably don’t need to go through the drawbacks of that. I suspect that if they go for 12, they’d bite the bullet and accept the conflict with the NFL on the third Saturday.
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No NFL Saturday games scheduled for the 3rd Saturday (12/18) in December this season.
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The Russo article mentioned that due to a quirk in the calendar, there are no NFL games on the third Saturday of December this year (12/18), but most years there are.
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Marc – using this calendar year as a model, here’s my 12 team playoff schedule.
OPENING ROUND (homes of higher seeds or other bowls, I don’t care)
Friday 12/17 7p EST #5 v. #12 (the the highest seed a slight advantage with an extra day rest before the quarterfinals)
Sat 12/18 Noon, 4p & 8p EST for #6 v. #11, #7 v. #10, & #8 v. #9 slotted anyway the network chooses. I would guess a Northern site should get preference for the noon slot.
Note: No Saturday NFL games are scheduled this weekend. The NFL only has Saturday games scheduled for 12/25 this season. Maybe this is part of the new 17 week schedule that Saturday games are limited.
QUARTERFINALS
Friday 12/31 7p EST Fiesta (Maybe the #1 seed can choose location?)
Saturday 1/1 Noon EST Peach, 4p EST Rose, 8p EST Sugar
SEMIFINALS
Saturday 1/8 4p EST Orange & 8p Cotton
Note: This is the last week of the NFL regular season, no Saturday games, no conflict
CFP CHAMPIONSHIP
Monday 1/17 8p EST Indianapolis
Note: Saturday 1/15 is part of NFL Wildcard weekend and 1/22 is the Divisional round. Maybe the NFL could make some accommodation to let the CFP have the primetime window, but the CFP seems to like Monday night. Plus, 1/17 is MLK day. The holiday would help with fan travel.
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I’m sure there is absolutely no consideration of Army-Navy. Many of you don’t seem to realize this is a new invention. It was historically on Thanksgiving. They tried ccg week for a while, but its only since 2009 that it moved to that 2nd week in December.
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Army-Navy should be on Veterans’ Day.
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I am aware that this is a fairly recent tradition, but it has been a big payday for the schools, and nobody wants to piss off the academies, even if they have very little football relevance anymore.
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The service academies do not care about “paydays”. They care about exposure.
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I can assure you, they are not giving the rights away. When Navy joined the AAC in football, it was a condition that the AAC would not have the TV rights to that game. Every dollar they get from TV is a dollar they don’t need from another source.
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https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/32600959/mid-american-conference-remain-12-teams-pursue-expansion
WKU stuck. Mac is staying at 12 per commissioner.
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It seems Middle Tennessee preferred to stay in C–USA and collect the exit fees from all of the departing members. The MAC would have taken MTSU and WKU together, but won’t take WKU by itself.
FTT thinks that MTSU is being short-sighted. I don’t know how the respective TV deals will look in a few years. The MAC is one of the most stable conferences at any level, whereas C–USA is going to look completely different.
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I wonder MTSU had a lot of pushback from the types of people who said that Texas Tech/Baylor and OkState should not run into the arms of a heathen conference like the PAC-12. While I would hardly call a largely rust belt conference heathen, it could be viewed as a poor cultural fit.
There are legitimate reasons for MTSU to say nah at the last minute. Would recruits go to a school in a late season cold weather conference? Would attendance suffer in that the trip for NIU, Ball, the _MUs, Buffalo and I-80 Ohio schools would be too far? Perhaps there are not as many MAC alums or well heeled enough MAC alums in greater Nashville that would show up nor the interest from locals in viewing the current MAC schools. As it was, the MAC claimed that they barely break even on the payout from the current TV contacts and that adding WKU only would actually reduce the payout to less than expenses. It was MTSU or bust hoping to leverage an emerging market where alums from the current footprint are purported to be moving in large volume.
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College sports finances database
https://www.sportico.com/business/commerce/2021/college-sports-finances-database-intercollegiate-1234646029/
Have fun!
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UConn seems to have made a five year commitment to FBS football. They hired Jim Mora to a five year contract and he is starting at $1.5 million. That is low by FBS standards, but still it is a five year deal.
https://uconnhuskies.com/news/2021/11/11/uconn-names-jim-mora-as-next-head-football-coach.aspx
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Andy Staples’ column in The Athletic suggests that the SEC should accept the B12 and the “Alliance” in an effort to smooth and speed the transition of OU & UT to the SEC.
Staples says this amended plan gives the new B12 legitimacy of being an automatic qualifier rather and will help them in TV contract negotiations.
Here’s my filling in the blanks that Andy doesn’t discuss:
Step 1: ESPN buys out the remaining half of the B12’s contract with FOX and tells the remaining 8 they can keep their current pro rata share of the TV contract in exchange for the conference waiving the GOR with UT & OU.. (FOX would need to be bought out as they have no incentive to cooperate with this plan.) This makes the remaining 8 whole and at that point the GOR would only be punitive,
Step 2: The SEC agrees to support the B12’s position for the playoff for the remainder of the contract and for the length of the next (12 year?) contract. That gives the B12 plenty of time to learn to walk without OU & UT.
Step 3: UT & OU pay their $80m exit fees in 2023 before the newbies join the B12 in exchange for letting OU & UT out in time for the 2023 season. The remaining 8 receive $20m each in parting gifts. UT & OU will make it all back in four years max, with the new ABC tier 1 deal, and the look ins on the tier 2 ESPN and tier 3 SECN deals.
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I was always surprised that the original CFP expansion proposal didn’t include P5 auto-bids. If the Big 12 knew what it knows that (where UT and OU defected to the SEC), they certainly would have pushed for P5 auto-bids at that time.
The Alliance definitely has a lot more leverage with this proposal compared to their attempt to pare it back to an 8-team playoff. In the 8-team playoff scenario, it was the Alliance vs. the SEC and Notre Dame with the SEC having a lot more ability to walk away from the deal (as they’re legitimately happy with the 4-team playoff).
In this case, the Alliance is certainly going to have the support from the Big 12 on P5 auto-bids. The SEC would also benefit from it, so it’s not like they’d oppose it (even if they aren’t openly pushing for it). ND doesn’t care one way or the other as long as there are still 6 at-large bids.
So, this really sets up as the Alliance and Big 12 vs. the G5 conferences… and I’d bet on the power leagues coming out ahead on that battle.
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“The SEC would also benefit from it, so it’s not like they’d oppose it (even if they aren’t openly pushing for it). ND doesn’t care one way or the other as long as there are still 6 at-large bids”
The SEC and ND should oppose it unless it also comes with a requirement that the P5 conferences are required to have their conference games as #1 vs. #2.
If they keep the current format, it’s easy to see a year when, say, the Big Ten gets #5 Ohio State and #7 Penn State in the playoffs, and #14 Wisconsin gets an autobid, while a #8 ND or LSU gets left out.
While the example I gave shows the Big Ten benefiting, they might be hurt by other conferences squeezing an extra autobid out more often than they would be helped.
The SEC (and Big Ten really) should also be against it as it gives an unearned legitimacy to the other conferences (particularly the new Big 12), but I think they’ll overlook that for peace.
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@m(Ag) – All of that is possible, but now we’re getting into the weeds of the “last team” in for an at-large bid.
While the SEC’s M.O. has always been to support whatever system creates the most bids for them, the Big Ten mentality is simply different. The B1G really does care about the importance of a conference championship and they’ve long been concerned about how it has been devalued.
Now, an important feature of the 12-team playoff under either proposed format is that the top 4 conference champs receive byes. That still puts a premium on conferences to set up having the best conference championship matchup possible.
At the end of the day, I’ve always been a large believer that the powers in college football are more concerned about protecting against downside risk in a bad year than they are about shooting the moon in a good year. We already see the damage that happens to a league that gets left out of a top 4 playoff, so imagine what happens if they’re left out of a 12-team playoff. It doesn’t matter if it only happens once every 10 or 20 years – if you’re a P5 league, the only acceptable number for that to happen would be zero. Having P5 auto-bids goes right in line with that thinking.
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Really liked the 11team setup that protects the Rose traditional match up.
Frank, what do you think the bowls positions on this 12 team arrangement may be, and how much sway will they have?
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If they keep the current format, it’s easy to see a year when, say, the Big Ten gets #5 Ohio State and #7 Penn State in the playoffs, and #14 Wisconsin gets an autobid, while a #8 ND or LSU gets left out.
This is a common feature in any sport with autobids, which is to say, just about all of them. I think there have been years that an NFL division was won by an 8–8 team. They make the playoffs, and someone with a better record does not. This is a tradeoff that the leaders of every sport have made.
The only debate here is whether the top six conference champs get autobids, or the P5 plus one. In the 7 seasons of the playoff, the outcome would’ve been the same either way, except in last year’s COVID-shortened season. It would make a difference maybe once a decade.
Note that in your example, #14 Wisconsin would almost certainly be one of the top six conference champs, so they’d be IN under either proposal.
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You don’t want anything like baseball did in 1981 with their split season with a mid-year strike. The Reds and Cardinals had the best and 3rd best record in baseball and didn’t even make the playoffs. They both played 1 less game than the team that won one of the two split seasons and finished 1/2 game behind..
The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place teams in the full season made the NL playoffs. In the AL it was the first and 4th in each division that made the playoffs, #1, #2, #5 and #10 in the American League full season standings made the playoffs.
Worst playoff setup ever.
Reds were also leading their division in 1994 when the strike cancelled the world series.
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“This is a common feature in any sport with autobids”
Indeed, but in professional sports the leagues are regulated to try to keep disparities from getting too big between divisions that have autobids, which isn’t the case in College football.
In other college sports, a huge number of teams are selected for the postseason, diminishing the “unfairness” of it. In college basketball, the “first 4 out” can’t be ranked lower than the 30s, while either system proposed for college football will leave out top 10 teams some years. My proposal will reduce the number of top 10 teams left out, but not eliminate them.
“Note that in your example, #14 Wisconsin would almost certainly be one of the top six conference champs, so they’d be IN under either proposal.”
I agree, but if we had the originally proposed system, the Big Ten would be highly likely to change their system so that the top 2 teams would play in the championship round to avoid a year when their champion might be a #23 Wisconsin that finishes behind 6 other conference winners. PSU and OSU would have played in the championship game, and the resulting 12 playoff teams would be more deserving and have a greater chance to produce at least one more interesting playoff game.
Plus, after several years with 14 team conferences (and the SEC soon to be at 16 teams!), I think the general college football fan is ready for divisions to be abolished so we can see more diversity in schedules. The P5 autobid format gives the conferences an artificial incentive to keep divisions!
If the Big Ten abolishes divisions and then sees the Big 12 steal a bid from the Big Ten one year because of their divisional setup, rational Big Ten fans will seek to either 1) institute the rule I’ve proposed or 2) split the Big Ten back into divisions, so they at least get the chance to benefit the same way the Big 12 did. Irrational fans, of course, will write angry emails and message board posts, but that is what they do anyway.
Personally, my preference would be either 1) keep the playoffs at 4 (or even go back to 2!) or
2) abolish the 13th game exception that allows for conference championship games which would a) eliminate this whole argument, b) reduce the number of possible games played by college athletes by 1 and c) perhaps let the playoff just go to 16, with the 1st round of the playoffs being played the week that is now conference championship week (the 4 extra games would offset some of the revenue lost from the elimination of conference championships). Of course, the SEC and Big Ten wouldn’t want to give up their championships (much more profitable than the other conference’s), but if the number of autobids was held to 6, they might be enticed by 10 at-large bids up for grabs each year.
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Really liked the 11team setup that protects the Rose traditional match up.
I was sure that had no chance. The Big Ten and Pac-12 gave up the traditional guaranteed Rose Bowl match-up in 1998, when they joined the BCS. Sure, there are still years that the two leagues face off, but only when their champ fails to qualify for something more valuable.
In the lifetimes of anyone now playing or attending the schools, the Rose Bowl simply does not have the meaning it had when we were growing up. It is still the granddaddy of them all, but except when it hosts a playoff game, it’s a consolation prize.
I am sure there is not a single Ohio State player that specifically wants to be in the Rose Bowl this season, because it will mean they lost the Big Ten. They’ll take it if offered, but it’s not where they want to be.
Beyond that, the 11-team format would mean having only three first-round games, not four. Once they’ve made all the compromises to squeeze in another round of games, they’re not going to leave 25% of the marginal revenue on the table so that the Big Ten and Pac-12 can revive a tradition they gave up over two decades ago.
Frank, what do you think the bowls positions on this 12 team arrangement may be, and how much sway will they have?
(I am not Frank but…) According to the same SI writers that broke the story, it appears the first-round games will be at campus sites two weeks after the CCGs (i.e., the original committee proposal). That is bad news for the middle-tier bowls that would have liked to host those games.
None of the reporters is saying whether the proposal will permit first-round losers to go to a bowl. In the committee proposal, they couldn’t. If that stands up, obviously some bowls will disappear. Those that survive, other than the NY6, will get worse match-ups than they have today, since four pretty good teams will be gone after the first round.
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“ I am sure there is not a single Ohio State player that specifically wants to be in the Rose Bowl this season, because it will mean they lost the Big Ten.”
And with the 11 team proposal they absolutely would, it’s a win/win. That’s the point. It would also benefit the other bowls by increasing their traditional matchups, too.
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Yes, you’re right. The 11-team proposal would restore the Rose Bowl to the status it had before 1998. But they gave that up 23 years ago and aren’t fighting to get it back—nor do I see the other leagues granting them that favor, even if they asked.
Because it’s not win–win. All of the other leagues would be giving up the extra revenue of the fourth first-round game, while getting nothing in return. There’s nothing the Big Ten can offer them, because no other league has that kind of sentimental attachment to one particular bowl.
Well, I suppose the Big Ten could offer to make them whole financially, but do you see that happening? Or, the Big Ten could just hold out, as they did in the Bowl Alliance days, but we know what happened then: in the end they caved.
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The Big Ten really never caved. It was the PAC 12.
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A B1G/Pac Rose guarantee will be worth more than random matchups, as it was before. I’m not sure a 4th preliminary round game would be worth more than the increased value of guaranteed B1G/Pac Rose Bowl.
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A B1G/Pac Rose guarantee will be worth more than random matchups, as it was before.
This is a very dubious proposition. For instance, the 2018 Rose Bowl (#2 Georgia vs #3 Oklahoma) had a 13.7 rating and 26.9 million viewers. But the 2017 Rose Bowl, #9 USC vs. #5 Penn State was just 10.7/19.8m. In both 2019 and 2020, the Rose Bowl was the highest-rated non-playoff game, but still worse rated than the two semifinals.
But anyhow, probably no fan under 30 remembers when the Rose Bowl that matched the B1G–P12 champs. By the time the next playoff contracts expire, there’ll be no fan under 40 who remembers that.
Unless the reporters covering playoff expansion have very bad sources, neither the Big Ten nor the Pac-12 is proposing to restore the Rose Bowl to its former status. I think it’s obvious as to why.
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Only one of those 4 first round games would go away.
11 was just too logical. They looked at playoff proposals for a year and never even considered it.
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They claimed to have looked at dozens of formats, most of which we never heard about. We can’t really say which options they evaluated.
You’re right, “only” one game would go away. But the logistical issues are the same whether you play three mid-December games or four. I can totally see the arguments for stopping at 8 teams. But having agreed to expand to at least 11, nobody is going to stop there and leave 25% of the marginal revenue on the table.
So 11 doesn’t make sense, except maybe for two leagues, and perhaps not even for them. From the evidence I can find, it appears the Rose Bowl generally gets better ratings in the years it is a playoff game; and not-as good ratings in the years it’s a B10/P12 matchup regardless of ranking.
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Marc,
The Tournament of Roses, which the Rose Bowl is a part of doesn’t depend singularly on media rights to a three hour game. A large influx of fans from northern states being able to pre arrange a nice So Cal winter vacation is very significant to them.
Frankly, I’d say ten teams with SEC/ACC in the Orange (or other) Bowl would be a good idea. B12 and top G5 get the byes with four wildcards playing in to fill out the qtr finals.
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The Tournament of Roses, which the Rose Bowl is a part of doesn’t depend singularly on media rights to a three hour game.
I assume they know their own revenue sources better than anybody. Their lists of demands is public knowledge. They are not demanding to restore the status quo ante 1998.
Rather, what they are asking is that they’ll get one or the other of the Big Ten or Pac-12 champ every year on a rotating basis, not both. (They have a bunch of other demands not related to who the participants are.)
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Interesting read
‘CAROUSEL OF MADNESS’: How WKU ended up staying in C-USA
https://www.bgdailynews.com/sports/wku/carousel-of-madness-how-wku-ended-up-staying-in-c-usa-and-whats-ahead-for/article_b527e8be-60bf-5233-adcf-17e647f9d68e.html
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About the only way this makes sense to me is that Middle Tennessee wants to get exit fees and then jump with WKU to the MAC. A big gamble that the fundamentals are not going to change over the next five years, but everyone who had a better option in CUSA took it except for MTU.
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ESPN article on how UConn was left behind in realignment. I think that is substantially accurate but leaves out a couple of factors.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32589454/uconn-football-collapse
When discussing UConn and the ACC, the article does not mention that FSU and Clemson demanded Louisville football over UConn. Their were slightly veiled threats that both football schools would try to leave the ACC if another “basketball school” was admitted rather than a team with good football.
The other thing that the article does not discuss is UConn and the B1G. The people at UConn were certain that there would be an interest from the B1G and to bolster their position they argued that Storrs was basically a part of NYC. They put up billboards saying that UConn was the 6th borough of NYC. That was kind of strange since UConn is 160 miles from NYC and not in the NYC TV market.
They also produced a document saying that UConn was New York City’s team. See page 6 of this post. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/282123-responsive-documents.html#document/p1
Reading comments by UConn fans, one that sticks out is that they were “100 miles” getting everything that they wanted. In other words, 100 miles too far from NYC.
+
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The other thing that the article does not discuss is UConn and the B1G.
I can see why the article left that out. The ACC did seriously consider UConn—twice. The Big Ten never did.
I certainly don’t begrudge anyone touting the school’s (relative) proximity to NYC. You make the best arguments you can. UConn fans certainly would not be the only ones that are delusional at times.
Even if you could pick up Storrs and move it 150 miles to the Southwest, Rutgers still would have been the Big Ten’s choice to go with Maryland. UConn has more problems than just geography.
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CBS may not be out of College Football after its SEC deal expires. Probably good news for the Big Ten.
https://theathletic.com/2952225/2021/11/15/im-a-grown-ass-woman-fox-nfl-reporter-pam-oliver-reflects-on-a-remarkable-run/
[CBS Sports Chairman Sean] McManus added that the end of the deal “doesn’t mean we are not in the college football business. I think we will be aggressively in the future.” If that’s the case, the upcoming college football rights deal to watch would be the Big Ten, whose football deals expire with Fox and ESPN in 2024, and the Pac 12, whose deals run through the 2023-24 school year.
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Old school….harkens back to the 1984 to 1986 period where the BigPac was the foil to the CFA schools on ABC. Brent Musburger did play by play.
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Grab a popcorn and watch the fireworks. This will be interesting. Every P5 league currently has at least some of their content on the Disney networks—and I don’t see that changing. Nobody wants to be shut out of ESPN.
The ACC is locked up until the mid-2030s. It’s also the only P5 league that put all of its eggs in Disney’s basket, which I think they now regret, but they are now stuck with it for another decade and a half.
Fox has contracts with the Big Ten, Pac-12, and Big 12. It wouldn’t kill them to lose one of these, but the Big Ten is by far the most valuable, especially after the Big 12 loses Texas and Oklahoma. I think Fox will fight hard to keep the Big Ten.
CBS has other CFB properties, but nothing remotely as important as the SEC, which they are now losing. They could bid on any of the above three, I suspect the Big Ten would be their top priority.
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Fox owns 51% of the Big Ten Network so they won’t have to fight very hard to keep the B1G in the loop.
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I’m not counting the Tier 3 networks. BTN is guaranteed just two football games per team per year (out of 12), and it generally gets the least desirable ones. That is not what the next bidding war is about.
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“I’m not counting the Tier 3 networks. BTN is guaranteed just two football games per team per year (out of 12), and it generally gets the least desirable ones. That is not what the next bidding war is about.”
Marc, that’s a wee bit retarded. Yes, the BTN is guaranteed just two football games per team per year. But for the Rutgers and Indianas and Purdues and Iowas and Michigan States, the BTN broadcasts a lot more than two games per year. The genius of the BTN is that it generates revenue from Big Ten football content that previously had no TV value at all.
The BTN also broadcasts tons of B1G men’s basketball and women’s basketball and hockey and volleyball and baseball and softball that would otherwise never appear. It makes a good deal of money and a good deal of positive exposure.
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@Colin: I have not forgotten what BTN does. The post to which we’re replying is about CBS’s intention to continue bidding on football. It’s not about other sports, nor is it about the small subset of football that is contracted to BTN for years to come.
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Marc – I think the question is does the B1G give FOX a hometown discount, or feel some sense of loyalty to FOX on the Tier 1 and Tier 2 negotiations due to their long term relationship with them on the BTN?
Maybe the B1G splits Tier 1 between CBS (3:30p) & FOX (Noon) and Tier 2 between FS1 and ESPN. What’s to stop CBS and FOX from adding more prime time slots?
ABC has the 3:30p slot promised to the SEC as well as half (7?) of the primetime games. Also, ABC/ESPN still has to slot ACC games as their exclusive provider. Unless the B1G is interested in half of their noon window and three to four prime time games, I don’t see where ABC is much of a player for the B1G on Tier 1.
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@Alan from Baton Rouge – If there are two words that I’ve never seen in connection with the Big Ten, it’s “hometown discount”! They’re like the NFL in that respect.
Now, the platform still matters – they’re not going to agree to relegating games to CBSSN or Paramount+ (or Peacock with respect to Comcast/NBC). However, in terms of OTA network coverage, the B1G is straight up going to the highest bidder(s).
Granted, I firmly believe that the Big Ten will end up with some type of package with ESPN even if it doesn’t contain as many top tier games as it does now (such as being split with CBS and Fox, as you’ve suggested).
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More good news for the Big Ten and PAC 12, Premier League rights tripled in “highly competitive bidding.” The PL will stay on NBC despite a larger joint bid by FOX and WarnerMedia. CBS, ESPN, and Amazon also bid.
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2021/11/premier-league-nbc-extension-rights-deal/
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Loyola Chicago to the A10?
UT Arlington leaven the Sun Belt?
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It’s official. Never saw this one coming.
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As part of the Sunbelt expansion the conference is kicking out the non-football schools. They are UT-Arlington and Little Rock. So UTA is leaving the Sunbelt, but not by choice.
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Mel Tucker will be getting $9.5 million salary from Michigan State.
On another salary front, Jimbo Fisher has made it clear that he will not leave TAMU to go to LSU. Honestly why would Fisher leave? He has a long term contract at $9.5 million. I doubt that LSU could top that in a meaningful way. Beyond that the TAMU job is a pretty good spot to be.
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Bernie – depending on who it is, LSU is prepared to go as high as $12m per year, according to reports and local scuttlebutt.
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$12 million? That is insane. Of course, so is $9.5.
I had no idea that LSU had that much money, unless the new coach brings them titles, but even then.
FSU lost Fisher to TAMU, when he got a 10 year deal for $75 million, which FSU had no way to match. Of course, Fisher has since gotten a raise.
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LSU has SEC money, significantly more than Florida State had to play with. If Jimbo Fisher is the right coach, $12m a year is a drop in the bucket to LSU. I can think of plenty of reasons why one might object to it, but affordability isn’t one of them.
The Tucker contract is far crazier, because he’s a lifetime 16–13 head coach with only four years of experience and just one winning season—this one. That is a scant body of work upon which to justify making him one of the highest paid coaches in the land.
We can all remember the coaches who’ve received huge contracts because of one magical season that they cannot replicate. I am not saying Tucker is one of them, but there is certainly a risk of it. I don’t know if Fisher is worth $12m, but I do know that his coaching reputation does not rest on just one great season.
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I think Fisher needs to do a little more at TAMU to become by far the highest paid coach in college football. Certainly there is no comparison between the resumes of Fisher and Tucker.
As far as FSU money, I can tell you from obvious public information (as well as very reliable inside sources), the FSU people lie awake nights worried about the increasing financial gap with the SEC, particularly with UF. As much as tens of millions of dollars per year between the SEC and the ACC is more than a huge problem for a school hoping to get back to national titles.
I am not sure how Clemson is managing to pay Dabo Sweeney more than $8 million, but a couple of national titles can do that for you.
FSU has some faithful alums with money, but no big sugar daddy, and no way to make up the money gap with the SEC.
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If you are Florida State, you need to control the variables that are controllable. They have six losses this year, but four are to teams with worse funding and talent than the Seminoles. They also lost in OT at home to Notre Dame, and to Clemson in the Tigers’ worst season in years.
The SEC’s money is not the reason they’re 5–6.
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Marc, clearly SEC money is not why FSU has collapsed the last few years. The money is the long term nightmare going forward.
Even if they beat UF next week and sort of salvage the season a little bit by beating Miami and UF, Mike Norvell will NEVER live down the Jacksonville State loss, nor does he deserve too. Any high school coach that did not go into a prevent defense at the end of that game should be fired. Abominable coaching call by Norvell.
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What happens to Quinn Ewers? As some may recall, this year two high schools seniors skipped their last year and went to college for NIL money. Quinn Ewers was rumored to have one million dollars lined up before he ever got to Ohio State. He was the number one ranked player in the class of ’22 by 247sports.
So now Ewers sits behind C.J. Stroud, who has a legit shot at the Heisman as a true frosh.
What does Ewers do? After skipping his senior year in his school, does he go to the transfer portal? Does he sit, maybe two more years? Did he get his NIL money?
Would the number 1 player for the class of ’22 be a rather hot transfer commodity?
The second and only other high school kid to do this was Gavin Wimsatt, QB at Rutgers, who is penciled in as the almost certain starter next year.
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FYI, Ewers saw his first game action yesterday. A 56–7 blowout will do that. I am sure he got his NIL money, because he signed a $1.4m contract and it wasn’t dependent on game action.
Ewers never could have realistically expected to play much this year, and Stroud is draft eligible after next season. If Ewers is a clear #2 next season, I could see him sticking around to start in 2023 with three years of eligibility remaining. But getting to #2 is no gimme: OSU has other QBs, and they aren’t going to hand it to him.
If he is not Stroud’s backup next year, then I think he is gone.
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On the topic of coaching salaries, Florida fired Dan Mullen today. The Gators were terrible this season, but that came on the heels of three very good seasons, including a CCG appearance last year, where they lost to eventual national champion Alabama by just 6 points. And yet, they’ll pay Mullen $12 million to go away.
As Pete Thamel noted earlier this week, there are a lot of vacancies this year, with surely more to come. Some schools that pulled the trigger too fast are going to wind up no better than they were, or maybe worse.
For example, look at Texas last year. They fired Tom Herman after four seasons in which he went 32–18, with four bowl wins, including one NY 6 bowl. To replace him, the best they could find was Steve Sarkesian, who brought more baggage than an ocean liner. He’s 4–7, and the Longhorns will miss a bowl for the first time since 2016.
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James Franklin has new 10 year extension from PSU with a base salary of $7.5 million, but the structure is fascinating. $12 million year one, then $8 million, $ 6 million, $2 million and finally $1 million per year for the end of the deal.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32700553/penn-state-nittany-lions-james-franklin-agree-new-10-year-contract
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That is Franklin’s buyout of the contract. Locked in with high buyout for only 2 years of the 10; than a $2M buyout for the next 2 years and only $1M for the last 6 years of the contract. Gives him the flexibility to move or renegotiate after 2 years if coaching salaries continue to increase.
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“As god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Happy 🦃 day to all.
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Wild turkeys can and do fly. We have a flock of a dozen that are in my yard every week and we often see them fly 40-50 yards or so. Domestic turkeys are bred for weight gain and large breast meat and they cannot fly. FYI, I’m a veterinarian.
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“ FYI, I’m a veterinarian.”
But, apparently, not a connoisseur of WKRP.
🙄
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Well, I, too, have seen wild turkeys fly up into trees to roost.
But I agree that the WKRP turkey drop was one of the funniest skits I have ever seen.
And yes, I vote for Jan Smithers over Loni Anderson.
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I never saw it either, but here is the scene.
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Hilarious. I never saw that episode.
Sounds kind of like Auburn’s offense in the 4th quarter vs. Alabama.
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An unintended consequence of the move to the SEC?
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32737893/lincoln-riley-leaving-oklahoma-become-usc-head-football-coach-sources-say
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Good point. Winning league championships and getting into playoffs will be a lot easier at USC than in the SEC.
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He’s a Bob Stoops protege and back in 2010/11 Stoops made it clear he would resign if Oklahoma went to the SEC.
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Texas to start providing additional financial payments to scholarship athletes in January
https://texassports.com/news/2021/11/24/texas-athletics-texas-student-athletes-set-to-receive-additional-financial-support.aspx
Eligible Longhorn student-athletes are set to receive an academic achievement award of $2,990 beginning with the 2022 spring semester. The student-athletes will be able to earn the academic achievement award during the fall and spring semesters going forward, for a total of $5,980 each academic year. The additional academic benefits will be awarded after review and confirmation of academic progress and program engagement.
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Other sources are reporting the payments will be available to all scholarship athletes with eligibility criteria to be announced soon.
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My niece is an athlete at Ole Miss. They are also receiving $3k per semester this academic year.
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And Brian Kelly is leaving Notre Dame for LSU. That’s probably even more surprising than Riley going to USC.
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It surprised me!
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Oklahoma and Notre Dame used to be coaching jobs that nobody left voluntarily.
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Apparently, the motivation for Kelly is $15 million per year.
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$9.9M/year… for ten (10) years.
Who had Mich St as the standard setter for extreme compensation?
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Damn! 9.5
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I know many people think coaching salaries are insane, but at least you could argue that Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley are legitimately at the top of the profession, and have proven it repeatedly.l
The Michigan State deal is insane. Before this season, Mel Tucker was 7–12 lifetime as a collegiate head coach. This year’s 10–2 record is a real achievement, but nobody knows if that’s a new normal, or a magical season when the breaks went his way. There is a real risk of reversion to the mean.
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Mel Tucker is 2-0 against the only team on the schedule that truly matters to Spartan fans.
And, considering that Michigan might take a step back in 2022 due to losing a lot of dudes to the NFL and the transfer portal, he might go 3-0 against the Wolverines.
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Incentives can push the deal up to $15 million a year.
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Early unfounded rumors for Head coach at ND and OU.
I’m hearing Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern) to ND and Matt Campbell (Iowa State) to Oklahoma. Heard the Fitz rumor from a NW grad, not an ND fan. He said there had been contact although didn’t know who initiated it. Also,
Got the Campbell rumor from an OK State grad and that seems to be pure Big XII grapevine rumor.
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The committee studying playoff expansion is meeting again today in Dallas. The participants are the ten FBS conference commissioners plus Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick. If they can agree unanimously on a format, the expanded playoff could begin in 2024–25, two years before the current bowl contracts expire. Otherwise, the earliest chance would be in 2026–27.
According to an ESPN article published this morning, everyone agrees expansion to 12 will happen. The only question is if they can agree on the details.
Auto-bids appear to be the biggest sticking point. The original proposal would have guaranteed bids for the top six FBS conference champs, with no special treatment for the Autonomy Five. Some of the A5 are insisting that their champs should get in automatically, which would leave the mid-majors with only one sure bid every year.
Most years, it doesn’t make a difference: if you rank the 10 FBS conference champs, usually all of the A5 are within the top six. Last year was an exception, when the Oregon Ducks won the Pac-12 with a 4–2 record. Perhaps it would happen once a decade, more or less, that an A5 champ would need the auto-bid to get in.
Mike Aresco of The American is the most outspoken opponent of A5 auto-bids (though I am sure none of his peers love it either). At the end of the day, would he really veto playoff expansion over this issue?
The article also says that multiple media partners would be allowed to bid on the new round of games. I read elsewhere that there is consensus to conduct the first round at campus sites in December, two weeks after the conference championship games.
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So how long will it take these guys to realize that if they provide automatic bids to both the top 6 conference champions and the 5 P5 champions they will probably lose about 1 at large bid in a decade due to almost complete overlap between the two criteria?
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I have also wondered about that. It seems like a trivial hill to die on.
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No decision. Issues remain. Haven’t yet scheduled another meeting..
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Brett McMurphy reporting that autobids are the biggest sticking point. Some of the A5 leagues want their champs in automatically, even if they are unranked. The subcommittee proposal had guaranteed bids for the top six FBS champs, with the potential that an A5 champ might get left out in some years.
Of course, the mid-major leagues want the subcommittee proposal, since it opens up at least the potential that some years they could get two teams in. Last season, the Pac-12 champ was not one of the top six FBS conference champions (Oregon at 4–2) . I wonder how often that happens in a non-COVID year? I would think it is uncommon.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Bowlsby sounding more bearish about expanding the playoff for 2024 season.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32787053/big-12-commissioner-bob-bowlsby-says-college-football-playoff-expansion-2024-some-jeopardy
Also
Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff said Friday night before his league’s title game in Las Vegas that the group was starting to look beyond the current agreement and at the possibility the next iteration of the playoff would not need approval from the so-called Group of 5 conferences.
“I don’t think we need 11 people to say yes to get to a solution that would be good for college football. If we find that solution, then we can focus on whether or not we can also get to that solution for ’24 and ’25,” Kliavkoff said.
“I think you start by saying, ‘What is the group that needs to agree on a model?’ We can then hopefully invite the rest to join us in. So it’s just a different paradigm about how you think about who gets to make a decision about what the model looks like.”
Sounds like the big boys may be losing patients with the have nots.
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*patience
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Bowlsby also said, “I think it’s also a possibility that we wouldn’t be able to do it for year 12 [2025] and we’ll be talking about what do we do in year 13 and beyond because you know, for all intents and purposes, the CFP goes away [after 2025]. There is no operating agreement beyond 2025-26 and there are no contracts that bind us beyond ’25-26,” he said.
Sounds like he is threatening the G5 with the possibility that they will have no say at all (and no extra money for several years). If takes waiting a couple of years, so be it.
Fear of Congressional action is apparently a significant factor in the background.
“We found out the extent to which we anoint ourselves in the privileges, including automatic access, is usually the extent to which we get called before Congress or we get challenged legally,” Bowlsby said. “There are good reasons why we proposed six highest-ranked conference champions and those reasons haven’t changed.
This comment by Bowlsby is also indicative of why I think that a super league of 24 or 32 teams would not ever be politically feasible. If 65 P5 teams are concerned about Congress (or courts), elimination of half or more of those teams would be far more of a mess.
Bowlsby may also be stating that the P5 might dictate terms of the next contract, and the G5 will get 1 of 6 guaranteed invitations to the 12 team playoffs, whether the G5 likes it or not.
I would imagine that the Big Paclantic would fully agree with guaranteed slots for all P5 leagues, which means that the Big 12 certainly survives quite nicely.
“Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren was the first commissioner to come out publicly in support for guaranteeing access for all Power 5 conference champions and just the highest-ranked champion from the five other conferences.
“So I’m a big believer in the automatic qualifier for the Big Ten conference and the other Power 5 conferences,” Warren told SiriusXM this week. “
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A super league of 24 to 32 elite teams would be unacceptable to the average college fan, because it destroys all the traditions and loyalties. It would also be unacceptable to the existing conferences, who would move heaven and earth (successfully) to sabotage it in every way, including black listing the teams from the bowl system and from all other collegiate competitions.
By the way, the players in such a league would be full employees and subject to all the workers’ compensation, minimum wage, … regulations of both the states and federal government.
You cannot erect a professional minor league on the college scaffold.
One sometimes thinks that the fanboys who repeatedly push the super league have never attended college or a college game and have spent their whole lives in their pajamas in mommy’s basement.
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A super league of 24 to 32 elite teams would be unacceptable to the average college fan, because it destroys all the traditions and loyalties.
You left out the biggest reason it is unacceptable. The Alabama fans want their team to go 12–0 every year. As good as Nick Saban is, that’s not possible on a schedule full of elite programs. Someone has to have a losing record in that league, and it will be someone not accustomed to losing.
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Sounds like he is threatening the G5 with the possibility that they will have no say at all (and no extra money for several years). If takes waiting a couple of years, so be it.
I agree, and I am very perplexed. Currently, any one of the G5 leagues can veto playoff expansion, but they lose all of that leverage once the contracts expire. If they cannot stop Power Five autobids now, they will have even less ability to do that later.
Putting a dead stop to early playoff expansion simply deprives them of the two extra years of revenue…and to what end?
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“I agree, and I am very perplexed. Currently, any one of the G5 leagues can veto playoff expansion, but they lose all of that leverage once the contracts expire. If they cannot stop Power Five autobids now, they will have even less ability to do that later.”
The threat of antitrust legislation gives the G5 some leverage against the P5 imposing a system that gives their conferences preferential treatment.
The P5 conferences would have a better case if they tried to impose a system that simply took the 12 highest ranked schools. Or a system that took the 6 highest ranked conference champions! 🙂
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Quinn Ewers has entered the transfer portal out of OSU. So he pocketed a reported $1.4 million, NIL, got some training and is moving on. I would expect him to get at least another million somewhere else.
Not bad for a kid who played 3 years of high school ball and no college.
https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/Quinn-Ewers-transfer-from-Ohio-State-produces-strong-reactions-177192467/#1789787_9
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After the year Stroud had, he was never going to start.
Jack Miller is leaving, too.
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What many aren’t aware of is that in Evers’ $1.4 million agreement with GT Sports Marketing (New Jersey) has a stipulation that he has to start 8 games by the end of the 2022 season. He has received NOTHING yet and the only thing he got from OSU or any Columbus business is a leased car – which now goes back to the dealer. That, obviously, wasn’t going to happen at OSU. He was 3rd – behind Stroud and Kyle McCord – going into the 2022 Spring ball at OSU.
He was having a hard time – especially after Ryan Day said he was nowhere near ready for college football. It sure sounded like OSU knew he was transferring especially after they just received a 2022 high 4-star QB a couple of days ago that was committed to USC. He basically had to transfer. The kid should have stayed in HS instead of reclassifying. He just thought he was another hot shot QB who was going to come in and set the world on fire from the start.
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Multiple transfers in college are making the making the pro sports and free agency look staid and stable……🙄.
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Thanks. I didn’t know that his NIL money is void unless he starts 8 games in 2022. That makes the urgency to transfer much more understandable. Stroud could enter the draft after next year, so I don’t agree with the earlier suggestion that Evers “was never going to start.” But if so much money is dependent on starting next year, then he has to go.
If Ryan Day is right that he is “nowhere near ready for college football,” then I think he might struggle to get 8 starts no matter where he goes, unless it’s a program that is willing to invest in on-the-job training at the cost of winning now. None of the programs he is considering is likely to be that generous.
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Marc
“A super league of 24 to 32 elite teams would be unacceptable to the average college fan, because it destroys all the traditions and loyalties.
“You left out the biggest reason it is unacceptable. The Alabama fans want their team to go 12–0 every year. As good as Nick Saban is, that’s not possible on a schedule full of elite programs. Someone has to have a losing record in that league, and it will be someone not accustomed to losing.”
Gotta wonder what will happen in the SEC West. Will Bama and Auburn move to the SEC East? If they don’t, we’re looking at a SECW division that contains Oklahoma, Texas, A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Miss St, Bama and Auburn. Those 12-0 Bama seasons will come to an end.
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The SEC hasn’t decided if it will have static divisions or pods. If the former, it is pretty unlikely that those teams would all be together in the West.
But yeah, the addition of Oklahoma and Texas means there will be fewer 12–0 seasons going forward. Even Saban has acknowledged this.
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Wouldn’t they all want UT in their division/pod?
Sorry, just a bit of shade…
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“Gotta wonder what will happen in the SEC West. Will Bama and Auburn move to the SEC East?”
Everyone agrees that if they keep divisions, Bama and Auburn will move East, Missouri will move West, and there will be no permanent cross-divisional rivalries.
Currently, the last SEC East team to beat Bama (not counting Auburn) was South Carolina in 2010! Of course, Georgia may get another chance this year…
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“Everyone agrees that if they keep divisions, Bama and Auburn will move East, Missouri will move West, and there will be no permanent cross-divisional rivalries.”
They can preserve a lot of ancient rivalries with pods:
West – TX, A&M, OK and Ark
Central – Bama, Auburn, Ole Miss and Miss St
North – Mizzou, Vandy, TN and KY
East – FL, UGA, USC and LSU
Only problem is that you’ve gotta wopperjaw LSU into the East
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Colin – the pod configuration that I’ve seen get the most run as suggested by the SEC Network the day after OU-UT news broke is as follows:
A – LSU, A&M, Ole Miss & Miss State
B – Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas & Mizzou
C – Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee & Vandy
D – Florida, Georgia, South Carolina & Kentucky
If there are no permanent cross-pod rivalries established, in a nine game schedule a school would get the other twelve schools every other year.
Personally, I’d rather see the SEC eliminate divisions and adopt five permanent opponents with a nine game schedule and have the top two play in the SEC CCG. Then a team can play the other ten non-permanent opponents two game (home & away) every five years.
Example: LSU
Odd year permanent: A&M – H, Alabama – A, Ole Miss – H, Miss St. – A, Arkansas – H
Even year permanent : A&M – A, Alabama – H, Ole Miss – A, Miss St. – H, Arkansas – A
Year 1: Florida (H), Vandy (A), Georgia (H), S. Car (A)
Year 2: Georgia (A), S. Car (H), Texas (A), Mizzou (H)
Year 3: Texas (H), Mizzou (A), Tennessee (H), Kentucky (A)
Year 4: Tennessee (H), Kentucky (A), Oklahoma (H), Auburn (A)
Year 5: Oklahoma (A), Auburn (H), Florida (A), Vandy (H)
This plan brings back two traditional SEC scheduling concepts such as no divisions and five permanent opponents (pre-1992 expansion) and rolling home and homes (pre-A&M/Mizzou expansion), while maximizing all schools playing all the other schools. Playing five permanent opponents – without the arbitrariness of pods – allows each school to essentially play all of its rivals. Sure, I would miss Auburn & Florida every year, but LSU would get them two out of every five years or 40% of the time.
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That splits Texas and A&M and also splits TN and KY. In addition the Mississippi schools and Alabama schools have long-standing rivalries.
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Colin – that’s why I suggested an alternative to pods. No pod configuration will preserve all essential rivalries.
But if pods are adopted, there has been discussion that A&M doesn’t want to be in a pod with Texas. The pod suggestion I posted above is the most likely scenario if pods are adopted. It was floated by the SECN the day after the news broke. I’m sure the SECN didn’t just make it up. It was most likely a trial balloon floated by the SEC office. Kentucky/Tennessee is a problem, as well as Goergia/Auburn (which you don’t address either), but the pods you suggested are a disaster for LSU all the way around leaving my Tigers with NONE of its historic rivals, and North is way too easy using either current or historic levels of play as a standard.
Using Stewart Mandel’s most recent (2017) CFB pecking order, the 16 team SEC will be composed of the following:
5 KINGS: Alabama, Florida, LSU, Oklahoma & Texas
4 BARONS: Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee (former King) & Texas A&M
4 KNIGHTS: Arkansas, Mizzou, Ole Miss & South Carolina
3 PEASANTS: Kentucky, Miss State & Vandy
Your pods consist of:
West: 2 Kings, 1 Baron & 1 Knight
Central: 1 King, 1 Baron, 1 Knight & 1 Peasant
North: 1 Baron, 1 Knight & 2 Peasants
East: 2 Kings, 1 Baron & 1 Knight
The SECN’s suggested pods consist of:
A. 1 King, 1 Baron, 1 Knight & 1 Peasant
B. 2 Kings & 2 Knights
C. 1 King, 2 Barons & 1 Peasant
D. 1 King, 1 Baron, 1 Knight & 1 Peasant
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Instead of pods, it would be better if each team were paired with three traditional rivals as annual opponents and the rest of the schedule was just round robin. Examples:
Texas would be paired with A&M, OU and Ark.
LSU paired with A&M, Ole Miss and MS St.
Georgia paired with FL, Auburn and USC.
Kinda like 16 pods with everybody happy.
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As Alan mentions with the rivalries not in that SECN pod alignment, its a total non-starter. Its like something created by someone with no knowledge of the SEC, like some ESPN exec or a Mizzou or A&M fan.
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Out of control…
Miami hires Cristobal, who now meets with his potential future boss (and presumably gets to approve)?
A horse pushing cart strategy.
Isn’t this evidence of fundamental loss of institutional control?
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Out of control, part 2. Each offensive lineman at U Texas will be receiving $50,000 per year for NIL, up to 16 lineman. The linemen will have to do some sort of charitable work. How much does that change the college football scene?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/no-nil-money-no-recruits-reaction-to-texas-longhorns-group-offering-50k-to-linemen/ar-AARxqYH
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It means college football is dead (except maybe II and III), and replaced by minor league professional football.
Some creative judge will find a way to put these payments under Title IX and spread the NIL money across all varsity sports.
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https://swimswam.com/university-of-texas-supporters-launch-eight-figure-nil-program/
Texas has a separate fund that is generating money for all varsity athletes.
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It means college football is dead (except maybe II and III), and replaced by minor league professional football.
College football already was the NFL’s minor league. This just strips away the fiction that the players are amateurs. Almost everyone already knew they weren’t, so it hardly matters. This is the first season with NIL in place, and I haven’t noticed the difference because there isn’t any.
Granted, some of the details have changed, but you should read the recent Supreme Court decision on amateurism. The amounts “paid” to the players have been going up steadily. Perhaps it was not as publicized, so you were not aware of it. This just rips the band-aid off.
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Granted, it is only the mythology that is dead. The reality is now clear to everyone. But the mythology actually matters. The NCAA is not being hypocritical about amateurism.
The great majority of Div I athletic programs lose money, even many big time football programs lose money. Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Texas… make money hand-over-fist. But many schools like Illinois and Purdue subsidize athletics and athletes for propaganda purposes. If the costs of competition become too great, and NIL is going to do that, then some big time schools will quit football. A while back, some Notre Dame coach opined that ND would shut down its football program if the students became paid employees. We’re getting close to that now.
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f the costs of competition become too great, and NIL is going to do that, then some big time schools will quit football.
IMO – There is some number where the costs will make it no longer possible for schools to sponsor football. If current costs tripled, I still don’t think we are anywhere close to that number. I saw something today (no link) where schools with good football teams have higher student body graduation rates. Its well documented that good football teams equal larger freshman classes. Football might as well be a four hour commercial for your university to an engaged audience. I could go on, but there is no way big time programs are going to give all that up unless the costs far outweigh the benefits.
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The surprise to me is not just the $$s, but that it is spreading to all sports. I thought it would be football, basketball and maybe women’s basketball.
The TV contracts over the last 10 years dramatically increased the gap between the haves and have-nots, but this is going to create a gulf.
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bob:
“…schools like Illinois and Purdue subsidize athletics and athletes for propaganda purposes.”
I’d suggest substitution of advertising for propaganda.
Mike, I think of “good “ as in competitive, with the occasional great year (which would be contingent on each schools history) off setting bad years as the goal of most schools (non king/prince). Why else would NAIA, D3, and even D2 participate in such an expensive sport? Perhaps many schools still actually believe athletics are an important and beneficial part of students educational experience, whether participant or simply a student.
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Mike, I think of “good “ as in competitive, with the occasional great year (which would be contingent on each schools history) off setting bad years as the goal of most schools (non king/prince). Why else would NAIA, D3, and even D2 participate in such an expensive sport? Perhaps many schools still actually believe athletics are an important and beneficial part of students educational experience, whether participant or simply a student.
I may have a jaded view, but I think the only reason schools sponsor sports is because its effective in fostering a sense of community in the students and alumni ensuring they’ll stay in school or donate.
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Mike:
“… schools sponsor sports is because its effective in fostering a sense of community in the students and alumni ensuring they’ll stay in school or donate.…”
And this is objectionable?
Even if it’s the only reason, a by product is a more enjoyable educational experience that may result in future alumni allegiances and probable positive recommendations to potential future enrollees.
I’d say it’s a responsibility, not a propaganda effort.
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A while back, some Notre Dame coach opined that ND would shut down its football program if the students became paid employees. We’re getting close to that now.
The beauty of NIL is that the schools are not compensating the players; outside parties are.
You need to be more skeptical when anyone in charge says “X will destroy the sport.” They have said that many times and have often been wrong.
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And this is objectionable?
Even if it’s the only reason, a by product is a more enjoyable educational experience that may result in future alumni allegiances and probable positive recommendations to potential future enrollees.
I don’t find it objectionable at all. I find the benefits of sports far out weigh the costs and I don’t see a path to where any major school will drop them. If school starts to struggle on the academic side (enrollment, etc.), I think they’ll double down on sports.
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I think the true red line for college football is if we ever get to the point where players aren’t even required to be students, so that some teams are comprised of paid players who never attend the respective universities. It sounds crazy, but I’ve seen some sports writers and Twitter scholars speculate that’s the natural evolution. At that point, the sport takes a big dip in popularity.
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I think the true red line for college football is if we ever get to the point where players aren’t even required to be students, so that some teams are comprised of paid players who never attend the respective universities.
In that case, it would be “back to the future.” College football teams often did that in the pre-NCAA era.
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It occurred in the past. I wouldn’t say often, and it produced considerable pushback. See: boatload of rules promulgated to ban the practice. The precursor to today’s Pac even dissolved over pay to play at several schools. But you are right, it does seem like a bit of de ja vu.
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They were supposed to attend. That doesn’t mean they did.
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They were supposed to attend. That doesn’t mean they did in all cases.
If there is no connection to the university other than the label, there’s no point in the exercise.
The original purpose was true students getting exercise and competing against fellow universities. And sometimes they would compete against club teams. Think Texas played the Dallas YMCA in some early years. Now its to foster community and promote the university at the Division I level and to a lesser extent in Division II and III and NAIA.
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SI’s Russ Dellinger has a great article summarizing the current dispute around playoff expansion (link).
There are appear to be four models under discussion:
1) 12 teams, 6+6. The subcommittee proposal, where the six best conference champs and the six best at-large teams qualify.
2) 12 teams, 5+1. A modification where the P5 champs auto-qualify.
3) 8 teams, 6+2. P5 auto-qualifiers, best G5 team, and two at-larges.
4) 8 teams, best 8. No auto-qualifiers. Best eight teams, full stop.
The gang of five all prefer the subcommittee proposal, as it is the only option where they might occasionally get two of their members into the field. However, the G5 also surely know that they lose their leverage entirely after the current playoff contracts expire.
The SEC, the Big 12, and Notre Dame also prefer the subcommittee proposal, which is unsurprising given that Greg Sankey, Bob Bowlsby, and Jack Swarbrick, came up with the idea to begin with. Losing Texas and Oklahoma has not changed Bowlsby’s mind. Both Sankey and Bowlsby feel that any system with P5 auto-bids could face anti-trust scrutiny.
In contrast, the Big Ten and the ACC say they’ll only join an expansion that has P5 auto-bids. The ACC prefers an 8-team model. Kevin Warren of the Big Ten has also said that it might be more prudent to expand to 8 first, and see how that goes before pushing to 12.
The ACC says that it might be better to see how the upcoming NCAA reorganization plays out, while Sankey says that that’s irrelevant.
The SEC and Notre Dame won’t agree to the 8-team model with auto-bids, because they feel there would be not enough spots for at-large teams. I suspect the two of them would accept the 12-team model with auto-bids, though it is not their first choice.
The Pac-12 seems to be on the fence. Their commissioner suggested that a subset of them should just decide a model, and ask the others if they want to join. He implied that the subset would be the Power Five plus Notre Dame. That is ultimately how it will go if they fail to agree and let the contracts expire.
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“The Pac-12 seems to be on the fence. Their commissioner suggested that a subset of them should just decide a model, and ask the others if they want to join.”
Doesn’t seem like a fence sitter to me. Sounds more like one saying a unanimous decision isn’t necessary for a subset, and that opportunity will arrive at the end of the contract. A not very subtle warning that the subset can wait, and though unspoken, an expectation that the subset will be rewarded ($$$) for their patience is implied.
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As I interpreted it, he is saying two things:
1. The Pac-12 itself is on the fence about which model would be best.
2. Warning the G5 that if they stand in the way of progress, they won’t even be in the room next time. (I think one or two other P5 commissioners have said the same.)
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I’m sure kicking the G5 out will be well received by Congress and the US Justice Department.
No anti-trust exemption for College Football.
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Think of it a different way. The current playoff format offers the G5 no guaranteed access at all—and neither Congress nor the DOC has tried to stop it.
The subcommittee proposal would have eliminated the P5/G5 distinction entirely, but a few commissioners want to preserve it. However, even that proposal would give the G5 a guaranteed seat at the table every year, which is better access than they’ve got now.
I realize the G5 like the subcommittee proposal best, but I doubt the DOJ would interfere with a proposal that gives them better access than they’ve had, even if it’s not all they want.
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Marc,
“ (I think one or two other P5 commissioners have said the same.)”
I’m pretty sure the SEC, and maybe ND, are the only P5 that haven’t said something similar although not as straight forward.
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Alan,
They aren’t kicking anyone out. Some schools may not like/join in a completely new contractual agreement.
At the expiration of the agreement all parties no longer have the prior obligations. They could all chose to become free agents and work independently, or form a coalition with like minded schools. Thr G5 will be free to create their own post season arrangement. Or do you expect Congress to require equal value contracts of ESPN, Fox, CBS etc? Is Congress going to force B10 or ACC or Pac to admit Liberty or Baylor or university of Northern South Dakota at Hoopel? Same with a combination of conferences and the agreements they enter into.
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George Kliavkoff, the always-talkative Pac-12 commissioner, says his league would go down to 8 conference games “tomorrow” if the Big Ten and ACC would do the same. The other two leagues aren’t ready for that yet. Of course, it is obvious why the Pac-12 would be the most eager to do this, since it has the most to gain.
I can’t link two articles in the same post, but Kliavkoff also said that college football teams should stop scheduling non-conference games 12 years in advance. He would like to determine the alliance based on the results of the previous season. The annual B10–ACC Challenge in basketball works that way.
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I misspoke, since the ACC is already at 8 games. The article said that both the Big Ten and ACC aren’t ready to change their scheduling formats. The ACC’s issues are probably related to the schools that have locked-in rivalry games with SEC same-state counterparts plus their annual Notre Dame commitment.
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If the G5 schools were left without a choice in what happens, Congress would not get involved. I also find it really hard to believe that the Federal Antitrade Commission or DJ get involved.
It is an issue of math. Most of the G5 schools are located in states that also have P5 schools, and in probably all of those states (or nearly all), the P5 schools are much larger and politically powerful. I am not sure that Boise State (Idaho), Nevada, and a handful of others could create an outcry in Congress.
(I did not notice any objections from FL members of Congress when UCF did not make the playoffs. Somehow I think that UF, FSU and Miami would not have supported Congressional complaints re mistreatment of UCF. I also doubt that Ohio reps would have been up in arms if Cincinnati got left out this year. Of course, UCF and Cincy are about to be in the club anyway.)
Beyond that, I do not think that there is any plan on the table to dump the G5, only to not give them exactly what they want. Any increase to 8 or 12 would give the G5 more chances for a playoff.
This is not all what it would be like to form a super league, where 15 or more states with current P5 teams are suddenly on the outside looking in.
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Some time ago, the Ohio legislature made noises about requiring Ohio State University to schedule other Ohio state schools in football and basketball. In order to avoid actual legislation, tOSU conceded the point and now regularly plays other state schools, which are mostly MAC.
So not only might Congress or state legislatures get involved, some already have. Systematically excluding G5 from the playoffs will bring the hammer down.
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UCF will gladly advise you that G5 schools have been systematically locked out of the 4 team playoffs, and I am unfamiliar with any attempted by Congress to get involved.
State legislatures would have no jurisdiction over out of state schools. If the Ohio legislature had wanted a national impact, they would have forced Ohio State and Cincy to play every year.
None of the proposals being discussed make the G5 worse off than they are today.
If a showdown came along between Ohio State (and now Cincy) and the MAC schools, which way would the Ohio delegation in DC vote? Somehow I think that if push came to shove, no one would want to hurt OSU.
Now Cincy is about to be a P5. If there were ever a later attempt to drop half the P5 and relegate Cincy back to G5, there would trouble in Ohio, no doubt.
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Bernie, you seem to assume that Cincy would like to play Ohio State every year. Frankly, I doubt that.
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No doubt. We’re in the Big 12 now, we don’t need to play Ohio State. Not only is the conference schedule great but just by being in a P5 conference it will be easier to find quality opponent especially if TV steps in like they did for UC in the Big East. Just by being in the Big East they set up made-fot-tv opponents for UC like Tennessee, Virginia Tech and Oregon State.
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I agree with Jersey Bernie. What does ACC states care about what California requires of its schools other than how it might effect scheduling with some representatives alma mater? That example is Ohio exercising control over institutions they, well, control.
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One thing the P5 have to think about is the decreasing share of the student population at the flagship schools. More students are going to community colleges, commuter schools and regionals colleges while the flagships generally are trying to maintain their current enrollment and not get too big. The P5 political clout is gradually decreasing.
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I believe the opposite is happening. Purdue’s 2021 freshman class was the largest in the Big Ten, even bigger than behemoths Minnesota, Ohio State and Penn State. I believe the schools with dropping attendance will be the mid-majors, e.g. Ball State, Indiana State, Toledo, Southern illinois.
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q2/purdue-to-welcome-largest-ever-incoming-class-this-fall.html
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I agree with Colin. I have a niece who just started college, and a niece who starts next year. The state flagships are harder to get into every year.
Niece #1, for example, was admitted to the University of Florida, but told she had to live off campus and take most of her classes online the first year.
Niece #2 is a California resident, has excellent grades, and her Dad (my brother) is a UCLA graduate. Nevertheless, she was advised that she’d be a longshot to get in. My brothers says that UCLA doesn’t even take all of the 4.0 students who apply.
That’s just a couple of data points, but I’m not aware of any to the contrary.
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The SBJ’s annual media predictions are out. Predicts a FOX/CBS split of the Big Ten.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2021/12/13/Insiders/Sports-media.aspx
Big Ten signs deals with CBS and Fox.
Fox, which owns 51% of Big Ten Network, will step up to take a bigger package with that conference than it has had previously. CBS wants high-quality college football games for its Saturday afternoon window. Fox and CBS will have the first pick of games every other week starting in 2023, but Fox will carry the Michigan- Ohio State game every year. NBC and WarnerMedia will make big runs at the Big Ten, too.
SEC leaves CBS a year early.
After CBS signs its Big Ten deal, it will negotiate a deal that allows the SEC to move to ESPN a year early. CBS’s SEC deal runs through the 2023 season.
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The Big Ten ratings this year were very good. An ESPN/CBS/FOX/NBC/Warner bidding war is only going to mean good things for the Big Ten.
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Just to throw some other (crazy) predictions of mine out there. These are probably too aggressive to be done within a year but there fun to think about.
1. FOX sells its part of the Big Ten Network to Amazon.
Amazon is looking to get into the NFL* and might decide moving BTN content to Prime would drive subscriptions. Cord cutting might make FOX decide to divest.
* See https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2021/12/amazon-peyton-eli-manning-studio-shows/
Amazon next season takes over exclusive rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football Package. It is also reportedly a contender to acquire up to a 49 percent stake in NFL Media and in the mix to acquire the NFL Sunday Ticket package.
2. FOX merges with or is acquired by another (i.e. WarnerMedia, Amazon, Netflix) company.
FOX Corporation hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since its “birth” in 2019. Streaming subsidiary Tubi hasn’t really gained traction either. A deal will be made while the linear network and Fox News are still valuable.
Don’t like mine? Post yours.
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“Don’t like mine? Post yours.”
Within two years the B1G will expand again to extend TV footprint. Colorado from the Pac-12 (which actually brings in much of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico and N & S Dakota) and Mizzou from the SEC, for which one of the biggest reasons to leave the Big XII was to get away from Texas.
NIL and the transfer portal will transform many top players into vagabonds who will essentially auction themselves off to the highest bidder. This is gonna get ugly.
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Colin, I totally agree with you about the NIL and transfer portals. Transfers will no longer be primarily due to coaching changes, or lack of playing time, but clearly star players may go up for a quiet auction.
“Unanticipated consequences” no doubt.
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NIL and the transfer portal will transform many top players into vagabonds who will essentially auction themselves off to the highest bidder. This is gonna get ugly.
I think what you will see is the top FCS/G5 players transferring into P5 programs to audition for the NFL. Players that don’t play will be looking for programs where they can. It will probably result in an even greater concentration of talent in the P5 and widen the gulf between the P5/G5. Players are only allowed one transfer (until they graduate) so I would expect P5 teams more and more taking transfers (guys with DI film) instead of the riskier high school prospects (obviously teams will still take the 4/5* players who are ready). Might as well have Johnny ThreeStar prove himself at Akron instead of having them take up a roster spot until he is ready.
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I still have the same position as I’ve had for years: players should be able to extract every dollar possible from college sports in the same way as coaches and their respective universities. I have ZERO problem with it. If that means certain programs can accrue more talent because they’re able to pay more… so be it. That’s called the free market as it is in every single aspect of our society. Coaches are the ultimate vagabonds always looking out for themselves, so I have little sympathy with any consternation of players exercising the exact same rights.
To be clear, I have zero problem with colleges and coaches maximizing their sports revenue. That’s the basis of much of this blog for over 10 years. It would be completely disingenuous to then turn around and state that the actual talent on-the-field/court should be restricted.
I’ve been very consistent over the years on this issue: let the money flow to everyone. The notion that any of this was amateur athletics has been a complete lie for decades (if not the last century). Look back at that Texas Monthly article that I posted a few months ago from the 1970s(!) about schools making moves for TV money, salary wars for coaches, and Texas threatening to create a superconference. The number of zeroes in the dollar figures has increased, but this was always a cold and calculated de facto professional sports business. People need to stop pretending that real amateurism actually ever existed during their lifetimes.
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Interesting thoughts on Fox selling BTN to a streaming business. I would wonder how that impacts the Fox Broadcast relationship. Seems there is plenty of synergy between the two platforms. Not saying that couldn’t exist after an ownership change.
A change like this would really eliminate the potential subscriber in footprint model to get on a tier 1 or basic tier for the cable companies.
Fox does have a sizable cash position and their affiliate fees are rising at a good clip. I really expected them to make some sizable acquisitions since their divestures of various properties and business units.
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One item of note is that FOX Corp now owns 61% of the BTN and increased that ownership % in 2021. Subscribers are now at 51million in 2021 vs. 57 million in 2021. FOX says COVID impacted Nielsen’s ability to measure sub estimates so who knows how accurate that number is currently.
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“One item of note is that FOX Corp now owns 61% of the BTN and increased that ownership % in 2021.”
Got a link for that? All I can find is that Fox still has 51%.
“Subscribers are now at 51million in 2021 vs. 57 million in 2021.”
Please clarify.
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Colin. – It’s in Fox Corp’s latest 10k filing. https://investor.foxcorporation.com/static-files/ba360598-1419-4230-9e3b-f03db5004029
See page 5 and 6.
I wonder if the additional BTN ownership interest was given in exchange for decent payouts during the COVID year. Or maybe their is a trigger if subs drop to a certain amount.
Kevin
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I wonder how the Big Ten sold 10% of the BTN and no one noticed. That seems like something that would have been news.
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I am surprised no one noticed as well. I guess we are making news:>) Maybe someone will report on it. I can see why the conference wouldn’t want to disclose. I wonder how future rights fees for BTN inventory would be negotiated if at expiration there is no conference ownership. I can see both parties at risk. FOX may say it’s not financially viable given the chord cutting. B1G could be at risk of having no equivalent avenue to broadcast their 3rd tier rights. I doubt that happens but there is a long-time before the contract expires.
So far these media organizations have increased affiliate or sub fees to offset the decline in subs. At some point the Rubicon will be crossed and the cost of these expensive sports properties will be borne by their direct audience vs. a wider media audience. At that point I think we will begin to see a slower growth in media rights fees unless there is a new delivery strategy that can restore the bundle to wider population. You are starting to see more content be packaged with phone deals.
If I was a betting man I would wager on the long-term value of sports properties which will be led by NFL rights.
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@Kevin – Great catch on that increase in ownership of BTN by FOX? I hadn’t seen that anywhere else.
It’s a good theory that it’s tied to make-goods on the reduction in football rights fees last year.
I stated in the summer that a major risk factor for FOX (and by extension BTN) is that their streaming capabilities are way behind everyone else. Granted, I think Rupert Murdoch realized that a few years ago and saw where this was going, so that drove the sale of the majority of FOX assets to Disney.
Even in a direct consumer OTT model, there needs to be scale of content in order to balance a reasonable price point and drawing enough subscribers to be profitable. It’s not sustainable that BTN+ costs several times as much as ESPN+ with a fraction of the content and production quality. FOX is going to either need to figure that out or merge with another player (such as Warner or Paramount/Viacom) in short order.
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@Frank. Maybe a Paramount + strategy is what will drive rights fees for the B1G. All of the speculation from SBJ regarding CBS acquiring a big portion of the B1G rights seems questionable to me. While they present probably the best exposure for the conference (CBS is the most watched broadcast network) they are notorious for not overpaying for media rights. Perhaps that is where a Paramount + strategy comes in.
Beyond the increased Fox ownership % I am more concerned about the BTN subscriber numbers. Granted the Nielsen measurement was taken during the Covid year so maybe its a bit of an overreaction on my part. Generally BTN has stayed about even at around 60 Million subs since nearly its inception. But if 51 million is actual and that continues to erode at a fast pace then decisions need to be made on future distribution for the conference network. I don’t see conference networks disappearing but their distribution model would have to change.
After all is said and done about those that wanted “ala carte” options it’s really the bundle or the mini-bundle that will survive long-term.
As an example I am currently paying for separate subscriptions to the following:
Spectrum
Apple TV +
Prime
Netflix
ESPN +
Paramount + (via 247 subscription)
I feel like I am missing something but that is probably too many individual subscriptions for the average consumer. I think the majority of us would prefer that to be 2 or 3 at most.
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@Frank –
@Kevin – Great catch on that increase in ownership of BTN by FOX? I hadn’t seen that anywhere else.
That’s tweet worthy. I miss the days of blogs breaking news.
@Kevin
I feel like I am missing something but that is probably too many individual subscriptions for the average consumer. I think the majority of us would prefer that to be 2 or 3 at most.
I’ve read that steaming services are finding their biggest issue is “churn” or people signing up for one month and then not renewing. Its basically how I do it, I don’t find enough content on any one service to pay for the full year (Disney+ for my kids is an exception) so I will subscribe when there is something I want to watch. I’ll probably add HBO MAX for “House of the Dragon” and Apple+ for “Masters of the Air” but I just don’t have enough TV time to justify full year subscriptions for the various services. Now if one of those services were to absorb the BTN I would probably subscribe for the full year for the two football games, basketball, and baseball coverage. The cost effectiveness of Tier III sports make it a great candidate for one of these services to limit churn.
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Mike, I too “churn” the streaming services and for the same reasons. For me it is de facto pay-for-view.
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I am sure I’ll drop BTN one of these days. I really only use it for the two Michigan football games per year that are not on Tier 1 or 2. It is a waste of money.
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Marc
“I am sure I’ll drop BTN one of these days. I really only use it for the two Michigan football games per year that are not on Tier 1 or 2. It is a waste of money.”
It wasn’t created for the Michigans and Penn States. It was created for the Indianas and Purdues and Illinois’ that were seldom on Tier 1 or 2. Now their fans can watch every game.
Also, those Iowa-Northwestern games on the BTN now generate revenue for the entire conference. They previously had zero broadcast value.
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CBS is the most watched broadcast network. . . .
Is that because of any intrinsic advantage CBS has, or do they just have the most popular stuff? I mean…SEC fans will go to the Raspberry network if that’s where their games are.
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It wasn’t created for the Michigans and Penn States. It was created for the Indianas and Purdues and Illinois’ that were seldom on Tier 1 or 2. Now their fans can watch every game.
I realize that, but Indiana doesn’t just have fewer national TV games; it also has fewer fans. If BTN continues to bleed subscribers, that ultimately has to affect what the network is worth, and therefore what it can pay out.
Also, those Iowa-Northwestern games on the BTN now generate revenue for the entire conference. They previously had zero broadcast value.
That is untrue. The Big 12 still doesn’t have a conference network—and every Big 12 game is televised. They aren’t making Big Ten money on those games, but they aren’t making zero either.
If BTN fails (not saying that will happen), the biggest hit will be the non-revenue sports. The conference will always make broadcast money from every one of its football and men’s basketball games.
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Well, the current scenario doesn’t reflect the situation when the BTN was founded. Back then, most of the Minnesota/Iowa/Indiana/Northwestern football games were NOT televised and men’s basketball was usually on a local station that was limited to a small in-state audience. If you lived in Texas and wanted to watch Michigan State hoops, no way.
You mention that all of the Big XII games are televised. Again, those are not available nationally nor throughout the region. Most are small potatoes distribution and small revenue.
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Kevin is going viral.
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@Mike My 15 minutes of fame. Ha.
One thing I was thinking about over the weekend with the YouTube vs Disney standoff is that many fans are excited about media rights deals going up and what that means for their schools or leagues. Yet at the same time there is tremendous frustration with the growth in pay TV fees.
One thing that hasn’t happened is ticket prices going down as a result of more TV money. Just increased coaching salaries and other internal costs. Facilities have improved quite a bit but I think they are still heavily donor funded. Anyway, not sure all this additional TV money has made things that much better for either the fan or the athlete. Perhaps an argument is there for the athlete but not sure about the fan.
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My 15 minutes of fame. Ha.
You deserve it. I am still baffled at how little attention that transaction received.
One thing I was thinking about over the weekend with the YouTube vs Disney standoff is that many fans are excited about media rights deals going up and what that means for their schools or leagues. Yet at the same time there is tremendous frustration with the growth in pay TV fees.
I think the disconnect comes from the direct consequences of spending my money vs the “consequence free to me” usage of ESPN’s money.
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Big Ten signs deals with CBS and Fox.
I’m skeptical. I don’t think the Big Ten wants to be frozen out of ABC/ESPN. I don’t think ESPN wants that either. Other than the SEC, the Big Ten is the most desirable college football property out there.
ESPN does have a time crunch, because they have committed the 3:30 time slot and half of their ABC night games to the SEC, and they’re committed to other leagues as well. But there are still plenty of time slots left.
I could imagine a scenario where ESPN lets the ACC out of their deal, to free up time slots for Big Ten games. Currently, the ACC is the only P5 league that has no other national network partner. Suppose ESPN relinquishes half of that, and lets the ACC sell the other half to the highest bidder. The ACC would take that offer in a heartbeat.
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I’m skeptical. I don’t think the Big Ten wants to be frozen out of ABC/ESPN. I don’t think ESPN wants that either. Other than the SEC, the Big Ten is the most desirable college football property out there.
I am as well. No one wants a repeat of what ESPN did to the NHL when they signed elsewhere.
ESPN does have a time crunch, because they have committed the 3:30 time slot and half of their ABC night games to the SEC, and they’re committed to other leagues as well. But there are still plenty of time slots left.
There is plenty of room for a Big Ten game of the week. Especially if they split Tier 1 with someone. It might mean some ACC games end up on ESPN when previously they would have been on ABC.
I could imagine a scenario where ESPN lets the ACC out of their deal, to free up time slots for Big Ten games. Currently, the ACC is the only P5 league that has no other national network partner. Suppose ESPN relinquishes half of that, and lets the ACC sell the other half to the highest bidder. The ACC would take that offer in a heartbeat.
The ACC would take that deal in a heartbeat. IMO – ESPN wouldn’t offer it. The ACC content is too cheap.
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1. Split tier 1 with Fox (noon) and CBS (3:30p) with maybe 2 prime time games each, alternating picks form week to week.
2. Split Tier 2 with ESPN family #3 pick (primetime) & FS1 #4 pick (3:30p)
3. Tier 3 – BTN
ESPN gave the SEC plenty of run with their Tier 2 package over the last 20 years.
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Whupping on a dead horse, hear are my thoughts of conference realignment and expansion that would be would be beneficial to the B1G. Add Mizzou and Colorado. Realign as shown below.
Southeast Division: Rutgers, Maryland, Penn St, Ohio St, Purdue, IU, Illinois and Mizzou.
Northwest Division: Michigan, Mich St, Minny, Wisky, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern and Colorado.
Crossover games for IL-NW and OSU -Mich. Divisions might sound a little strange but if you look on a map, this is logical. FYI both Colorado-Nebraska and Illinois-Mizzou had good football rivalries a few years ago. Also note that the BTN would gain some robust TV markets.
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I think you’d have a great plan for 2010. The fundamentals have shifted too much for this to happen.
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The B1G already spurned Mizzou, whereupon they joined the SEC. Nobody is leaving the SEC. Even if they were, Missouri is one of the slowest growing states (40th out of 50 in the 2020 census). Missouri–Illinois is not that big a rivalry: just 23 all-time meetings, and just one meeting in the last 40 years when both were ranked. It would be an annual “big game” the way Illinois–Purdue is big.
Colorado is a more interesting choice, though a moot point right now, since expansion happens in pairs, and Missouri is both unavailable and a bad choice if available. But ignoring that: Colorado is a fast-growing state: 6th-highest growth rate in the USA as of 2020. Their Buffs’ football program has not been good lately, but they were historically—just like Nebraska. The rivalry is real, with 70 all-time meetings, many of them when both were ranked.
Given that the Nebraska addition has not been as beneficial as the Big Ten expected, I am not sure they would really care about giving Nebraska another rival. I would far prefer to have added Colorado than Rutgers, but it’s done, and that opportunity is gone now.
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While you would have preferred Colorado, money and politics strongly dictated going east the tens of millions of eyeballs, including lots of alums between NY and DC, plus the formal presence of teams in the biggest financial and political cities in the country.
How many B1G alumni live in CO compared just to NYC and NJ?
Delany also made that move to stop the ACC from sealing off the east coast. If UMd had stayed, the NY/NJ market would simply be too attractive to be ignored.
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How many B1G alumni live in CO compared just to NYC and NJ?
There are many more B1G alumni in NY/NJ than in Colorado, but I subscribe to the Big Ten Network because my Big Ten alma mater is on it, not because Rutgers is on it.
My idea is that Maryland would have satisfied Delany’s objective of an East Coast beachhead (and possible expansion route to the South), whereas Rutgers is just competitive deadweight that has added nothing except easy wins for everyone else, in almost every sport—women’s soccer and field hockey excepted.
I don’t know what the marginal BTN subscriptions have been, but cable subscriptions are dying; we both know that. This is why the additions of Maryland and Rutgers were controversial: they were based on a television consumption model that might not have much of a future.
Bear in mind, I am replying to Colin’s fantasy hypothetical. You need to read it in that context. When the Big Ten added Maryland, Colorado was already gone. Rutgers was the best possible 14th school that Delany could choose. The question for Delany was not whether to take Rutgers, but whether to take Maryland. Once it took Maryland, it had to take Rutgers too; there was no better option.
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There is dissatisfaction with many fans at Colorado about their current P-12 conference affiliation:
Mizzou reportedly is adamantly against Texas Joining the SEC:
“As for Missouri, many can understand why there is a motivation to vote Texas/Oklahoma out of their new home. Getting away from UT very well could have been the reason the Tigers jumped to the SEC in favor of the Big 12.”
Colorado would bring the Denver DMA (Nielsen Rank 17) and Colorado Springs DMA (NR 89) and Grand junction (NR 185) for a total of about 2 million TV homes.
Mizzou would bring the DMAs of St. Louis (NR21), Columbia (NR138), Kansas City (NR31) and several small fry DMAs in Missouri for about 2.5 million TV homes.
http://bl.ocks.org/simzou/6459889
I realize that the B1G thumbed their noses at Mizzou during the expansion ten years ago. I also know that Colorado was eager to join the Pac-12 back then. But the conference landscape has changed since then. I think the B1G should take another look at both schools and both schools should take another look at the B1G.
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And yet, Mizzou voted to extend an invitation to both OU and UT to join the SEC.
UT will not run the show in the SEC like they did in the SWC and B-12 as no existing SEC schools are dependent on UT for survival. Nobody in the SEC will be bending the knee to the Longhorns.
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Alan
“And yet, Mizzou voted to extend an invitation to both OU and UT to join the SEC.”
Both A&M and Mizzou voted yes because voting ‘No’ was futile. It was widely reported both schools were opposed to Texas joining the SEC but they were still two votes short of keeping them out. Both schools voted ‘Yes’ as a PR gesture since UT’s admission was inevitable.
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Remember, in the first year that UMd and RU became members of the B1G, the payout to every team in the league increased by about $10 million per year. What would the addition of Colorado meant the other 12 existing teams?
Right now much of the college football conversation revolves around how the SEC and B1G make so much more money than the other leagues and how that may increase. The NYC and NJ TV markets with more than 25 million people (and lots of B1G alums) are a meaningful part of the money.
Do you really believe that at this time there are any B1G presidents who are sorry that RU and UMd came on board?
Fans can be fans, commissioners and presidents have other priorities.
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That payout came after the renegotiation of the Tier 1 contract. No idea how much Rutgers and Maryland contributed to that. The existing 12 would have gotten a sizable bump either way and then they are distributing among 12 vs 14.
I think the 2 were added for a few reasons but not the least was to give PSU travel partners.
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Alan, it would be fascinating to get the inside scoop from UT and OK about 5 years or more from now.
Will OK even seriously be contending for SEC titles, as opposed to the B12, which they owned for a while? Will they think that it was worth the extra money if OK becomes a decent but not top notch SEC team, which is probably likely.
How about UT, which really has loads of money already (plus boosters putting up $800,000 for linemen). How will the Longhorns like having Bama, GA, LSU, UF, etc. pretty much ignoring special UT desires? UT has gone from the top of the power pecking order to being just another school, that has not won any national titles recently.
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How about UT, which really has loads of money already (plus boosters putting up $800,000 for linemen).
Its going to be very interesting to see how the disparity in payments works out since not every recruit works out. Are those second and third stringers who’d normally transfer out looking for playing time going to stay for the money? P5 players with out D1 film are going to struggle to find another P5 offer and will be looking at a sizeable pay cut to go down to the G5. Since the P5 guaranteed* multi year scholarships, trimming the roster has required the players cooperation. I could easily see bigger money schools carrying players who mostly likely won’t play but won’t leave because of the money.
*https://informedathlete.com/the-facts-about-guaranteed-multi-year-ncaa-di-scholarships/
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Mike:
“How about UT, which really has loads of money already (plus boosters putting up $800,000 for linemen).”
Even before Texas joins the SEC, we are already seeing the UT abuse and excesses that resulted in Texas destroying the SWC and the first rendition of the Big 12 and the second rendition of the Big 12. Back then it was uneven TV revenue payouts followed by this totally anal obsession with the Longhorn Network. Now they are paying recruits $50K/yr for signing up.
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Now they are paying recruits $50K/yr for signing up.
IMO – Texas won’t be unique in this regard.
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There is dissatisfaction with many fans at Colorado about their current P-12 conference affiliation.
It would be more compelling if the Colorado administration were saying that. You can find fans who’ll say anything, and fans are often oblivious to the economics.
I suspect most of the CU fans’ dissatisfaction is because of the Pac-12’s mismanagement and non-competitiveness. But it is not the Big Ten’s problem to help the Buffs out of that. If a Big Ten AD said off-the-record that they interested in expanding to the west, I’d take it a lot more seriously.
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Do you really believe that at this time there are any B1G presidents who are sorry that RU and UMd came on board?
I think you’ve forgotten the original post. Responding to Colin’s query, I said that Colorado hypothetically would have been a better choice than Rutgers. In real life, the Big Ten never had that option. The last expansion was driven by the opportunity to add Maryland. Once they did that, they needed a 14th school, and Rutgers was the best available. I do not think the presidents are sorry they made that expansion.
I think the 2 were added for a few reasons but not the least was to give PSU travel partners.
That was probably the least salient reason to add Rutgers. There was noise that PSU might someday be enticed to join the ACC, although travel was not the entire or even the primary reason for it. Before they joined the B1G, PSU used to play both schools regularly in football, but the Maryland rivalry went much farther back. PSU’s most-played out-of-state rivalry was Syracuse.
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There is dissatisfaction with many fans at Colorado about their current P-12 conference affiliation….
Fan satisfaction can be very different from what administrators are thinking. Fans seldom have an understanding of the economics involved. Remember Frank the Tank’s #1 rule, “Think like a university president.” Few fans can (or even understand that they need to).
I suspect much of the fan unhappiness is because of the Pac-12’s mismanagement and non-competitiveness. It’s not the Big Ten’s problem to help them fix that. If you found a Big Ten source who said the league is interested in expanding in their direction, I would be a lot more impressed.
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Colin you are just repeating the fake news. If you have followed Frank, you would understand that the SWC was doomed from the moment OU and UGA won that Supreme Court lawsuit pulling TV rights away from the NCAA. TCU, SMU, Houston and Rice just didn’t have enough fans. And the schools who left the Big 12 were ONLY the schools who supported uneven revenue sharing. The 5 who wanted it equal are still there along with Kansas..
Missouri left the Big 12 for a more stable home. They realized they could have been stranded in the Big East.
As for NIL, Texas didn’t start that. They are merely following it to its logical conclusion.
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There isn’t a single Big 12 school, current or former, that wouldn’t rather be in the Big Ten or the SEC if they had the chance. Kudos to Missouri for seeing the open door and walking through it.
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There isn’t a single ACC school (other than maybe Duke and UNC) that wouldn’t rather be in the Big 10 or SEC making Big 10, SEC money. And that has nothing to do with getting away from FSU or UNC.
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Bullet,
I’d go back further to find the time when the SWC was living on borrowed time.
Once Rice, Houston, TCU, and SMU had to start competing with the Cowboys and Oilers for entertainment dollars, it was only a matter of time until money became an issue.
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I’d agree with you. It was just the Supreme Court case that expedited the end.
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SMU is the Supreme Court?
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Given that the Nebraska addition has not been as beneficial as the Big Ten expected,
Other than wins, I’m not sure what you are basing this off of? Nebraska is doing their part bringing in TV value. 2021’s 3-9 team had:
1) Highest rated game of week 10.
2) Highest rated game on BTN ever.
3) 2nd highest rated game on ESPN2 for the regular season
4) 2nd highest rated game on FS1 for the regular season
5) Five OTA appearances (3.2, 3.5, 4.2, 4.6, and 5.3 million viewers)
2020
1) Highest rated game of week 8 (#3 on Fox for the regular season)
2) 3rd highest rated game on FS1 for the regular season
3) Two OTA appearances (6.18 and 2.69* million viewers)
*Friday game
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Other than wins, I’m not sure what you are basing this off of?
I am basing it entirely on wins. I think the Big Ten expected Nebraska football to be more competitive. I think Nebraska’s own administration and fans expected that too. I am not suggesting that the Big Ten regrets inviting Nebraska.
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As a Mizzou fan, there is little fan support for a move to the Big Ten. Some fans miss the old days and rivalries of the Big XII, but most are happy in the SEC. I think Kansas would also have to be added to the B1G to move the needle, combine them with Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois (Colorado, frankly, is a non-factor) and you will sway a descent number of fans.
The administration would probably be more supportive of a move for academic reasons, but personally I think that is overblown. As much as we talk about AAU, at the end of the day these are athletics conferences – and it is mostly about football. Being financially secure in the SEC versus the fragile Big XII was a no brainer, a move now caries far less upside for the athletic program.
Some fans may feel that Mizzou could be more competitive in the B1G than the SEC, but I don’t buy that. Mizzou fans are as unrealistic at most fanbases, but at the end of the day, there isn’t really an expectation of winning titles the same way Nebraska fans view themselves after their success in the 90’s. We won the SEC East in 2013-14 and haven’t been Vandy-level bad. Our current head coach, Eliah Drinkwitz just landed the best recruiting class in school history, #12 on 247, 5th in the SEC and would be 4th in the B1G. I don’t think fans want to disrupt any of that momentum.
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I don’t think fan preferences figure very much in conference realignment decisions. But it’s like asking a fan whether they’d rather date Kate Upton or Paige Spiranac, when in reality the fan has no choice in the matter. The Big Ten isn’t offering Missouri, and certainly not in conjunction with Kansas.
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Donations to the scholarship fund represent about 25% of Mizzou’s revenue, ticket sales pre-covid were about 15%. If you are going to change conferences, you want your fans to be happy about it. It isn’t choosing which supermodel to date, it’s dumping one to start a new relationship with another.
And no, it doesn’t make any sense for B1G to offer either Mizzou or KU.
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Bowl mess. Texas A&M covid’d out of the Gator Bowl. Wake Forest is looking for a New Year’s Eve Day opponent now.
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Apparently Rutgers wisely turned down an invitation. It seems that RU must have the highest APR of the 5-7 teams, since that was the basis for prospective invitations. The players are not on campus and have not trained or practiced for many weeks.
There are other reports that Illinois would accept the bid, for the game in 9 days. Personally, I view that as dangerous (and I do not mean COVID). How can players who have not been on a field for at nearly a month get physically ready in a week?
https://www.onthebanks.com/2021/12/22/22850440/rutgers-had-no-choice-in-reportedly-turning-down-gator-bowl-texas-am-wake-forest-brett-mcmurphy
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Now there is an update saying that RU may be considering. If so, that is insane.
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So, RU is apparently going to Jacksonville to play Wake. On its face, this sounds crazy to me, but maybe a lot of guys have been practicing post season.
I assume Schiano took the pulse of the players
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I have to agree that it seems insane.
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“I have to agree that it seems insane.”
Doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. First of all, Wake Forest has been preparing for the wrong opponent for two weeks. Secondly, Rutgers gains another ten day of practice plus the benefit of playing in a bowl game. If they didn’t go, all of the players would just be sitting at home getting fat and soft. And number three, if they lose they can point to the obvious disadvantage they had in bowl perparation.
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My concern is injuries to players who are not ready for a game. I see that as a real chance when the last game or formal practice was four weeks ago.
Losing is not a big deal at all. Beyond the fact that RU (or Illinois) is used to it, they have the world’s best excuse. Numerous key players have already declared for the draft and certainly will not play, etc. On the other hand, it will clearly be mentioned many times that RU is there because of their APR. That seems like a good recruiting tool.
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Wake Forest has been preparing for the wrong opponent for two weeks.
Most of the plays that football teams run are the base package they would run against anybody. It’s not like Wake would play a totally different style if they had known from the beginning that they would be facing Rutgers.
But I am not surprised that Rutgers wants to do it. The players get to practice for and play an extra game at a sunny destination—something that most players would want, regardless of the opponent or outcome.
I am not sure it helps recruiting. The current class is baked, and there will be many intervening events before the next one.
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It appears that Rutgers continued to practice for two weeks after their last game. Schiano seems to have known (or had an inkling) that they were the top APR of the 5-7 teams and had an outside shot at a bowl bid.
Perhaps that minimizes the chance of injury due to rust.
In addition, Schiano asked his players if they wanted to accept the bid and he got an overwhelmingly positive response. They still are very unlikely to get back the players who declared for the draft.
Rutgers U demanded vaccination of all students, so all of the football players have their COVID shots.
Hopefully my injury pessimism due to the circumstances is totally misplaced.
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How is a team not( at the time)) not bowl bound allowed to practice? I’ve heard of teams in earlier bowls saying they didn’t mind not getting the benefit of their full 15 allowed practices.
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I am not sure, but it appears that Schiano was almost expecting a bid as the top APR 5-7 team, so he prepared as if they were going. They also probably were not full contact practices, but on some days were drills and things like that. Certainly the weight training continued.
I can only presume that Schiano knew the rules and did not disqualify his own team by excessive practice. Since the NCAA is very aware of what Rutgers did, I am just guessing that there was no problem. It is not as though a team could have any chance of “cheating” on post season practice without being caught. Lots of people know exactly what practices were being held.
Are the teams that you mentioned limited in number of practices, or only number of contact practices per week? I thought that there was a limit of six days per week total practice and a limit on three days of contact per week.
No, I have not researched the precise post season rules, since I have read articles by at least seven or eight sportswriters about this situation and none of them brought this up as an issue. This game has gotten a fair amount of coverage, since it is such a weird situation.
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“ Are the teams that you mentioned limited in number of practices, or only number of contact practices per week?”
The bowl teams I mentioned were limited by the number of days between last season game and the the bowl game. Only applies to the first few days of bowl games, but I’d bet they’d be happy to use the remainder of the 15 allowed practice days to address post game analysis and/or as preparation for next spring practice.
As to Rutgers, I agree there is probably a rule (may have been created since Covid became a known potential disruption) allowing the next team(s) eligible to prepare for the possibility. Makes sense, which is why I’m a bit surprised.
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I am sure the practices were legal, since since they were public knowledge. I just have never heard of the rule that allows them. Ordinarily, you cannot practice after your season has ended.
They also probably were not full contact practices, but on some days were drills and things like that. Certainly the weight training continued.
Weight training is not considered “football practice.” Players do that year-round. Also, players can practice on their own at any time. The NCAA limits are on coach-supervised football practice.
Are the teams that you mentioned limited in number of practices, or only number of contact practices per week? I thought that there was a limit of six days per week total practice and a limit on three days of contact per week.
There are boatloads of limits. But the superseding limit is the ability to practice football at all (with coaches supervising). Like @ccrider55, I had always heard that actual football practice is not allowed unless you have a bowl invitation.
Maybe there’s an exception for teams that could get a bowl invitation but don’t have one yet.
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Asking for Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Vanderbilt, Arizona. You know, the teams that really need some additional practice to not fall further back of the more successful (and more practiced).
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ACC is practicing and then not playing. BC caused cancellation of Military Bowl. Virginia caused cancellation of Fenway Bowl. Miami bowed out of Sun Bowl. Not clear if that bowl will be cancelled. And of course Hawaii cancelled their own bowl. Memphis, ECU and SMU of the AAC have found themselves with cancelled bowls.
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I assume those are big financials hits to the AAC, unless the teams that are still available still get paid, which I doubt. With no TV money, I am not sure how the AAC teams get paid.
I guess that there is a very very tiny chance that one of the teams who lost cancelled bowls could go to the Sun Bowl on Friday, with three days notice.
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From the Jan 2 Wall Street Journal:
An All-SEC Final Is the Latest Obstacle to Expanding the College Football Playoff
The major conferences want a bigger playoff format to generate more money. Blowout wins by Alabama and Georgia show how hard it is to find two title-worthy teams.
For eight seasons, the College Football Playoff format has shown that it is usually difficult to find two elite teams who can compete closely for the national title, much less four or more.
This year is no different. New Year’s Eve blowouts in the semifinals have set up a Jan. 10 title game between Southeastern Conference powers Alabama and Georgia, a sequel to their conference championship game last month. It’s the seventh time in the eight seasons of the four-team playoff format that at least one team from the SEC has reached the biggest game, and exact repeat of the 2018 title game.
No one is satisfied with how predictable the final weeks of the college football season have become. Yet no one can agree on how to fix it. Leaders in college athletics have generally moved toward expanding the four-team playoff—yet that’s where the consensus ends.
Talks of expanding to a 12-team playoff, which gained momentum earlier this year, have recently stalled in part because of the conflicting business interests of the big conferences involved and a broadly uncertain landscape in college sports. Even proponents of the expanded playoff have seemingly shifted into neutral. “We want more teams in the playoff, [but] we’re fine with four,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in December.
Friday’s games hardly made the case that more games are needed to get down to the two best teams. Alabama beat Cincinnati by 21 points while Georgia bested Michigan by 23. They were the 10th and 11th of the 16 semifinal games since 2014 to be decided by 17 points or more.
Through eight seasons, the semifinal round has been decided by an average of 21 points—considerably higher than the 14-point margin of victory during the 16-year Bowl Championship Series era.
The size of the playoff field has been a hot topic of debate among fans since the format’s introduction during the 2014 season. Business discussions to expand the field did not begin happening among power brokers until 2019, as the College Football Playoff neared the halfway point of its 12-year $5.6 billion broadcasting contract with ESPN. That deal expires in 2026 and pays out about $470 million annually to the College Football Playoff, which then distributes the earnings among participating conferences.
The College Football Playoff management committee—which is made up of the 10 commissioners of leagues that compete in the top tier of Division I football and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick—charged a smaller working group with evaluating the pros and cons of various expansion models. Swarbrick, Sankey, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby spent the better part of two years mulling over new postseason formats, from six teams all the way up to 16.
Last June, they proposed a 12-team playoff that would award automatic invitations to six conference champions with the highest rankings and six at-large spots for the next highest-ranked teams. The top four teams would get a first-round bye, while the rest of the field would play games on the campuses of the higher-seeded schools.
Such a model placated conferences that have regularly been left out of the four-team semifinal, like the Pac-12, as well as those who felt slighted in the rankings, like the American Athletic Conference, home to teams like Central Florida and Cincinnati. The model also would allow deeper leagues, most notably the SEC, to land upwards of four slots in the championship hunt.
Feedback was generally positive: more teams meant more games, and more games meant more broadcast revenue from ESPN or future broadcast partners. As stated in its current contract, ESPN will increase its payouts to the College Football Playoff should more games be added before 2026. This windfall would end up in the pockets of the participating conferences. The proposal had to get by a few more meetings and administrative hurdles, but it looked like all but a done deal.
Then Oklahoma and Texas announced in July that they planned to leave the Big 12 for the SEC—and everything got blown up. Playoff expansion was suddenly the least of everyone’s concern as a wave of rapid realignment sent commissioners into survival mode.
The Big 12’s Bowlsby accused the SEC’s Sankey of acting in bad faith during their working group sessions, which Sankey denies. Leaders of the three conferences left out of the preliminary working group—the Atlantic Coast, the Big Ten and Pac-12—became irritated and scrambled to assert their relevance by forming a loosely defined “Alliance.” Almost overnight, the power dynamic in college football shifted to the SEC vs. everybody else.
“Everyone knew there were four people involved,” Sankey said of the working group. “That was not a secret. No one complained until it [the 12-team proposal] was introduced.”
Meetings of the College Football Playoff management committee late in the summer and into the fall went nowhere. Everyone wanted a bigger postseason, but commissioners dug in their heels over the minutiae.
The working group stood by its initial 12-team recommendation. But Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren aired concerns about first-round games being held on campuses given how many schools in his conference’s northern footprint have miserably cold weather in December and January.
Warren and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff have advocated for waiting until 2026 to expand, a point at which networks other than ESPN could bid for the broadcast rights. He’s said that a television model that rotates between networks, like the one the NFL uses for the Super Bowl, could maximize profits.
“The Pac-12 is 100% in favor of expansion of the College Football Playoff, but there are issues at the margins,” Kliavkoff said in September.
Complicating matters, some football coaches, including Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, have come out against adding games to the schedule, arguing that they would put undue strain on athletes at a point in the season when injuries are especially likely.
College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock has urged patience. “We continue to make progress, but a variety of issues remain,” he said in a statement in December. “Given the importance of the matter and our desire to achieve as much consensus as possible, we will continue our meetings to see if the differences that exist can be narrowed.”
Any change to the playoff format must be approved by the 11-person board of managers after the management committee presents an official recommendation. The board’s next meeting takes place on Jan. 10, the morning of the title game.
The reality of another SEC-dominated final could make the path toward expansion. But it also makes one important fact clearer than ever.
“In the end, whoever wins is likely to have to beat a good SEC team,” wrote Bowlsby in a text message. “It will be true with 4, 8 or 12.”
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Really stupid argument by the WSJ. The #1 seed has only won twice. The #2 seed has won 3 times. The #4 seed has won twice. One of those two blowouts Friday was #3 beating #2. #3 has never won the title, but has beaten #2 half the time. #1 seed has won 5 games in a row, but before that they were 3-5.
Its actually an argument for expansion since clearly nobody knows who the best teams are until you play the games.
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I don’t think it was an opinion piece — it was recounting a lot of the arguments that the people in charge have made.
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SEC now has an exit fee and two years notice.
https://businessofcollegesports.com/other/sec-quietly-adds-exit-fee-to-conference-bylaws/
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Dosh’s analysis at the end of the article:
“These changes came ahead of Texas and Oklahoma being announced as new additions to the SEC in July 2021. However, sources at two SEC schools suggested the changes were made as a result of supplemental distributions the conference made to help cover costs during the pandemic.
Most interesting to me as I’ve contacted folks I know across the SEC is how few of them seemed to be aware of the change. Indeed, several had to look it up in the bylaws for themselves. So, although the SEC does now have an exit fee, there certainly doesn’t seem to be any concern about it.
The SEC has not yet responded to requests for comment. I will update as I hear from them and others I’ve reached out to for comment.”
My analysis. Sure, part of the reason is revolves around guarantees for the COVID loans, but most of the reason is to make sure Texas doesn’t keep looking around after getting married to the SEC.
Think of it as a pre-nup.
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SI’s Ross Dellenger is out with another article on playoff expansion. It’s behind a paywall, but this is his summary on Twitter: “Commissioners enter this weekend’s meetings with dubious hopes of expanding & will likely pass the issue to the CFP executive board. Barring the unforeseen, the sport is bound for a failed expansion attempt exactly 3 years since this long journey started.”
In another tweet, he gave a quick graphical representation of the four proposals that have traction, along with who opposes them:
8 teams, 6 autobids — SEC opposes, because there aren’t enough at-large bids (as they see it).
8 teams, <6 autobids — G5 opposes, because in many years they would not get a bid.
12 teams, 6 best conference champs + 6 at-larges — Apparently the B1G and ACC oppose, it means fewer bids for them.
12 teams, P5 + strongest G5 autobid — AAC opposes, apparently because they do not want to enshrine the P5/G5 distinction.
The AAC’s opposition to the last proposal is the hardest for me to understand, because if they torpedo expansion now, they will have no leverage at all in a couple of years. It would be a very short-lived “victory”.
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Back to conference realignment news:
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/33013789/murray-state-racers-accept-invitation-join-missouri-valley-conference-july
Murray State has accepted in invite to the Missouri Valley Conference and will become the league’s 11th member on July 1. At least 13 of the school’s 15 sports will join the MVC, with the football program yet to officially join a conference and its rifle program continuing in the Ohio Valley Conference.
Murray State joined the OVC in 1948 as one of the league’s six original members, alongside Morehead State, Eastern Kentucky, Evansville, Louisville and Western Kentucky. Eastern Kentucky left in 2021, leaving Morehead as the lone founding member still in the league.
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https://news.yahoo.com/tramel-scissortales-why-proposed-12-200201210.html
delays in playoff expansion and Bowlsby’s explanation of why 5+1 won’t fly. Warren is apparently holding out for 5+1.
“…The Big Ten’s primary sticking point seems to be automatic qualification for the five major conferences — Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Pac-12.
The sub-committee’s proposal included automatic qualification for the six highest-ranked champions of Division I-A’s 10 conferences. No special dispensation for the Power 5.
And that was a conscious decision.
“There are good reasons why we proposed six highest-ranked conference champions, and those reasons haven’t changed,” Bowlsby said.
“We found out the extent to which we (Power 5 leagues) anoint ourselves with privileges, including automatic access, is usually the extent to which we get called in front of Congress or we get challenged legally.”
This is not mysterious. This is not subtle nuances. This is not even the Power 5 being magnanimous to the leagues of less stature.
This is the powerful trying to stay away from the more-powerful — Capitol Hill and the courthouse. This is anti-trust talk and this is politics….”
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I think Bowlsby is grossly overestimating the anti-trust concern. The Power Five have repeatedly granted themselves extra favors, with no action from Congress. Besides, if the 12-team committee proposal had been in place the past eight years (no auto-bids), only once would a P5 champ have failed to reach the playoff (Oregon last year). That’s once in 40 opportunities. Not a huge difference.
Which makes Warren’s stance a bit difficult to comprehend. It would be the very rare season that the Big Ten champ would not make it into the playoff on the strength of its own record. When was the last time two Gang of Five champs outranked the Big Ten champ at the end of the season? Why exactly is this the hill he wants to die on?
According to the reading I have done, it’s not quite accurate to blame it all on Kevin Warren. While the Pac-12 has said it will support any of the six most commonly discussed formats, they are holdouts on other matters such as revenue sharing and preferential status for the Rose Bowl. And the ACC apparently still prefers eight, rather than twelve.
The Gang of Five oppose any system with P5 auto-bids, but they lose all their leverage once the current contracts expire. If the P5 were in agreement, I think the G5 would have no choice but to fall into line.
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According to a recent article at The Athletic, the ACC is holding out for an 8 team playoff with the hope that it makes the Irish join the ACC for football.
When has Notre Dame ever been bullied into making a decision?
NEVER!
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An eight-team playoff will not make ND join the ACC in football. These ACC people are being used by ND and they lack the simple intellect needed to understand that.
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I also think that there are more issues out there that have not been made public.
This may be the issue that Warren has stated, but I do not believe that it is the bottom line.
Bowlsby worrying about Congress makes no sense to me. As I recall, when I suggested here that a 24 team or 32 team super league would lead to Congressional actions, most people here disagreed with me. Then there would be 30 or 40 teams in many states that really get hurt. That would get political reaction.
Here there would be 65 teams from the P5 who would ultimately agree on something. The G5 teams simply would not have the support in Congress to get into this. In pretty much every state where a G5 team could look for political support, there are more powerful P5 teams.
Somehow I do not see any interest in, for example, the FL delegation becoming all upset over USF, FIU, etc., when there are four P5 teams in the state. Similarly will the CA or TX delegations really interfere in something that their P5 teams support in order to give marginal help at the best to G5 schools?
If the G5 schools push too hard, they could wind up with a worse deal (e.g., P5 each guaranteed one and then seven open slots) in a few years, when they have no formal voice at all.
By the way, I am not at all surprised that everything broke down for an immediate deal. As shown prior comments, I have been expecting this for some time.
As to Bowlsby, it almost seems to me that his position is that the committee on which he served made a plan and everyone should take that route. The Congressional intervention argument seems more like a red herring than anything else.
I agree with Alan and Colin. The idea that the anyone, particularly the ACC, will push ND to do anything is silly.
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The ACC has said less publicly about playoff expansion than any other league. I suspect that unattributed journalists’ reports aren’t capturing their concerns accurately.
Sure, the ACC wants ND to join in football. It’s their only realistic shot at getting their horrible TV deal renegotiated, which otherwise they’re stuck with until the mid-2030s. But if ND has not joined under the current 4-team playoff system, they won’t join under a system that has 8, 12, or 16 teams either.
By the way, ND would have made the last playoff under any of the most discussed expansion scenarios. In the current system, ND needs to go undefeated in the regular season (or they need a lot of chaos elsewhere) to make it. While a 12-team format is clearly better for them, even an expansion to 8 still helps.
I refuse to believe that we know this, and the ACC does not, until someone from the ACC actually says it with attribution.
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ND’s chances of making the playoffs under various scenarios – 4-team, 8-team, 12-team – isn’t really a factor. This ‘independence’ is something that is sacred to ND alumni and they are not going to give it up, period.
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This is all very well known, which is why I refuse to believe that WE know it and the ACC does not. I simply pointed out the playoff access realities to make clear how poorly informed one would need to be, to have any other view.
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Marc, that’s a good point. Honest to God, just how naive and gullible are these ACC people? How dumb can they be?
During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, that was the perfect opportunity to tell ND get all in or you won’t be playing football this year. Instead, they caved and offered full football membership for the 2020 season and then went back to the same groveling arrangement for the 2021 season.
It seems that the mentality of the ACC presidents is that if they continue being Good Ole Boy schmucks to the Irish long enough, ND will eventually come around and join in football. They don’t seem to understand that their groveling arrangement gives ND the perfect opportunity NOT to join a conference.
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Until someone in the ACC actually says that they think ND might join in football, I won’t believe it, because I don’t think they are that dumb. Unattributed comments from journalists don’t count.
During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, that was the perfect opportunity to tell ND get all in or you won’t be playing football this year. Instead, they caved and offered full football membership for the 2020 season and then went back to the same groveling arrangement for the 2021 season.
You said it yourself: Independence is sacred to ND. They are not going to give it up. I don’t know exactly what the Irish would have done if the ACC had played hardball as you suggest, but I am pretty sure that tactic would have backfired.
Bear in mind, the current arrangement was a deal done with eyes wide open, between two weak parties that needed each other. I am no Irish apologist, but they have always made their priorities clear. If the ACC didn’t want a football independent in their conference, then they shouldn’t have offered that. But they did.
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“Until someone in the ACC actually says that they think ND might join in football, I won’t believe it, because I don’t think they are that dumb.”
“In the article Swofford and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick both said this decision would have no bearing on the future independence of the Irish program, but just as clear is that Swofford’s bold move will go a long way towards Notre Dame ultimately making the leap into the league on a full-time basis.”
https://www.si.com/college/notredame/football/notre-dame-football-john-swofford-acc
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“If the ACC was ever going to have the bargaining power to force Notre Dame into the conference fulltime, it is right now. The Irish know that if they are unable to play a conference schedule in 2020, they have zero chance at the College Football Playoffs in 2020 and Swofford should be using that to his advantage.”
“While this would not erase all the nonsensical moves Swofford has made over the last quarter-century, it would allow him to go out with a bang – a noise he has never made in 24 years at the helm of the ACC.
https://rubbingtherock.com/2020/07/25/john-swofford-acc/
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That is precisely what I suggested should not count — journalists’ unattributed opinions. The one attributed quote from an ACC source addressed what they did for the 2020 season. It did not address ND joining in football for anything other than the COVID-shortened year.
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Marc, you asked for one ACC source who believed that ND whould come into the conference whole hog: Here is is: John Swofford.
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No. Swofford’s actual comments only address the unique 2020 season. What you’ve got there are other people’s speculations that this will ultimately lead to ND joining full-time.
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Marc, you said “Until someone in the ACC actually says that they think ND might join in football, I won’t believe it, because I don’t think they are that dumb.”
Now, you and I agree that there is zero possibility that ND will join the ACC because their so-called ‘independence’ is cherished Irish faithful. Nonetheless, there are quite a few in the ACC who believe it could happen.
https://www.si.com/college/notredame/football/notre-dame-football-acc-continues-to-push-for-nd-to-join
https://www.si.com/college/2021/12/09/acc-commissioner-addresses-notre-dame-future-with-conference
https://rubbingtherock.com/2021/08/07/college-football-acc-notre-dame-member/
https://caneswarning.com/2021/06/12/miami-football-see-notre-dame-join-acc-next-years/
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/why-the-notre-dame-acc-marriage-of-convenience-may-evolve-into-a-meaningful-relationship-beyond-2020/
https://apnews.com/article/sports-football-health-college-football-coronavirus-pandemic-671ccfec34f3dee4b42947ff320fe846
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All it takes is one influential Senator to make problems (See Sen. Hatch). And the NCAA is already viewed pretty negatively in Congress. They have no good will. And there could be anti-trust action which would be bad publicity and therefore bad for TV ratings, even if it amounted to nothing. Its one more headache when they have so many.
The P5 will get the dominant share of the money. Throwing their power around on that issue that means very little to them is just a bad decision.
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ACC says no expansion at this time.
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That’s kind of like saying we shouldn’t do anything about problems in education because we have problems with Medicare. There’s no reason you can’t do multiple things at once. It sounds like they are terrified about athletes getting paid and don’t want more money out there to trigger the courts and politicians, but things are changing anyway, they might as well take the easy money.
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Yes, and as the ACC is the most impoverished league, they need that money more than most.
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Yesterday David Hale of ESPN said Phillips claimed he expected more expansion before the end of the CFP contract. Is the Alliance planning something? https://twitter.com/ADavidHaleJoint
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https://news.yahoo.com/college-football-playoff-needs-slow-100026768.html
Editorial from a couple members of the Knight Commission. It seems to be a diametrically opposed world view to that of the P5. It strikes me as much like Democrats and Republicans talking “at” each other and not “to” each other.
“…The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, an independent group on which we serve, recently proposed a new framework, Connecting Athletics Revenues with the Educational Model of College Sports (C.A.R.E. model) that would be a good start towards reform. The model would require that the College Football Playoff earmark money for athlete health, safety and education. And it would mandate much-needed financial transparency by requiring disclosure and would include athletes in independent oversight of the College Football Playoff.
Division I leaders understand that the incentives and spending of more than $3 billion of total shared revenues among FBS schools must be overhauled. That’s why 21 coaches’ associations, representing more than 30 men’s and women’s college sports and more than 84,000 Division I athletes, have already endorsed the C.A.R.E. proposal….”
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Article in University Business discusses study which concludes that switching conferences is a big gamble to universities that rarely works.
https://universitybusiness.com/title-hopes-why-switching-athletic-conferences-is-a-big-gamble-for-universities/
“The slew of multibillion-dollar gambles—ESPN has a conference realignment tracker dedicated to all the changes—prompted Stephanie Herbst-Lucke of Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business, a marketing leader and former All-American track athlete (at U Wisconsin-Madison), to survey the college landscape to see whether shifting conferences actually does lead to a pot of gold of acclaim and revenue. In almost every instance during a period from 2009-2017, the answer was no.”
“We found that universities that changed conferences neither increased earned revenue nor decreased debt, compared to universities that stayed put,” she said. “The economic mission, athletic performance and brand outcomes described in academic literature and anecdotally are not. In no other category would iconic brands voluntarily disrupt successful, long-standing relationships.”
“For the study, she teamed with Paul Salipante and Kalle Lyttinen of Case Western Reserve University and Dr. Robert Mayberry of Georgia State to glean information from 82 sources, including conference commissioners, athletic directors and experts including those representing the Power Five conferences—the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and American—to assess how the trends have panned out.
“What they found was a stunning dysfunction between the fractured groups – those on the institution side and those in powerful positions affecting higher ed – and unachievable defiance toward making conference switches a reality, even when there was a known lack of positive outcomes, along with a lack of leadership by the NCAA.”
“The data was absolutely clear that this was not driven by money. It was all driven by stakeholder aspirations and pressure on the system,” she said. “We found that not only was revenue not going up, but it was slightly going down [when colleges switched conferences].”
Perhaps the study covering 2009 to 2017 may not have fully appreciated jumps in broadcasting revenue after 2017. I find it hard to believe, for example, that TAMU is not making a lot more money in the SEC than it would be making in the Big 12 (even including UT and OU).
The researchers did find only two exceptions.
“Only two institutions during the 2009-2017 period managed to show positive gains. One was the University of Missouri, which joined the SEC and won three division titles during that stretch and saw a 321% rise in postseason revenue. After 2013, when its win-loss ratio declined, it showed no improvement. The other was Rutgers University, which joined the Big Ten and saw huge jumps in sponsorship and licensing. The rest did not. Those that make the switch are also not exactly welcomed with open arms by fans, who are confused and frustrated by conference realignments.”
It has been generally accepted that the biggest winner in the realignment spin was RU and this agrees. Will the three new schools coming to the Big 12 have similar success? Time will tell.
Specifically regarding the B1G, they said:
“The Big Ten changed a 122-year-old brand and then they retained the name,” says Herbst-Lucke. “They changed the rivalries. Now you’ve got schools like Wisconsin not playing Michigan or Ohio State every year, which changes attendance. Ticket sales alone make up 28% of the overall revenue for an average athletic department. You get your tickets and how many games are you interested in? Maybe one or two? It’s a risky venture when you start doing those kinds of things.”
I think that this analysis does not appreciate that growing importance of increase broadcast revenue, particularly for the SEC and the B1G.
I am not sure who was being interviewed at the universities, but the author states
“From the interviews, 82% said there was a dilution of their mission, purpose, value and ethics. Another 76% believed the university brand had been depleted. And 90% said that because there had been such a disconnect from the brand and mission, the system was not sustainable.”
“They’re putting athletics ahead of academics,” Herbst-Lucke says. “They’re depleting academic revenue and reserves to continue to support a system in which 90% of those in it are not solvent. That’s crazy. They’re diverting funds from education to cover these losses. All the literature suggests that there are these huge conference distribution numbers that the schools are going after to get a huge influx of revenues. But it’s actually not the case.”
“Once a system based on stable relationships, college athletics has been undermined by leaders who may not see the value in staying put. They instead see the allure of the SEC and think Alabama levels are attainable and will try to get there at any cost. According to many of those who responded in the study, politics played a big part in decision-making, with an array of stakeholders who have little knowledge of the inner workings of college football driving moves and leaving commissioners and athletic directors with their hands tied. “They care a great deal about their system, but they don’t think that they have any control,” she says. “They feel like they lack agency.”
“In the end, they all may agree to something they know will not work. And after they’ve moved and balance sheets are done, there may be an equal distribution of revenues and expenditures, but the bottom line is most are losing when subsidies are removed. Of institutions that were not in the Power Five, estimates are that all of the others lost an average of $23 million in 2019 alone. “The athletic directors, commissioners and presidents of the schools are supporting the narrative that conference change will improve the revenue, and they know it won’t,” she says. “But they are continuing to promote that.”
There may be a lot of truth here, but this article reminds me a lot of stories about The Group of 100 at Rutgers. (I think that was the correct name). They were a group of professors who were adamantly against “big time sports” for many years. When the B1G membership arose, their reaction was to reject the offer, totally drop football, and downgrade all other sports. It was not a well received position and I think that the group has now disbanded.
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I find it hard to believe that Maryland isn’t doing better in the B1G vs the ACC. Maybe they’re counting the exit fee but not the long-term increase in TV revenue?
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Colin, if UMd has not yet done better, by the next B1G contract the Terrapins will get a full share (if not before then) and it will be tens of millions more than staying in the ACC would generated. So yes, long term UMd is a clear financial (and academic) winner. I do not know how the fans at UMd accept the B1G as opposed to Tobacco Road.
Of course the obvious difference between UMd and RU is that UMd alreadu had a nice spot and RU had nothing (the AAC), so it was much further up for RU.
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I can certainly see this being true below the P5 level. I would be surprised if this were true for most of the P5 changes. Colorado and Nebraska would be ahead staying put, but I can’t think of any others.
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You think Colorado and Nebraska would be better off in a conference from which Colorado, Nebraska, Mizzou, Oklahoma, Texas and A&M have departed (or soon will) and Iowa State, Kansas, K State, West Virginia and OK State are begging to get out?
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Perhaps they are comparing it to the imaginary conference that would’ve existed if nobody had left.
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Follow the conversation. Colorado and Nebraska would each have had more in conference distributions to this point if they had stayed in the Big 12. The Big 12 makes more than the Pac and Nebraska got a really lousy deal from the Big 10 and only since they got a full share are making up ground for all the money they lost.
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Bullet:
I agree with almost everything you’ve said except I remember the P16 being a done deal, until Scott was informed UT planned to join and then work out the media (LHN) disagreement. Scott said no, membership required, the assignment of all media rights. Deal fell apart next morning.
Also, what the P12 and the B12(10) make now has no relationship to what UT would have been getting in a P16.
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President Powers, Deloss Dodds and Chris Plonsky had a long news conference the day after the deal collapsed. Powers and Dodds were too exhausted to be lying!
Powers said they had meetings with the Pac and tried to minimize travel by scheduling as much as possible within divisions. And when they looked at it all and talked to Fox and ESPN, they figured out the Pac 16 deal was going to be about the same money as the Big 12 deal going forward, and, they could use ooc to get a similar schedule. Note that Texas has played USC, Stanford and Cal in football in recent years.
He didn’t mention a thing about conference networks in the press conference. It was late October or November before ESPN came in with their big bid. There was a long interview in the Texas alumni magazine with Deloss Dodds talking about the LHN and he said they really didn’t expect to make too much money on it at the time. And with the Pac’s 2 school subnetworks, Texas would be getting their “Lone Star Network” that they proposed to do with A&M.
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Bullet:
The comparison was to what they could make/keep on their ooc games vs what they thought the Pac would get going forward following 20 years of not really maximizing media revenue. Remember everyone’s shock at the new contract? Briefly being the largest in college? That’s the actual number the ie comparison should by evaluated by. And that was with Utah and CU adds. If Texas and Oklahoma were in the Pac would have owned most major media markets west of the Mississippi…completely. And the P4 probably would exist right now.
But whatever, water under the bridge. UT rejoins aTm and, along with Oklahoma, gets to show the SEC how it’s done. Or maybe calls Nebraska for coping pointers.
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Media research firm estimates 12 team playoff could generate $2B per year.
https://footballscoop.com/news/college-football-playoff-tv-contract-espn-2-billion
That number – more than double the current plan – really makes all this petty bickering over the original proposal look silly.
The Alliance cutting off nose to spite face.
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Monmouth leaving the MAAC and Big South for the Colonial Athletic Association. I know nothing about those three conferences so I have no clue beyond reporting another realignment. https://www.nj.com/setonhall/2022/01/monmouth-is-leaving-maac-big-south-for-colonial-athletic-association.html
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This is for Frank re upscale real estate. The Wonder Bread factory in Hoboken has been renovated into high end residential units. For those that do not know, Hoboken is on the west side of the Hudson River across the river from midtown Manhattan. Hoboken is pretty much in between the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and there is a PATH train station for very easy access into Manhatten.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/17/historic-wonder-bread-factory-in-hoboken-turns-into-luxury-building/
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https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/inside-the-accs-rejection-of-college-football-playoff-expansion-amid-concerns-about-larger-issues/
Interesting article on why the ACC wants to procrastinate on playoff expansion. I can’t sympathize with coaches who are upset in their multi-million dollar jobs because the transfer portal and NIL makes their job harder.
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This article is bull droppings. The reason that the ACC is procrastinating on playoff expansion is that they are still clinging to the fairy tale that ND will join the ACC in football.
“The ACC is in the middle of its own TV rights deal with ESPN that is locked in until 2036. Unless it adds Notre Dame as a member, its payout in that deal — reported at $17 million annually per school — remains static.”
The former ACC commish, John Swofford, was totally duped by ND and groveled into their absurd in-without-football agreement. The new commish, Jim phillips, has two kids attending ND and we can fully expect him to bend over even more.
The ACC resists the current expansion proposal for one reason – these buffoons think they can still bring in ND in football. They are actually that clueless.
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One again, nobody in the ACC is saying that ND will join in football. Nobody.
The only quote you’ve got is the statement from a journalist that their lousy TV deal can’t go up unless ND joins. This statement is totally true. It is not saying that they believe ND actually will join, only describing what the deal is.
The former ACC commish, John Swofford, was totally duped by ND and groveled into their absurd in-without-football agreement.
In what way was he duped? Notre Dame was very clear about what they were going to do, and they have abided by it.
Swoffie could have said “full membership or nothing,” but Notre Dame likely would’ve said, “OK. Nothing.” The ACC would be no farther ahead, and they wouldn’t have the 5 regular-season games that the Irish do play against ACC competition.
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“One again, nobody in the ACC is saying that ND will join in football. Nobody. The only quote you’ve got is the statement from a journalist that their lousy TV deal can’t go up unless ND joins.”
Marc, I made a post with six links on it from various ACC folks stating they want/wish/believe that ND will join their conference in football. For whatever reason, Frank has censored it.
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I think you are limited in the number of links per post–maybe to one.
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@Colin – Apologies – whenever there is a comment with multiple links, it automatically goes into “unapproved” status since the system thinks that it’s spam. I went back and approved your comment manually.
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Now that your post has been approved, it’s very clear where we are getting confused. I read each and every one of the links you posted. You are still conflating actual attributed statements by the ACC, and journalist “takes”. Mostly it is the latter.
But here is a comment from the highest-ranking ACC person you can get, the commissioner: “Notre Dame loves two things: one is being Catholic, second is independence. Sometimes those things get in reverse order. Sometimes they like independence even more than being Catholic…I also respect where they’re at. Our concentration right now is on our 14 schools.”
Does that sound like he thinks ND is joining? Obviously, everyone in the ACC would like ND to join. There is no conference that would turn down Notre Dame as a full football member. That does not mean they believe it is happening.
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Well, I don’t want to belabor this because we both agree that ND ain’t joining a conference. However you previously said that no one in the ACC was dumb enough to believe that ND will join. I disagree. The previous commish and the new commish both were laying the groundwork to reel ND in. The ACC’s current position on playoff expansion is based solely upon creating an Irish ‘trap’. ACC folks may not think it is likely but some clearly believe that it is possible.
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Part of the thinking of the ACC with ND should have been as a defensive move. By entering into the deal with ND, the ACC stops ND from joining another league. In theory if the B1G gets a major bump in revenue in their next contract, that would be time to try and convince and independent ND that the money from joining the B1G is too much to give up. With ND, the next B1G contract could have been close to $70 million per team. This must be tens of millions more than ND is earning as in independent.
While I do not think ND would bite even on that, the ACC has precluded the chance and blocked the B1G.
It is somewhat analogous to the B1G adding UMd and RU, and thereby stopping the ACC from controlling the east coast. While UMd and RU brought many millions of eyeballs in MD, DC, NJ and NY, I think that it was just as much a long term strategic move to block the ACC.
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You are exactly right. The ACC got several good things in their Notre Dame deal:
1. They got Notre Dame in all other sports.
2. Notre Dame now plays 5 regular-season football games a year against ACC opponents. (It used to be 2 or 3 per year.)
3. If ND joins any conference in football, it has to be the ACC. However improbable it might be, the potential upside is theirs alone. In the meantime, they know for sure that ND cannot join the Big Ten.
This is for the duration of their deal, which is currently through the mid-2030s.
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Marc, not trying to be contrary here but there is another perspective on this.
1. They got Notre Dame in all other sports.
1a. ND duped the ACC into taking them in for all other sports.
2. Notre Dame now plays 5 regular-season football games a year against ACC opponents. (It used to be 2 or 3 per year.)
2a. The ACC further watered down the ND schedule with five cupcakes per year.
3. If ND joins any conference in football, it has to be the ACC. However improbable it might be, the potential upside is theirs alone. In the meantime, they know for sure that ND cannot join the Big Ten.
3a. What if they don’t? What happens if ND joins the B1G, or the SEC, in 2027? Does all of mankind become extinct like the dinosaurs?
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The contract between the ACC and ND goes to 2036. Can and would ND breach that contract and do damage to its “holier than thou” image? Sure anyone can breach any contract, so long as they are prepared for the repercussions.
Would the B1G want to be involved in such a fiasco, even for ND?
I expect that the damage suit by the ACC would be rather large to say the least. The ACC would also file for an injunction requiring ND to keep scheduling 5 ACC football games, etc.
So, while anything is possible, how likely is it to happen?
https://slapthesign.com/2021/07/30/notre-dame-football-stay-independent/#:~:text=This%20deal%20goes%20through%202036,leverage%20to%20force%20them%20to.
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II think it would be more likely that Notre Dame take the same approach that Texas and Oklahoma did with the SEC: A few years in advance, ND announces that they will be joining the Big Ten in 2037 as full-time members. No contracts broken, no penalty payments in this scenario.
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I think it would be more likely that Notre Dame take the same approach that Texas and Oklahoma did with the SEC: A few years in advance, ND announces that they will be joining the Big Ten in 2037 as full-time members.
We need to analyze this in two parts. First, would Notre Dame join any conference in football? They’ve said repeatedly that it is not about money. Independence is like a religion to them. They will remain independent unless their path to the national championship is cut off. This is unlikely to happen, because the other leagues do not want to push ND into a conference.
Second, if they changed their mind about independence, would they even want the Big Ten? They might not. The ACC is a far weaker league, which makes it more winnable on a regular basis than the Big Ten. It also gives ND a footprint in states it wants to recruit. (It recruits the Midwest too, but it needs no help there.) There is a huge revenue disparity, but that’s partly due to the ACC’s below-market media contract, which by 2037 won’t be in force anymore.
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@Colin: You’ve used the word “duped” several times, which means fooled, deceived, swindled, or tricked. In what way was any trickery involved? Notre Dame has done exactly what it promised.
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I am not sure ND is going to move anytime soon if ever. ND is willing to pay the costs (i.e. make less TV revenue, no home playoff games) of being independent. What happens when the costs are too much to bear? Some areas to watch:
– TV money. ND’s TV deal expires in 2025. It currently pays $15 million a year. An 11-1 regular season where you’d expect high ratings on NBC didn’t happen. “Notre Dame football lost nearly half its TV audience from last season. Viewership for the Fighting Irish’s games on NBC is down 48% from ’20, averaging 2.5 million viewers” (Sports Business Journal 11/30/2021). When ND goes to market how bad will they get lapped by the Big Ten and SEC? What if the new Big 12 does?
– Playoff access. What happens if there is an 8 team playoff with 6AQs? That’s two less spots available for ND than they have now. ND will want the most number of at large bids possible. I don’t think its a coincidence that the 12 team no AQ model was made with Swarbrick in the room.
– Scheduling. The ACC deal gives ND five P5 games. Can they find enough interesting opponents when the SEC (likely) goes to nine games and the alliance makes scheduling Big Ten and PAC12 teams harder. My assumption is the Big Ten and PAC12* will stay at nine games and go 9 conf/1 alliance/2 guarantee with a 7/5 H/A split. Working the ACC in to the alliance with their ND commitment and the ACC vs SEC games is going to be interesting. The simplest solution is to exempt Clemson, Louisville, and Georgia Tech from the alliance and allow ND (vs one of USC/STAN) to fill a slot to keep the teams even. That gives ND 6 P5 games. Are there 4 SEC teams willing to go H/H with ND to get them to ten P5 games? Will alliance teams give up a home game** to play at ND? I can’t think of any new (post OU/UT) Big 12 team ND would want to go H/H with***. I doubt those Big 12 teams will agree to play their return games at neutral sites either.
– Attendance. A partner to scheduling, but (IMO) an underrated reason Texas left the Big 12, was their home schedules lacked excitement. Most engaged fans know Iowa St, Oklahoma St, and West Virginia are good teams. Casuals look and think Texas should blow them out. For an event town that Austin is, Big 12 Texas home games**** weren’t cutting it. Notre Dame’s sell out streak of 273 games ended in 2019. Coming into this year, ND had a 23 game home win streak and had an 11 win season producing zero sell outs. A quick google search for “Notre Dame Attendance” shows attendance is becoming a concern.
* There has been some talk of dropping down to 8 by the PAC12 but I don’t think it will happen
** I assume all ACC/Big Ten/Pac 12 teams want 7 home games. In a 9/1/2 model a team would have to give up a guarantee game to play at ND.
*** Historically (IIRC) they’ve played at BYU and Kansas. The most recent BYU home game vs ND was scheduled for Vegas. I am not confident BYU will continue to agree to H/N once they join the Big 12. Just like I don’t think Cincinnati will agree to buy games at ND anymore.
****I think SEC games against Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Florida, and A&M will.
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Playoff access. What happens if there is an 8 team playoff with 6AQs? That’s two less spots available for ND than they have now.
I think your math is off. An 8-team playoff would not reduce ND’s chances; it would increase them. For instance, in any of the proposed 8-team formats, ND would have been a playoff team last season; in the 4-team model, they were left out. Naturally they’d like the 12-team format even more, but 8 is not bad for them.
Scheduling. The ACC deal gives ND five P5 games. Can they find enough interesting opponents
This is definitely a problem. Notre Dame has been struggling to put together a good schedule, and conceivably the problem could get worse. Their 2022 home schedule is again underwhelming.
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I think your math is off. An 8-team playoff would not reduce ND’s chances; it would increase them. For instance, in any of the proposed 8-team formats, ND would have been a playoff team last season; in the 4-team model, they were left out. Naturally they’d like the 12-team format even more, but 8 is not bad for them
I understand what you are saying. I am just saying ND has four chances in the current model and two in an eight team with 6AQ. All it takes is two non-champions to be ranked ahead of them for them to miss out. Is it easier to finish top four or easier to finish top 8 and not behind two non-champs? I case could be made either way.
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What you might not know, is that the current playoff rules specifically prioritize conference champions. Nominally, anyone can qualify, but in practice it does not work that way. There have been 32 playoff berths in eight years. Just five of the 32 have gone to non-champs—and never more than one in the same year.
In other words, the three of four berths in the current model are practically guaranteed to be taken by conference champs, and the fourth is also taken by a conference champ almost half the time. This means Notre Dame doesn’t have four chances in the current model; they have less than one.
An eight-team format would almost quadruple their chances. It would not halve them.
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https://www.espn.in/college-sports/story/_/id/33118035/ut-arlington-set-join-western-athletic-conference-summer-part-league-expansion
Texas-Arlington has accepted an invitation to join the WAC, beginning this summer. The move ends a nine-year run for UTA in the Sun Belt. The Mavericks had previously sent one year in the WAC (2012-13) and nearly 50 years in the Southland Conference before that.
With Chicago State’s departure, the WAC will now have 15 members, eight being from Texas.
Abilene Christian
California Baptist
Grand Canyon
Incarnate Word
Lamar
New Mexico State
Sam Houston State
Seattle
Southern Utah
Stephen F. Austin
Tarleton State
Texas-Arlington
Texas-Rio Grande Valley
Utah Tech (Dixie State)
Utah Valley State
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With New Mexico State and Sam Houston State soon leaving for C-USA, I believe.
It will never end.
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Updated as of 1/21/22 conference basketball realignment tracker from ESPN.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/32855347/college-basketball-realignment-tracker-keeping-track-ncaa-division-conference-changes
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OK, here’s my highly unorthodox proposal that the Big Ten Conference expand to 16 teams by adding the two East Coast service academies as TV non-revenue members – Army and Navy.
My rationale for this recommendation follows.
The Big Ten television platform would immediately gain three prominent rivalries. The classic Army-Navy game would become a Big Ten Conference game. In addition, we would create cross-town rivalry games for both Rutgers and Maryland, both of which need a football archrival since coming to the Big Ten. There woud be “The Battle of the Hudson”, Rutgers-West Point and “The Battle of the Potomic”, Maryland-Annapolis.
The foremost benefit to the Big Ten Conference would be a solid statement of support for our nation’s armed forces. Having one or two of the service academies on the football schedules of Big Ten colleges would obviously be a patriotic gesture. It would also enhance the scholarly stature of the conference by adding two institutions with Ivy League caliber academics to the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
Other considerations are that Army has a Division 1 ice hockey team that would expand the Big Ten hockey league from seven to eight members and both academies have Division 1 lacrosse teams. Both sports would add some additional quality live content to the Big Ten Network.
Why would Army and Navy want to join the Big Ten as TV non-revenue members? Well, they obviously don’t need the money. What they really need is more national exposure. The service academies currently have very few sports events that are nationally televised. However, if they were added to the Big Ten Network in addition to the Big Ten’s mainstream TV package, virtually every football and men’s/women’s basketball game would be broadcast nationally. And if you add in the televised Olympic sports such as volleyball, lacrosse, tennis, ice hockey whatever then Army and/or Navy would have some type of athletic competition on national TV more or less daily.
Army and Navy want would also benefit from the Big Ten’s academic support. These academies have fewer than 5,000 cadets/midshipmen and their staffs are accordingly limited. They simply lack the mass of faculty needed to convey today’s complex and expansive coverage of computer technology, material science, aerospace, engineering, environmental issues, international affairs, etc. The vast resources of the Big Ten Academic Alliance could be utilized to fulfill their needs in those disciplines and many others.
With regard to competitiveness in sports, I don’t think there would be any problem with Army and Navy being competitive in the Big Ten. Just last month the Army cadets beat Southeastern Conference opponent Mizzou in a bowl game. And within the past twelve years Navy’s football team has beaten Notre Dame three times, Indiana twice, Pitt twice, Wake Forest twice and also has wins over Mizzou, Cincinnati and Kansas State.
The Big Ten needs to invite the service academies before the ACC wises up and brings them in.
Another consideration, we all know that the Big Ten divisions need to be again reorganized to provide more equity. I propose this alignment:
B1G North: Michigan, Mich State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern and service academy.
B1G South:Rutgers,Maryland, Penn State, Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois and service academy.
Army would play football in the North for two years, then flip to the South. Obviously Navy would then do the opposite.
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Navy has been in the American for eight years. Against far weaker competition, they have never won a conference championship and have finished ranked just two times.
Army is even worse. They have finished ranked just one season in the last quarter-century. And that is with a schedule that typically includes just a couple of Power Five opponents per year. When they were in a conference (an even weaker one than the American), their average finish was 8th place, and never higher than 5th.
The TV ratings would be good, because people like to watch the academies play. But they would get slaughtered. And of course, that is why Army is not in a conference now.
Yes, the academies do beat P5 opponents occasionally. That’s a lot easier to do when they only play a couple of these a year, and can occasionally sneak up on them. The academies play a different style of football that is hard to prepare for when it is unfamiliar. If Army thought it could beat these teams regularly, it would be scheduling more of them.
Navy is harder to judge: it seldom schedules the Power Five anymore, except for their annual game with Notre Dame. In their past 30 outings vs. the Irish, Navy is 4–26. That is not exactly competitive. They get crushed in the vast majority of those games. Their very rare wins are usually squeakers where something strange happens.
So none of this provides much comfort that the academies could be competitive in the Big Ten. Of course, the best evidence is the academies’ own decisions. Had they ever wanted to join a major conference, all they had to do was ask. Have they been turned down? I don’t think so.
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So, the B1G gets two more Rutgers, historically interesting, weak athletics, some help in lacrosse and hockey. The deal would have to include TV revenues, because otherwise it makes no sense to the Academies. Their mission is undergraduate education, and they definitely do not fit the B1G profile. Would the B1G benefit? Unlikely. Plus, do you want the cadets to experience beatdowns from tOSU, PSU, even Northwestern 7 times a season?
What about Air Force? Coast Guard? Merchant Marine?
“Army and Navy want would also benefit from the Big Ten’s academic support.” I served 35 years on the tOSU faculty. I do not know of a single instance of inter-institutional academic support. Interlibrary loan exists, and that is the extent of mutual, inter-institutional support in the B1G.
People commenting on this site used to talk about how much the CIC contributed to B1G research. All the talk was delusional. There was never so much as one penny of CIC money in any research project in the B1G. Research monies were and are generated solely by individual faculty submitting proposals to granting agencies. Universities skim overhead off those grants for other purposes. A portion of the skim goes to the CIC, or whatever it is called nowadays.
One thing, the only thing, the B1G/CIC does is coordinate conference lobbying in Washington and conference votes in the NCAA. The B1G also negotiates TV deals. For the rest, the individual schools are on their own.
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https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/33144929/colonial-athletic-association-adding-hampton-monmouth-stony-brook-conference
The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) announced today it will add three new members: Hampton, Monmouth and Stony Brook. All three will begin membership on July 1 of this year. After the loss of James Madison, who is moving to the Sun Belt Conference, the CAA will have 12 full members and 13 members in football.
Charleston, Delaware, Drexel, Elon, Hofstra, UNC-Wilmington, Northeastern, Towson and William & Mary remain as full members, while Albany, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Richmond and Villanova are football only members.
Hampton has been a member of the Big South for four seasons, after having left the MEAC in 2018. Monmouth has been a member of the MAAC and Stony Brook a member of the America East Conference.
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https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-considering-the-elimination-of-divisions-amid-college-football-playoff-expansion-talks/
Big Ten is having discussions about possibly eliminating divisions and reducing number of conference games.
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If this means eliminating divisions AND eliminating the conf championship game, then it makes sense. That would give Big Ten teams the same advantage that ND has in weaseling into the playoff without playing a CCG. Heck, we could have 2-3 co-champions.
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@Colin – We can be assured of this: conference championship games will NEVER go away for the Big Ten. They don’t give a wit about whether Notre Dame has an advantage or not (and that won’t matter in a 12-team playoff where the top 4 conference champs get auto-bids, anyway).
Let’s put it this way: Big Ten Championship Game is now generating as much or more revenue than the Rose Bowl tie-in at this point and it’s 100% controlled by the conference. That’s pretty much the *last* thing that the Big Ten would even think about cutting back.
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@Colin: Three teams have made the playoff without playing in a CCG. Only one of the three was Notre Dame. Alabama and Ohio State were the other two.
I would say ND had the strongest case, as they at least had an undefeated regular season. Both Alabama and Ohio State were one-loss teams that didn’t even win their division.
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Marc, have you checked ND’s schedule vs that of Alabama and Ohio State?
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Although I agree with you about their schedule, ND was a top 4 team in both of the traditional polls as well as the committee ranking — and the polls have worked this way since forever. There is no believable world in our lifetimes where Notre Dame with that record is not in the top four. You are of course entitled to not like it, but this is how the sport has always been.
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Here’s a bit of trivia on the rule change that’s needed to implement this. Until a few years ago, CCGs were allowed only in leagues with 12 or more teams — and then, only if the league split into equal-size divisions with a round-robin in each division.
The ACC and B12 proposed to allow CCGs for leagues of any size, without divisions. At the last minute, the B10 torpedoed it. Instead, the rule was changed to allow leagues with <12 teams to stage a CCG without divisions—but to leave the former rule in place for those with 12 or more. This was a surgical strike to give the B12 what it needed while screwing the ACC, from which Jim Delany still hoped to poach a few teams someday.
Of course, the B10 did not say that this was their reasoning. But I felt it was obvious that their position was selfishly unprincipled—they'd change as soon as soon as their own needs required it. A few people here (not posting anymore) disagreed with me, and attempted to divine a legitimate purpose for what the Big Ten did. I never thought it made sense, except as a naked anti-ACC power play.
Sure enough, here we are. Now that divisions no longer benefit the Big Ten, whatever principles motivated their earlier position have quietly fallen away. As they should. The rule today is an example of the NCAA's corruption at its worst.
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Why is that corruption? If each of the P5 agreed to allow the veto, that is end of story. It is and was an exercise of pure power, but certainly not unfamiliar in major conference football.
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I consider it corruption, because Delany used the NCAA’s monopoly power to achieve anti-competitive ends. The fact it is not unfamiliar does not make it fair either.
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Here is one proposal for a Big Ten without football divisions:
https://saturdaytradition.com/big-ten-football/eliminating-divisions-sounds-cool-but-does-it-make-sense-for-big-ten/
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Here’s another proposal for a B1G without divisions:
https://www.landgrantholyland.com/2022/1/26/22903113/big-ten-football-eliminating-divisions-pac-12-acc-alliance-ohio-state-penn-state-michigan
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Thanks for posting these. Both proposals highlight the flaw in the Big Ten’s math. There aren’t 3 permanently protected games that make sense for every team. Some of the choices look like they were drawn out of a hat.
I’ve always favored a system where you protect only the rivalries that make historical, competitive, or geographic sense, and let the others “float”. This means that not every team has the same number of protected games. The second proposal has a version of this idea: give Maryland and Rutgers just two protected games, and then rotate them through the rest of the league. This is an appealing notion, because there aren’t 3 logical rivalries for these two teams to contest annually.
But the second proposal does this only for Maryland and Rutgers. I’d do it more broadly. For instance, in the second proposal Michigan’s three annual rivals are Ohio State, Michigan State, and Northwestern. The first two are obvious, but: Northwestern? By eliminating that one, Michigan plays other teams more often; and other teams get to play in Chicagoland more often. Everyone is happier.
The flaw of my proposal is that you need a computer to spit out the schedule: it doesn’t have a simple formula that you can explain in one sentence. If every team must have 3 protected games, the first proposal recommends the only locked “third game” for Michigan that makes sense to me: Minnesota. But it has many other pairings that are just ridiculous, like Nebraska–Northwestern. Overall, the second proposal is better thought out.
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The best way to do it is four pods, two with four teams and two with three teams. Sounds crazy but it would work well to preserve all key rivalries and also increases the frequency of games for teams within geographical proximity.
North – MN WI NE IA
South – NW IL PU IU
Central – MI OS MS
East – PS RU MD
Every year, each team in a four-team pod would play the other three teams within its pod, all of the teams in one of the three-team pods and two teams in the other four-team pod. Using Minny as an example, in Year One MN would play WI NE IA + MI OS MS + NW IL.
The following year MN would again play WI NE IA + all of the teams in the other three-team pod PS RU MD + the other two teams from the South Pod, PU IU. In Year Three the schedule returns to the Year One format.
In Year One a team in a three-team pod would play the other two teams within its pod, all of the teams in one of the four-team pods and two teams in the other three-team pod. Using Penn State as an example, in Year One PS would play RU MD + NW IL PU IU + MI MS.
The following year PS would play RU MD + MN WI NE IA + MS OS. And in Year Three PS would play RU MD + NW IL PU IU + MI OS. In Year Four the PS schedule is RU MD + MN WI NE IA + MI MS.
The way this works out, each team in a four-team pod plays the other schools within its pod with 100% frequency and all other teams in the B1G with 50% frequency. Each team in a three-team pod would play the other two schools within its pod with 100% frequency, each team in the other three-team pod with 67% frequency and the other eight teams in the conference with 50% frequency.
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You probably thought I would never agree with you about anything, but this is a really good system.
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@Colin – That’s actually very close to what I had in my mind for a pod system for the Big Ten.
I sketched it out with the exact same pods as you have done here. The only difference is that the Central and East pods would each have a protected annual cross-pod rival with each other: Penn State-Ohio State, Michigan-Rutgers, and Michigan State-Maryland. That would give everyone 3 annual rivals and then they can play everyone else in the league 50% of the time (either every other year or 2 years on/2 years off) in an 8-game conference schedule.
Note that Penn State-Ohio State has become the most valuable regular season game for the Big Ten outside of Michigan-Ohio State, so that matchup realistically needs to be protected at all costs. The TV networks are going to insist upon that continuing to be an annual game. I paired Michigan with Rutgers since Michigan has the largest NYC area alumni base of any of the “original” Big Ten schools along with a huge NYC area student contingent. Michigan State is sort of the odd man out with Maryland, although that’s the trade-off for MSU being able to keep annual games with Michigan and Ohio State.
In any event, that’s how I see giving every Big Ten school 3 annual rivals that all generally make sense outside of Michigan State-Maryland (which is currently an annual division game, anyway).
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Yeah, but with my system Penn State will play Ohio State twice every three years. Penn State will also play Michigan twice every three years, and they’ll play Michigan State twice every three years. And it won’t be three one year and none the next. Every year, PS will play two of them: OS & MI in Year One, OS & MS in Year Two, MI & MS in Year Three, then back to OS & MI in Year Four, and so on.
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Yeah, but with my system Penn State will play Ohio State twice every three years. Penn State will also play Michigan twice every three years, and they’ll play Michigan State twice every three years.
Right, but today they get all of them every year.
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And as a result, the schools of the Western Division seldom play OS MI MS PS. That’s the problem with our lop-sided division system. The heavyweights are all playing each other every year while the schools west of the Great Lakes play each of them about once every four years.
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The heavyweights are all playing each other every year while the schools west of the Great Lakes play each of them about once every four years.
The western schools are also cleaning up financially due to the lopsided popularity of the eastern ones. So if OSU–PSU is the league’s second-most popular game, they will contest it annually. That is just how it is. The Big Ten is not going to leave money on the table.
Either version of the plan dramatically increases the frequency of schools playing each other. In Frank’s tweaked version of the plan, every school would have at least two of MI, MSU, OSU, PSU, on its schedule every year.
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The higher TV ratings for Eastern Division teams playing each other is something of a straw man concept. If Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan were playing Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois with greater frequency, then those games would have higher ratings than Western Division teams playing each other, e.g. Wisconsin vs Minnesota.
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I will tell you why it doesn’t work that way. College sports programs have durable reputations that take decades to make and decades to lose. It explains why Penn State will just about always have better TV ratings than Illinois, even in years when the Illini are the better team — not that that happens very often.
Now, if Illinois were better than Penn State for the next 20 years, at some point it would change, but it doesn’t change very easily. So it is not just a strawman: the ratings simply are better when the major East teams play each other.
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Marc, you’re comparing Ohio St-Penn St with Wisconsin-Minny for TV ratings. You need to compare those two games with Ohio St-Wisconsin and Penn St-Minny. I believe the latter two would have higher total ratings than the first two.
In addition, there is going to be a lot more games featuring OS, MI and PS playing western teams. Ohio St will play all eight teams in the North and South pods once every two years. Penn St will play all eight teams in the North and South pods once every two years. Michigan will play all eight teams in the North and South pods once every two years. Collectively, that is a lot of quality programming that will deliver good TV ratings. Overall TV ratings for Big Ten games will increase, not diminish.
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@Colin – The Big Ten had Ohio State-Penn State as a protected rivalry when the league had 11 teams. When the Big Ten expanded to 12 teams, they made sure to put OSU and PSU into the same division under the Leaders/Legends split. Obviously, the Big Ten put them in the same division in the East/West split with 14 teams.
Simply put, the Big Ten looks at OSU-PSU as a true rivalry game that they wouldn’t split up any more than Wisconsin-Minnesota or Michigan-Michigan State at this point. The fact that it is also typically the highest-rated regular season Big Ten matchup outside of Michigan-OSU makes it inconceivable that the Big Ten wouldn’t have it be an annual game going forward. The league and TV networks would honestly rather split up any other rivalry outside of Michigan-OSU.
At the same, from a TV contract maximization perspective, a single massively high-rated game is worth exponentially more than other games. It’s not a linear relationship. For instance, there’s a higher TV ad value from a combination of 1 game that draws 9 million viewers paired with another game that draws 2 million viewers than there is from a combination of 2 games that draws 6 million viewers each (even though the latter combo draws a higher total number of viewers). It’s the 9 million viewer game that’s truly rare, so TV networks an extra large premium for them along with advertisers.
In any event, even putting aside the TV numbers, I truly believe that the Big Ten looks at the OSU-PSU rivalry as untouchable. Any realistic format needs to assume that they’re playing each other annually. Frankly, they’re already going to be wary of not having Michigan-PSU continuing on as an annual game in the event that divisions are eliminated, so that makes preserving OSU-PSU even more important. It’s a border rivalry with two of the biggest brands in college football as well as the two most important recruiting areas in the league – it would be as nonsensical for the Big Ten to eliminate it as an annual game as it would be for the SEC to not have Florida and Georgia continue to play annually in the new alignment that they’ll have with 16 teams.
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Marc, you’re comparing Ohio St-Penn St with Wisconsin-Minny for TV ratings. You need to compare those two games with Ohio St-Wisconsin and Penn St-Minny. I believe the latter two would have higher total ratings than the first two.
Although OSU–Wisconsin and PSU–Minny are not contested annually, they have played. That means the Big Ten has numbers on every imaginable pairing. They don’t need to guess or to “believe”. They have facts.
(I see the last two times PSU and Minny played, they got second- or third-tier TV slots. In 2019, they were the noon game on ABC. In 2016, they were on BTN. This tells you where that game stands in the pecking order. OSU–Wisky, I grant you, is probably never going to be on BTN.)
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Frank, I believe that we could create an annual OS-PS rivalry without establishing meaningless games with MI-RU and MS-MD as annual rivalries. So instead of OS playing a repeating three year series of PS-RU, PS-MD and RU-MD, OS-PS would be an annual game and the rest of the pod would go into the following rotation:
Year One: OS plays PS & RU; MI plays PS & MD; MS plays RU & MD.
Year Two: OS plays PS & MD; MI plays PS & RU; MS plays RU & MD.
Year Three: OS plays PS & RU; MI plays RU & MD; MS plays PS & MD.
Year Four: OS plays PS & MD; MI plays RU & MD; MS plays PS & RU.
Year Five would be the same as Year One, so the cycle outlined above would repeat every four years. This would provide a format where OS plays PS with 100% frequency, RU with 50% frequency and MD with 50% frequency. MI would play PS with 50% frequency, RU at 75% and MD at 75%. MS would play PS with 50% frequency, RU at 75% and MD at 75%.
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I believe that we could create an annual OS-PS rivalry without establishing meaningless games with MI-RU and MS-MD as annual rivalries.
I like this better, and always have. Consensus on this site was always that it was too difficult to explain to fans. We have no knowledge of what the B1G might have considered and rejected, but they are talking about locking 3 rivalries per team, which inevitably means there will be some arbitrary ones.
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Another way to do it is to make the East into a four-team pod by adding Ohio State. We would then end up with this:
North – MN WI NE IA
South – IL PU IN
Central – MI NW MS
East – PS RU MD OS
Every other year, we would need a crossover game for Ohio State-Michigan when the East Pod does not play the Central Pod. We would also need to maintain the annual IL-NW rivalry but that would be easy because the three-team pods play each other every year.
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Both of the articles indicated that the author is not in favor of reducing the number of in conference games. My question is who is in favor of doing that, except perhaps Commissioner Warren. Other then helping the ACC and PAC, what reason is there for the B1G to do that?
I do not see how this would make the B1G more attractive for the next TV contract. What is the upside, since certainly neither the ACC or PAC will fold absent more games with the B1G?
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My question is who is in favor of doing that, except perhaps Commissioner Warren.
There must be substantial support among the ADs. No commissioner floats an idea like that without testing the waters internally. If the ADs thought it was nonsense, Warren would know by now. I have to assume that most of the ADs favor this. Maybe not every school, but certainly a broad majority of them.
I do not see how this would make the B1G more attractive for the next TV contract.
Pan-regional alliance games might be more valuable. Let’s say you eliminate Purdue–Rutgers from the schedule, replacing it with two alliance games: Purdue–Syracuse and Rutgers–Arizona. Now, I suspect most fans who would watched Purdue–Rutgers would also watch the alliance games. But now you pick up viewers from other regions who would never watch Purdue–Rutgers.
So perhaps the two crappy alliance games would have better ratings than the one crappy B1G game they replace. The B1G has to share the revenue of the alliance games, but there are two of them instead of just one, so they come out ahead. That’s the only logic that I can imagine.
The key is, the B1G will still play its best conference games. The games it would give up are predominantly those that only fans in its footprint care about, as in my example. For each of those it drops, it gains two shared alliance games that have higher average ratings. The B1G wouldn’t be talking about this if TV partners had not already confirmed they would pay more for it. That’s the only reason to do it.
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https://theathletic.com/news/james-madison-will-join-sun-belt-in-all-sports-starting-in-fall-2022-source/PSEFFdU45Kzd/
James Madison will join the Sun Belt in all sports in fall of 2022.
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We had discussed this earlier, but I think sports is going to be a good way to limit churn.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-data-netflix-hbo-disney-hulu-11643560207
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https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/33201840/america-east-bans-stony-brook-conference-tournaments
America East bans Stony Brook from postseason conference tournaments due to their announced departure next year for the Colonial Athletic Association.
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The Wild West of College Sports
A discussion of the impacts of NIL and transfers
https://spectator.org/nil-college-sports/
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https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/33238926/southern-indiana-screaming-eagles-apply-ncaa-move-division-i
Southern Indiana voted unanimously on Monday for a move to Division I. The school will explore possibilities of membership in either the Ohio Valley Conference, Horizon League or Atlantic Sun. An announcement on conference affiliation is expected in the coming days.
Southern Indiana has won four team national championships at the Division II level, along with 10 individual national championships. The school is adding swimming and diving next fall to bring the number of varsity sports up to 19.
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Here’s the most in-depth article I could find on the SEC revenue distribution.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2022/02/10/southeastern-conference-revenue-increase-fiscal-2021/6741455001/
Highlights:
The document — provided by the conference on Thursday in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports — shows the SEC with total revenue of just over $833 million.
The resulting distributions to its 14 member schools averaged about $54.6 million per school, an increase of just over $9 million per school compared to the distributions the conference reported for its 2020 fiscal year.
The SEC is the first of the Power Five conferences to release its tax records for fiscal 2021. But, according to documents obtained in January by NorthJersey.com and the USA Today Network New Jersey, the Big Ten Conference distributed $157 million less to its members in fiscal 2021 than it did the previous year. The Big Ten deducted $55.8 million from its distribution for COVID testing, according to the documents. Also, Big Ten television revenue likely was impacted by football game cancelations.
Nearly all of the SEC’s revenue increase came in TV and radio rights fees, which rose to $588 million in 2021, from $497 million in 2020.
Vincent said in the email that the “increase in media rights reflects continued success of the SEC Network, expansion of the SEC’s media rights agreements (and) contractual escalation of existing rights.”
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Humble brag.
LSU’s Andrew Whitworth wins NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year. LSU’s Joe Burrow wins NFL Comeback Player of the year. And LSU’s Ja’Marr Chase wins NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
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Alan, I like Joe Burrow a lot and I am rooting for him to be Super Bowl MVP tomorrow. But really, for the Heisman Trophy winner to be comeback player of the year in his second season really required a mini-disaster the prior year.
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Like a severely torn ACL & MCL in his left knee less than 15 months ago?
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Sorry, the Heisman Trophy winner, number one pick in the draft, should not be come back player in his second year. Just as a matter of principle. He played great, which is what he was supposed to do.
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Marshall, SoMiss, and ODU just told CUSA to go pound sand. They’re leaving in June.
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Wilner posted a projection of conference revenue. He is expecting $80+ million per school for the Big Ten in FY 2024
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The Big Ten is kicking off the 2022 season with some interesting games. The first four football dates of 2022 will be virtually dominated by the B1G. Hopefully these games will be cash cows for TV revenue. Not a single SEC game during those first three dates and most of the other games are of the caliber VMI at Wake Forest.
Saturday, August 27 – Nebraska vs. Northwestern (in Dublin, Ireland)
Thursday, Sept 1 – Penn State at Purdue
Friday, Sept 2 – Illinois at Indiana; Western Michigan at Michigan State
Saturday, Sept 3 – Notre Dame at Ohio State
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The Wilner article shows how truly pathetic the ACC situation is and will continue to be. At least the PAC has only a couple of years to wait to improve. The ACC has an extra decade. That will leave schools like Clemson and FSU literally hundreds of millions behind their “peers”. Look at FSU revenue vs. UF. Yikes. Within 5 years, UCF will probably have more annual revenue than FSU.
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” At least the PAC has only a couple of years to wait to improve.”
Unfortunately, that won’t happen in a couple of years. All conference networks other than the P-12 Network have a Sugar Daddy. The BTN has Fox, the SECN and ACCN have ESPN. The reason they are able to get into the the basic package of cable TV markets is because they can be bundled with Fox, Fox News, etc, or ABC, ESPN, etc. They are marketed as a package deal.
The P-12 Network can’t do that. They’re hanging out there all alone in a region that isn’t particularly interested in college football. You will soon see Colorado begging to get into the Big Ten.
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I think you are conflating unrelated issues. The Pac-12 region is a substantial football market with passionate fan bases. It doesn’t have and will never have the same level of football energy as the South or the Midwest. That is just a fact they have to live with, along with their time zone problem. But when the dust settles they’ll be a solid #3 in revenue per school, behind (in some order) the SEC and the Big Ten.
Now, given their entrenched #3 status, have they maximized their potential? No, and that’s largely because they royally screwed up their network rollout. However, because they wholly own their network, that problem is totally fixable. They’ll never make up the lost years because Larry Scott did it wrong to begin with, but it’s not a structurally permanent handicap.
By the way, it’s pretty impressive that they are in position to be #3, as their results on the field certainly do not justify it.
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Marc, I don’t know what you are talking about. The Pac-12 is projected to be #5 among the P5 in conference revenue and they have the polar opposite of passionate fan bases.
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To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, you are looking at where the puck is; I am looking at where it will be. The cited article shows the terrible straits the Pac-12 would be in, if nothing changed. But the Pac-12 will get a new TV deal in 2024. The ACC is stuck with their deal until 2036. Also, the cited article shows the Big 12’s revenue with Texas and Oklahoma, which they’ll have for only a few more years.
Thus, after the next round of TV deals, the Pac-12 will be solidly #3.
While I could not find an article that reduced fan base passion to a single stat, I see that the Pac-12 had $533 million in revenue in 2020—the last year for which numbers are available—placing them 3rd (behind the Big Ten and the SEC). No one pays half a billion dollars for nothing.
In attendance per school, the Pac-12 ranks fourth (ahead of the ACC), but they’ll likely be third after the Big 12 loses Texas and Oklahoma. In 2019 (the last non-COVID year), the Pac-12 drew almost 49k fans per game. The average attendance of the 8 continuing Big 12 members is about 48k. That’ll only get worse, as three of the four incoming Big 12 members have worse attendance than every Pac-12 school but Washington State.
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Pac12 revenue numbers are not comparable to other leagues since they include all revenue from their wholly owned network. Other leagues just include the media rights dollars as revenue from their network. The network revenue numbers are sorta meaningless since the network does not generate significant cash to its membership.
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Marc, you may be right but I’m not buying it. You may recall that the P-12 Network struggled with distribution from Day One and still does. The biggest carrier in the West, DirecTV, never came to an agreement with them and still hasn’t. There is no reason that will change in 2024.
The conference has a new commish who is preaching that the 2024 round of TV deals will be Valhalla but hey, that’s how he became the new commish. I see no fundamental reasons why things will be much different in 2024 than they are right now. Football attendance has been in steady decline for ten of twelve conference teams (link) and the time zone problems are not going away. Only two, Washington and USC, average over 50K in attendance and five average under 40K. IMHO, those big media rights deals that the Big Tem and SEC will score in 2024 will be coming out of the hide of the ACC, Big XII and Pac-12.
https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/pac-12-football-attendance-oregon-usc-2021-covid
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It’s a no-brainer that the Pac-12’s Tier 1 & 2 revenue will put them in third place after their next deal, because the Big 12 won’t have its two best programs anymore, and the ACC is stuck with a below-market deal for an additional twelve years.
When it comes to their network, I admit it is not so clear. Unlike every other league with a network, the Pac-12 elected not to have a media partner, which proved to be a devastating mistake. There is no precise roadmap for fixing such a huge error, but because they don’t have a partner, they don’t need anyone’s permission to make changes, so I am guessing they will.
For instance, they might partner with CBS, soon to be out of major college football after they lose the SEC. Now, the Pac-12 is clearly not as good a property as the SEC, but when you’ve got nothing it might look pretty good.
This contrasts with the ACC, which has no way out of its horrible media deal without adding Notre Dame as a full member, which we agree is not going to happen.
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Marc: “It’s a no-brainer that the Pac-12’s Tier 1 & 2 revenue will put them in third place after their next deal, because the Big 12 won’t have its two best programs anymore, and the ACC is stuck with a below-market deal for an additional twelve years.”
It may be a no-brainer for you but I see no reason whatsoever for the Pac-12’s Tier 1 & 2 content to be more valuable or more marketable. In fact it appears that it will be the least marketable among the P5 in 2024. College football attendance is down for all conferences from 2016 to 2021 (not including 2020), as the link below shows. However the biggest loser was the Pac-12:
ACC – 10.5% decline from 2016 to 2021
Big Ten – 2.0% decline
Big XII – 5.5% decline
Pac-12 – 13.5% decline
SEC – 6.5% decline
Other factors – If the college playoff doesn’t change before 2024 and the Pac-12 continues to get zero teams in, that will make them even less marketable vs the B1G/SEC/ACC. Plus some simple math here: If the SEC and B1G are getting more and more Tier 1 and 2 games on TV, that means the ACC/B12/P12 will be getting fewer and fewer. And again, the Pacific time zone is an insoluble problem.
https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/does-college-football-have-an-attendance-problem/
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It may be a no-brainer for you but I see no reason whatsoever for the Pac-12’s Tier 1 & 2 content to be more valuable or more marketable.
The ACC’s market value is irrelevant here, because they can’t actually put their rights on sale until 2036. And if you are relying on Big 12 figures that include Texas and Oklahoma…then you really need to re-examine your methodology.
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My methodology? Look, don’t be insulting. We’re discussing this issue in a rational manner. Please explain in plain English why the Pac-12’s Tier 1 & 2 content will have greater value in 2024.
And we shouldn’t really make a big issue of who will be 1-2-3-4-5 in revenue in 2024. In 2025, the B1G and the SEC will be 1 and 2 in some order or another and the ACC/P12/B12 will be a distant 3/4/5. There will be a P2 and a Mid-3 and a G5.
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It’s really so basic. All I said was that after the next round of TV renewals, the Pac-12 will very obviously be in 3rd place on the money tree. This is because:
1) The Big 12’s value is overwhelmingly driven by two schools, and it’s losing them both.
2) The ACC is grossly underpaid, and because they stupidly locked up their rights until 2036, there is nothing they can do about it.
The Pac-12 is also currently underpaid, but unlike the ACC they are going back to market in a couple of years. It takes very little effort to look up the dramatic inflation rate of sports broadcasting rights historically, even mediocre rights like the Pac-12. They’re gonna get a huge raise, because everybody does.
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Marc, your steadfast claim that the Pac-12 will staked out as the #3 conference in revenue after the 2024 negotiations may be correct but if you look at the ratings numbers for each conferece, there isn’t going to be a heck of a lot of difference between numbers 3, 4 and 5.
The Big Ten and SEC have HUGE audiences for their top conference games compared to the ACC, P12 and B12 (link). Even more telling, the most watched games involving P12 teams are when they play out of conference, suggesting the foremost appeal is attributable to the opponent rather than the P12 team. And certainly the Pacific Time Zone is a factor here.
As I mentioned previously, in a couple of years we’ll have a P2, a Mid-3 and a G5 and it won’t make a heck of a lot of difference who is 3, 4 & 5 because all three will be waaaay behind the B1G and the SEC.
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https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-Media/2022/02/14
The Big Ten likely will let ESPN’s exclusive window come-and-go without a deal because so many media companies are waiting in the wings to bid.
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There may not be many slots at ABC/ESPN for the B1G. With 3 windows per Saturday on ABC and 3-4 windows on ESPN and ESPN2, exactly how will Disney allocate the slots?
With a max of 11 windows, we already know that the SEC will get the 3:30p ABC slot and roughly half of the ABC primetime slots. When the SEC doesn’t get the ABC primetime slot, I don’t think its unreasonable to assume they get the noon ABC slot. Does the SEC get 3-4 other slots on ESPN and ESPN2 throughout the day? Given their exclusivity with Disney and it being a 16 team league with kings Alabama, LSU, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, near-king Georgia, and barons Auburn, A&M and Tennessee, 5 to 6 of the 11 ABC/ESPN/2 slots to the SEC seems reasonable. The SECN has 3 windows, and on occasion utilizes an auxiliary channel when there are several non-conference rent a wins. I think each team may be obligated to play one rent a win game on ESPN+ as well.
Disney also has exclusivity with the ACC. Notre Dame away games with Clemson, Miami, Florida State, or whoever is hot that season will almost certainly make it to primetime ABC. Is it safe to assume that the ACC gets half of the ABC noon slots? I think so. So let’s say the ACC gets 2-3 of the 11 ABC/ESPN/2 slots.
That leaves 1 to 4 slots for the rest of college football.
Will the B1G be satisfied to have just a Tier 2 deal with Disney where their #3 game gets a 3:30p slot on ESPN? I’m assuming that the B1G works out their Tier 1 deal with Fox and CBS or NBC where they alternate the #1 and #2 picks, with a Tier 2-a deal with FS1 for two games or so and the rest going to the BTN.
Does the P-12 take a PAC after dark slot on ESPN with the occasional USC-ND game on ABC primetime?
Does the B-12 (without OU & UT) start playing regular Friday night games on ESPN with their best matchup?
Does the B-12 have any consistent games that warrant an ABC primetime window?
In order to accommodate the other conferences, I could see FOX going to 3 windows every week and CBS or NBC going to two windows, depending on who all they sign.
Then the G-5. MAC-tion Tuesdays, SunBelt Wednesdays, American Thursdays, the MWC on ESPN2 late night Fridays & Saturdays.
Does CBSSN get more aggressive in bidding?
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@Alan – ABC/ESPN does have a window crunch so I expect they’ll be looking for a partner like last time. Fox has MLB commitments that take a way many of their windows so I am confident they will be too. Part of me thinks FOX will try to partner with ESPN again and another thinks Turner. The Big Ten probably wants to avoid CBSSN at all costs so I think CBS will be looking for a partner for their Tier II games. Since NBC shut down NBCSN an NBC/USA Network bid would probably cross the line of acceptability.
I do think the Big Ten will want some sort of streaming presence. At the very least, OTA games streamed like the NFL does with Paramount+ and Peacock. They would probably love to see the Tier II games streamed* as well. I don’t know what FOX’s** streaming strategy is and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s a drag on their bid. Will a service buy the BTN to put all those basketball and football games on streaming? I’m sure the Big Ten would love a Big Ten category prominently displayed on one of the streaming services.
* That will hurt the cable side but do you sacrifice that for subscriber growth?
** IMO FOX Corporation is just sitting out there waiting to be bought (Amazon?) or merged with (Warner?).
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As long as ABC/ESPN wants about the same number of Big Ten games per week as it has had, I don’t think there is any time crunch for them.
Note that taking the CBS package only gives them (on average) 1 more game a week…they already had the rights to every other game. The Sooners and Longhorns moving gives them another SEC game per week (on average).
So that’s a 2 game per week difference, but they could make that up by bumping the Big 12 and any G5 games that aired on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 down to ESPNU or ESPN+…or drop those conferences entirely when their contracts comes up.
I wonder if ABC is required to air any ACC games on the over-the-air network, or if they can put them all on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ACCN.
If ABC is free, I could easily see them being the preferred destination for the Big Ten’s first choice package. They could get the Noon ET slot every week + about 4 prime time ABC games a year. These would all be the first-choice games; they might give ESPN another game or 2 a week for the cable networks that would be chosen last, leaving the Big Ten a healthy package in between to sell to FOX/NBC/CBS.
ABC would have the Big Ten game of the week followed by the SEC game of the week, followed by a massive prime time game that would most often be another SEC or Big Ten game, but occasionally would be an ACC (vs. ND?) or Pac 12 game.
If the Red River Rivalry has to air at 11 CT (and can’t move to 2:30), that might be 1 week a year when the SEC gets the noon ET game and the Big Ten switches to 3:30
Conference championship Saturday would have the ACC championship game leading into the SEC championship game leading into the Big Ten championship game.
This deal might not be best for the Big Ten’s “Alliance” partners, but it would probably be best for the Big Ten in terms of exposure. ABC would be the casual fan’s destination channel.
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SBJ expecting the Big Ten to get around 1 billion a year.
Big payday coming for Big Ten
The Big Ten will become the first college conference to eclipse $1 billion per year when it negotiates its next media-rights deal later this year. That’s the opinion held by several well-placed sports business sources, who expect the conference to more than double the $440 million in annual rights fees that Fox and ESPN currently pay.
The Big Ten’s media contracts run through 2022-23. It has entered into an exclusive negotiating window with ESPN, but my colleague John Ourand doesn’t expect a deal to get done within this window because there is competing interest from other networks. The conference almost certainly will take its rights to the marketplace to have multiple bidders drive up the price. CBS and NBC are believed to have strong interest.
The Big Ten has a huge footprint and big TV markets. The conference delivered major TV audiences during the 2021 season and one of its big stars, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, decided to stay put — for now. All of those factors drive value.
And there’s more.
Once the Big Ten completes its next deal, it joins the ACC and the SEC in having long-term media deals locked up. The major conference rights left in this cycle will be the Pac-12, which has struggled on the competitive stage, and the Big 12, which is losing Texas and Oklahoma. If a network like CBS has major cash to spend for its coveted 3:30pm ET college football window, it’s going to do it now with the Big Ten.
https://sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-College/2022/02/15.aspx
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The SEC just signed a ten year three billion dollar deal. Compared to that, these are almost unbelievable numbers. In all likelihood some of this is posturing by CBS and NBC to make sure the Big Ten doesn’t resign with ESPN/FOX during the exclusivity window, but if the bids are in this ballpark the Big Ten will be very happy.
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Mike – to be clear, the $300m + deal the SEC just signed with Disney is for the one CBS game per week, plus the SEC championship game only. It replaces the $55m per year deal previously in place with CBS. This deal is in additional to the previous Tier 2 plan the SEC already had with ESPN and the Tier 3 plan with the SECN.
Wilner’s recent estimates did not take this $250m + boost into account when he was making his future guesses on conference revenue. Many on this board also have discounted the look-in/ escalator clause between Disney and the SEC. I’m assuming that clause resulted in the over $90m increase that Wilner also failed to predict in earlier posting prior to the SEC tax information being released. Also, when OU & UT come on board, I think its safe to say that the pie grows. For example, an existing SEC school isn’t giving away one dollar in order for those two rats to leave the sinking B-12 ship. Also, if the SEC adds a 9th conference game, that further increases the pot by allowing for either a new contract, or at least another look-in adjustment.
Back of the envelope math:
2021 – $600m. Note: this was a 20% increase over 2020, which I doubt will happen every year, so let’s just say 10% for the next two years before the new Disney Tier 1 deal kicks in and OU & UT join up in 2025 (or sooner – pardon the pun).
So right before the new Disney Tier 1 deal kicks in in 2023, the SEC should be making around $725m. Add the that the $250m + from the new Tier 1 deal, and the SEC is almost at $1Billion. Then add the pro-rata increases for OU & UT, (at least $70m each or $140m total). Then add on the addition of a 9th conference game Is $200m reasonable? I think so.
That total comes to roughly $1.315B.
Will the B1G be ahead of the SEC after their next contract? Maybe, but if so it won’t be by much.
Also, keep in mind that CBS dropped out of bidding for the SEC Tier 1 deal (14 regular season games and the SEC CCG) at $300m. And they would have received the number one game twelve out of the 14 slots. I highly doubt they, or NBC would approach $300m/year with a shared FOX deal where they only get the #1 pick half of the time.
I would expect the combined tier 1 B1G deal (FOX + CBS or NBC or Disney) to exceed $300m.
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Pop Quiz
When the Big Ten expanded with Rutgers and Maryland, the focus was obviously TV markets. What if they had used home football attendance as the metric instead? Here is the quiz:
Which two teams in the East would have given the Big Ten the largest combined football attendance?
RULES: No consideration for AAU status, academic stature nor state flagship. No school will leave the SEC. Must be contiguous with the state of Pennsylvania to maintain Eastern focus.
So which two schools would have achieved a combined maximum attendance?
A. Pitt and Rutgers
B. Pitt and West Virginia
C. Rutgers and Syracuse
D. Rutgers and Maryland
E. Maryland and UVA
F. West Virginia and Virginia Tech
G. Maryland and Virginia Tech
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CUSA released the 2022 football schedule, including the SB3. UAB’s response is awesome.
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Gene Smith saying the Alliance is dead as far as scheduling. Big 10 staying at 9 conference games.
I didn’t know how it made any sense for the Big 10 to play Pac or ACC schools instead of Big 10 schools.
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The “Alliance” always appeared to be a knee-jerk reaction to the SEC annexing Texas and Oklahoma, and never looked like anything of substance.
May the Force be with them, though…
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The Alliance didn’t die, it was stillborn. It was a nothingburger from Day One. A series of football games between Louisville and Iowa or Michigan State and UVA does nothing for the Big Ten.
The Big Ten needs to focus upon playoff expansion and television marketing. We need the opposite of an alliance with the ACC and P12: a focus upon displacing ACC/P12 Tier I and II games on national networks with Big Ten games. Why should we buddy up with these losers when every game that they get broadcast on national TV actually comes out of our hide? We’d be better off forming an Alliance with the SEC to totally displace the ACC, P12 and B12 on the major networks.
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If they really wanted to salvage it, a 9 conference, 1 Alliance, 2 Guarantee model would still be workable. Allow TV partners to pick games a year or so out. There is no reason Michigan should be playing this year’s OOC games of Colorado St/Hawaii/UConn.
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What difference would it make if Michigan played Colorado/Oregon State/Syracuse instead of Colorado St/Hawaii/UConn? As I have repeatedly said, the Big Ten has nothing to gain from this ‘Alliance’. The ACC and Pac-12 would benefit, but it does nothing for the Big Ten.
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@Colin – Michigan would get a better game from Monty Python’s limbless knight then they will from CSU/HI/UConn. The entire point of having TV pick a game is so Michigan doesn’t end up playing awful slate like that. Two of those games are fine, but in (my proposed) Alliance Michigan should be playing one of Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA, Florida St, Clemson, or Miami. UM-UW was ABC prime time and the second most watched game of week 2 (behind “Alliance game” Ohio St- Oregon). Decent chance any of those pairings is either a Big Noon or ABC primetime game. Yes, Northwestern-Duke, Minnesota-Colorado, or Illinois-Virginia are not going to move the needle on TV but they are at least a more interesting games for fans than a random G5/FCS team.
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Mike, what you said is true but obviously the Big Ten doesn’t need an Alliance for Michigan to enhance their OOC schedule. Michigan could trade in one of those CSU/HI/UConn games for Auburn, LSU, Texas A&M or Oklahoma and would attract more TV eyeballs than anyone from the ACC or Pac-12.
One more time – the Alliance boosts the ACC and the Pac-12, not the Big Ten.
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@Colin – I am not disagreeing that the Alliance boosts the ACC and PAC12. I am just pointing out how the Alliance could work for the Big Ten. Yes, Michigan doesn’t need the Alliance to improve their schedule but there is little doubt that letting TV schedule one non conference match up isn’t a win for everyone.
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Rutgers mens bball lost early season games to Lafayette and other terrible teams. After clocking Illinois today, they have now become the first unranked teams in history to beat four ranked teams in a row. Could be one of the most strange seasons ever in mens bball. https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/1494131121528971265
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NBC to make big push for Big Ten media rights
https://frontofficesports.com/nbc-to-make-big-push-for-big-ten-media-rights/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=article-sharing
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Using those estimates, the Big Ten Schools would make $72 million per school if they get a $1 billion media rights deal from NBC. Add to that an estimated $17 million per school from the Big Ten Network and each B1G school would be making $89 million per year in total media rights.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/football-big-ten-700-million-revenue-ncaa-pac-12.html
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I am not aware of $17 million in BTN payouts. Thought it was closer to 10-12.
Anyway, you also have NCAA and CFP/bowl revenues as well. Conference distributions will likely be over $100million by a good margin. That’s got to be a life line to the Rutgers AD.
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Well absent B1G offer, RU is in AAC, which pays close to $10 million per team. RU either is now already getting or is about to get full share, so that is about $90 million per year difference.
That is a rather large life line. Maryland is also getting at least an extra $50 per year in a couple of years. Also large.
As stated above, giant 2, little 3 and the rest. They SEC/B1G money is overwhelming compared to the little 3.
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As a B1G (UW) fan I like seeing the money to help pay for facilities but overall not sure it’s that great. It’s not like ticket prices have come down. Just coaches making more money. Also, I don’t think the wide financial disparities between leagues and programs are a good thing for the long term health of college athletics.
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Now we’re hearing about a bidding war among NBC, CBS, ESPN and Fox for Big Ten media rights. Maybe $1 billion/year is chump change.
https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/big-spend-for-the-big-ten-nbc-espn-fox-cbs-among-possible-bidders-for-conferences-media-rights/
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Kevin our oldest son did undergrad at UM – Mad. Fun school to attend. Camp Randall football is the best. We were at the 1998 homecoming when Drew Brees threw 83 passes and Purdue dominated statistics, but Wiscy won with Ron Dayne (and Purdue turnovers)
So, that makes me a “fan” of UW, FSU, and RU.
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The Alliance is crumbling (link) and for good reason. Why dilute the Big Ten brand – which may soon be worth $1 billion/yr – with teams in the Pac-12 and the ACC that no one wants to watch? Dropping a Big Ten game in order for the B1G to add an OOC game vs the likes of Duke, Cal, Wake or Oregon State will diminish the value of the Big Ten media rights package that will soon be up for auction.
Neilsen ratings for ACC football are terrible. Ditto the Pac-12. Ditto their conference networks. Ditto ND football on NBC now that they have five ACC weaklings in their schedule every year. The Big Ten needs to keep that 9th conference game and part ways with the ACC and P12.
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The Alliance is crumbling (link) and for good reason. Why dilute the Big Ten brand – which may soon be worth $1 billion/yr – with teams in the Pac-12 and the ACC that no one wants to watch?
The Big Ten still regularly schedules the Pac-12 and the ACC, and those games get relatively good ratings. They still have to play someone in the non-conference, and there are not enough SEC teams to go around.
The reason the Alliance fell apart is NOT that they no longer want to play those teams. It’s because there is no good reason to give up a ninth conference game they totally control, in exchange for non-conference games they have to share.
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Pretty good summary here . . .
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/college/football/2022/02/17/ohio-state-gene-smith-no-big-ten-acc-pac-12-alliance-schedule/6828955001/
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Could it be that a major part of the rationale for the B1G in the Alliance was to help insure the survival of the Big 12? It does not hurt the B1G to have a P5 rather than have 8 former “major” teams in the wilderness asking for help from Congress or anywhere else.
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If the Alliance is dead, or sleeping, does the Rose Bowl still have value to the B1G?
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Tne Big Ten and the Rose Bowl were divorced on January 3, 2002, when Big XII Nebraska played independent Miami.
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If the Alliance is dead, or sleeping, does the Rose Bowl still have value to the B1G?
The B1G and the Pac-12 jointly own the Rose Bowl. And the Rose is still by far the most valuable bowl game outside of the playoff games. It regularly out-rates every other non-playoff bowl by a substantial margin. It gets strong ratings even when the actual teams are not very sexy.
On the other hand, the days are over when the B1G and Pac-12 champs automatically met in the Rose Bowl. Ohio State was in the Rose Bowl last month, not because of what they won, but because of what they lost. However, they still played hard and beat Utah in an exciting game. It was a ratings bonanza once again. Just one of the two playoff games out-rated it (Georgia v. Michigan); it tied with the other playoff game (Cincinnati v. Alabama).
It’s a looooooong way down to #4. The Orange Bowl had an estimated 17.2m viewers, followed by the Rose and Cotton tied at 16.6. There’s a big jump down to the Sugar Bowl at just 9.8m, and so on. It’s like that almost every year. No other bowl draws like that, in years when it’s a non-playoff game.
Because the B1G and Pac-12 jointly own the game, they enjoy a big chunk of the income even when they are not in it. When they are in it, they get paid twice. A great deal, if you could get it.
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New Topic – Big Ten Hockey – Some Randon Thoughts
Couple of years ago, Illinois becoming the Big Ten’s eighth hockey league member was a done deal (link). Then the pandemic happened and we’ve heard nothing since. Anyone know?
https://www.inforum.com/sports/a-look-at-big-ten-hockey-part-2-illinois-program-coming-soon
Did you guys know that Arizona State played a full Big Ten hockey schedule last year, all on the road because they don’t have an arena yet (link)?
https://madison.com/wsj/sports/college/hockey/big-ten-mens-hockey-players-say-which-team-should-be-added-to-the-league/article_25b287a1-701b-52f0-8fee-fbb1bad753cc.html
Will the Big Ten add North Dakota and/or Minnesota-Duluth as associate members (link)?
https://thesportsdaily.com/2020/07/01/hes-back-4-g1w1/
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Covid related absence.
From ASU website:
“Oceanside Ice Arena
Address: 1520 N McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85281
Home of Sun Devil Hockey
Arena Website
Oceanside Ice Arena is home to Sun Devil Men’s Ice Hockey.
The arena is a 36,000 sq. ft. building with an ice surface that is between NHL and Olympic size – 89′ W x 200′ L.
Capacity for hockey games is 747.”
New on campus 5,000 seat multipurpose arena to be shared with the Phoenix Coyotes supposed to be done this year.
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Notre Dame’s hockey team is in the B1G. There is room for more.
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Bob: “Notre Dame’s hockey team is in the B1G. There is room for more.”
Several interesting possibilities for expansion. The Great White Whale is North Dakota. Seven Frozen Four championships and an ancient rivalry with Minnesota.
https://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2006/02/08_top10.php
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Will the Big Ten add North Dakota and/or Minnesota-Duluth as associate members (link)?
https://thesportsdaily.com/2020/07/01/hes-back-4-g1w1/
Ah, Greg Flugar. He’s been telling worried fans that their realignment dreams are this close to happening for twelve years or so. His latest schtick is telling Kansas fans that a Big Ten invite is coming soon. I have no idea why the Big Ten would consider adding additional affiliate members in hockey. Notre Dame made sense. Arizona St didn’t. I don’t see hugely compelling case for North Dakota or UM-Duluth. Yes, they are both great teams, but what is the economic case for it? I would not be surprised if Big Ten would look to avoid upending the sport again like it did when it started sponsoring hockey. That created the NCHC, with the CCHA and WCHA taking turns being killed off. IMHO – don’t pay 9.95 for anything Flugar has to say.
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https://mattsarzsports.blogspot.com
Matt Sarz just posted his Week 0 & 1 TV predictions.
Highlights:
Week 0
Saturday
12pm FOX: Nebraska vs. Northwestern
Week 1
Thursday
7pm FOX: Penn State at Purdue
7pm ACCN: VMI at Wake Forest
7:30pm ESPN: West Virginia at Pitt
Friday
7pm ESPN: Illinois at Indiana
8pm BTN: Western Michigan at Michigan State
10pm ESPN: TCU at Colorado
Saturday
12pm ABC: BYU at USF
12pm FOX: Colorado State at Michigan
3:30pm ABC: Georgia vs. Oregon
3:30pm FOX: UTEP at Oklahoma
3:30pm ESPN: Utah at Florida
7:30pm ABC: Notre Dame at Ohio State
Sunday
7:30pm ABC: Florida State vs. LSU
Monday
8pm ESPN: Clemson vs. Georgia Tech
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https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2022-02-23/why-failure-to-expand-college-football-playoff-was-win-for-pac-12
Interesting article on the play off from the PAC 12 point of view
I believed that the Longhorns and Sooners had been convinced by Sankey that a 12-team playoff was coming, opening up the potential that nearly half the field could come from the stacked SEC. Sure, UT and OU would want the windfall of revenue from the SEC’s annual distribution, but Oklahoma in particular wouldn’t leave its cushy path to the four-team playoff in the Big 12 to battle with Alabama, Louisiana State, Georgia, Florida, Texas A&M and Auburn for a maximum of two spots the SEC could claim each year.
The rest of the country should be thanking the Texas A&M folks who tipped off the Houston Chronicle to the backroom maneuvering. Imagine if Texas and Oklahoma’s intentions had stayed quiet and the commissioners had signed off on 12 teams first?
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The NCAA Division II playoffs have 28 teams. The NCAA Division III playoffs have 32 teams. Division I should have at least 12 and 16 would be even better.
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One of these things is not like the rest.
First you’d need to have a ncaa D1 playoff. Ncaa makes the rules of the sports and produces over 60 ncaa championship events, but not D1 football championship. That, and all the money it generates, are controlled by the D1schools.
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The author is really spinning out of control to assert that the SEC came out the big loser with no CFP expansion and neglects to examine the timeline.
2023 Season: BYU, Cincy, UCF & Houston join the Big XII.
2024 Season: New ABC Tier 1 deal with the SEC kicks in. At least $250 million per year for the existing 14 schools to split up.
2024 Season: New P-12 TV deal in place.
2025 Season: Big XII Grant of Rights expires in May 2025. OU & UT can join the SEC with only paying the Big XII exit fee ($80m each or negotiated price) & no GoR penalty.
2025 Season: The last season of the current CFP playoff contract with ESPN.
I would expect UT & OU leave the Big XII and begin SEC play to begin the 2023 season when the newbies join the Big XII or the 2024 season when the new ABC money starts flowing. I would also expect that, in addition to a pro-rata bump for UT & OU, the existing Tier 1 & 2 deals get re-worked with the addition of a 9th conference game generating even more money, and keeping the SEC close to the B1G’s new revenue package.
The CFP will expand in time for the 2026 season. Period. Worst case scenario, OU & UT are in the SEC for two seasons under the current playoff structure, but they make a boat-load of money. The Pac-12 will continue to have limited playoff access while leaving money on the table for the remainder of their (and the CFP) TV contract.
The most interesting news in the article was that the vote included an extension of the current deal, and not just for the last two years of the existing deal.
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Worst case scenario, OU & UT are in the SEC for two seasons under the current playoff structure, but they make a boat-load of money.
As FTT has explained, university presidents prefer predictable recurring revenue over lumpy revenue that depends on whether you were in a playoff game or not. They will love this.
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Counterargument from SEC country:
https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/college/2022/02/23/college-football-playoff-12-team-sec-greg-sankey-acc-big-ten-pac-12/6892622001/
What if the SEC is no longer interested in a collaborative playoff?
The SEC doesn’t need support from other conferences for a playoff that doesn’t include other conferences.
Surely, the Alliance isn’t naïve enough to think Oklahoma and Texas are the only universities that covet SEC membership. If the SEC desires, it could raid the most desirable members from other conferences until they’re left with scraps, then stage its own playoff.
Sorry, Pac-12. You’re out. Adios, ACC. Have fun with basketball.
If the SEC still desires some companionship, it could invite the Big Ten to join its playoff. Football-fueled media rights deals drive college sports, and the SEC and Big Ten are the most attractive conferences to television networks, because they generate the most eyeballs.
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On its face, the argument is honestly ridiculous. The SEC schools will form their own playoff? Even with the addition of the B1G, which I very much doubt would happen, that would mean that 30 or so teams would basically split from the rest of D1. Add in a few extras, and it is a watered down version of the super league.
If the B1G did not join the SEC, then it would be perhaps 20 teams.
What logical reaction would all of the other leagues have.
1. Refuse to play any SEC schools in any sports.
2. Let the 20 teams or so have their own March Madness.
3, Essentially change the college sports world into three groups. The SEC plus a few, the remaining D1 schools, everyone else.
There have been many comments on this board over whether the B10 powers would go to a super league, so I will not go there. Other schools with an incentive to join the Giant SEC, such as Clemson or FSU, are stuck with their agreements.
The SEC teams are about to receive in excess of $100 million per year, or very close to that. Are they really going to put that at risk?
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The SEC would favor a four-team (pick-the-best-four) playoff or a 12-team (pick-the-best-12) playoff. They will get buco slots either way. But I think you can understand that a 12-team playoff that guaranteed five slots to P5 and five slots to G5 would leave only two slots to “at-large”.
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I don’t think any 12 team proposal has gone beyond P5 champs, the highest ranked G5 champ, and 6 wildcards. Have I missed something?
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ccrider: “Have I missed something/”
It appears that you have.
https://www.on3.com/college/alabama-crimson-tide/news/saban-talks-college-football-playoff-expansion-opposing-g5-auto-bids/
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There are 3 versions of the 12-team proposal:
1) 6 best conference champs; 6 at-large
2) P5 champs, best-of-G5, 6 at-large
3) 12 at-large (sometimes called “Best 12”)
I don’t think the SEC was a categorical no on any of these. They preferred #1, since it was the committee proposal and their commissioner was on said committee. The Big Ten wanted #2, as it would ensure their champion always makes the playoff.
To my flawed mind it is a minor distinction: in the current playoff era, there has never been a year that the B10 champ would not have made a 12-team playoff under the committee proposal (#1). While it is theoretically possible for them to miss, I wouldn’t expect it to be a common occurrence. For all practical purposes, #1 and #2 have the same effect for the Big Ten almost all the time.
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Option #1 is throwing a bone to the G5 schools without giving up anything, unless you’re the P-12/Oregon in 2020.
Sankey adopted Option #1 to secure the G5 hoping for a dream that will never come true. Absolutely crazy for the B1G to pick this hill to blow up a deal worth hundreds of millions. I understand that the ACC and the P-12 also voted against it, but as first among equals in the Alliance, the B1G could have exercised some leadership in pushing through a plan that benefitted everyone.
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The ACC voted no categorically — there was no expansion that they would support right now. I am not sure of the Pac-12’s reasoning, as they said in January that they would support any of the active proposals.
Like Alan, I don’t quite understand why an autobid for their champ was the hill the Big Ten chose to die on.
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“The ACC voted no categorically — there was no expansion that they would support right now. I am not sure of the Pac-12’s reasoning.”
Well, here’s my hunch on this. All of the 12-team scenarios being proposed will end up with the P12 and the ACC sending only their champs to the playoffs while the Big Ten, SEC and Notre Dame will scarf up the at-large slots. Once Texas and Oklahoma get into the SEC, we could easily see the six at-large bids going 3 SEC and 3 B1G/ND every year. So the three bottom feeders of the P5 would be getting even further and further behind with each passing season.
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But the ACC, P-12 & B-12 have a greater than 99% chance of getting at least one team in a 12 team playoff, which is much better than they have now.
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“But the ACC, P-12 & B-12 have a greater than 99% chance of getting at least one team in a 12 team playoff, which is much better than they have now.”
True, but weigh that against The SEC getting 3 or 4 teams in, the Big Ten getting 2 to 4 teams in and ND getting almost an auto-bid by virtue of beating up 5 ACC cupcakes and Navy every year. And add to that the revenue from the new TV deals that the SEC and Big Ten will receive, which will dwarf the ACC/P12/B12, and that’s a double whammy.
There will quickly be a vast chasm between the B1G/SEC and the frst of the P5. I think the ACC and P12 are trying to tap the brakes on this scenario.
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But the status quo will result in the same, just less money and access for the ACC, P-12 & B-12.
There is no way for the ACC, P-12 & B-12 to catch up with the B1G & SEC. Leaving money on the table just because it means that the B1G & SEC will also make more, is foolish.
Take all the money you can and do the best with what you’ve got.
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“But the status quo will result in the same, just less money and access for the ACC, P-12 and B-12. There is no way for the ACC, P-12 & B-12 to catch up with the B1G & SEC.”
I completely agree and I believe we all understand that. But I’ll paraphrase Frank the Tank here: Think like a ACC/P12/B12 commish, not like a rational businessman.
All three of those conferences have relatively new commissioners and all three inherited lousy deals from their predecessors. All three know that their conferences are going down in revenue and stature vs SEC/B1G. So do you bring about the day of reckoning as quickly as possible or do you postpone the debacle as long as you can?
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I completely agree and I believe we all understand that. But I’ll paraphrase Frank the Tank here: Think like a ACC/P12/B12 commish, not like a rational businessman.
The Big 12 voted for the proposal. The three no votes were the Big Ten, the Pac-12, and the ACC.
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“The Big 12 voted for the proposal. The three no votes were the Big Ten, the Pac-12, and the ACC.”
Riiiight. That was right before Texas and Oklahoma made a huge deposit of droppings upon the Big XII Conference.
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That was right before Texas and Oklahoma made a huge deposit of droppings upon the Big XII Conference.
No it wasn’t. The vote was a couple of weeks ago. The Big 12 remained a vocal proponent of expansion, even after they lost Texas and Oklahoma.
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Colin,
Thanks for the link, but that article says basically what I was saying. The six highest ranked conf champs and six wildcards. I’d say that’s pretty fair. Rarely is a G5 champ above any of the P5 champs, and far rarer for two G5 teams to be above a P5 champ.
Seems the specification of the 5 and 1 is an avoidance of an extremely unlikely occurrence with real effect. If a second G5 champ ends ranked above one or more P5 champs and isn’t included in a twelve team field then the whole endeavor is an even greater “playoff “ hoax than the current misnamed invitational.
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Marc,
I don’t know the true, current B12 position but I remember Bowlesby being asked about joining the Bigpaclantic alliance when it was first announced. His response was (paraphrasing) ‘not while OU and UT are still in the conference. The conference still is beholding to them…err, representing them.
Until they aren’t.
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That’s just leaving the NCAA. Not reforming, or reorganizing. Straight up leaving. Easy for a writer to propose, and even easier for school athletics and higher administration to not waste any time even thinking about.
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Looking further down the realignment cascade, the Colonial Athletic Association just announced the addition of North Carolina A&T as their 13th fulltime member (and 14th football member, CAA football will have 6 associates who are not CAA fulltime). Any ideas about how realignment is affecting FCS football?
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Matt Brown has done good job covering it on his site, https://www.extrapointsmb.com/.
Its a little much for me to keep track of
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College football attendance lowest since 1981. Big Ten only conference to increase in 2021.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-attendance-declines-for-seventh-straight-season-to-lowest-average-since-1981/
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Will B1G football games be part of a proposed FOX/ESPN trade for Joe Buck to join Troy Aikman in the MNF booth?
https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/jim-miller-espn-fox-joe-buck-troy-aikman.html
From the article:
“I mean, look, does Fox want to keep Joe if Joe’s going to be unhappy? No. But do they want to be able to monetize this in myriad ways in order to really get some flesh out of ESPN? Absolutely. And what might that mean? You know, if I’m Fox, I might ask for two or three Big Ten games. You can be as outrageous and greedy and audacious as you can in this situation, because at the end of the day, look, it’s ‘Joe does a great job, and we don’t want to get rid of him. If you guys want to have both of those guys together, then you’re going to have to pay.’”
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And, on that note, the comments about “horse trading” and “Big Ten games” may point to a resolution. ESPN and Fox are in business together on multiple fronts, particularly with shared college conference deals with the Big Ten, the Big 12, and the Pac-12. A big deal with those contracts, which are generally summarized as “splits” and tend to be relatively evenly split in terms of total football tonnage, is who gets first pick of games when. That was the important part of Fox getting the “Tier 1” rights for the Big Ten, particularly including the annual Ohio State-Michigan game, which has paid major ratings dividends. And it certainly would not seem overly difficult for ESPN to transfer a few more weeks of “You have first pick of Big Ten games” to Fox.
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Meanwhile, the slimmed-down “New Fox” (following the 2019 completion of the Disney-Fox deal that saw Disney buying a lot of “non-core” Fox assets) is much more concerned with a few top-tier properties, specifically Big Noon Saturday on the college football front. So there’s absolutely some logic for ESPN to trade Fox a few game picks (probably with the Big Ten, but also possibly with the Big 12 or Pac-12) for the rights to bring in Buck early. And if Fox will take that, that seems like a much better deal for them than when Disney sent Michaels to NBC early in exchange for Oswald The Lucky Rabbit.
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It’s a one-year problem, since Buck’s contract expires at the end of next season. The article mentions that it would be awkward for another guy to keep the seat warm, knowing he’s out of the job in 2023. It doesn’t mention that ABC did exactly that, when Keith Jackson called games in the series first year while they waited for Frank Gifford to be released from CBS.
The article also doesn’t mention that Fox has two out of the next three Super Bowls, and three of the next seven; whereas ABC doesn’t get a SB until after the 2026 season. And ESPN gets lower ratings than Fox, where Buck gets to call the World Series as well.
ESPN has struggled to fill the Monday night play-by-play role since Mike Tirico left for NBC. Sean McDonough and Joe Tessitore each lasted just two seasons each. Steve Levy has now had the job for three seasons, but nobody thinks he’ll be there long-term either. Does anyone watch the NFL because so-and-so is in the booth?
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It turns out the Joe Buck was only worth the Penn State-Purdue game in the ESPN-FOX trade.
https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/espn-is-giving-a-big-ten-game-to-fox-in-exchange-for-landing-joe-buck-a-year-early.html
Thanks to John Ourand at the Sports Business Journal, we now know what ESPN gave up and how it played out. In the end, the deal is pretty simple: in exchange for letting Buck walk a year early, Fox will get the right to air Penn State’s game at Purdue, scheduled for Thursday, September 1st.
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According to Ourand, Fox decided that adding Penn State-Purdue as a new primetime option was worth letting Buck leave early:
“Fox Sports wanted to claim that Penn State-Purdue game as its extra game. ESPN agreed, saying that it would not pick that game’s window, and Fox could have it as the 54th and final pick of the selection process. Typically, that game window would have been one of the top 30 picks. The game was not as valuable to ESPN, which has a West Virginia-Pittsburgh game scheduled for that night.”
In the end, this is less than some speculated ESPN would need to give up, but it’s still a solid value-add for Fox. Penn State remains a brand name attraction in college football, and Jeff Brohm’s Purdue teams are at the very least filled with chaos potential. Fox might have ended up with the window as part of the normal draft process, but viewing it as a draft, the way this deal worked essentially gives Fox an extra pick while also removing the need for Fox to use a top-30 selection to secure the game.
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In the end, it feels like a fairly equitable move for all parties, with the small added irony of Indiana alum Joe Buck being exchanged for a Purdue football home game.
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The first four football dates of 2022 will be dominated by the Big Ten. Hopefully these games will be cash cows for TV revenue. Not a single SEC game during those first three dates and most of the other games are of the caliber VMI at Wake Forest.
Saturday, August 27 – Nebraska vs. Northwestern (in Dublin, Ireland)
Thursday, Sept 1 – Penn State at Purdue
Friday, Sept 2 – Illinois at Indiana; Western Michigan at Michigan State
Saturday, Sept 3 – Notre Dame at Ohio State
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https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/college-footballs-biggest-threat-is-the-continued-regionalization-of-success-and-interest-in-the-sport.html
Interesting read.
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Interesting indeed! Also, it suggests that if interest in college football is to continue outside the South the CFP must include all ten P5 and G5 champions plus a number of at large (read ND) schools. Twelve becomes the minimum number, and 16 is likely the optimum number. Some restriction on the number of schools from each conference (read SEC) will also be required. An all one conference championship game should be avoided.
PS. I still think the old system prior to BCS was best. In 1970 we had three national champions: Nebraska, Ohio State, and Texas. Entertainment wise it does not get any better than that.
PPS. I am also opposed to letting the officials in any sport have access to instant replay, especially in football, where the replay officials get it wrong half the time, as they must.
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Bob, a few days ago I got beat up real bad on this forum when I mentioned that the CFP should include all ten P5 and G5 champions.
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No, you said that was the proposal. For my part I simply read the article you linked in support of your assertion and pointed that wasn’t what that article said.
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The CFP should be modeled after the hugely successful March Madness. All conference champs, all top-ranked teams, all conference tourney champs, bring ’em all, bless ’em all and watch the whole nation get mesmerized.
During March Madness there are problems with sick call-ins in Torento, Canada. They don’t have one dog in the race but so many Canadians who watch MM that they go to bars in herds to watch the games. There is nothing in sports that compares to a sudden-death playoff.
The CFP should also follow that model.
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The proposed 12-team playoff would take 4 weekends, whereas March Madness with its 68 teams gets it done in 3 weekends. Of course, MM winners play two games within a 3-day span, or potentially three in a 5-day span for the First Four. No one has suggested that football could play that much. Even in the 12-team proposal, some people are worried about the stress on the players’ bodies, a concern no one seems to have with basketball.
In conference basketball tourneys, a team could potentially play on five straight days if it keeps winning. Granted, the affected teams are underdogs and usually don’t make it that far, but a few years ago Michigan won the Big Ten with wins on four straight days. I assume you understand that can’t be done in football.
If 12 is approved and works as advertised, the next logical step would be 16, since that can be done without adding time to the schedule — it would just remove the advantage of first-round byes.
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Marc, NCAA Division II football has a 28-team playoff and Division III has a 32-team playoff. Those take five weeks.
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Division III plays just 10 regular-season games, and Division II plays 11. They mostly don’t have conference championship games either.
I think you would find close to zero support among fans, players, coaches, or administrators, for reducing the regular season to that extent, so that a small minority of teams could join a playoff.
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Marc, the first games of the 2022 season are on August 27. That date is the first of 19 Saturdays before New Year’s Day. You can take a 12-game schedule, a bye week, a week for conference championship games, four weeks for a 16-team playoff and still have a Saturday left over.
Add to that the national championship game is now well after New Year’s Day and there will be only four teams playing in the third and fourth round of the playoff. It can easily be managed.
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You’ll notice, I never said that the time doesn’t physically exist. The issue is the strain on players’ bodies. You are talking 18 games for some teams. That is why it’s highly relevant that Divisions II and III do not play as many regular-season games. Dates exist for them to play more; they have chosen not to, and instead have a longer playoff. That is the trade-off they made.
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OK, let’s do the math here. A Div 1 team has 12 regular season games + 1 CCG + at most 4 playoff games. That’s 17 at most, and that’s only the two that end up in the national championship game. We’d only have four that played 16 and eight that had played 15 games
A Div II team has 11 regular season games + 1 CCG (maybe) + at most 5 playoff games. That too is 17 at most and again, that’s only the two that end up in the national championship game. We’d only have four that played 16 and eight that had played 15 games. It’s same-same.
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OK, let’s do the math here. A Div 1 team has 12 regular season games + 1 CCG + at most 4 playoff games.
Am I misunderstanding your suggestion? That would be the math for a 16-team playoff. It sounded like you favored much more than that.
A Div II team has 11 regular season games + 1 CCG (maybe) + at most 5 playoff games.
Division II does not play CCGs, as far as I can see. Thus, it is a maximum of 16 games in Division II and 18 games in FBS if they adopted the same playoff format without reducing their regular season.
This is without considering that perhaps FBS football is more prone to serious injuries due to heavier players colliding at much higher speeds. I am not the expert, but even Nick Saban has been publicly skeptical of playoff expansion—and he was reacting to the 12-team proposal, not a bigger one.
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“Am I misunderstanding your suggestion? That would be the math for a 16-team playoff. It sounded like you favored much more than that.”
No, I favor 5 P5 champs + 5 G5 champs + 6 at-large = 16.
Also, there is no basis for your comment: “I think you would find close to zero support among fans, players, coaches, or administrators, for reducing the regular season to that extent, so that a small minority of teams could join a playoff.”
I am not proposing any reduction in the regular season, and I further disagree that fans, players, coaches, and administrators would be opposed to a P5 + G5 + 6 at-large playoff. There would be millions focused upon it, again using the analogy of March Madness. I’m a Purdue guy and I ALWAYS root for the Big Ten against OOC competition, football, basketball, whatever, even if it’s the icky hicky Hoosiers. The fans of the MACs and the WACs and the Mountain Wests would all be tuned in for a truly comprehensive college football playoff.
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That’s where I misunderstood you. Given your analogies to March Madness and Divisions II/III, I thought you favored more than 16. I entirely agree that 16 can be accommodated in the existing schedule, and had already said that it was going that way eventually.
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FOX likely picks up the Week #1 Ohio State/Notre Dame game as the game to be named later in the Joe Buck to ESPN trade.
https://awfulannouncing.com/fox/fox-likely-got-notre-dame-ohio-state-game-for-joe-buck.html
Andrew Marchand/Twitter cited in article:
“Fox and ESPN first talked about compensation late last night. Fox will receive the rights to pick one Big 10 game before ESPN next season, a source with knowledge said.
It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m told, but that is the gist.”
Article:
Marchand does note there that it’s “a little more complicated than that,” so there could be other components to this as well. But that pick is certainly important, and valuable. In the current Big Ten deals, which run through the upcoming 2022-23 season, ESPN and Fox currently have an equal split of Big Ten rights when it comes to football and men’s basketball tonnage (CBS also has a small basketball-only package, but that’s not important here). But Fox pays the conference around $240 million a year, while ESPN pays around $190 million.
The two big differences that lead Fox to pay that much more are that they get the conference championship game and first pick of regular-season football games. They tend to use that first pick on Ohio State-Michigan, which is sometimes the year’s most-watched regular-season game and is always Fox’s most-watched regular-season game; thus, when that game didn’t happen in 2020, that was a huge blow for them. So these picks can mean a lot, and there’s some value there for Fox even if this deal is only acquiring one extra pick (it may be more, with that “more complicated than that” note).
There are several potential candidate games Fox could use this pick on, but the selection AA has heard is most likely is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the Ohio State Buckeyes in Week 1, on September 3. (Yes, Notre Dame isn’t a Big Ten team, but that game falls in the Big Ten TV package because Ohio State is at home.) That would be a useful game for Fox on a few fronts. For one, both teams are good TV draws in general (in 2019, Ohio State was the most-watched team, and Notre Dame was eighth). And there may be even more interest than usual in the Fighting Irish given that this will be their first game under new head coach Marcus Freeman (with Brian Kelly leaving for LSU after last season).
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Illinois-Indiana might be the Big Noon pick if Fox wasn’t able to get Notre Dame-Ohio State, but they absolutely would prefer the Fighting Irish and Buckeyes. And that would let them start their season (well, the main part of their season; there will be Week 0 games and midweek games before this) off with a bang. (It may not go over great with the schools and with fans, though; there have been a million cases of schools and fans complaining about these noon kicks.)
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We don’t yet have full confirmation that this is how Fox will use the pick they acquired in trade for Buck. But it seems likely at this point. And if that does come to pass, that may wind up being a pretty good trade for them. There wouldn’t be a lot of point to them keeping an unhappy Buck around for a year, and this lets them move on to their succession plans immediately; it also gives them a potential dramatic increase in CFB viewership for at least one week. So that’s maybe even a better trade then when ESPN parent Disney obtained Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC in exchange for letting Al Michaels out of his contract in 2006; yes, Oswald’s featured in some Disney video games and theme parks since, but that overall impact has been limited. Getting Notre Dame-Ohio State in exchange for Buck might be a bigger deal.
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I agree, it’s a win for Fox. No one will stop watching Sunday NFL games just because Buck is not there there, but OSU–ND should be a blockbuster.
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SEC plan for basketball. Spend big money on coaches and expect to buy success. The SEC very much plans to use its financial strength to simply outbid other conference teams for top coaches.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2022/03/11/how-much-sec-pays-mens-basketball-coaches-may-alter-sports-landscape/9411878002/?gnt-cfr=1
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I see Rutgers ended up tied with tOSU for 5th place in the B1G regular season, and has a playin against ND for the NCAA. Longterm, they are a potential B1G conference champ in MBB.
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And look how much their football program has flourished since joining the B1G. They were a solid addition to the conference.
Maryland will continue to be a disappointment. I would have preferred Virginny Tech.
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I have mixed feelings about Steve Pikiell, who just got a four year contract extension. He does seem to do a very good job coaching up players to reach potentials that others may not see. On the other hand, his recruiting is mediocre at the best.
RU bball has also gotten seriously hurt the last two years with transfers. Two years ago, the best big man on the team transferred to Oregon where he averaged more than 16 ppg. Had he stayed, RU certainly would have made the Sweet 16 or perhaps better.
For this season, three players transferred, including their best rebounder, who also went to Oregon and averaged 14 ppg. Another decent player went to St. John’s where he was OK.
Why do many transfers of good players?
As far as incoming transfers, none have worked out at all.
So we shall see.
NJ has lots of mens bball talent. This year two of the top 11 teams in the US, per USA Today, are in NJ. One player is the top ranked recruit in the class of ’23. Will Pikiell get any of them? Doubtful.
If he could get a decent recruiting class, yes he could win championships, but will that happen? Obviously much easier than in football. Two or three recruits could do it.
Meanwhile RU’s women’s bball coach absolutely screwed the school and her players. C. Vivian Stringer, 74 years old, is one of the top women’s coaches ever. She has won national championships and has had three different teams reach the Final Four, including Rutgers twice. She pretty much got a least one 5 star recruit every year.
I believe her salary was scheduled to be in excess of $3 million. Last year the RU woman’s team was pretty good and all five starters were scheduled to come back. Stringer announced that she was not resigning but taking this entire season as sick leave, due to concern over COVID. There were no other health issues mentioned. She does have the sick leave and will be paid in excess of $1 million for the year.
Not too shockingly all five starters transferred and the team had a mediocre to lousy season. I am not sure but I also think that the coaching uncertainty has made this year’s recruiting a mess.
She certainly could have retired and made a deal to get the same money as she is getting, but without the chaos.
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Jersey Bernie, Rutgers did an lot more enable Stringer.
Circa ten years ago, an open lesbian, Kate Sweeny, became chair of the BOT at Rutgers. She immediately fired AD Tim Pernetti on absurd charges and replaced him with Julie Hermann, who has a wife. This was an attemped LGBTQ insurrection of the Rutgers athletic department, which eventually failed.
https://sebsnjaesnews.rutgers.edu/2015/07/alumni-story-kate-sweeney-cc-79-team-player/
https://www.outsports.com/2013/7/25/4557326/rutgers-athletic-director-julie-hermann-reveals-gay-lesbian
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Absolutely correct. The basketball coach, Mike Rice, got into trouble for things like throwing basketballs at players. The AD, Tim Pernetti reported it to the university and, as I recall, did everything properly. He was also a very good AD, which was quite a change for Rutgers.
Then for absolutely no reason, Pernetti was forced to “fall on the sword” and take responsibility for not simply firing Rice, even though Pernetti did nothing wrong. In fact, Pernetti took actions regarding Rice with the specific authority of the president of the university, Barchi.
Barchi cared absolutely nothing about sports, so when the AD was inappropriately roasted, he did not get involved. He was brought in as president of the university specifically to oversee the consolidation of the two medical schools back into Rutgers. The med school in Newark was always part of RU, until NJ politicians realized that they could much more graft if the med school became independent.
After years or corruption, including $200,000 per year no show jobs, the smell got so bad that even the corrupt pols in NJ realized that more control was needed, so the med school was to go back to RU. I do not think that the med school in New Brunswick was ever part of RU prior to the merger which Barchi controlled.
Another part of the merger was that Rutgers Newark and Rutgers Camden became part of the same school as RU, New Brunswick. Admission standards in both Newark and Camden were much lower than NB, but that was a minor detail. Prior to that point Newark and Camden were like U Wisconsin – Green Bay and U Wisconsin – Milwaukee. Parts of the UWisc system, but otherwise not related to UWisc – Madison.
The two law schools are in Newark and Camden and the business school is in Newark. Other than that, those two added nothing to New Brunswick.
RU Board member Kate Sweeney was probably a moving force behind getting rid of Pernetti, so RU could hire a lesbian AD, Julie Hermann, who was the assistant AD at Louisville. Hermann was total disaster and was fired after just two years. Of course two years was long enough to damage both the football and men’s bball programs. By the way, everyone knew that Hermann was hired for only one reason.
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Monetizing data: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/15/pac-12-partners-with-tempus-ex-machina-on-data-deal-paving-the-way-for-a-vital-new-revenue-stream/
Anyone know how data is assigned in the currently existing media contracts?
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Today, Stewart Mandel hinted in his “Mandel’s Mailbag” on The Athletic’s website that his updated CFB pecking order would be out soon as the NCAA MBB tournament.
He has identified each P5 team as either a King, Baron, Knight or Peasant every five years since 2007.
His Kings listing from 2017 included:
Alabama
Clemson (new in 2017 & Nebraska removed)
Florida
Florida State
LSU (new in 2012 & Tennessee removed)
Miami
Michigan
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Penn State
Texas
USC
In 2017, Nebraska fell off the list when Clemson was added. He also discussed whether or not to remove Miami, but why he ultimately kept them a king.
Since 2017, Miami and Texas have been hot garbage. USC hasn’t been much better. Michigan and Penn State have done nothing of consequence this century. Do any of them get bumped?
Georgia is currently a Baron. Does a CFP championship and runner-up since then move the Dawgs up to King status?
I’m guessing Georgia moves up to King status. I doubt 13 Kings is a hard and fast number, but given that he has removed one school when he added one each time he revised the list, my guess is that Miami get kicked down to Baron status in spite of it’s five NCs including one this century.
What do you think?
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He can do what he wants, but I would argue that Kings have structural advantages that are accumulated over decades, and that tend to favor their return to prominence, even after long periods of bad performance.
I would argue that Miami has lost whatever structural advantages it formerly had, whereas Texas has not. Thus, I would suggest he should boot Miami but keep Texas.
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https://footballscoop.com/news/data-firm-projects-sec-100-million-revenue-end-of-decade
Data firm projects SEC schools topping $100 million in annual revenue by end of decade
And the Big Ten won’t be far behind.
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That’s according to Navigate, a sports and entertainment market research company.
Their research projects the Big Ten projecting $75 million per school per year by 2025 and the SEC crossing $100 million per school by 2028.
Meanwhile, the ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12 are projected to top out in the mid-50s.
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Nice to know that some data analytics firm agrees with my back of the napkin math I posted last summer.
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Frankly, I’m not buying it. The ACC is stuck on a deal with ESPN that pays $17 million per school per year through 2036. How do they get to $50 million per school in 2026?
The Pac-12 is making $34 million per year in 2022. Their outlook remains bleak. How do they get to $50 million per school in 2026?
The Big XII is making $40 million AVERAGE per year in 2022. That includes huge payouts to UT and OU. How do they go to $50 million per year in 2026?
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Even if the “generous” projections the ACC are accurate, how can, eg, Clemson and FSU compete in football (or other sports) against teams teams that are bringing in an extra $40 or $50 million per year?
Will USC really be able to reemerge with huge financial disadvantages?
This, of course, emphasizes the article posted about the SEC being willing to spend their money on the top coaches – in amounts that the ACC, PAC, or Little 12 can never meet.
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Penn St wrestling back on top. Five in the finals, and they all won. Team title was decided halfway through Saturday morning consolidation rounds. Could have gone winless and still comfortably won.
B1G teams finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th.
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Is Amazon coming after Big Ten TV rights? From the Cleveland Plain Dealer . . .
Amazon is reportedly after Kirk Herbstreit. Could it also come for Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten?
Updated: Feb. 28, 2022, 5:01 a.m. | Published: Feb. 28, 2022, 5:00 a.m.
By Nathan Baird, cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The musical chairs unfolding in the NFL broadcasting ranks now includes Kirk Herbstreit.
The New York Post reported Sunday that Amazon wants Herbstreit as the analyst for its Thursday Night Football coverage. The report said it is believed the former Ohio State quarterback’s ESPN contract allows him to work NFL games for other networks.
If everyone’s lawyers agree, that will likely mean a big payday for the co-host of College Game Day and one of the most visible former Buckeyes in media.
If you forgot Amazon was taking over Thursday games this fall, that’s fitting. Those games make their biggest impact for fantasy football players who forget to change their lineups mid-week.
However, Herbie’s potential development was another reminder of the growth of non-traditional platforms carrying major American sports brands. Do not be surprised if that extends to the Big Ten after the conference’s rights deal expires in 2023.
“We want to make sure that we have flexibility to consider all the platforms — the different ways that people watch television,” OSU athletic director Gene Smith said earlier this month.
The deal the Big Ten signed in 2017 was worth $2.64 billion for six years. A recent report from Front Office Sports said NBC would likely bid for the Big Ten, and the package could be worth up to $1.1 billion per year. Amazon was not mentioned in particular, but it is probably only a matter of time until one of the streaming services lands a piece of a major college football deal.
Same goes for the College Football Playoff after its deal with ESPN expires after 2025. Assuming that comes with an expansion to 12 teams, the increased number of games make the tournament perfect for coverage from multiple networks. That already happens in the NFL and other pro sports. CBS and Warner Media split the men’s basketball tournament every March.
Will ESPN still be involved in broadcasting Big Ten games, and will Herbstreit still be on the call?
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I don’t think any league wants to be completely off ESPN, given the popularity of College Gameday and SportsCenter, both of which have no peer on any other channel. And ESPN will clearly want a chunk of the Big Ten, as there is no adequate replacement for all of those games.
Could some other network make such a compelling bid that ESPN gets frozen out? It’s possible, but probably not what either side wants. Maybe the B10 package will be split three or four ways, instead of the two that we’ve got today. That’s what the NFL has done—they keep adding network partners without dropping any.
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“Could some other network make such a compelling bid that ESPN gets frozen out? It’s possible,”
Last week Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion. That includes MGM’s entire inventory of movies and TV programs. It appears that Amazon is looking at rapid expansion, and I have previously posted rumors of their interest in Big Ten media rights.
I’m not predicting it will happen but Amazon could easily come in with an offer that would lock everyone else out, including ESPN. Perhaps $1.5 billion? Sounds like a huge payout to us but that would be chump change for Amazon in their quest for an empire.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/media/amazon-mgm-deal-closes/index.html
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Kindly forgive me for belaboring the possibility of Amazon grabbing B!g media rights but I just came across this tidbit:
“Amazon names a new head of its sports group” February 14, 2022
“Longtime Amazon insider Jay Marine now is the top exec overseeing the company’s sports business. . . . Marine is a Big Ten guy, having graduated from Michigan in 1995 and Northwestern’s Kellogg School in 2002. And the Big Ten is negotiating those rights now.”
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-Media/2022/02/14.aspx
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In case anyone is wondering what the heck is a St. Peter’s, you can rest assured that pretty much no one in NJ or maybe even in Jersey City knew that the Peacocks had a basketball team. Though I do not live in NJ anymore, I still read the NJ papers on line (but i do not read the Jersey Journal which covers Hudson County, specifically Jersey City).
The only three college basketball programs with any coverage in NJ papers are Rutgers, Seton Hall, and Princeton. Period. NJ regularly has high schools in the top 10 in the country and those high schools get much more coverage than any college other than RU, SHU and Princeton. Actually Princeton does not get that much coverage either. It would be easy to believe that only RU and SHU have college basketball programs in the state.
To the best of my recollection, I have never read a word anywhere about St. Peter’s basketball until recently – before the tournament. The story at that time was that the Seton Hall coach was going to Maryland and Shaheen Holoway, the Seton Hall alum and St. Peter’s coach, was going to be hired by Seton Hall. No one wrote about the Peacocks moving on in March Madness.
I think Holoway’s asking price just jumped. Right now I think that he makes about $300,000 at St. Peter’s. I expect that the Hall will have to pay around 2 million or more. Other major teams might suddenly discover Holoway, but I expect that he will stay with his alma mater.
My wife’s brother in law is an alum of St. Peter’s and I am not sure if he knew that they have a basketball program.
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The B1G gets 9 invites to the NCAA tourney, and none of them make it to the Elite Eight. No PAC 12 team made it to the Elite Eight, either. We have three ACC teams, two SEC teams, two B12 teams, and St Peter’s.
During the regular season, I heard several comments on The Fan in Columbus that ACC basketball was overrated, and that the B1G was the premiere BB conference.
By the way, my 70 year old sister who lives in southern NH, and who does not follow college sports, never went to college, knew all about St. Pete’s a week ago. Aside from the Catholic connection, I can’t for the life of me figure out how/why.
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The Big Ten ‘flopped’ when seven of nine teams lost? That’s really about average. The conference has two of nine teams going into the Sweet 16. That’s 22%. During the first week of March Madness, the field of 72 teams gets whittled down to 16. That’s 22%.
And of course the Sweet 16 goes to four teams standing the following week. That’s yet another 75% elimination.
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Not to pile on the BIG disappointment, but this mathematical analysis is bogus. Many of the 68 teams (not 72) are there by virtue of winning their (weak) conference tournaments. That’s great. It adds to the fun of the event. But it doesn’t mean their odds are the same as any of the at large entries from power conferences — let alone the supposedly preeminent conference of the year. If a conference truly rates nine(!) entrants then those teams should find the first couple of rounds of the tournament a relative cakewalk after beating up on each other all year. From nine teams it is perfectly reasonable to expect 3 or 4 in the Sweet 16 and a couple in the Elite 8 — one at a bare minimum. Yet here we are for the second year in a row. It is also the 20th year in a row that the BIG will not win the national championship. During that span every other power league (save the Pac12) has won at least twice. Something systemic seems to be wrong. I, for one, don’t know what it is.
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Bob, there is only 1 SEC and 1 Big 12. Villanova is Big East and Houston is AAC. As our sorely missed Brian used to say, ‘there, fixed that for you!’
I spent Thursday flipping back and forth between games to the point of forgetting which game I was watching. Why do they not play the round of 16 on the weekend with consecutive games so that fans might watch the entirety of all 8 games? The round of 8 could be played on Monday and Tuesday with consecutive games. There would seem to be as much, if not more media money from that schedule as opposed to the current method.
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And during that first weekend espn broadcasts the entirety of play-in, R32, all the way to championship…in ten brackets. Seems to me that viewership would likely improve if competing with only 12 BB games rather than 48.
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It’s official, the Sun Belt 3 are leaving CUSA this summer.
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Surprising absolutely no one, Shaheen Holloway has signed a six year contract with Seton Hall. Dollar amount not yet published. I did not realize quite what a good high school player he was. He was MVP of his McDonald’s HS All America game, which included Kobe Bryant as his teammate.
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Dwayne Haskins was struck by a vehicle earlier today, and died. Details lacking.
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P-12 Commish thinks they will cash in during media rights deals in 2024. Seems dubious but even if true, they will still be well behind the B1G and SEC.
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Kindly forgive me for replying to myself but I found some more info on the same topic. Long read from the Mercury News which is for subscribers only but I managed to weasel in and copy paragraph 10. Note the following comment from the article:
“What about the Pac-12 Networks? The Hotline doesn’t expect them to exist in linear form starting in the summer of 2024; nor do we expect them to show any football or men’s basketball content.”
10. The Pac-12 will blow past expectations with its media rights contract.
First, let’s address the timing. The contracts with ESPN and Fox — and the Pac-12 Networks distribution partners — expire in the summer of 2024, which would point to next winter as the start of negotiations for the next contract cycle. However, we believe the process could be expedited.
The networks currently are negotiating with the Big Ten. Once those conclude (in the late spring or early summer), they could quickly pivot to the Pac-12 and wrap everything up by the end of 2022. We wouldn’t bet on that outcome, but it’s possible.
We predict the key pieces for the Pac-12’s next media rights contract will look something like this:
— The terms. Let’s first define the discussion: The annual revenue distributions to each campus — the numbers that get so much media attention — include revenue from March Madness and the College Football Playoff. Our projections are limited to Pac-12 distribution rights for regular-season broadcasts (football and men’s basketball) and the football championship game.
Two factors shape our projections: 1) The sizzling market for live sports (see: the recent NFL and MLB media deals); and 2) the coterminous nature of the Pac-12 rights.
One of the few things former commissioner Larry Scott got right with the media strategy was to ensure that all contracts expired at the same time — in the summer of ’24. That will allow Kliavkoff to saddle to the negotiating table with the football and basketball inventory currently on Fox and ESPN and the 36 football games on the Pac-12 Networks.
With scale comes leverage and flexibility. In our opinion, the Pac-12’s next media rights deal will bring an average annual value of $600 million, which breaks down to $50 million per school over the course of the deal. (The Year One value would be less, assuming an escalator of three or four percent.)
For context, recall that the existing 12-year, $3 billion deal with Fox and ESPN averages $250 million annually ($21 million per school). So yes, we expect the average value to more than double — in part because of market forces, in part because 36 football games will be added to the inventory. (Those games are worth far more to the conference within a package sold to ESPN and Fox than they have been on the Pac-12 Networks.)
The duration of the contract cycle could be eight years, 10 years, perhaps even 12 years — but whatever the length, it will assuredly have an option to reassess midway through.
— The partners. As the current rights-holders, ESPN and Fox have an exclusive negotiating window with the Pac-12. The conference can discuss options with other potential partners, but it cannot engage in formal negotiations with CBS, NBC, Amazon, etc., unless ESPN and Fox are unable (or unwilling) to lock up the Pac-12 during the exclusive window.
We believe they will lock it up, with the end result looking something like this:
* The ‘Game of the Week’ package, featuring late-afternoon kickoffs. Most of these games will be shown over-the-air on FOX and CBS (through a sub-licensing agreement with ESPN and Fox).
* The afternoon array. Most Pac-12 games will be played during daylight and scattered across several networks, from ESPN and ESPN2 to FS1 and perhaps CBS Sports Network. We wouldn’t be surprised if a second sub-licensing deal allows for games on the Turner networks.
* The streaming services. We foresee a handful of games (perhaps one per week) to air on digital platforms like ESPN+ or Paramount+. (There’s no indication Amazon is interested in college football. If it doesn’t want the Big Ten, we can’t envision it nibbling on the Pac-12.)
What about the Pac-12 Networks? The Hotline doesn’t expect them to exist in linear form starting in the summer of 2024; nor do we expect them to show any football or men’s basketball content.
However, as a standalone property, they could serve as a streaming service for Pac-12 Olympic sports. Also, don’t discount the potential for ESPN to buy them as part of the deal that includes football and men’s basketball inventory.
(There are myriad possible outcomes for the Pac-12 Networks and the conference’s media rights in general. This is merely our best guess based on the current landscape. Once the Big Ten negotiations conclude, we’ll have more clarity.)
So there you have it … the Hotline’s projections, on the field and off, for the Pac-12 in the 2022-23 sports cycle.
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https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2022/04/18/Insiders/Sports-media.aspx
Big Ten is using two Fox Sports executives as media consultants to shop around packages to other networks…..including NBC, CBS, ESPN, Turner, Amazon and Apple.
Appears Fox will remain as the primary rights holder for the Big Ten and will carry at least as many games as its current deal (27 football games per year), if not more. Everything else will be shopped around in packages to other suitors. CBS wants games to replace its SEC Game of the Week it is losing to ESPN. NBC would like to have some Big Ten content to partner with Notre Dame games to make Saturday doubleheaders.
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How do we know the B1G received a full market rate for the FOX portion? Unless they reward the first half of the rights first. Setup seems strange to generate top dollar. Fox does have a long-term financial interest in keeping rights fees from exploding.
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https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/with-fox-reaching-an-extension-with-the-big-ten-what-happens-now-for-espn-and-other-possible-rights-suitors.html
Too much juicy speculation to summarize.
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Fox financials show the 61% ownership of BTN network. Has anyone seen anything from the B1G regarding this? How much consideration did the B1G get and was it really necessary to give up so much?
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It’s possible the consideration was the lack of games during COVID year.
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Jersey Bernie,
It seems like a significant deal, and I’m surprised they managed to keep it quiet this long. I seem to recall the right to go from 49% to 51% was in the original deal, but selling them another 10% seems odd. As Kevin said, maybe it was a trade to keep the cashflow constant.
Presumably some media members will look into this.
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Bernie, this link explains the 61% Fox ownership and updates Big Ten media rights negotiations. Seems that the Big Ten has already agreed to grant all of their broadcast rights to BTN (?)
https://www.cornnation.com/2022/4/20/23033111/sbj-big-ten-renewing-tv-deal-with-fox-other-networkss-still-to-be-determined
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Kindly forgive me for replying to my own post but here’s a couple of related thoughts about streaming services, which were thought to be the upcoming BIG TIME players in sports broadcasting. CNN+, CNN’s new streaming service, was launched last month and shut down today: https://www.foxnews.com/media/warner-bros-discovery-pulls-plug-on-cnn-after-one-month
Item # 2: The Mother of All Streaming Services, Netflix, lost 35% of its stock value yesterday and another 5% today. This all follows yet another 25% drop earlier this year.
I don’t think streaming is a long term threat to traditional cable networks. Yes, you can screw around with it to watch a particular game but for those like me, who sit around on Saturday afternoons in the autumn and flip through 4-5 different games throughout the day, it isn’t worth the hassle long term.
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Of course streaming is a long-term threat to traditional networks. Every year, the percentage of TV watched via streaming inches up a little bit. Saying streaming is not a threat is like saying 40 years ago that cable was no threat to over-the-air.
But with everyone and their uncle throwing a streaming service out there, some had to fail, and CNN’s new owners judged CNN+ a non-starter. The issue with Netflix is simply that it was priced for hyper-growth. With so much competition out there, at some point Netflix was going to stop growing by double-digit percentages, and apparently we have reached that point.
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https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/33771960/minneapolis-added-host-site-big-ten-basketball-tournaments
The B10 tourney takes a trip west in 2024, going to MSP. Is this Kevin Warren counterbalancing Delany’s eastern lean? Will it work better than DC and NYC?
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Brian – welcome back!
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Thanks. I’m not completely back yet, but the semester is almost over.
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Brian, you were missed.
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https://www.chronicle.com/article/iowa-state-u-exits-the-coveted-aau
ISU is leaving the AAU voluntarily. Another of the lower ranked schools is gone, with their land grant duties and lack of medical school making them leave ahead of being kicked out like NE was. KU might be next.
“The decision to end AAU membership is driven by Iowa State’s commitment to its mission, strengths, and impact,” the statement reads. “While the university’s core values have not changed since joining the association in 1958, the indicators used by AAU to rank its members have begun to favor institutions with medical schools and associated medical research funding.” (An Iowa State spokesperson declined to respond to further questions about the decision.)
…
The university’s statement cited statistics on its research expenditures and funding. Iowa State, it said, ranks 16th in federal research spending among U.S. institutions without a medical school, and is among the top 10 percent of institutions receiving funding from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, and the National Science Foundation.
Iowa State also articulated a set of institutional prerogatives that went beyond research. “Ultimately, our efforts are measured by the success of our students, the innovation of our faculty, and our service to Iowa and the world,” Wendy Wintersteen, Iowa State’s president, said in the statement. “These metrics are not exclusive to any one institution or group of institutions.”
The university, the statement continued, “remains notable in several important areas not prioritized by the AAU, such as affordability, student engagement, student retention, postgraduation employment, first-generation students, and accessibility.” Iowa State’s tuition, it noted, has historically been among the lowest in the AAU.
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Biggest problem for Nebraska was that agricultural research “doesn’t count” with the AAU. ISU may have had the same problem.
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Not “counting” agricultural research sort of reeks of elitism. Eating seems to be a worthwhile area of research.
For example, the Jersey Tomato, once the most widely consumed tomato variety in the world, was developed at the Rutgers Ag School in New Brunswick. Years ago when Rutgers College was an undergrad school of only 5000 men, that included the Aggies so Ag research has been a big deal at Rutgers for a long time.
I do not know about other schools, but Wisconsin Madison does major research into dairy products among other foods.
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Bernie, here you can read it for yourself from ISU:
“There is no limit on members, but the AAU “values remaining a relatively small organization,” the association said.
“There is a two-stage process by which AAU members and potential members are reviewed. In the first phase, research is judged by (among other measures) competitive, federally funded research. That excludes most Agriculture Department research, because it is awarded through formulas, not through competition.
“The AAU’s policy on agricultural research has been controversial in the past. In 2011, the AAU kicked out the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/22/iowa-state-announces-its-departure-aau
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If UNL or the State of NE cared enough, it would be easy to game that system by combining the med school and UNL. (I am not suggesting that they should care enough)
I wrote about this before, but in a nutshell, Rutgers had a medical school until the NJ politicians realized that an independent med school could supply much more graft. That included at least one $200,000 per year no work job on the med school faculty, plus bunches of other no work jobs.
Anyway, when the scandal got big enough, the NJ politicians were forced to recombine two med schools and RU.
As an aside RU became and stayed AAU without the medical school(s).
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I believe it is UNL’s med school. I thought (near a decade ago) it was said that the med school was located too far away to be claimed no matter being in the same governance structure? Perhaps like UCBerkeley can’t claim UCLA med school. Not that they’d need it.
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Nebraska’s med school is in Omaha, not Lincoln. It is part of the “University of Nebraska System”. That was the issue.
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The University of Nebraska Med Center is effectively a separate campus within the University of Nebraska system. There are four campuses:
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Cornhuskers – the flagship school)
University of Nebraska-Omaha (Mavericks – Division I)
University of Nebraska-Kearney (Lopers – Division II)
University of Nebraska Medical Center (no athletics)
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I am sure if there was the political will they could move the Medical System under UNL. However, would probably cause all sorts of power struggles.
It’s not like the Lincoln campus is that far from Omaha. I think it’s more of a legal entity structure and reporting structure. The hospital system probably doesn’t want to report through the UNL chancellor’s/president’s office.
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If KU is out, can Purdue be far behind? The so-called medical school on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus is actually a branch campus of Indiana University School of Medicine at West Lafayette.
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Purdue has one of the top engineering programs in the country with many top faculty and Nobel winners. They have over a half billion in annual research. I think they are pretty safe.
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Agreed. The difference is that Purdue has a massive presence in engineering, so it actually is very high in competitive funding metrics that the AAU is measuring even compared to the rest of the Big Ten. Several schools with top-ranked engineering programs that don’t have medical schools are similar: Georgia Tech, Princeton, MIT, Cal Tech, etc. It’s effectively how it is for Illinois and Texas, too – they only opened their respective medical schools in the past four years where they likely have little-to-no competitive awards for medicine to report, but their engineering funding is so massive that they’ve always been very highly ranked in the AAU metrics.
Iowa State has a very good engineering program, but it’s not as big of a competitive grant winner in that area compared to the aforementioned schools, which makes the lack of a medical school more glaring for them.
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I know. I have two degrees from Purdue.
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True, but Purdue is big in aerospace engineering. They have the top university flight school in the nation (first link) and the Dept of Defense just dropped a huge hypersonic missile lab into West Lafayette (second link).
https://www.thebestcolleges.org/rankings/the-top-25-colleges-for-aviation-degrees/
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q3/new-purdue-research-building-will-offer-a-worlds-first,-and-hypersonic-testing,-materials-development.html
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Purdue is huge in aerospace engineering (AE), second only to GT in size and top 5 in quality. And like GT, PU is also huge in every other type of engineering.
But aviation isn’t AE, so flight schools are irrelevant to that.
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Brian: “But aviation isn’t AE, so flight schools are irrelevant to that.”
I understand that aviation isn’t AE but Purdue has its own airport and it is co-located in the “Purdue Aerospace District” with research companies like Rolls-Royce. They also have the nation’s top-ranked USAF ROTC program.
https://www.indystar.com/story/money/2021/08/02/rolls-royce-purdue-university-aerospace-expanding-research-footprint-zucrow-propulsion-labs/5427910001/
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Colin,
Lots of schools have their own airport. OSU has a large and well regarded aviation program. WOSU (aka Don Scott Field) was even the busiest airport in Ohio in 2020, and is normally the 4th busiest in Ohio. It also is home to OSU’s Aerospace Research Center.
But training pilots and airport managers isn’t relevant to aerospace engineering rankings, despite being in the same general industry. It’s like having a race car driving school and relating it to mechanical engineering. Being co-located doesn’t change that. Airports happen to offer convenient space for aerospace research, which can be noisy and require large amounts of air flow (and sometimes use aviation fuels).
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“It’s like having a race car driving school and relating it to mechanical engineering.”
That a pretty lame analogy. Every ME Dept has hundreds of cars around. How many AE Depts have aircraft and an active runway on campus?
Answering my own question: Ten. P5 universities with airports on campus are Auburn, Tx A&M, UNC, West Virginia, Ohio St, Purdue, Illinois, Oklahoma, Penn St and Ole Miss.
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Colin,
The AE departments don’t have those things. The aviation/flight schools have the airplanes (99% of the time). The AE’s don’t generally touch them. AEs have to build/buy their own drones, or do cooperative research with the aviation folks. The AE’s get research labs around there because an airport is a place where certain types of research make sense and are allowable (most cities don’t want turbofans running near people).
Non-P5s also have airports on/adjacent to campus. The military academies, Embry-Riddle, ….
Cars aren’t airplanes, which is why I said a racing school and not just cars.
AE design airplanes, aviation flies and maintains them.
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Brian, from the link below about the Purdue Research Park Aerospace District:
“The site is one of the few in the country that houses an active airport adjoining
property that can support public and private aerospace research facilities and
resides next to a world-class research institution.”
Industry partners:
• 3M Company
• Altair Engineering Inc.
• The Boeing Company
• Celanese Corporation
• Convergent Manufacturing Technologies Inc.
• Cytec Industries Inc.
• Dassault Systèmes
• General Electric
• Huntsman Corporation
• MIT-RCF, LLC
• Momentive Performance Materials Inc.
• Oshkosh Corporation
• PPG Industries Inc.
• Rolls Royce PLC
• xperion Aerospace GmbH
Click to access 2015_aerospace_district_brochure_with_flap.pdf
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They also have Neil Armstrong with a BSAE from Purdue. And, in the late 60’s when I was there, Hugh Hefner kept his black DC-9 there when he wasn’t using it. That’s the one with the bunny head and ears on the tail.
Purdue airport was one of a circuit of small airports that had scheduled air service from Lake Central et al.
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bob sykes: “They also have Neil Armstrong with a BSAE from Purdue. And, in the late 60’s when I was there . . .”
Bob, I was at Purdue at the same time. FIRE FAT JACK!
I had two apartment roommates, one from Lebanon and one from Columbus. The former graduated HS with Rick Mount and the latter with Mike Phipps. While walking around on campus with my roomies, I met both Mount and Phipps several times.
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That’s nice for PU. I’ve been to their facilities there. But none of that changes the fact that AE and aviation are two separate things that share an industrial sector. Their aviation program is irrelevant to them being big in AE, which is all I said from the start.
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Jeff Borzello
@jeffborzello
A sign of the times: Miami’s Isaiah Wong plans to enter the transfer portal this weekend if his NIL package is not improved, his agent told ESPN. Billionaire John Ruiz said Wong is “under contract” but added “I do not renegotiate!” Miami can’t comment.
All of this was predicted by a number of us. “College “ sports – it had a nice run. Nail in coffin would be the new insanity working through Sacramento, actively killing schools ability to fund what sports they currently offer: https://www.ksl.com/article/50395261/think-nil-changed-college-sports-new-california-bill-would-transform-model
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From the way that I read that article, players could leave school and take a $75,000, or much more, payment with them as a “graduation present”. I have no clue how or why players are not employees for Federal tax purposes. That money would not be like a scholarship, which is specifically tax free under the Internal Revenue Code. These payments sure look like ordinary income “from whatever source derived”.
Of course this comment ignores Title IX problems, which are likely to be impossible to ignore.
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The great majority of athletic departments, and even many football programs, lose money. If enacted, the California bill may force most schools to close their athletic programs.
Moreover, NIL and the Portal both diminish fan interest in school teams. Who cares about semi-pro sports. College football already has an attendance problem, and it will only get worse.
Both my daughters went to college and lived on campus. Neither of them attended a single athletic event. They are typical of a majority of students at every college, even Ohio State and Michigan.
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Bob,
I wouldn’t go quite that far. OSU sells 25,000+ season tickets to students every year (pre-COVID). That just 1 sport – add in all the others and I’d guess most students end up attending at least 1 sporting event. It skews by demographic, obviously.
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I think the point isn’t weather or not a number of schools will draw attendance from current students. PSU, Iowa, and some others draw very well for wrestling. There are a number of schools that draw for womens gymnastics, baseball in somewhat larger number of schools.
None of those cheaper sports are causing bidding wars for broadcast rights, which would be needed to protect the large majority of schools that use meager gate and media(occasionally) revenue added to school spending to enable to the maintenance of what programs they currently field. And quite a few programs in multiple sports have been cut over the last few decades. Even for quite a few D1 this would be crippling.
Will the media rights continue to rise at current rates when NFL lite, and a D league sponsored by overly wealthy boosters? Those rights aren’t swelled by closely associated viewers, those that makeup the high ratings of big games and championships, many who have nothing but a betting interest, or a desire to “participate” in an event others deem important. Teams winning the D league or a double A championship won’t carry that interest very long without a scholastic and conference attraction.
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For those who did not think that NIL would turn college sports upside down, U Miami guard Isaiah Wong will transfer if his NIL payments do not increase.
https://www.nj.com/setonhall/2022/04/nj-native-isaiah-wong-will-transfer-from-miami-unless-nil-compensation-increases-agent-says.html
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Last week Purdue lost a K State transfer to Miami because they couldn’t match NIL of $800,000 + car:
“April 23: All Big 12 guard Nijel Pack, rated top three among the 1,300 players in the transfer portal, announces he is transferring from Kansas State to Miami. Shortly thereafter, Ruiz posts on Twitter that he signed Pack to a two-year $800,000 NIL deal to promote LifeWallet, and that the deal includes a new car.”
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/michelle-kaufman/article260803767.html#storylink=cpy
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No comments about the major sports (Fb or ball), but being in the B1G has helped upgrade other RU sports. Both the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams are in the B1G tournament finals (against MD in both cases) and the RU baseball team is in first place in the B1G and ranked in the top 20.
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A bit surprised there’s been no comment on this:
https://www.ncaa.org/news/2022/5/9/media-center-di-board-of-directors-issues-name-image-and-likeness-guidance-to-schools.aspx
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https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/33899589/acc-mulls-3-5-5-college-football-scheduling-model-effort-scrap-divisions
The ACC is considering dropping divisions and switching to 3 locked rivals. Sounds familiar.
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Good! I hope all conferences do the same. Although in the SEC, I’d prefer 4 or 5 permanent opponents with a 9 game schedule.
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What I would really like to see the ACC do is to grow the gonads to stop being the groveling enabler for Notre Dame.
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” Although in the SEC, I’d prefer 4 or 5 permanent opponents with a 9 game schedule.”
I think 5 for the major sports is perfect for the SEC, going to 9 games in football and 20 in basketball.
For baseball: 10 series a year; 5 vs. your rivals, and 5 vs. other teams (see everyone home and away in 4 years)
For basketball: 2 games against each of your rivals (home and away) + 1 game against the other 10 teams (see everyone home and away in 2 years)
For football : 5 games vs. your rivals and 4 vs. other teams (see everyone home and away in 5 years)
I’ve fooled around a little with possible setups…this is what I’d propose today, considering historical rivals, geographic rivals, and some balancing of strength-of-schedule:
UF – UG, AU, USC, UT, UK
UG – UF, AU, USC, UT, VU
USC – UF, UG, AU, MSU, VU
AU – UF, UA*, UG, USC, MSU
UA – AU*, UT, LSU, A&M, MSU
UT – UA, VU*, UK, UF, UG
VU – UT*, UK, A&M, UG, USC
UK – UT, VU, MU, UF, OU
OM – MSU*, LSU, AR, TU, MU
MSU – OM*, LSU, UA, AU, USC
LSU – OM, MSU, A&M, OU*, UA
Ar – MU*, OU, A&M, TU, OM
MU – Ar*, TU, OU, UK, OM
A&M – Ar, TU*, LSU, UA, VU
TU – Ar, OU, A&M*, MU, OM
OU – Ar, TU, LSU*, MU, UK
*Thanksgiving weekend rival
The top 10 historical teams in the new SEC are AU,UA, UF, UG, UT, LSU, Ar, A&M, TU, and OU. The above setup gives everyone 3 of those teams as rivals, except for Alabama and A&M, who each have 4 of those teams.
As I’m sure you know, LSU needs a Thanksgiving rival, now that the Aggies will certainly be playing the Longhorns on that weekend again. It has to be Oklahoma, Missouri, or Arkansas (the only schools left). I think Oklahoma would be a better rival than Arkansas in the long-term, but I’m interested in what you think.
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m (Ag), your proposal is exactly the same as I proposed for the Big Ten.
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Well, I’d defer to Alan on this but LSU/AR is already a rivalry. Until we know if/when Bedlam will be preserved, I wouldn’t pick OU anyway. And MO would be a meaningless “rival” to LSU.
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For most of its history, Bedlam wasn’t been played on Thanksgiving weekend (Nebraska is one opponent OU played a lot that weekend); I think they’ll move it earlier, though perhaps still in November.
For the LSU fans I know, Arkansas hasn’t become one of their bigger rivals, despite the Thanksgiving contests. And, in the new SEC, Arkansas seems to have 5 better rivals: OU and MU are their nearest neighbors in the new SEC (much closer than Baton Rouge), and Ole Miss and the Texas schools have also played them historically. (winsipedia says they’ve played the Longhorns 79 times, A&M 78 times, Ole Miss 68 times and LSU 67 times).
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The Battle for the Golden Boot is much more important to Arkansas than it is to LSU. When Arkansas joined the SEC, the SEC told the little piggies that LSU would be their rivalry weekend game and they took it seriously. Rivalry weekend had never been that big of a deal at LSU, as our historical “rival” was Tulane. The hate between LSU and Arkansas is very one-sided. LSU would not care about skipping the annual game with Arkansas, but Arkansas might. Arkansas was pretty upset to get assigned to Mizzou as their Thanksgiving weekend “rival”. Geographically, it makes sense, but there was no real history between the schools – much like LSU and Texas.
In the current makeup of the SEC, LSU would be Arkansas’ number one rivalry, along with A&M, while Arkansas may be #5 for LSU. Not all rivalries are equal. If the SEC goes to four or five permanent rivals, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the SEC throw Arkansas a bone and keep LSU on the schedule every year.
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After OU and UT join the SEC, another bogus rivalry would be Arkansas and Oklahoma. They are closer to each other than any other SEC opponent but they’ve only played twelve times. Most of those games were prior to 1926.
Anyone old enough to remember those Frank Broyles-Darrel Royal matchups between Arkansas and Texas? It was #1 vs #2 a couple of times. That will be a good rivalry for both teams to renew.
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If the SEC assigns three permanent opponents, take the first three. If four, take all. Personally, I hate to lose Miss State, LSU’s oldest rival, but I seriously doubt the SEC would assign five permanent rivals. For some like LSU five or six would work, for most it would be contrived.
Alabama – Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Miss State
Arkansas – Mizzou, Texas, Texas A&M, LSU
Auburn – Alabama, Georgia, Miss State, Florida
Florida – Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Auburn
Georgia – Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Oklahoma
Kentucky – South Carolina, Mizzou, Florida, Tennessee
LSU – Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Alabama, Arkansas
Miss State – Ole Miss, Vandy, Auburn, Alabama
Mizzou – Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas
Oklahoma – Texas, Texas A&M, Mizzou, Georgia
Ole Miss – Miss State, LSU, Vandy, Texas A&M
South Carolina – Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, Vandy
Tennessee – Vandy, Alabama, Texas, Kentucky
Texas – Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mizzou
Texas A&M – LSU, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ole Miss
Vandy – Tennessee, Miss State, Ole Miss, South Carolina
Prior to the mid-80s, the SEC played a six game schedule (with 10 schools). Then it jumped up to seven, and with expansion in the early 90s, settled in at eight. Playing everyone was never a big deal until after the first expansion. The first scheduling model after the 90s expansion called for two cross-division rivals. Once that was eliminated, along with some historic rivalries (Florida-Auburn & LSU-Kentucky among others), the schedule worked pretty well until A&M and Mizzou came along. The current schedule is an abomination. But for a COVID/hurricane reschedule, LSU would still not have played in the state of Missouri.
My proposed list of permanent opponents takes into consideration that some “rivalries” are more important to one school than the other. I know the glaring “hole” in this schedule is the lack of an A&M-Texas game on an annual basis. I believe that A&M doesn’t want to play Texas annually and that the SEC will grant that wish for at least the first scheduling agreement. Also, it would allow Texas and Oklahoma to play original SEC schools other than just their old SWC/B-12 mates. After the first few rotations, A&M could play Texas and Ole Miss could play Tennessee on an annual basis.
I created a few contrived but fun games like The Battle of the Coon-Skin Cap between Texas and Tennessee, and the teams that sued the NCAA between Oklahoma and Georgia. And I renewed an ancient rivalry between Auburn and Florida.
It’s not perfect, as no schedule can be. But I think this takes into consideration the wants and needs of certain schools, balanced with ESPN’s desire for great matchups, along with some amount of balance.
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m,
I know Bedlam wasn’t always late, but now 2 conferences have to agree on when to play it. I’m not advocating for it to be Thanksgiving weekend, but it’s possible. So I wouldn’t count on OU being available then. That leaves AR among the 3 options you listed.
I fully agree LSU/OU would be a better game, at least in brand value.
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https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/33968033/could-sec-stage-own-college-football-playoff-all-table-spring-meetings
While the potential of a SEC-only playoff will get the most clicks, I have to think that is just sabre rattling.
The big news in the article is scheduling format.
“There are two favored scheduling models that are most likely for the SEC:
1 and 7: If the SEC sticks with eight league games, this model would be best for the overall exposure and variety of league games, which Sankey values. (More Texas vs. Alabama and less of annual Georgia vs. Kentucky matchups.) Teams would get one rivalry game that’s played every year — think Auburn and Alabama or Oklahoma and Texas — and then rotate through the other seven. The eight-game schedule would be better suited to the current four-team playoff system, as it allows for the customary cushy SEC non-league game late in the season. When there’s a four-team playoff, there’s little margin for error, and that could bring hesitation to play more league games and risk missing out on a CFP spot.
3 and 6: If the SEC goes to a nine-game league scheduling format, this is the favored potential model. This involves each program having three teams that it plays every season. For example, it’s thought that Georgia would play Auburn, Florida and South Carolina. It’s not as restrictive and repetitive as pods and would still keep new programs rotating through SEC stadiums so it feels more like a league. (Georgia and Texas A&M have played just once, for example, since A&M joined the league in 2012.) The nine games would be better for the league and gladly embraced by TV partners, but it would be difficult if the College Football Playoff field remains narrow. (Saban has been vocal about wanting nine league games.)
There will be discussions about both pods and divisions, but those don’t appear to have much traction as the other two models right now.”
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Alan,
The “SEC-only” postseason deserves a lot of clicks. Sankey is blaming everyone else for not bending over to accept the secret dealings on the CFP expansion + stealing OU/UT + keeping the entire CFP with ESPN for an extended period. He can blame the new commissioners all he wants, their predecessors wouldn’t have accepted his plan either. That plan is only in the best interests of the SEC and ESPN.
The SEC would still (for now, anyway) need NCAA permission to run their own postseason unless they did it within the regular season. And if they do it, don’t expect the other leagues to agree to play the SEC champ for a national title. The winner out of the other leagues is the national champion as it would include teams from all over the country. We’d go back to the days of split polls. Also don’t expect the B10 to join the SEC and leave everyone else hanging.
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Shouldn’t be a surprise, but the LHN will be going away.
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So it precluded UT going anywhere…until ESecPN said go…
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Here’s a deep dive into Del Conte’s LHN comments:
https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/texas-ad-chris-del-conte-longhorn-network-sec.html
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I would have bet $10,000 that UT could not possibly come with another AD who was more of a pompous arse than DeLoss Dodds but now here we are with Chris Del Conte.
I was on the faculty of Texas A&M when UT announced the start-up of the LHN and A&M bolted to the SEC. The LHN pretty much destroyed the Big XII as Colorado, Nebraska and Mizzou all left at the same time and for the same reasons. Now, after just a few years of low viewer ratings and negative revenue, UT is just walking away from its cherished LHN.
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Totally untrue. Each school had different reasons for leaving, and only A&M cited the LHN as a reason.
Mizzou started the whole realignment crisis by reaching out to the B1G in 2009/10 because of the inherent instability of a conference with such a small footprint. That spooked Nebraska, so they reached out to the B1G, too.
Colorado had desired the Pac 10 for years, and were set to go there with Texas/A&M/Tech/OU/OSU, but when the LHN scuttled that deal (Texas pulled out because the Pac 10 wouldn’t let them have the LHN, so the LHN actually saved the Big 12 for a decade), the Pac 10 still invited Colorado and they accepted.
Mizzou then got nervous again when the Pac 12 reached out to OU and OSU (a failed attempt to scare Texas into reconsidering the Pac) and went with Aggie to the SEC, which had been A&M’s long term goal forever, they just didn’t have the political cover to pull it off. They used the LHN for that cover, not so much the network, but that Texas planned on showing high school games on it.
A lot of revisionist history keeps getting repeated about Texas.
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Texas destroyed the Southwest Conference by dumping half the teams in Texas to join up with the Big 8 as the Big XII. Texas then destroyed the newly formed Big XII with the creation of LHN, sending four of the top six schools elsewhere. Texas is now having a huge bowel movement on top of the new Big XII with the Horns bolting with OU to the SEC.
Revisionist history? Just tell the truth.
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LHN had nothing, zero, to do with Nebraska, Mizzou, and Colorado leaving. And it was just an useful excuse for the Aggies. Also, a conference comprised of teams all from one state was just no longer viable, Texas (and your Aggies) had to make a move. The Big 8 wasn’t going to accept Rice, TCU, SMU, and Houston.
It’s a little disingenuous that you blame Texas for leaving the Southwest and the Big 12, but you don’t assign any blame to A&M for also leaving both conferences. So many schools have left their conferences for greener pastures in the last decade or so, but only Texas gets totally excoriated for it. Strange.
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Conference Realignment’s Family Feud: Who to Blame for Collapse of Big 12?
“Nebraska was also adamantly opposed to the creation of the Longhorn Network.”
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/857322-family-feud-who-is-to-blame-for-the-collapse-of-the-big-12
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You conveniently left off the key part of that story: Texas was forward thinking and pressed for the creation of a Big 12 network, but Nebraska and the other 10 schools squashed it (and Nebraska was also frustrated that they couldn’t beat Texas):
“Nebraska was perfectly content with the power structure of the Big 12 when it sat in the driver’s seat. Do you suppose a 1-9 record against a certain Texas team, and a tumultuous downfall from power, caused a bit of anxiety in Lincoln? I thought so, too.
Nebraska was also adamantly opposed to the creation of the Longhorn Network. Well, then why did they, along with 10 other Big 12 teams (minus Texas), vote against a joint Big 12 TV network in 2006-2007? Nebraska and the others didn’t want to put the necessary resources is in to create such a network, so Texas did it by itself.
Seems like sour grapes to me.
If Tom Osborne’s arrogance hadn’t gotten the best of him and his program, the Big 12 would still be standing on two legs.
The hypocrisy exists, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s foolish to think Nebraska wasn’t a part of it for many, many years.”
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Christian: “Texas was forward thinking and pressed for the creation of a Big 12 network, but Nebraska and the other 10 schools squashed it . . . . . Well, then why did they, along with 10 other Big 12 teams (minus Texas), vote against a joint Big 12 TV network in 2006-2007?”
The well-known reason was that Texas insisted upon a conference network with distribution of television money based on appearances instead of equal payouts to each conference member like the BTN has.
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Nebraska was also adamantly opposed to the creation of the Longhorn Network. Well, then why did they, along with 10 other Big 12 teams (minus Texas), vote against a joint Big 12 TV network in 2006-2007? Nebraska and the others didn’t want to put the necessary resources is in to create such a network, so Texas did it by itself.
Nebraska was looking into starting their own network.
If Tom Osborne’s arrogance hadn’t gotten the best of him and his program, the Big 12 would still be standing on two legs.
No need to make this more complicated. The Big 12 wasn’t a collection of like minded institutions, it was a marriage of convenience built for TV. Once the Big Ten announced they were exploring expansion realignment was coming. The Big 12 kings were big brands in a conference demographically disadvantaged compared to the Big Ten and SEC. In 2009, Missouri wanted a Big Ten invite, A&M wanted a SEC Invite, and Colorado wanted a PAC10 invite. There was going to be change. The only reason for Nebraska not to take a Big Ten offer would have been arrogance. All of Nebraska’s complaints were just justifications to the fan base so they felt better about leaving the old Big 8 schools behind.
Look at it this way, had Nebraska stayed in the Big 12, how would it have changed Texas’s calculation for leaving the Big 12 for the SEC today? It wouldn’t. The Big 12 would still have a disadvantaged (vs the SEC and Big Ten) TV contract. A once every four years Nebraska visit to Austin wouldn’t materially change the boring home schedule.
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Aggie propaganda is not truth. A&M was going to the SEC in 1994 if Lt. Gov. Bullock hadn’t stepped in. President Loftin said he decided in 2010 to go to the SEC when he could get past political roadblocks. When the opportunity arose in 2011 he did it to differentiate A&M from schools like Tech and Houston. They did surveys and outside of Texas nobody differentiated them from UH, UNT or Tech. That is from an interview with him in an Aggie publication. It was not about the LHN. That was simply an excuse to get the easily riled up Aggies, riled up.
Secondly, the LHN was not the reason the Pac 16 deal was scuttled. It was because ESPN and Fox pointed out that the Big 12 would earn as much as the Pac 12. President Powers said when they sat down and did the scheduling, they figured they could have similar schedules and the same money without moving to the Pacific Coast.
Fact is the LHN was expected to be only about a $3 million deal and Fox was the favorite, until October 2010, 4 months after the Pac 16 deal died. Everyone was shocked when ESPN made it an $11 million deal.
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Bleacher reports???
Look at the Omaha paper where the Nebraska president explained why they left. Look at the Aggie publication a year after the move and where the A&M president explained why they left.
And there’s a lot of false info about the LHN and Big 12 network.
Actually Nebraska AND Texas wanted a conference network. The other 10 voted against it, so UNL and UT jointly funded a study with no help from the rest of the conference. Both decided to do separate school networks. Nebraska’s AD said a Nebraska network was further along than the Longhorn network at the time the Big 10 invited them. And Texas invited Texas A&M to join them in a joint “Lone Star” network. Bill Byrne refused as he didn’t expect it to make much money.
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Bullet, here’s another opinion on that:
“And yes, this was indeed caused by the Longhorn Network. Nebraska left the Big 12 directly because of it, so did Texas A&M. Colorado is always high so you can’t tell what they were thinking. The Big 12 was on deaths door, with 6 schools preparing to join the PAC-12, and had it not been for the LHN that would have happened, and schools like Kansas and Iowa State would have been screwed in ways porn can’t even comprehend. I think the most amazing part of all those changes is the fact that the LHN caused the Big 12 to almost die, then saved it because no other conference would allow Texas to join and keep that bastard.”
https://www.cowboysrideforfree.com/2014/9/26/6252937/longhorn-network-destroyed-college-football-oklahoma-state-texas-football
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@Colin – You are helping make bullet’s point when all you can find are fan sites complaining about the LHN.
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Mike, Google “Longhorn Network destroys Big XII” and you’ll find dozens of articles like that one.
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I like that. Colorado is always high!
I believe what Presidents Loftin, Perlman, Powers and Benson(?) said to their local media. Not what fan sites say years later. Loftin talked to the Aggie student paper. Pearlman talked to the Omaha paper. Powers had a press conference at the time. Forgot who interviewed the CU president.
And the LHN didn’t happen until 5 months later. There are sources showing they were expecting minimal revenue, about $3 million, and Fox was the favorite, not ESPN.
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The first round of realignment wasn’t really caused by the LHN. Colorado had been looking to get into the Pac 12, Missouri had been looking into getting into the Big Ten; but the big driver for Nebraska was Texas looking into both conferences.
At that time, Colorado was probably going to move regardless (they were actually looking into joining the Pac 12 way back when the Big 12 was formed, and decided to stay with their Big 8 rivals), but Texas looking into its options may have been the deciding factor in Nebraska’s decision. Had Texas not been looking around Nebraska might never have bothered to look into its own options. Once they did, it’s possible that they might have moved even if they believed the Longhorns would stay put (the Big Ten was definitely going to have bigger conference payouts). But doubts over Texas’ commitment to the Big 12 made the move the only reasonable option for Nebraska.
When it was announced afterwards that ESPN would pay $15 million a year for the LHN (an amount everyone agreed was an overpay) and (much more importantly) the LHN would air Texas high-school football, it provided an additional justification to Nebraska fans and officials, but the decision had already made. Everyone in college football saw the problem with airing high school games on a network that existed to promote a single university (which is why the NCAA quickly moved to make it against the rules). (As an aside, high school athletics in Texas is run by the University of Texas…which adds even more conflicts to this decision).
This first round of realignment, before the LHN details were announced, got A&M halfway to leaving the conference.
Nobody at A&M was really thinking of changing conferences for most of the Big 12’s history (even though the conference was made to suit Texas’ interests…the Longhorns and Sooners tying their rivals together in the same conference). The Longhorns looking around at other conferences changed that. First of all, they kept A&M officials out of the loop, confident A&M would follow them to whatever conference they chose. This pissed off a lot people. If the Longhorns had gotten together with A&M officials at the beginning and tried to do the process together (like they did with OU during the SEC negotiations), maybe the 2 schools never separate (which doesn’t mean the 2 schools would have stayed in the Big 12). The 2nd thing it did was get A&M fans and officials to examine realignment options themselves; what would life be like in other conferences, with or without the Longhorns?
Once they did that, most of the fanbase (and some of the most important administrators) decided that the SEC was the best destination for A&M. At the time, the fanbase would have been thrilled to go the SEC with the Longhorns, and they were also willing (but less excited) to go to the SEC without Texas if Texas formed the Pac 16.
Texas has successfully pushed the story that they stayed in the Big 12 because of the LHN deal. At the time, the story was that they stayed because they were worried about A&M’s popularity growing in the SEC. Regardless, when the Longhorns decided to stay in the Big 12, A&M stayed as well, leaving the fanbase (and some administrators) divided. About 1/2 the fanbase wanted to remain…either because they wanted to stay with the Longhorns or because they were worried about possible political retribution following a unilateral move. The rest wanted to move, regardless of any possible repercussions.
Then it was announced that the LHN would be a $15 million a year enterprise that would proudly air high school football games with Longhorn branding! All debate evaporated; everyone was ready to change conferences, regardless of political backlash. The fact that the NCAA outlawed this later didn’t matter; the damage was done.
Without the LHN, there is a chance A&M never moved; or maybe A&M would have moved a few years later but with a divided fanbase. Who knows? But it definitely united the fans and administration, allowing the university to move forward without regret.
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Nebraska was exploring is own network. The main reason Nebraska bolted was because they were afraid the “Pac-16” solution may come to fruition, leaving Nebraska behind in a very weakened Big 12.
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This explanation is consistent with what I have heard. Nebraska was quite satisfied with membership in the Big XII, but when Texas refused to commit to the conference in the June 2010 Conference Meeting Nebraska decided that they could not take the chance of being left in the remnants of the conference (if it even survived). The Cornhuskers were extraordinarily fortunate to have such an attractive option available during that tumultuous time.
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I followed this story pretty closely at the time. First domino was the Big Ten announcing they were going to expand to 12 schools. Officials at Missouri made a few comments which indicated they were interested. Actually throwing shade at the academic reputations of Oklahoma State and Kansas State specifically in the process as I remember it.
Pac-10 also announced they were looking to add two schools and there was heavily rumored mutual interest with Colorado.
Big 12 was suddenly looking at losing two members to rival conferences so everybody started looking around. Rumor mill had Texas linked to every major conference.
Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott hatched a plan to expand to a Pac-16 rather than a Pac-12. Current 10 members plus Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech.
Pac-16 would have two divisions with the newcomers plus the Arizona schools being together.
One of these schools leaked these plans to Nebraska. Some say it was Oklahoma out of loyalty and I’ve also heard it was Colorado as they were not in favor of these expanded set up as that would basically be the same conference they were already in, only trading Nebraska, Kansas, etc for the Arizona schools. Colorado wanted California.
In any case, now you have Nebraska worried they could be left behind with only the Kansas schools and Iowa State. So talks heat up between Nebraska and the Big Ten. Missouri’s stock is now falling. A&M meanwhile is not enamored with the Pac-16 idea and basically say they would go to the SEC instead though SEC stated they weren’t actively looking to expand just yet (not publicly anyway). Utah or Kansas (though they might have had a “Kansas State problem”) thought to be possible replacements for A&M in Pac-16 proposal. Kansas is also considering joining the Big East and bring KSU with them.
Colorado would rather be in a Pac-12 but they would agree to the Pac-16 if that’s their only option.
Texas, OU, Oklahoma State and Tech seem to agree to this Pac-16 plan with the 16th member TBD but it is still not really public. All the schools and conferences are realizing they need to act first to avoid being the last one holding the bag.
Colorado officially votes to accept the Pac invite. Nebraska officially joins Big Ten. With A&M not having any official agreement with the SEC and thus stuck in Big 12, Don Beebe and ESPN are able to talk Texas into staying in a 10 member Big 12 by ensuring they will make as much money by staying put.
Rest of the Pac-16 crumbles without Texas and the Pac adds Utah to reach 12 members.
Within the next year, Texas moves forward with the Longhorn network and SEC realizes that they aren’t going to add the Longhorns any time soon so they become more receptive to A&M. Missouri stuck in an awkward situation still in the Big 12 now interested in SEC as well. SEC makes these rumors official to reach 14 members in response to the Big Ten and Pac growing to 12 members.
After that point, despite the GOR, it was just a matter of time until the Big 12 would be shaken again.
I don’t think it was any one school’s fault that the Big 12 didn’t survive with original members intact. Their fate was sealed by disadvantages in demographics compared to rival conferences and a desire of the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences to reach 12 members so they could hold a championship game and increase overall revenue. Big 12 was situated at the confluence of the Big Ten, SEC and Pac territory so all the schools had to worry about the conference losing members and always looking out for themselves at the same time. And that broke the conference’s bonds more than any arguments about revenue sharing, headquarters location, votes on partial qualifiers, etc.
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Not quite right. Texas said they would commit if 11 of the other 12 members would commit. Guess everyone figured Colorado was gone. Nebraska wouldn’t commit because they thought they had a Big 10 invite. Which you can’t really blame them for their choice. Only for making Tom Osborne, bitter at 1-10 vs. the Longhorns, be their spokesperson.
The Big 10 had more money, more prestige, more stability and better schedules than staying in the Big 12 North, especially with CU gone.
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Note: the source for my comment is UNL president Pearlman’s interview with the Omaha paper.
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The Athletic with an update on the Big Ten’s pending media deal. Nothing news worthy but this quote from Iowa’s Barta.
“There’s talk of that doubling. I mean, I wish that were true,” Barta told The Athletic. “There’s nowhere even near that possibility. But there could be some potential upside, (though) nothing near that kind of money.”
He added: “I wish that (media rights revenue doubling) were true, but it won’t even be a sniff of that. It will be maybe a few million more for each school, which would be great, but it won’t double.”
https://theathletic.com/news/big-ten-media-rights-deal-commissioner-streaming
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Something to keep an eye on, Warren Buffet has bought a large stake in Paramount (CBS) along with Apple. If Warren is coming around to streaming, how long can FOX survive with its limited streaming presence.
https://deadline.com/2022/05/paramount-global-stock-jumps-warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-1235025660/
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https://theathletic.com/news/big-ten-media-rights-deal-commissioner-streaming/HwenzbXl1NaI/
At day 2 of the Big Ten joint group meetings, Iowa athletic director says the new league media deal will not double revenues per school as some have speculated:
Reports earlier this month had indicated that the Big Ten could finalize its new deal by Memorial Day weekend and that the deal could net nearly double the current annual distribution of $54 million per school. But Iowa athletic director Gary Barta said that figure was wishful thinking.
“There’s talk of that doubling. I mean, I wish that were true,” Barta told The Athletic. “There’s nowhere even near that possibility. But there could be some potential upside, (though) nothing near that kind of money.”
He added: “I wish that (media rights revenue doubling) were true, but it won’t even be a sniff of that. It will be maybe a few million more for each school, which would be great, but it won’t double.”
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I don’t buy his commentary on just a few million more. The sports media journal people typically have a good handle on these negotiations.
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“At day 2 of the Big Ten joint group meetings, Iowa athletic director says the new league media deal will not double revenues per school as some have speculated.”
Iowa needs a new AD and pronto.
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The B1G could go from $54 to $90 million and that would obviously not double revenue. This is the first time that I have seen anyone mention only a few million more per team, unless Barta considers and extra $30 million or so a few million.
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Remember that the Big 10 more than tripled their OTA deal in 2017. They are making $31 million per school OTA (ignoring BTN and all other revenues). $5-6 million per school would still be a 20% increase.
And maybe he is comparing the new contract to the current fees (which would have been escalated from 2017-$31 million is simply the average).
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The Pac-12 has announced that its CCG will feature the two teams with the best records, starting this coming season. The league wasted no time as soon as CCG deregulation passed. A similar proposal should have passed several years ago before Jim Delany torpedoed it to screw the ACC.
Interestingly, the Pac-12 will not abolish divisions this year, probably because there was not time to hash out a new format. But the divisions are irrelevant now. Any list of the league standings should just be a ranked order of all 12 teams, since the top two will now meet in the championship regardless of divisions.
I expect the ACC to make a similar change very soon, as this is something they’ve long wanted. Eventually, most conferences will very likely do the same.
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The press release showed which teams since 2011 would have qualified for the CCG if the rule had been in place. Six out of 11 years, there would have been no change. In the other five, the game would have had a higher-ranked match-up, giving the winner a stronger schedule and a better chance of impressing the playoff committee.
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Marc,
I agree that most conferences will likely go this route. But I wonder if it is the correct path for the B10 if/when the CFP expands.
The B10 argument against divisions is that the East is 8-0 in the CCG, with the runner-up in the East often in CFP contention while even the West leader isn’t (4 of 8 West winners were outside the top 10). But the current format means an upset would get the West champ in, and probably the East champ as well. Maybe 2 teams from the East. If the top two teams are in the East and the lower one loses, then the B10 might only get 1 team in.
Ignoring the schedule changes that would happen without divisions, the B10 CCG matchups would’ve been (using B10 record with CFP ranking as tiebreaker):
21: UM/OSU
20: OSU/IU
19: OSU/WI *
18: OSU/UM
17: WI/OSU *
16: PSU/OSU
15: IA/MSU *
14: OSU/MSU
* – actual matchup
That’s 5 all-East games and 3 East/West. Other than a back to back repeat last year and in 2018, the matchups look pretty good. Plus IU would’ve gotten their chance in 2020.
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Brian, it would be a lot simpler with even divisions:
SE: IL, PU, IU, OS, PS, RU, MD
NW: NW, WI, MN, IO, NE, MS, MI
Crossover games for OS-MI and NW-IL
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The Big Ten likely wants a conference championship game with the two best teams. Once they have that, they want to lock as few games as possible, so everyone plays everyone else more often. I mean, there’s no logical reason for Purdue to play Maryland twice as often as it plays Northwestern.
Also, beware the law of unintended consequences: the divisions that look logical now might look stupid if teams do not perform at their historical norms. That’s what happened to the Big Ten when they created Legends/Leaders so that Michigan and OSU could meet in the CCG. But it never happened. Same when the ACC put Miami and Florida State in separate divisions.
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Marc,
Those divisions looked stupid for a lot of reasons, starting with their names. The balance was decent, but the alignment was hard for people to remember since it wasn’t geographical. It also dropped some key rivalries.
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Colin,
I argued for better-balanced divisions at the time, but the problem is the locked crossover games. If the B10 does that, they’d do it for everyone. That means 7 locked games (OSU/MI, IL/NW, PSU/NE, PU/IA, IU/MSU, RU/WI, UMD/MN), which greatly reduces the frequency with which schools play each other plus a lot of arbitrary locked games.
Besides, divisions still force games to be locked that shouldn’t be. Nobody is clamoring for more RU or UMD (or IL, or …) games, so spread that pain equally.
In addition, how do you figure those divisions are balanced? To me the top 7 brands in the B10 sorted by recent success is probably: OSU, PSU, WI, MI, IA, MSU, NE. Only 2 of those are in the SE division.
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Brian, I agree that the pod system gives better balance than 7-team divisions and proposed the same thing myself a few months ago. However I think the 3-5-5 system that the ACC is now considering may be even better. Each team would play three annual rivals plus five conference teams, then the next year they play the same three annual rivals plut the other five conference teams. The two teams with the best records then playin the CCG.
The key difference is that that a school and its three annual rivals would not be a pod. For example, Nebraska might play Iowa, MN and WI every year while Iowa may play NE, WI and IL every year.
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Colin,
The B10 had the locked rivals and rotate the rest scheduling before going to divisions. Many of us have advocated here for years for returning to that model, especially after moving to 14 teams.
For scheduling, the 3 + 6/10 plan is the B10’s best choice (they won’t go back to 8 games). The fight will be over which rivalries to lock.
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Timely news: NCAA eliminates division requirements; what it means for Purdue, Big Ten football
https://www.jconline.com/story/sports/college/purdue/football/2022/05/19/ncaa-division-requirements-what-means-purdue-big-ten-football/9834321002/
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Brian: “For scheduling, the 3 + 6/10 plan is the B10’s best choice (they won’t go back to 8 games). The fight will be over which rivalries to lock.”
With a nine-game schedule you could go 5-4-4. With five annual rivals locked in for each team, that would accommodate just about everyone.
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NCAA eliminates division requirements; what it means for Purdue…
The article notes that eliminating divisions would make it a lot harder for Purdue to ever reach the CCG. In the current alignment, they only need to have a better record than the other West teams. In the assumed new alignment, they’d need to have the second-best record overall, a much taller order.
Purdue has finished second in their division twice in the past 5 years. They have not been second in the overall Big Ten standings since 2003.
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Colin,
You could do 5 + 4/8, but that locks way too many games that don’t need to be locked.
Some around here have suggested locking just 2 rivals, but I think that misses a few too many rivalries. For example:
IA – MN, NE
MN – IA, WI
NE – IA, WI
WI – MN, NE
IL – NW, PU
NW – IL, IN
IN – PU, NW
PU – IN, IL
MSU – MI,
MI – OSU, MSU
OSU – MI,
PSU – UMD, RU
UMD – PSU, RU
RU – UMD, PSU
Loss of WI/IA, OSU/PSU, NE/MN (NE wanted it), OSU/IL (trophy game), NW/MSU (MSU wanted it), IN/MSU (trophy game), plus other games that don’t mean much (MI/RU, etc.).
Forces OSU/MSU (OSU and MSU have very little history of playing each other).
Others have suggested lock as many as needed, and it doesn’t need to be the same number for each school. This sounds good, but I think many fans would be confused. It’s just simpler to have all teams on the same plan.
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Brian, 5-4-4 actually works out well for greater parity while also maintaining rivalries and regional matchups. The conference has three heavyweights – Ohio State, Michigan & Penn State – and two middleweights – Michigan State & Wisconsin. With the plan below, every school gets at least one heavyweight among its five annual rivals except Northwestern and NW nonetheless has a pretty beefy lineup.
Please look it over. This map helps: https://sportleaguemaps.com/ncaa/big-ten/
PS – MD RU MS PU OS
OS – IA IL IU MI PS
MI – NE MN MS OS WI
MS – MD RU PS MI PU
WI – NE MN IA MI NW
RU – MD PS MS NW IU
MD- RU PS IU MS PU
PU – MD IU IL PS MS
IU – MD PU IL OS RU
IL – NE NW OS IU PU
NW – MN IA IL RU WI
MN – NE MI WI IA NW
IA – NE MN WI OS NW
NE – MN IA MI WI IL
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Others have suggested lock as many as needed, and it doesn’t need to be the same number for each school. This sounds good, but I think many fans would be confused. It’s just simpler to have all teams on the same plan.
That has always been my preference, but Brian is right that fans (and sportswriters) want a system that is easy to explain. Perhaps athletic directors want that too. The more complex the system, the less amenable it is to hashing out details over the conference table.
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Colin,
Fewer locked games is always better for parity. 5+4/8 is better than divisions for parity, but worse than 3+6/10. And when you lock fake rivalries, there’s an opportunity cost of seeing other teams more often.
The “standard” split is 4 kings (OSU, MI, PSU, NE) and 3 princes (WI, MSU, IA), though NE is working hard at dropping down a tier. The tiers were named by Stewart Mandel in articles over the years, but it fits the brand size of the schools. On the field performance is a different thing, especially recently, but brands build over time and take time to change. The 4 kings all have >900 wins (only 8 schools have 900+ wins, with the next 2 at 856 each), are in the top 10 in all-time W%, have multiple national titles, and have large fan bases that travel well. And due to time in conference, OSU and MI are bigger brands within the B10 than PSU and NE.
Everyone wants their fair share of games against those 7 teams, and locking more games cuts into that. Literally nobody wants a locked game with RU or UMD. Few schools want to be locked with other lower-tier performers like IL and IN.
Just because schools are in proximity doesn’t mean the fans care all that much about the other team. OSU has played WI almost 30 more times than PU. OSU never played MSU until just before MSU joined the B10 (1st game in 1951), and has played WI 15 more times since 1951 than MSU. Of course the B10 will want to lock some regional games that aren’t rivalries (RU/UMD, PSU/RU, PSU/UMD, etc.), but you don’t need to lock all of them.
Looking at my draft plan, I locked some arbitrary games as needed to round it out (like PU/UMD, NW/IN) but not many:
IA – MN, NE, WI
MN – IA, NE, WI
NE – IA, MN, WI
WI – IA, MN, NE
IL – NW, OSU, PU
NW – IL, MSU, IN
IN – PU, MSU, NW
PU – IN, IL, UMD
MSU – MI, NW, IN
MI – OSU, MSU, RU
OSU – MI, PSU, IL
PSU – UMD, RU, OSU
UMD – PSU, RU, PU
RU – UMD, PSU, MI
The beauty of fewer locked games is that everyone rotates through more often. Most schools would rather get to host the kings more often (for the ticket sales) rather than have fake rivals locked.
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Agree with your thoughts Brian on fewer locked games. What did the league do when we had 11 schools and played 8 league games. I don’t remember any explicit locked games other than Mich vs OSU. Maybe Wisconsin vs Minnesota?
Anyone remember? To be fair we were playing most of the schools each year at that time so it was less an issue.
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Brian your first sentence is a showstopper: “Fewer locked games is always better for parity.”
Did you actually read my post? Your comment is nonsense. My methodology will actually result in twelve of the fourteen teams playing 2.0 heavyweights each year. For the other two, Northwestern will play an average of 1.5 heavyweights/yr and Michigan State will play an average of 2.5. Here is the logic for this.
1. Ohio State plays two heavyweights in its grouping and the third heavyweight is Ohio State itself so that is a done deal.
2. Each year, all others (except NW and MS) will play one heavyweight within their grouping and another within the 4-team cluster. As an example, Illinois plays Ohio State every year. On the first year they’ll also play a cluster that contains Michigan. The following year they’ll play Ohio State and a cluster that contains Penn State. The year after that its back to Michigan again, and so on.
3. Northwestern will play a cluster that contains Ohio State and Penn State one year and alternate with a cluster that contains Michigan the following year, this a frequency of 1.5 heavyweights/yr.
4, Michigan State plays in a group that contains Michigan and Penn State every year. They will also play Ohio State every other year thus a frequency of 2.5 heavyweights/yr.
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Brian totally nailed it. Barring my preference of unequal locking, his plan provides just about everything the league and its fans would likely want. Almost all of his locked games have a rational basis to exist. Only Purdue-Maryland sticks out as having no basis at all, but Maryland has no significant history with any Big Ten team except Penn State, so without unequal locking there is nothing to be done: somebody must get the short straw.
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I like Brian’s plan, but I have a sneaking feeling Nebraska wants to play Northwestern more than they want to play Minnesota. Recruiting reasons (especially students) and Nebraska fans love that trip to Chicago. Especially since the last Chicago trip wasn’t open to fans (Covid) and this years is in Dublin.
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Kevin,
What did the league do when we had 11 schools and played 8 league games. I don’t remember any explicit locked games other than Mich vs OSU. Maybe Wisconsin vs Minnesota?
Anyone remember? To be fair we were playing most of the schools each year at that time so it was less an issue.
B10 scheduling has been all over the map over the decades. In 1953 (when MSU joined), we mostly played 6 games each. By the 1970s we were up to 8 games. In the 80s the B10 briefly went to 9 games, then back to 8 by 1985. There were definitely locked rivals back then, since OSU played MI, IL, and WI every year from 1953-1992. OSU rotated unevenly through the other 6.
In 1993, the B10 moved to 2 locked rivals and rotating through the rest. One caveat is that PSU also demanded to play MI for the first 10 years they were in the B10.
https://www.espn.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/125/another-look-at-the-big-ten-rivalries
Illinois: Indiana, Northwestern
Indiana: Illinois, Purdue
Iowa: Minnesota, Wisconsin
Michigan: Michigan State, Ohio State
Michigan State: Michigan, Penn State
Minnesota: Iowa, Wisconsin
Northwestern: Illinois, Purdue
Ohio State: Michigan, Penn State
Penn State: Michigan State, Ohio State
Purdue: Indiana, Northwestern
Wisconsin: Iowa, Minnesota
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Colin,
Brian your first sentence is a showstopper: “Fewer locked games is always better for parity.”
Thank you. Ultimate parity is a full round robin. Since we can’t play 13 games, the next best thing is 9 games that rotate equally through all opponents. So over time everyone faces the same schedule. Every locked game disturbs that. Whoever is locked with OSU is not getting parity with someone locked with RU (except maybe MI locked with both). OSU facing MI and PSU annually is not getting parity.
My methodology will actually result in twelve of the fourteen teams playing 2.0 heavyweights each year. For the other two, Northwestern will play an average of 1.5 heavyweights/yr and Michigan State will play an average of 2.5.
0 locked rivals: non-kings play 2.8 kings annually, kings play 2.1 other kings
Your plan has kings play each other more, and the other teams less. Not by a lot, but less. More importantly it locks many games that nobody wants locked. What is the upside to that? And because they are locked games, teams will see the same kings rather than an equal distribution. That hurts ticket sales and fan interest.
Why do MSU and NW get punished in your plan?
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Mike,
NE (and most B10W schools) would love to play in Chicago more often I’m sure. But my plan still gets them 6 games in the state of IL every decade (3 vs NW, 3 vs IL). NE/MN makes sense for fans to travel and try to build the rivalry, and there was expressed interest due to the long history between the schools (they’ve played 62 times – more than vs OkSU or vs IA).
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I have a sneaking feeling Nebraska wants to play Northwestern more than they want to play Minnesota. Recruiting reasons (especially students) and Nebraska fans love that trip to Chicago.
If unequal locking were permitted, MSU–NW is one of the first locks I would drop from Brian’s plan (after Purdue–MD). Sure, the Spartans would like to visit Chicago every other year, but so would almost everyone. Dropping that lock means more opportunities for the rest of us.
Frank the Tank’s plan had MSU locked with Maryland, and I would not mind that either. Most schools’ fans are unexcited to play RU and MD, but somebody has to. Michigan has a lot of alumni in metro NYC, so Michigan–Rutgers as a locked game does make some sense.
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“Interestingly, the Pac-12 will not abolish divisions this year, probably because there was not time to hash out a new format.”
The format’s easy; there’s just not enough time to change this year’s schedule.
As long as the Pac-12 stays at 9 games, you divide the conference into 3 pods* (Northwest, California, Mountain). Each year, every team plays the other 3 teams in its pod and 3 teams from each of the other 2 pods. This is actually what the schedule for the non-California teams looks like right now; but they play the same 2 California teams every year and alternate the other 2 rather than rotating 3 of the 4 every year.
There’s no other sensible arrangement for the Pac 12: the California schools are going to insist they play each other every year; which means the other schools have 6 games every year to play against other NW and Mountain schools; any other setup would mean there would be years where they would only play 2 of their regional teams, but all 4 teams in the other region.
As a bonus, the Pac 12 can now name 3 pod champions (more if ties!) instead of 2 division champions, giving at least 1 more team each year something to put on their stadium walls. Some will say it seems silly now, but in the future I think all schools will celebrate some sort of recognition in these larger conferences. The SEC and Big Ten might give some sort of special recognition to the top 4/5/6 reams in their leagues (a “diamond finish” or something else that won’t sound right at first, but will seem like tradition in 20 years:).
*I wouldn’t be surprised if they called these smaller groupings “divisions” instead of “pods”..there really isn’t any chance of confusion, since they won’t be used to form larger divisions (like the pods we designed back when we were talking about a 16 team Big Ten in the early days of Conference realignment talk here).
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The format’s easy; there’s just not enough time to change this year’s schedule.
While you are obviously right that the four California teams will continue to play each other every year, there is more than one reasonable way to rotate the games among the other eight teams, which I am sure will be debated. I doubt they will create meaningless pod championships. With only four teams in a pod, I suspect ties for first would be pretty common.
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Frank,
In response to your B10 scheduling plan in Twitter (copied here for those who don’t tweet):
I’ll repeat my previously proposed Big Ten setup: with 9 conference games, each schools has 3 protected rivals and plays everyone else 6 out of 10 years.
K.I.S.S. with Big Ten protected rivals:
West Pod: WIS, MIN, NEB, IA
Illiana Pod: ILL, NW, PUR, IND
Great Lakes Mini-Pod: MICH, MSU, OSU
East Mini-Pod: PSU, RUT, MD
Cross Mini-Pod Rivals: OSU-PSU, MICH-RUT, MSU-MD
Everyone plays their respective pod and mini-pod rivals annually. Each mini-pod has a protected rival in the other mini-pod. This keeps all of the primary and secondary rivals together and preserves geographically contiguous teams as much as possible.
For cross mini-pod rivals, OSU-PSU is a *mandatory* game (arguably the most valuable B1G game other than MICH-OSU). MICH has its largest alumni/student presence outside of Detroit and Chicago in and from the NYC area, so RUT would be preferred.
MSU-MD is admittedly a matchup that’s simply just the last 2 schools standing. However, most other proposed setups that I’ve seen (such as trying to set up games like ILL-OSU or having 5 protected rivals) have a lot more random annual forced matchups that don’t make much sense.
I agree with 3 locked + 6/10 = 9 games is the most likely path, but I’m not convinced on your pod plan. All such plans will have some arbitrary games, but I think the B10 might prefer to keep some historical rivalries like OSU/ILL despite it making no sense on paper otherwise. There may also be those who don’t want a “weak” pod like your Illiana group, thinking that’s unfair for those others fighting to get bowl eligible (like UMD, RU and MN).
My plan would have a lot of overlap with yours:
IA – MN, NE, WI
MN – IA, NE, WI
NE – IA, MN, WI
WI – IA, MN, NE
IL – NW, OSU, PU
NW – IL, MSU, IN
IN – PU, MSU, NW
PU – IN, IL, UMD
MSU – MI, NW, IN
MI – OSU, MSU, RU
OSU – MI, PSU, IL
PSU – UMD, RU, OSU
UMD – PSU, RU, PU
RU – UMD, PSU, MI
My plan keeps OSU/IL and IN/MSU, plus honors MSU’s desire to lock NW. IN/NW and PU/UMD are basically arbitrary. I’m tempted to not lock MI/RU, but I think the B10 might do it for financial reasons (games in NYC market, plus more ticket sales for RU).
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Wilner updates the PAC12’s finances.
The revenue plunge caused by COVID and the truncated 2020 football season resulted in the conference distributing an average of $19.8 million to each school, a decrease of 41 percent from the prior year (FY20), when the pandemic had a negligible fiscal impact.
The Pac-12’s campus distributions, which help support athletic department operations, lagged far behind its Power Five peers, each of which played more football games.
According to USA Today, the SEC distributed $54.6 million per school in FY21; the ACC’s payouts ranged from $35 million to $38.1 million; the Big 12 distributions were from $34.7 million to $36.5 million; and Big Ten payouts ranged from $43.1 million to $49.1 million.
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IIRC – The SEC took out a loan and the Big Ten sold 10% of the BTN. I don’t know what if anything the ACC/Big12 did to prop up revenue.
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The ACC, B12 and SEC all played more games (10 games each minus cancellations) than the B10 (8 games) and P12 (6 games) in 2020. That probably helped the most.
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Thank Ohio State and Nebraska or the B1G revenues would have collapsed totally. I believe that those two schools pretty much forced the league to play football rather than close for the season.
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https://mgoblue.com/news/2009/8/18/Future_Michigan_Football_Schedules.aspx
As per Frank’s tweet, it looks like the B10 is serious about possibly dropping divisions. On the UM future football schedules page:
* The Big Ten Conference is currently readjusting future schedules; this page will be updated with solidified conference schedules once they are finalized by the Big Ten.
All B10 schools have pulled down their future B10 schedules.
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It’s interesting that Iowa State was probably pushed out of the AAU. Here are the lowest ranking public AAU schools now, according to FY20 NSF research expenditure rankings:
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingbysource&ds=herd
52 Iowa
55 Colorado
56 UC Irvine
62 SUNY Buffalo
70 Kansas
***71 Iowa State
78 Missouri
98 SUNY Stony Brook
101 UC Santa Barbara
142 UC Santa Cruz
154 Oregon
These seem to be the schools most at risk of losing their spots. Really, I would assume the ones in the top 60 are pretty safe.
Missouri, in particular, I know has been very concerned about their AAU membership for the past 4 or 5 years. In 1994 Missouri was ranked #59 in these rankings, but persistent budget cuts led them to continuously fall, all the way down to #89 in 2012. I believe there has been some communication between Missouri and the AAU and Missouri has the idea that they need to make significant improvement to keep their membership and they have been taking major steps. The numbers above are from FY20. In FY22, they just opened a new, large $250 million medical research center that is expected to generate “at least” $50 million in competitively won federal research grants per year. https://showme.missouri.edu/2021/grand-opening-of-the-roy-blunt-nextgen-precision-health-building/
Additionally, in FY22, they started a ten year, $1.5B initiative specifically designed to increase research, especially federal research grants, at Mizzou, including hiring 300 new research faculty, improving equipment, and increasing pay among researchers.
https://provost.missouri.edu/mizzou-forward/
According to Mizzou’s president, they already have their FY21 NSF numbers in, and these are before these initatives, and research was up 17% and they project Missouri will have moved up 11 spots in the rankings to #67.
https://president.missouri.edu/2022-state-of-the-university/
Add in the extraordinary measures they’re taking that I listed above, and it’s highly likely that Missouri should move up at least another 5 spots over the next several years, and possibly 10 or more spots. In 2018 there was a stated goal to double research at Miissouri, and there is a general goal to get at or around the same NSF ranking they had in 1994 (#59), and they seem to be doing what it takes to get there.
Missouri’s system is set up such that they only count their Columbia campus. If they also counted their campuses in Kansas City, St. Lous, and Rolla, they’d already be in the low 50s in this rankiing. Kansas has set up their system differently. All of their campuses count in their numbers, including their medical campus in Kansas City. They were ranked #70 in FY20. I don’t have an estimate from them on where they’ll be ranked in FY21, but they are reporting 5% growth in FY21 so they should be in the high 60s: https://aire.ku.edu/research-expenditures
So it looks like Missouri and Kansas will be nearly tied in FY21. Kansas does not have any major initiatives right now like Missouri does, so I expect their growth to be more modest over the next several years. By 2030 or so, based on what’s planned and the current trajectories, I expect Missouri will be somewhere between 57 and 63, and Kansas will be somewhere between 65 and 70. Both are probably going to be safe, but I’d say Kansas is at a little bit more risk, unless they decide to take major measures like Missouri is taking. And maybe they will, that’s possible.
Another note, another AAU metric is National Academy membership. Missouri is making efforts there. Have increased from 9 members to 12 and are expected to get to 14 this year and keep climbing. As far as I know Kansas is still down at 7. So Missouri is doing what it takes to get out of the basement of the AAU rankings. Kansas, not as much.
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https://mgoblog.com/content/case-big-ten-showcase
I want to use the linked plan as a starting point for a discussion. The plan is inherently flawed (in my opinion) as it assumes the B10 could add a 13th game for everyone. But perhaps we could borrow an idea or two from it:
1. Use flex scheduling for the final week of the season
His plan is based on playing all the best games that weren’t played during the season. #1 plays the best team they haven’t played, and so on down the list until everyone has a game. So implement a 3 + 5/10 schedule and then pair teams up for the best games that haven’t been played yet. You could pick the 7 hosts in advance each year to help with logistics, or pick them after Halloween. The goal is to make the SOS more equitable. The down side are the crappy flex games (IL/RU, etc.), but those happen every week too.
2. No rematches
You could build in rules to prevent a possible rematch of the flex game in the CCG, so this would prevent any back-to-back repeat games. Even better, you could eliminate all rematches and have #1 play the best team they haven’t played yet in the CCG (or maybe the best team they have lost to, so anyone going 2-0 over #1 would win the title).
In a divisionless B10, this sort of approach might make the CCG pairings more fair.
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Brian, it’s a good idea if all conferences did it. But they won’t and here’s the central problem: The B1G will be further diminishing the pool of candidates that get into the CFP. We’ll have Ohio State knocking Wisconsin OUT of the CFP thus improving the chances that Notre Dame will be again rewarded for playing ACC weaklings and no CCG.
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Colin,
I don’t know if that true or not. It’s a risk/reward proposition just like the CCG is. Right now the CCG winner and that division’s runner-up are the only B10 teams with a shot at the CFP. The SEC has shown that the CCG loser can make it as well if the stars align. Does flex scheduling in the final week change that?
Let’s look at OSU and WI as an example:
Right now, OSU plays PSU, MI, and MSU every year, plus 1-2 of NE/WI/IA. With a 3+5/10 schedule, OSU would likely play PSU, MI, and 2 of MSU/NE/WI/IA before the flex week. So OSU’s schedule stays about the same.
Right now, WI plays NE and IA every year, plus ~3 of OSU/MI/PSU/MSU. With a 3+5/10 schedule, WI would likely play NE, IA, and 2 of OSU/MI/PSU/MSU before the flex week. So WI’s schedule gets a little easier.
There’s 50/50 odds OSU and WI already played, plus if they were #1 and #2 they wouldn’t be paired (so they couldn’t rematch in the CCG). If WI was #3, they’d need to beat #1 OSU to have a chance at the CFP now anyway. So at worst it returns to the same sort of SOS we have now, but with more interest because the games are played the last week almost like B10 semifinals. That’s actually bad for OSU, coming off an emotional and physical MI game.
In a 12-team CFP, the B10 might average 3 teams per year making it. In that scenario the extra marquee game might help the last team make the CFP, or it might knock a team out. Much like above, though, I doubt the math makes it any worse than the current scheduling.
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The main point of such an approach is to avoid what sometimes happened in the years before NE joined, when the conference champ (or co-champ) was determined by who didn’t have to play one of the powers that year (often OSU, or MI, or both).
Of course, the CCG would make them play now. But a team still might get into the CCG because of their schedule, which bothers some people. How often did the crossover schedule determine a division champ?
In 2015, the top 2 in the east both missed the top 3 from the west. 3E played t2W as the only game between the tops of each division.
In 2016, 1 top 3 team in the east played 2 of the top 3 in the west while the others played 1 top 3 from the west. The eventual t1E champ was the only one of the 3 not to play 1W.
In 2017 the schedule could’ve mattered, but didn’t.
In 2018, the t1E head to head winner missed 1W while the other t1E played 1W.
In 2019, 3W played 2 of the top 3 in the east while both t1W teams only played 1.
It was also important in the parity years in the late 90s and early 00s. In 2000, 3 teams went 6-2, 1 x 5-3, and 3 x 4-4. Only 1 of the 6-2 teams didn’t play the 5-3 team, and it also missed a 4-4 team. Another one missed 1 x 3-5 and 1 x 2-6 (and beat the other 2 top teams to win the tiebreaker). The third missed 1 x 4-4 and 1 x 3-5.
1999 was a similar situation. In 1998, 3 teams went 7-1 while 1 went 6-2. That 6-2 team missed 2 of the 7-1 teams that season. The NW teams in 1995 (8-0 champs over 7-1 OSU) and 1996 (7-1 co-champs with OSU) missed OSU. It’s not to say those types games would always change the outcome, but sometimes they will.
You only missed 2 teams in 1993-2010, then 3 in 2011-2013, 5 in 2014-2015, and now 4. That increases the chances of the scheduling mattering to the standings. A flex game helps reduce the imbalance, but at the risk of knocking a team out of CFP contention.
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I want to use the linked plan as a starting point for a discussion. The plan is inherently flawed (in my opinion) as it assumes the B10 could add a 13th game for everyone.
It’s strange that the writer “can’t see why they would allow 2 teams to” play a 13th game “and not the rest.” The reasons for this are well known. The CCG exists to establish a champion. An extra game between Rutgers and Nebraska, when both have losing records, has no competitive purpose and exposes the players to further risk of injuries.
Naturally, they could make more money with a 13th game for everyone, just as they made money when they added the 12th game, and the 11th. But the clear priority now among administrators is to add playoff games among teams deemed (by some measure) to have a shot at the national championship, not to add games between losing teams.
As Brian noted, you could play a flex week within the current 12-game schedule, but I would be surprised to see that happen.
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The problem is the conferences are too big. Set a membership limit of 10, and play a round robin. Use tie breakers, if needed, to decide a champion. You still have 3 OOC games to schedule as you see fit, and they don’t all have to be patsies.
Dump the CCG. This frees up another weekend for the college playoffs. Going to 8, or even 16, playoff games becomes much more feasible. There is a real issue of how many games an 18/19 year old can play at a high leve.
Now, who does the B1G dump? Charter members like Illinois and Purdue? You’ve got to dump 4.
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Bob Sykes is correct. To optimize the number of teams that reach the playoff, play fewer conference games and fewer conference championship games. The weakest P5 conference, the ACC, has twice gotten two teams (Clemson and ND) into the CFP by virtue of not playing each other in the CCG.
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Colin,
Having the rest of the ACC be a little down has helped Clemson, as has an OOC cupcake or two. But the SOS for ND and Clemson in those years wasn’t terrible (also not great). In 2018 it was better than OSU’s (next-highest champ). In 2020 it was worse than OU’s, but OU played 10 games to their 11. And they were both ahead of UC, the other champ in consideration.
I assume the actual goal of most of the conferences is to optimize the money. Eliminating conference games and the CCG hurts financially, and a 2nd CFP team doesn’t pay that much right now. They all want some CFP participation, but I don’t think many are aiming to maximize it.
I’m not even sure CCGs actually hurt your CFP chances.
2021 – top 4 stayed the top 4
2019 – OU replaced UGA, but conference winners hadn’t been rewarded yet (4/6 swap – #5 Utah lost or they might’ve gotten in instead)
2018 – OU replaced UGA, but conference winners hadn’t been rewarded yet (4/5 swap)
2017 – UGA replaced AU (beat them in CCG), AL got in when WI lost to OSU (but OSU jumped to 5 over AU)
2016 – top 4 stayed the top 4
2015 – MSU replaced IA (beat them in CCG) (4/5 swap)
2014 – OSU replaced TCU (both won games)
They made no difference in 2021, 2016 and 2015. I don’t think they mattered in 2018. In 2017 it cost the B10, but in 2014 it helped the B10. In 2019 it may have cost Utah a spot, or maybe the committee would choose a B12 champ OU over a P12 champ Utah anyway.
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Bob,
That’s certainly 1 problem, and I’ve always been in favor of ten. And those who’ve been around here a long time will remember how anti-CCG I was (and remain). But following that route, I’d ditch the CFP too and go back to the bowl system.
But the bigger problem is money. I’d love to dump the CCG, but it makes too much money for the B10 to willingly drop it. The same with expansion, the current 14 is much more valuable per school than the original 10. The whole point of the CFP is money.
If I was dropping 4, I’d do it by seniority (PSU, NE, UMD, RU). Get back to a more compact, regional footprint.
The harder question is which 10 would bring the highest TV value. Do the TV sets in NJ/NYC bring enough value to keep RU? What about DC and UMD? Original members like PU and NW don’t seem to bring a lot of financial value on paper. Does NE’s brand still outweigh it’s tiny state? For how much longer will that be true?
4 obvious keepers – OSU, MI, PSU, WI
5 pretty clear – MN, IA, NE, MSU, IN
5 at risk (keep 1) – PU, IL, NW, RU, UMD
I guess IL to keep Chicago in the footprint. But maybe RU or UMD really has more value. Maybe IA or NE has less.
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Brian: 4 obvious keepers – OSU, MI, PSU, WI
5 pretty clear – MN, IA, NE, MSU, IN
5 at risk (keep 1) – PU, IL, NW, RU, UMD
Interesting to see that Purdue which was not only a charter member but actually the founding member of the Big Ten, would be on the chopping block.
https://www.thedailygopher.com/2016/7/28/12303242/big-ten-tbt-did-purdue-start-this-conference
The smart thing for Penn State to do is become another Notre Dame. Drop out of the Big Ten, become independent and work up a cozy deal with the ACC to become a member in all sports except football with the understanding that they will munch five ACC cupcakes every year. Then they’ll add seven hand-picked opponents every year, no CCG, and waltz right into the CFP with a 11-1 or 12-0 record.
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Colin,
Do you disagree that from a purely financial perspective, PU would be in that bottom tier? It’s unfortunate, but things change over the decades. Back in the 60s PU football would’ve been valuable. Now splitting a basketball state with a rival with a better basketball brand puts PU at risk.
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Brian, I do not agree that the Big Ten is going to split up. It is fantasy. It isn’t going to happen.
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Of course the B10 isn’t going to actually drop back 10. This was a hypothetical exercise, like most of our expansion discussions are.
You agreed when Bob said the B10 (and all other big conferences) was too big and should be capped at 10, then asked who would be dumped.
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Brian: “You agreed when Bob said the B10 (and all other big conferences) was too big and should be capped at 10, then asked who would be dumped.”
I did not agree nor did I ask who would be dumped.
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Colin,
Bob Sykes said:
The problem is the conferences are too big. Set a membership limit of 10, and play a round robin. …
…
Now, who does the B1G dump? Charter members like Illinois and Purdue? You’ve got to dump 4.
Your first sentence in reply to Bob’s post was:
Bob Sykes is correct.
That looks like agreement to me, even if that isn’t how you intended it. You went on to discuss scheduling, but you never rejected his premise of 10 teams or the B10 dumping 4.
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Brian, let’s look at the rest of my comment:
“Bob Sykes is correct. To optimize the number of teams that reach the playoff, play fewer conference games and fewer conference championship games.”
That is clearly not the same as saying “Let’s kick some schools out of the Big Ten.”
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The rest of your comment doesn’t match what Bob said:
The problem is the conferences are too big. Set a membership limit of 10, and play a round robin. Use tie breakers, if needed, to decide a champion. You still have 3 OOC games to schedule as you see fit, and they don’t all have to be patsies.
He asks for 10-team conferences playing 9 conference games and no CCG.
But you said:
Bob Sykes is correct. To optimize the number of teams that reach the playoff, play fewer conference games and fewer conference championship games.
He asked for 9 B10 games, and you talked about reducing conference games. Therefore you weren’t agreeing with him about that. So your statement read as you agreeing with Bob, then shifting the topic to optimizing for CFP berths (a subject he didn’t bring up at all). Bob only discussed expanding the CFP with that extra week no longer used by the CCG.
You have now clarified that you didn’t actually mean to agree with Bob about anything except eliminating the CCG.
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The problem is the conferences are too big. Set a membership limit of 10, and play a round robin. . . . Dump the CCG.
None of the people who could make those decisions actually think it is a problem.
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Wilner attempts to come up with a value for the PTN based off of a possible BTN valuation.
According to a report last week in USA Today, the Big Ten in 2021 “exercised a pre-existing option to sell 20% of its interest in the Big Ten Network to Fox … The deal put about $100 million in cash or receivables on the Big Ten’s books.”
The Big Ten schools own half of the Big Ten Network (BTN); the other half belongs to Fox.
So the conference sold 20 percent of its 50 percent stake and received $100 million in exchange.
That suggests a $1 billion valuation for the BTN and gives us a rough framework from which to assess the equity value of the Pac-12 Networks.
[snip]
If the BTN is worth $1 billion, that indicates an approximate valuation of $250 million for the Pac-12 Networks.
He continues on with some reasons why this valuation might be a little high.
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“Wilner attempts to come up with a value for the PTN based off of a possible BTN valuation.”
This is actually a bogus comparison. The PTN has infamously been unable to get into the basic package of Direct TV, the primary carrier in the West. The PTN is premium content on all carriers.
The BTN has a Sugar Daddy, Fox, who can bundle the BTN with other Fox stations and that’s how it is marketed into basic packages. The PTN doesn’t have a Sugar Daddy so it’s really an orphan compared to BTN, SECN and the ACCN.
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@Colin – I forgot to link the article and my comment with the article appears to be waiting moderation. Wilner does make those points in the article. Here’s his tweet link, that shouldn’t get quarantined.
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That $250 million comes out of the blue. 30% of the coverage and 22% of the rates is 6.6% of the value. That would come out to $66 million. Just not sure how he came up with $250 million.
Of course, that assumes expenses are similar relative to revenue.
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Test, my comments haven’t been posting, trying again
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Ah, it’s working now. OK, I’m trying to reply on the topic of Iowa State leaving (likely pushed out) of the AAU. I’ll post in shorter posts and hopefully then they will go through. I typed out a long post but it didn’t post.
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OK, I have links with supporting information, but when I include them my posts won’t go through, so I’ll leave out the links. So, there isn’t an up-to-date AAU metrics ranking. There is the NSF Research Expenditures ranking for 2020, which is fairly recent. Here are the public AAU universities at the bottom of that list.
46. Utah
52. Iowa
54. Colorado
55. UC Irvine
62. SUNY Buffalo
70. Kansas
***71. Iowa State
78. Missouri
98. SUNY Stony Brook
101. UC Santa Barbara
142. UC Santa Cruz
154. Oregon
It seems to me everyone on that list below 60 is probably quite safe, and everyone on that list above 60 is at least somewhat in jeopardy of joining Iowa State, Nebraska and Syracuse in being pushed out of the AAU. I’ll continue in the next post.
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I’d note that Buffalo only joined the AAU in 1989, so they are likely safe for now just because the AAU won’t want to change their minds that “quickly.”
I will also note that federal research is 1 of 4 primary indicators. The other 3 are National Academy members, Award winners (Nobels, Fields medals, etc.), and citations. The secondary metrics are other research (USDA + industry + state), doctorates awarded, and postdocs employed. All of these are normalized by the number of faculty.
NE wasn’t in the top 75 of any of the normalized primary metrics, and peaked with ranks of 72 in other research and doctorates awarded.
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I’ll speak specifically to Missouri. I’m a Missouri alum (undergrad) and a Northwestern alum (grad school). I know several faculty members at Missouri so I’ve heard about how it’s going there. I had some supporting links but I don’t want to break my post so I won’t include them. Apparently in 1994, Missouri ranked #59 in the NSF research expenditures rankings. But they’ve had a lot of budget cuts, and by 2012 they had fallen all the way down to #89. They’ve been working hard on improving, and in 2020 they were up to #78. The university president, during his State of the University address a couple months ago, announced that for their FY21 numbers, they hand increased by 17% and were projected to move up to #67 in the rankings. What I’v heard is that as of about 4 years ago, Missouri was warned that they would need ot significantly improve to stay in the AAU. So far since then they’ve moved up 21 spots in the NSF research expenditures rankings. But on top of that, in FY22 they opened a new $250 million medical research facility that is expected to bring in “at least” $50 million in competitive federal research grants per year. And on top of that, they started a new initiative that would redirect $1.5 billion over the next 10 years into expanding research, mostly spending that money to hire hundreds of new faculty and to also increase research faculty pay. The stated goal is to “double” research at Missouri and to get back to around where they were in 1994 (#59). It seems that they are progressing in that direction and it’s likely they will get there over the next several years.
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Another metric is National Academy membership among faculty, and Missouri has been working on that as well. They were at 9 a few years ago (ranking around 85th) and they are now up to 12 (which would rank around 70) and the university president indicated that there would likely be 2 or 3 more this year, which would get them to the low 60s. So between increasing research, federal grants, and faculty awards, it looks like Missouri will likely move into the low 60s or high 50s in most or all of those categories in the coming years. Also noteworthy is that the AAU measures these things proportionally to the size of the institution. And Missouri is smaller than a lot of other public AAU schools, with only 31k students vs 45K+ as most Bg Ten schools, for instance. So when you factor that in, that would make Missouri’s numbers somewhat stronger in relation to others on the list. So if all goes according to plan, Missouri should be safe.
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Another school who is somewhat at risk, who was mentioned up thread, is Kansas. Kansas has been increasing their research as well, but not at as high of a percentage as Missouri recently. According to their website, they increased by about 5% in FY21. They were ranked #70 n FY20, so a 5% increase will probably get them into the high 60s, so pretty much tied with Missouri in FY21. The difference is, as far as I can tell, they haven’t recently opened any major research facilities, nor have they had any initiatives where they’re pouring hundreds of millions into hiring new research faculty and increasing research faculty salaries. So, unless they do those things, and maybe they will, I don’t know, but unless they do, I’m less bullish about their future growth. I see Missouri moving into the low 60s or high 50s in the coming years. I see Kansas probably staying up in the high 60s. Will that be enough? Iowa State just got pushed out at #71, so it’s iffy. If I had to guess, I’d say Kansas most likely does not get kicked out, but, based on the trajectories and plans of the two schools, I’d say Kansas is more at risk than Missouri, mostly because they aren’t doing as much to fix the problem. Also, on National Academy membership: the latest numbers I can find on Kansas is that they only have 7, which ranks outside the top 100. So again, they have a long way to go and I’m not sure how seriously they’re taking the problem compared to Missouri.
Other schools at risk include SUNY Buffalo and SUNY Stony Brook. Neither of those schools have shown a lot of growth lately. The University of Oregon is very low on this list. It seems like they should be at risk as well, but I don’t know the details.
Anyway, it’s interesting that Iowa State was pushed out. It seems to me that means they’re still trying to trim members. It seems that Missouri is taking drastic measures to stay in the AAU. Other schools that also seem to be at risk seem far less urgent about it. It will be interesting to see what happens.
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UC Santa Cruz joined in 2019 (they were #52 on the AAU list in 2010). Stony Brook joined in 2001, so they’re probably safe too (like UB). UCSB joined in 1995 so I’d guess they are also fine.
Oregon does seem like an outlier, but you need to normalize them first. Then you need to check the other metrics. UCSC was #96 in total federal research, but that’s #69 when normalized. But they were #36 in citations and #53 in NA members (both normalized).
UO is tied for #74 in total NA members, so that’s no help. They’re #97 in award winners. Based on that, they should be in trouble unless Nike is paying the AAU off.
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I would agree the three that seem to be the most at risk are Oregon, Missouri, and Kansas. Normalizing them shouldn’t hurt them as none of those three are particularly large for state schools. I’d say of those three, Missouri seems to be the only one that has shown recent rapid growth, and they’re also the only one with drastic targeted investment going on right now as far as I know, so they seem to be the most likely to improve over the next several years. But maybe Oregon and Kansas will do something significant as well.
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I only noted normalizing because you can see the difference it made for UCSC, which has 19,000 students. Oregon is only a little over 22,000.
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I think you said it was normalized by number of faculty. If so, here are the numbers of full time faculty:
Oregon 1,337
Kansas 1,315
Missouri 1,277
SUNY Buffalo 1,202
UC Santa Cruz 665
Colorado 1,610
Iowa 1,358
some larger schools
Rutgers 2,239
Texas A&M 2,814
Texas 2,758
Ohio State 2,269
Arizona State 2,121
So Oregon, Kansas, and Missouri are significantly larger than UC Santa Cruz but significantly smaller than some of the giant schools.
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Andy,
It is normalized by faculty, I just didn’t want to take the time to look up faculty numbers so I used students as a proxy.
Odds are the numbers still leave UO in trouble unless they have something special that the AAU values highly.
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https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2013/11/university_of_oregon_in_last_p.html
Back in 2014 UO basically admitted they were last among the public AAU members.
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With the conference baseball tournaments well underway, here are D-1 Baseball’s field of 64 predictions as of 5/27.
SEC (10 bids) with #1 Tennessee, #6 A&M, #14 Auburn & #15 LSU as national seeds.
ACC (10) with #2 VA Tech, #7 Miami, #9 Notre Dame & #10 Louisville.
Big XII-4+2-2+4 with #11 (6) with Texas & #13 TCU.
Pac-12 (5) with #3 Stanford & #4 Oregon State.
Big Ten (20 with #5 Maryland. Rutgers is currently projected to be a #3 in the South Bend regional. Congrats Bernie!
Mid majors have three national seeds: #8 Southern Miss, #12 East Carolina & #16 Georgia Southern.
The actual bracket will released on Monday 5/30.
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Alan thanks. And this weekend is the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse finals. The two semi final games are Maryland v. Princeton and Rutgers v. Cornell. Sort of northeastern. UMD and RU both had major baseball and men’s lacrosse seasons. A MD v RU lacrosse final would be fun.
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Well RU lost to Cornell, so the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse championship game will be between Maryland and Cornell.
On the baseball front, RU is in the B1G tournament final against the winner of the Iowa-Michigan game.
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Regarding research and research monies. Individual faculty members generate all the research and research money at every school. University administrations only affect them secondarily by hiring and promoting faculty who are productive researchers. Merely increasing or decreasing the university budget has no effect on research, unless the increases and decreases are tied to faculty hires or dismissals.
Converting a school from a teaching focus to a research focus is a generational project, because the change requires a nearly complete turnover in the faculty and a continuous focus on getting the right people and keeping them. Ohio State made the transition between the 1970’s and 2000’s, and it was a bloody affair, but the Trustees persisted, and they succeeded.
How any school gets into AAU depends on getting their research metrics up, and that means aggressively transforming the faculty. If an AAU school lets its faculty slack off, it’s in trouble. Building a research program is hard work for a young faculty member, because the competition for dollars is intense, and there are many established older researchers that have long relationships with the individuals who run the funding agencies. But hard work and real dedication to research is really a young persons advantage, because older faculty have less energy, and research productivity almost always declines with age. So, if you want to speculate on which schools man lose their AAU membership, check the average faculty age, and the trend (discounted for inflation) in research dollars per faculty member.
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Bob,
I would add a couple of notes to that. First, the budget can impact research through facilities and staff/support.
Second, all the talk about research expenditures does ignore large parts of a university and its mission. STEM (medicine, not math, in this case) drives research expenditures, but the AAU does also consider breadth and other metrics so that the humanities and other areas are a bit of a factor. And AAU schools are supposed to be educating undergraduates well, though it isn’t a primary metric for them.
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Like I said, Missouri is projected to have moved up by about 22 spots over the last few years in the NSF research rankings as of FY21, and it seems likely that their current plan will probably move them up at least another 5 or 10 spots by the end of the decade. Their main strategies have been 1) Turning over faculty/staff, moving out those who are less productive at research, and targeted hiring of highly productive researchers. 2) Current plan is not only to fill all vacant positions but to add an additional 300 positions with the targeted goal of increasing research. 3) increasing pay of researchers to make it more competitive nationally. 4) Building new research facilities and upgrading existing facilities and equipment, especially in the areas of medical and nuclear. It seems to be working.
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Current major capital projects include a $250M facility with medical research laboratories, completed in FY22, a new $250M children’s hospital, scheduled to be completed FY24, and a new state of the art nuclear research reactor, projected to cost around $1B, completion date TBD.
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Call me a Debby Downer but I don’t think we’ll have a Big Ten media rights deal in place by Memorial Day.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-aims-to-have-new-media-rights-deal-worth-up-to-1-billion-in-place-around-memorial-day/
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“…in place around Memorial Day”
Were you expecting “by”, as a critical date? No need to be down. It’ll be done when it’s done.
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@Colin – Supposedly there is Big Ten presidents meeting June 5th. Might hear some news then.
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I decided to pick a sampling of schools and normalize them by number of faculty like the AAU does for a couple of metrics: National Academy members and Research Expenditures. I know Missouri has increased their national academy numbers here by 33% and their research dollars by about 40% in the last few years, and is doing things that should get those maybe another 20% higher relative to the pack over the coming years. But anyway, here are some numbers, these are National Academy members and total research expenditures per 1,000 faculty at these schools:
(per 1,000 full time faculty)
Established, middling AAU schools:
Texas A&M 16.0 NA members, $401M
Texas 25.0 NA members, $289M
Ohio State 14.6 NA members, $427M
Arizona 17.9 NA members, $424M
Iowa 16.9 NA members, $396M
Rutgers 17.0 NA members, $299M
Purdue 15.5 NA members, $380M
Illinois 21.9 NA members, $301M
Colorado 21.1 NA members, $326M
Florida 11.4 NA members, $397M
Penn State 10.0 NA members, $331M
Michigan State 6.5 NA members, $310M
Indiana 7.7 NA members, $350M
Bottom of the AAU schools
Missouri 9.4 NA members, $305M* (2021 numbers)
Kansas 5.3 NA members, $280M
Oregon 8.2 NA members, $85M
SUNY Buffalo 5.8 NA members, $351M
SUNY Stony Brooke 14.2 NA members, $266M
UC Santa Cruz 18.0 NA members, $226M
Non-AAU schools who do a lot of research and may have ambitions of joining the AAU
Arizona State 11.3 NA members, $317M
Iowa State 5.1 NA members, $233M
Virginia Tech 6.2 NA members, $287M
NC State 13.8 NA members, $313M
Miami 10.7 NA members, $338
Oklahoma 0 NA members, $284M
Tennessee 4.2 NA members, $190M
Kentucky 1.4 NA members, $291
Georgia 4.3 NA members, $230
If Missouri successfully boosted their numbers another 20% they’d be at 11.3 NA members and $366M per 1,000 full time faculty. It seems like they probably need at least another 20% of increases relative to the others to solidly fit in with the group of middling AAU members I selected above. It would put them around where Penn State and Florida are. So basically, if everything goes according to plan I think Missouri is fine.
Some other observations: I can see why Iowa State got kicked out. Kansas is in worse shape than I thought. Oregon is in terrible shape, they should get kicked out for sure. Indiana and Michigan State are also not doing that great and aren’t really doing any better than Missouri at the moment. As far as new AAU candidates, among P5 schools, it looks like once normalized by number of faculty and including National Academy membership, the only schools with a decent argument of being somewhat deserving of membership currently are Arizona State, NC State, and Miami.
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Iowa State withdrew from the AAU earlier this month.
https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/2022/05/04/iowa-state-one-only-5-universities-have-left-aau-since-1900-university-of-nebraska/7441834001/
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Right, and it makes sense. They’re at 5.1 National Academy members and $233M per 1,000 full time faculty members, which would rank behind pretty much every other AAU member except Oregon. Missouri was behind them a few years ago but Missouri has had 40% growth in the last few years and Iowa State’s growth has been much smaller. Also Iowa State doesn’t have a medical school so that limits their avenues for growth so it’s probably not going to get much better any time soon.
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https://www.bannersociety.com/2019/8/15/20734585/college-football-divisions-pod-system
Bill Connelly and friends did some analysis a few years ago of a B10 schedule with 3 locked rivals and 9 games. While I disagree with some of their locked games, they did the math to show the effect – virtually equal SOS across the board.
I like that they kept the little brown jug, though I suspect the B10 would keep MN/NE instead.
They also looked at the other power conferences, for those who are interested.
***
I did some math of my own based on conference W% over various time frames assuming 9 games. I looked at the easiest schedule (#1 in W% vs average of everyone else), the hardest schedule (#14 in W% vs average of everyone else), the schedule for #1 using divisions, the schedule for #1 using 3 locked rivals, the schedule for the bottom teams from each division using divisions, and the schedule for the bottom teams from each division using locked rivals.
Based on conf. W% over last 20 years:
I also looked since 2011 and since 2014, but both yield similar results except RU replaces IN as the worst from the East (and worst overall since 2014).
Easiest schedule = OSU @ 0.465 (opp. average W%)
#1 using divisions = OSU @ 0.462
#1 using rivals = OSU @ 0.470
Hardest schedule = IN @ 0.513
Worst (E) using divisions = IN @ 0.531
Worst (E) using rivals = IN @ 0.508
Worst
using divisions = IL @ 0.510
using rivals = IL @ 0.521*
Worst
* – This goes up for IL because I have OSU as a locked rival for them. Only OSU has this effect, because OSU’s W% is so much higher than anyone else’s that it skews the outcome. I have RU locked with MI, PSU and UMD and their schedule still gets easier with locked rivals.
The ideal would be everyone facing an opponents’ average W% of 0.500, and moving to locked rivals helps make that come closer to fruition. Even with OSU/IL locked, that only raises IL’s SOS by about 0.01 on average while the other worst team (IN in this case) is helped by around 0.02.
None of this matters a ton, obviously, as the differences are fairly small. But in part that’s because this is all done in average W% of the schedule. Each 1% is almost 1 game per decade won, so a change of 0.05 is half a win per season. That could lead to more bowl game opportunities for the lower teams. It could mean more CFP chances for the top teams.
Teams seeing each other more frequently may be a better argument for dropping divisions. The primary argument to me is that it makes more sense for a CCG featuring #1 vs #2 to not have divisions, and for teams to see each other more equally.
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That plan stinks. No annual heavyweight games (Ohio State, Michigan nor Penn State) for Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers or Wisconsin.
Major rivalries Rutgers – Penn State, Illinois-Indiana and Nebraska-Minnesota are omitted. My 5-4-4 proposal is vastly superior to this.
Plus my plan provides a robust schedule for TV programming in the Central Time Zone with many more games of Ohio State and Michigan vs opponents in what is now the Western Division. My plan has Ohio State playing Indiana-Illinois-Iowa every year and Michigan playing Wisconsin-Minnesota-Nebraska every year.
The foremost problem with the current system is that all three heavyweights are in the East and that they’re beating up on Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana and Michigan State instead of playing teams in the West.
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Colin,
I don’t advocate their set of rivals, but I linked it because they did the math.
As for locked kings:
1. NE doesn’t really want to play OSU, MI or PSU annually due to travel
2. NE is the western king, with IA and WI as princes. They would all play each other in this plan.
3. If you don’t have a locked king rival, then you have a 60% chance of playing each of them. That’s 2.4 kings per year for IN, PU, NW, and RU. Right now IN and RU get 3 per year and don’t like it.
How can you call PSU/RU, IN/IL and NE/MN major rivalries? They are all minor regional rivalries.
As bad as their choices of locked rivalries may be, I’d still take a 3 + 6/10 schedule over a 5 + 4/8 schedule every time. There’s no net benefit in my view of locking that many games. That’s way too many unwanted annual games to preserve 1 or 2 mildly wanted rivalries.
Any non-division plan has more OSU and MI games against the former west. A 3 + 6/10 schedule with no locked western rivals would still result in 8.4 OSU and MI games against the west every season. It would be 8.8 games with my rivals, and 9.2 with their rivals. PU and IN are both in the eastern time zone, so the numbers would be 7.2, 7.6 and 8.0 based on time zones. Your plan would get slightly more OSU and MI games for the west, but at the price of fewer games for the east where OSU and MI are actually located. I’d ask why on earth MI should have 3 locked rivals in the west, or why OSU and IA would play annually. That seems like a lot of unnecessary travel.
Yes, the lack of balance is a key problem. But divisions seem to always have that problem, and certainly any division with OSU in it would seem a little out of balance lately. The best way to achieve balance is through open scheduling, not locking lots of teams and hoping the balance stays about right over time.
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How can you call PSU/RU, IN/IL and NE/MN major rivalries? They are all minor regional rivalries.
Before Rutgers joined the Big Ten, they hadn’t played Penn State in almost 20 years. There was a short while that they met almost annually (from 1977 to 1995). Before that, they played only rarely.
Before Nebraska joined the Big Ten, Minnesota was their most often-played non-conference opponent. Still, when Nebraska joined in 2011, the two hadn’t met since 1990. They met almost every year from 1932 to 1974, but from 1975–90 they met just four times.
Among the pre-expansion Big Ten teams, Illinois is Indiana’s fifth most-played opponent — in other words, exactly in the middle among the other nine. They have more games against Purdue, Ohio State, Northwestern, and Iowa.
I do think the PSU/RU and NE/MN will be high on the list of games potentially to lock, depending on which locking formula the league chooses, though they are not essential for the reasons I have given. Anyhow, you don’t need to lock five games per team to get these.
I think they are pretty unlikely to lock IL/IN under any imaginable scenario.
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Marc,
Agreed. PSU/RU will be locked (just like PSU/UMD and RU/UMD) because they are both eastern teams and newbie members need regional games. Lots of PSU fans will fill RU’s stadium, and PSU is one of the few schools RU fans can drive to, so it works well for both schools.
The regional reasoning is also why NE/MN is likely to be locked (rather than MI/MN which is a trophy game). Until the newer members have well-developed organic rivalries, their regional foes will be locked.
As for IL/IN, it is a complete non-rivalry in football. IN/PU, IL/NW, and IL/PU are the rivalries in the central region. Those schools have enough rivalries that they don’t need IN/IL locked. Playing it 60% of the time is fine.
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Saturday Down South reported a few days ago that it’s looking likely the SEC will go to a 3 permanent rivals, 6 alternating opponent schedule so that every SEC team plays every other year. They said permanent rivals being discussed are this:
Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina
Florida: Georgia, Kentucky, LSU
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
LSU: Florida, Ole Miss, Alabama
Mississippi State: Ole Miss, South Carolina, Texas A&M
Missouri: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt
Oklahoma: Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
South Carolina: Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Texas
Vanderbilt: Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee
It looks decently good to me, I’d be happy with that arrangement.
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Andy,
I linked to that article down below.
That’s one of many plans. They all have pros and cons. There are several forced rivalry games in that set (VU vs MO? SC vs MsSU?), but I think it’s unavoidable. Maybe they should let the number of locked games vary from team to team. Maybe MO and SC don’t need many locked rivals (1 each – OU/MO and UGA/SC), while other schools may need lots of locked rivals (3 each).
Normally I’d suggest an equal plan, but I’m not sure it makes sense for the SEC. If they do choose 3 for everyone, I’d stay as regional as possible for the “forced” locked games.
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I think they just did it for convenience. With 6 alternating teams that’s 12 total, plus the 3 makes 15, which is what you need. As for Missouri, I think any of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt all would work because they’re neighboring states and travel wouldn’t be too bad. Obviously the only one Missouri has substantial history with is Oklahoma. Other than that they can be pretty flexible. They’ve tried to turn Missouri/Arkansas into a rivalry just because they share a fairly long border with each other, and that’s fine. It obviously isn’t much of a rivalry yet but I suppose it will probably become one eventually. Missouri’s main historical rivals are Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. It doesn’t look like Missouri will be playing Nebraska any time soon. The rivalry with Kansas is scheduled to be renewed in a few years as a recurring non-conference game. And it looks like Oklahoma may end up being a permanent rival again, which would be nice. If they develop rivalries with Arkansas and Vanderbilt or maybe Kentucky over the long term I’m fine with that.
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/make-college-football-great-again/
5 years ago Nate Silver proposed that the B10 and other P5 conferences use Swiss-system scheduling (power pairing) in flex weeks to replace the CCGs and free up that week for CFP expansion. He works through an example using the B10 in 2016.
The system has all the usual flex scheduling flaws for CFB, but it is a system widely used in large field competitions (chess, etc.) where everyone can’t play head-to-head.
I think it might yield more fair results, but the conferences aren’t dropping CCGs unless they are forced to (and then only to make even more money from the CFP).
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John Ourand’s latest podcast (with Andrew Marchand) discusses B10 media rights.
They discuss an idea that has been mentioned to them for B10 football:
FOX – 12:00
CBS – 3:30
NBC – 8:00
Amazon streaming some content
Obviously this would mean no ABC/ESPN which I think is a mistake as long as ESPN controls the world of sports opinion as strongly as they do currently, especially owning the CFP.
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I agree that the B10 probably does not want to be completely off ESPN. I wonder how Fox would feel about only getting noon games. (I realize this is not the B10’s proposal, only what some sportswriters came up with.)
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Mark,
If you listen to them, those would just be the top 3 games each week. Lower tier games would still be available for FS1. This would free up Fox to show other sports on Saturday nights (MLB, etc.), plus showing P12 and B12 games in later windows.
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https://awfulannouncing.com/local-networks/nesn-360-ott-price.html
Some streaming news. The first US RSN (regional sports network) to offer full OTT (over the top) service. Sinclair is also doing this with Bally Sports+.
The pricing for NESN 360 over-the-top is going to be $1 for the first month, $29.99 monthly thereafter, or $329.99 for a year (which also comes with eight tickets to any 2022 Red Sox game). That’s a hefty price, coming in at 50 percent more monthly than Sinclair’s planned Bally Sports+ offering for their RSNs ($20 a month, set for a soft launch this month).
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Other streaming news:
https://awfulannouncing.com/charter/charter-comcast-flex-xclass.html
Charter and Comcast are working together on Flex streaming devices/XClass smart TVs. I’m sure those 2 working together can only be good for consumers :(.
What it points to is cable companies selling streaming bundles instead of linear channel bundles.
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https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/disney-seems-to-be-warming-to-an-espn-dtc-offering.html
Disney is serious about a direct to consumer offering for ESPN (beyond ESPN+).
Also this:
In other ESPN streaming news, ESPN+ is now up to 22.3 million subscribers, up a million from the last announced amount in February and up 62% from the 13.8 million subscriptions last May. Notably, the average monthly revenue per subscriber is now sitting at $4.73, while it was at $5.16 three months ago and $4.55 last year.
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Starting in 2023, Amazon will likely be streaming an NFL game on Black Friday. That has implications for CFB which currently plays many Black Friday games. The NFL game couldn’t be in prime time (still illegal).
Amazon has made a huge bid for the game. I’m told it’s between $70 million and $100 million for a Black Friday game, which would be added to the current package. (That’s in the same neighborhood of what network partners have paid for wild-card playoff games recently.)
Could the B10 be moving to streaming-only games? I wouldn’t think they’d do that soon (older fan base for CFB – many don’t stream). Maybe a really crappy OOC game (RU vs I-AA)?
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https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2022/05/26/if-big-ten-football-eliminates-divisions-iu-football-may-benefit-most/9944027002/
Tom Allen thinks the most likely plan is 9 games with 2 locked rivals.
How might that work? It seems like several important games would get dropped.
A first guess:
NE – IA, MN
IA – NE, WI
WI – MN, IA
MN – WI, NE
IL – NW, PU
NW – IL, UMD
IN – PU, MSU
PU – IN, IL
OSU – MI, PSU
MI – OSU, MSU
MSU – MI, IN
PSU – RU, OSU
RU – PSU, UMD
UMD – RU, NW
We’d lose NE/WI and IA/MN, plus lesser games like OSU/IL and PSU/RU in this case (important to RU), plus OSU gets screwed with 2 locked kings (which reduces everyone else’s OSU games). To accommodate OSU/PSU, I had to force UMD/NW.
I’m sure there are better 2-rival plans, but I think 3 rivals is better.
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I’m sure there are better 2-rival plans, but I think 3 rivals is better.
Personally, I am unable to see a way to improve it. Every system with equal locking has at least one game that seems totally random, and in this one MD–NW is it. Every other locked game has a reason to exist. I don’t see a way to restore the missing ones, without breaking something else. Of course, the question of which rivalries to lose is bound to be subjective.
In your lock-three model, MD–PU was the strangest one. The short straw always seems to come down to Maryland or Rutgers, as they have the fewest ties to the rest of the conference.
OSU gets screwed with 2 locked kings (which reduces everyone else’s OSU games).
But OSU was going to have two locked kings even in the lock-three model. There’s just no other way to do it, assuming the conference does not want to give up its second most popular annual game.
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Marc,
Agreed, it would be that way for OSU no matter what. I was tempted to lock PSU with RU and UMD for geographic reasons, but I knew the money for OSU/PSU was too big to ignore (and PSU considers it a rivalry). I decided that RU needed the PSU game more, plus it was a better fit for PSU’s alumni.
And I realize others would play more rotating king games to balance it out somewhat:
2 rivals:
OSU: 2 locked + 7/11 kings per year = 2.63
MI, PSU: 1 locked + 1 + 3/11 kings per year = 2.27
NE: 0 locked + 1 + 10/11 kings per year = 1.91
IA, MN, MSU, RU: 1 locked + 1 + 10/11 kings per year = 2.91
Others: 0 locked + 2 + 6/11 kings per year = 2.55
WI wins by getting it easier than IA and MSU, while MN and RU suffer. NE gets it easiest among the kings while OSU gets the worst. But factoring in princes would balance it more.
3 rivals:
OSU: 2 locked + 0.6 kings per year = 2.60
MI, PSU: 1 locked + 1.2 kings per year = 2.20
NE: 0 locked + 1.8 kings per year = 1.80
RU: 2 locked + 1.2 kings per year = 3.20
IA, MN, WI, IL, MSU, UMD: 1 locked + 1.8 kings per year = 2.80
Others: 0 locked + 2.4 kings per year = 2.40
Same basic results, except the 3 princes are all equal now and RU gets it the worst of all.
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https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/first-and-10-what-happens-this-week-in-destin-could-change-college-football-forever/
The SEC meetings in Destin this week have some major issues to discuss.
1. Should the SEC separate and stage their own playoff?
2. Conference format
Should they drop divisions now, after UT and OU join, or not at all? A few schools still like divisions and need to be convinced to drop them.
Those who want divisions see a simple move of Texas and Oklahoma to the West Division, and 1 current West team to the East. More than likely, that means Alabama.
That leaves the conference with 4 blue-blood programs on each side:
East: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee.
West: LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M.
That plan seems odd to me. Why not also move MO to the West where they belong, and move both AL and AU to the East rather than splitting them up?
ESPN wants more high value games (big brand vs big brand), so it seems likely divisions will go away.
The article also offers up a pod concept:
North: Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
South: LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State
East: Florida, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina
West: Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Arkansas
I really don’t see that happening.
Maybe this:
N – TN, VU, SC, UK
S – MS, MsSU, LSU, AR
E – UF, UGA, AL, AU
W – UT, OU, TAMU, MO
3. Scheduling
Do they move to 9 games? If so, when? And is that 7-1-1, or 3-6, or something else?
Again, ESPN will push them to a 3-6 model in my opinion. They could do pods, but I think locked rivals work better for them.
4. Expansion?
If the SEC splits from everyone else, they’ll want to grow. The ACC is locked up until 2036. The P12 is too far away. The B10 has similar money and is about to sign a new deal. The B12 doesn’t offer much value (KU for hoops? Baylor for recent success?). ND is tied up in the ACC deal, too.
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I suspect the talk of a separate playoff is just rattling the saber. The recent indecision only means that the current agreements can’t be torn up two-years early, as Sankey (and several others) wanted. Something still has to give when the agreements expire, and I’d be surprised if the same system is renewed for another 10 years. But if the conferences can’t agree on what comes next, then I think talk of an SEC-only playoff will accelerate.
If the SEC splits from everyone else, they’ll want to grow. The ACC is locked up until 2036.
2036 is closer than it seems, because the parties will be figuring out what they want to do long before that. Still, it’s far enough away that they probably aren’t going to spend time on it now. I believe the only seriously attractive expansion candidates are in the ACC. The Big Ten is probably thinking about that too, although “thinking” is about the only thing one can do at this stage.
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Marc,
It depends. If the B12 and Alliance refuse to schedule the SEC after UT and OU join, then I could see it happening. The SEC holds it’s own 4-team playoff and let’s the polls pick their champ vs the other champ for #1. Eventually the money would be so big that the 2 playoffs would merge, with the SEC arguing it should get to keep 50% of the playoff to itself.
Once the current deal expires, things get interesting. While technically you no longer need a unanimous vote, some of the P5 could refuse to participate if the terms aren’t fair. The B10 and P12 have done that before, but would the Alliance be willing to do it now? Or the SEC might split off as mentioned above.
Yes, 2036 isn’t that far away but they were only talking about this year’s meetings. I don’t think there are any viable candidates for the SEC until the ACC + ND become available. The B12 members aren’t worth it, the P12 is too far away, and the B10 members aren’t joining. At that point, the ACC might splinter with the football schools joining the SEC while academic schools with broad athletic programs look to the B10 or stay on their own. As always, the stumbling block will be independent ND. But by 2036 the laws and rules around CFB and money may be so different that this discussion is pointless.
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If the B12 and Alliance refuse to schedule the SEC after UT and OU join, then I could see it happening.
Have those conferences talked about refusing to schedule the SEC? That’s a sincere question — I have not heard that, but I could have missed it. I think some Big Ten sources have thrown cold water on the scheduling component of the Alliance, which has been pretty quiet since the big reveal last year.
My guess is the ACC will not give up its annual SEC rivalry games, and the Big 12 cannot afford to give up any games with Texas and Texas A&M that it can get. Oklahoma will still play Oklahoma State. The B10 and P12 do play SEC teams occasionally, but not to such an extent that the loss of those games would really change the landscape that much (assuming it happened).
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Marc,
As far as I know, only the SEC (and fans) have talked about the Alliance boycotting the SEC. As you rightly note, the ACC won’t and the B12 can’t afford to not play UT, OU and TAMU. The B10 and P12 have never been boycotters either, and I doubt they’d start now.
But if the SEC withdrew from the rest of CFB, then that might change. I could see the B10 getting upset about that. besides, the B10 has no vital rivalries with the SEC (IU vs UK in hoops hasn’t been annual for a while).
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The Alliance was, is and will continue to be a nothingburger.
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Outside of being a group willing to defy ESPN and the SEC on CFP expansion in the short term, I agree.
But the B10 and P12 do have a long history of working together on college athletics issues, especially those that impact the Rose Bowl. The ACC is half and half, with one half favoring broad athletic departments and thinking more like the B10 and P12, while the other half is more like the SEC and B12 with a football and financial focus.
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https://www.si.com/college/2022/05/24/sec-football-schedule-future
This says the SEC is down to a 1-7 or a 3-6 approach to scheduling, no pods.
Lays out the divide between the top 8 schools that favor the 3-6 with the lower 8 that prefer 4 non-conference games. Compromise could be a change to the Power 5 non-conference scheduling requirement.
Texas and Oklahoma are top 8 but don’t yet have voting rights. Also kind of interesting that Tennessee and their 100,000+ stadium doesn’t put them in the top 8 camp.
One other nugget is that the 3 permanent rivals may be less historic/geographic and more on competitive balance, with the top 8 playing 2 against fellow top 8 and 1 against a bottom 8, with the bottom 8 playing 2 bottom 8 and 1 top 8.
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Logan,
I don’t see a 1-7 schedule winning out, especially if they know UT and OU will vote for 3-6 as soon as they arrive. Besides, there are too many rivalries they would lose that way. Making the compromise of dropping the mandatory P5 OOC game seems plausible, especially for the SEC and their preferred approach to OOC scheduling.
TN used to be a king, but have been sliding. The last few years have really hurt. Since 1992 they are #7 of the current 14 in W%, but #9 of the 16 (#26 nationally). But over just the past 20 seasons, they are #9/#11/#50 in those same categories. Over the past 10 seasons they are #11/#13/#73.
SI’s list of rivals looks better than some other lists I’ve seen, but I don’t see the point of locking games just for parity.
Missouri: Oklahoma; Arkansas; South Carolina
Arkansas: Missouri; Texas; Kentucky
Texas A&M: LSU; Texas; Mississippi State
Texas: Oklahoma; Texas A&M; Arkansas
Oklahoma: Texas; Missouri; Florida
LSU: Ole Miss; Texas A&M; Alabama
Ole Miss: Mississippi State; LSU; Vanderbilt
Mississippi State: Ole Miss; Kentucky; Texas A&M
Alabama: Auburn; Tennessee; LSU
Auburn: Alabama; Georgia; Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt: Tennessee; Ole Miss; Auburn
Tennessee: Vanderbilt; Alabama; South Carolina
Kentucky: Mississippi State; Arkansas; Georgia
Georgia: Auburn; Florida; Kentucky
Florida: Georgia; South Carolina; Oklahoma
South Carolina: Florida; Missouri; Tennessee
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Missouri – South Carolina?
Arkansas – Kentucky?
Texas A&M – Mississippi State?
Oklahoma – Florida?
Mississippi State – Texas A&M?
Auburn – Vanderbilt?
Vanderbilt – Auburn?
Kentucky – Mississippi State; Arkansas; Georgia??? No Tennessee?
Georgia – Kentucky?
Florida – Oklahoma?
South Carolina – Missouri?
The guy who put this together is clueless.
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If Missouri ends up paired with South Carolina it’s only because both are new-ish members of the SEC and don’t have as much history with other programs. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense, but we’ll see if it actually happens. As far as who would make sense for Missouri, I’d rank them as follows, primarily for proximity and history.
1. Oklahoma
2. Arkansas
3. Kentucky
4. Tennessee or Vanderbilt
After that, it makes less and less sense, and I suppose South Carolina is as good as any.
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Andy,
Yes, that’s the problem I ran into in making pairings. The rest of the bottom 8 had 2 more appropriate rivals in my opinion, so I ended up with SC needing 2 games while UK and MO each needed 1. With more time, I’m sure they could be shifted.
Maybe SC/MO and UK/UTN become SC/UTN and MO/UK. It loses the UK/UTN rivalry, but is better geographically.
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As a fellow Mizzou fan, we could maybe go with Ole Miss. They along with A&M and Arkansas are Mizzou’s 3 permanent rivals in basketball. And Oxford is only a few miles further from St. Louis than Nashville and Lexington. That would free up Ole Miss-Vandy, which would alllow for Vandy-UK or Vandy-SC.
Oklahoma and Arkansas are the no brainers.
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Logan,
There are lots of small variations like that. I’m happy to let the SEC fans/schools figure out the details. I know MS/VU is actually an old rivalry, but I don’t know how much it means to either side.
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Colin,
Following their basic premise, which is what they are being told the SEC wants, what is your result?
We guessed on permanent opponents while (1) considering the primary and secondary rivalries; (2) using geography; and (3) creating as much equity as possible (remember, top half teams get two from their own and one from the bottom half; bottom half teams get two from their own and one from the top half):
My tiers:
Top half: AL, AU, UF, UGA, LSU, OU, UTX, TAMU
Bottom half: AR, MS, MsSU, MO, UTN, VU, UK, SC
My choices for each school:
AL – AU, LSU, UTN
AU – AL, UGA, VU
UF – UGA, LSU, UK
UGA – UF, AU, SC
LSU – UF, AL, MS
OU – UTX, TAMU, MO
UTX – OU, TAMU, AR
TAMU – UTX, OU, MsSU
AR – UTX, MO, MsSU
MS – LSU, MsSU, VU
MsSU – TAMU, MS, AR
MO – OU, AR, SC
UTN – AL, VU, UK
VU – AU, MS, UTN
UK – UF, UTN, SC
SC – UGA, MO, UK
It’s fairly close to theirs. SC/MO and SC/UK are just pairing the unpaired teams. The rest have some basis in rivalry or geography. And some games couldn’t happen because 1 of the schools had a more important rivalry (AL/UTN over UF/UTN). And these aren’t the choices the schools would make necessarily (they can’t all lock AL or UF).
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Yes, exactly. With equal locking there are always some games that seem random, and are just there because everyone needs 3.
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Yeah, 3-6 seems like the clear favorite, will be interesting to see if there are concessions made to those who prefer 1-7.
If the rotation is such that you play every school in a 2 year period, I think that makes the 3 permanent rivals a little less important and I can see the argument for competitive balance. Either way it is a huge improvement over the current set-up where Florida and Bama play once every 12 years in the Swamp.
As someone who has dealt with both fan bases as divisional rivals, Tennessee and Nebraska have a lot in common. Last title in the late 90’s with no natural recruiting base to maintain that success.
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https://www.si.com/college/2022/06/02/cfp-expansion-president-to-give-commissioners-guidance-future-negotiations
CFP presidents plan to give guidance soon to the CFP commissioners in an effort to restart negotiations over playoff expansion a year ahead of a deadline of sorts.
Mark Keenum, the chair of the CFP Board of Managers, says his “hope” is that the group can agree on a playoff format by next summer.
The board will meet in August and give directions to the ADs.
“It was frustrating,” Keenum says. “The same people who wanted expansion originally voted against (the proposal).”
That skips over the part where one of the people developing the plan was also secretly taking the 2 biggest brands from another conference at the same time and having their personal network (ESPN) also own the entire expanded CFP with no bidding. The other conferences may have been in favor of the concept of expansion, but the details ran aground once they saw the massive changes the SEC tried to fit in at the same time. A model that works okay with UT and OU in the B12 doesn’t necessarily still work well when they’re in the SEC.
Keenum noted that a 16-team model is out there as well.
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That skips over the part where one of the people developing the plan was also secretly taking the 2 biggest brands from another conference at the same time and having their personal network (ESPN) also own the entire expanded CFP with no bidding.
This is true, but the Big 12 and Bob Bowlsby should in theory have been the most aggrieved by this, and yet the B12 still voted yes. Indeed, in its weakened form the B12 needs an expanded playoff more than it did before.
The other conferences may have been in favor of the concept of expansion, but the details ran aground once they saw the massive changes the SEC tried to fit in at the same time. A model that works okay with UT and OU in the B12 doesn’t necessarily still work well when they’re in the SEC.
Let’s suppose one believes the publicly announced and privately reported reasons behind the 3 no votes (B10, P12, ACC). Those reasons would not have been much different assuming the SEC had never taken Texas and Oklahoma.
Besides that, the SEC merely did what most other conferences wanted. The Pac-12 came pretty close to adding Texas and Oklahoma a few years ago, and we know the Big Ten looked at Texas too. It almost goes without saying that the ACC would have been willing to have that dialog as well. It would ring a little hollow for any conference to say they are offended by what the SEC did.
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This has been beaten to death, so I will keep it short. If the SEC announced UT and OK the day before negotiations for the playoffs started, no league could have any right to object (other than sour grapes from the Big 12). Having it leak out at the end of negotiations resulted in bitterness and mistrust, and may well what derailed the expansion.
On a related issue, while the SEC can threaten to start its own playoff, that has no future at all unless the SEC wants to simply go semi-pro and break ties with other college teams. Sure FSU might feel compelled to join them just because of the coming huge disparity in finances compared to, say, UF. Similarly a few more schools (Clemson?) might hop on board. Maybe it would be a 20 team semi-pro league. Then what?
Why should schools from any of the other P5 conferences agree to play the SEC in any sport? The SEC could buy enough games to fill a schedule in FB, but that might be it.
Assuming that the NCAA survives, would the SEC be invited to March Madness? I would expect not.
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Marc,
This is true, but the Big 12 and Bob Bowlsby should in theory have been the most aggrieved by this, and yet the B12 still voted yes. Indeed, in its weakened form the B12 needs an expanded playoff more than it did before.
Bowlsby and the B12 were aggrieved, but as you note they would need an expanded CFP to get access. The B10 and P12 were never strong expansion supporters, so them being turned off by the details doesn’t seem odd at all to me.
Let’s suppose one believes the publicly announced and privately reported reasons behind the 3 no votes (B10, P12, ACC). Those reasons would not have been much different assuming the SEC had never taken Texas and Oklahoma.
The fight over team selection (autobids vs highest ranked champs, capping the number of teams from a conference, etc.) changes perspective significantly when UT and OU move to the SEC. It reminds everyone that a lot of other changes could also happen. Is the proposed plan flexible in the right ways? What if the SEC split into 2 conferences to get 2 of the champ slots? All of a sudden, people realized you might need to protect your conference from unforeseen major changes.
And note that they never got to the discussion about how to split the money from an expanded CFP. Everyone seems to assume that would be trivial. The current plan pays very little for an extra team. The G5 would demand a much larger share after expansion, and I’m guessing there would be arguments about how much a 2nd, 3rd, … team should be worth.
Besides that, the SEC merely did what most other conferences wanted. The Pac-12 came pretty close to adding Texas and Oklahoma a few years ago, and we know the Big Ten looked at Texas too. It almost goes without saying that the ACC would have been willing to have that dialog as well. It would ring a little hollow for any conference to say they are offended by what the SEC did.
Adding OU and UT isn’t the offense and never was. Trying to change the CFP format to favor your secretly expanding league while also favoring your league-network owner (ESPN) by giving them the entire expanded CFP at the same time as adding OU and UT was the offense.
To many observers, they were not good faith negotiations with the best interests of the sport at heart.
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To many observers, they were not good faith negotiations with the best interests of the sport at heart.
I think most of the observers you’re referring to were not the ones in the room. What TX and OU did was both foreseeable and foreseen. Many of us on this message board expected Texas to test the expansion waters again. If we could see that, do you think the people running the sport could not?
I mean…sure, the exact timing was unexpected, but not the fact that it happened. To believe otherwise is like believing Elizabeth Taylor when she said that any of her eight weddings would be the last one.
Anyone voting on a playoff has to assume that conferences will not be constituted identically for the life of the deal. I am pretty sure all of them are plotting out scenarios where they add or lose members. Since that is the history of the sport, one would need to be naive to be unaware it will happen again.
And what exactly could Greg Sankey have done differently? The opportunity to add UT/OU came after the subcommittee had been formed with him and Bowlsby on it. Of course it had to be kept confidential. Sankey couldn’t suddenly recuse from the subcommittee without tipping off his reasons.
I think Sankey at one point, in response to a media question, issued a public challenge to his colleagues to state they would have done it differently, and no one did. Because they all would have done it.
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Marc,
Not being in the room was part of the problem – 4 people went off and formulated the new CFP plan, then publicized it and how “great” it was before getting the rest to approve it. But their plan lacked key details that would matter before a deal could be signed, in addition to having controversial aspects.
I don’t see anyone blaming UT and OU for leaving, or the SEC for taking them. It’s how Sankey bundled it secretly in with giving ESPN even more power and getting his preferred expansion format that upset people.
It’s one thing to foresee future expansion in general. It’s another to be asked to expand the CFP immediately, give all the rights without bidding to our corporate partner, and oh by the way we’re also adding 2 kings tomorrow. And honestly, no I don’t think most of them did consider UT and OU being in the SEC immediately when they were thinking about CFP expansion plans on their own.
Sankey could’ve not tried to bundle in giving the expanded CFP with an expanded SEC to ESPN without bidding. He could’ve not asked for votes on expansion while announcing the SEC’s expansion. And he could easily have left the subcommittee for all sorts of fake reasons (health, personal reasons, etc.) if he wanted. People do it all the time.
What would they have done differently? They might’ve discussed putting any CFP expansion out for bid since the whole point is to make more money and there is the appearance of impropriety. They might’ve suggested the subcommittee taking a few months to digest the conference expansion and reconsider the CFP models.
Again, the problem was how he did it more than what he did.
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https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2022/06/ohio-state-believes-it-needs-13-million-in-nil-money-to-keep-its-football-roster-together-doug-lesmerises.html
Ryan Day says OSU needs about $13M in NIL money to keep its roster together for next year.
Day said the Buckeyes have been gathering information by talking to recruits and their families and getting a sense of what other schools might be discussing with NIL deals. He said he believes right now top-shelf quarterbacks require $2 million in NIL money. Major offensive tackles and edge rushers he said are about $1 million.
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Click to access migration22.pdf
A study on where students go to college, breaking it down by state and types of institutions. Nothing too surprising, really, but interesting nonetheless.
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https://www.si.com/college/2022/06/03/sec-scheduling-model-deadlocked-spring-meetings
ESPN not promising to increase their TV deal with the SEC if the SEC moves to 9 games is one of the reasons the league is still split on making the change. Perhaps its a bit of a ploy to get ESPN to cough up the cash.
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Brian: “ESPN not promising to increase their TV deal with the SEC if the SEC moves to 9 games is one of the reasons the league is still split on making the change. Perhaps its a bit of a ploy to get ESPN to cough up the cash.”
Actually, I don’t think ESPN makes more money if the SEC moves to nine games. Right now they get their “pick of the litter” of several SEC games every week. If the SEC had slightly more games available, ESPN then has their pick of a slightly larger litter each week. But they won’t be televising more games.
All that really changes is that the conference will have more SEC-SEC games and fewer OOC games. There isn’t more programming available.
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What changes is the rating. Alabama vs. any imaginable SEC foe is a more watchable game than Alabama vs. Austin Peay (their foe the week before this year’s Iron Bowl).
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Marc: “What changes is the rating. Alabama vs. any imaginable SEC foe is a more watchable game than Alabama vs. Austin Peay (their foe the week before this year’s Iron Bowl).”
Understood, but they already have a vast choice of highly rated games each week. They’ve got their pick of the litter among whoever Bama plays and whoever Georgia plays and whoever Texas plays and whoever A&M plays and whoever Florida plays and whoever Oklahoma plays and whoever LSU plays and whoever Tennessee plays. ESPN gains nothing with one more good game toi choose from.
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Colin,
I think they do make more. ESPN owns all their inventory, so the value of every game matters to them. It’s not like the CBS deal, where it truly wouldn’t matter. But now the quality of the 7th best game that week impacts ESPN, too.
ESPN replaces 8 OOC games with conference games, while losing about 5 OOC games (most SEC OOC games are at home). Knowing the SEC, this probably means trading P5 OOC games for SEC games. But once you get past the big brands, a conference game is much more valuable than an OOC game. This isn’t about swapping like for like – 1 highly rated game is worth several low rated games to ESPN.
The key for ESPN is ad revenue + subscriber revenue. They want to maximize games with >4M viewers to maximize the ad revenue (that’s the magic number according to experts). Getting more SEC king vs king games will do that, and adding a 9th game is how they do that (though just dropping divisions will help).
And having a depth of inventory every week that SEC viewers want to watch will keep the subscriber revenue (linear and streaming) up. More SEC fans will watch a conference game without their team in it than will watch an SEC OOC game without their team.
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Divisions on Big Ten chopping block?
https://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/football/would-the-big-ten-ever-scrap-its-football-divisions-its-a-tricky-discussion/article_deb2b6e3-13df-5c8c-bd62-43cffa264b7f.html
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Alan and Bernie,
I’ll defer to you two as more knowledgeable college baseball fans, but isn’t the scoring in the postseason getting ridiculous? These are football scores, not baseball scores. 29-15? They need a “first to 10 runs wins” sort of rule. At the least they should have a mercy rule like softball does.
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Brian – offense has been picking up over the last few years since college baseball started using the AAA baseball. Part of it is small ball isn’t cool anymore with defensive shifts. There are 3 ways to hit against the shift: bunt; learn to hit to the opposite field; or hit a home run. Most teams have chosen option number 3. Also, in the tournament, many of the #4 seeds are seeing Big school staff aces, and many of the mid majors don’t have pitching depth. All that being said, the football scores this past weekend did raise an eye brow or two, including mine.
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The B1G baseball championship was Michigan against Rutgers. Michigan won the tourney. Both MI and RU won the semifinals using the mercy rule to cut the game short. I think that being up by 10 runs after 7 innings ends the 9 inning game.
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Bernie,
They haven’t been using the 10-run rule in the CWS.
In the past 2 days:
MS beat AZ 22-6 and it was 19-6 after 7 innings.
GT beat Campbell 16-5 and it was 14-4 after 7 innings.
UL beat MI 20-1 and it was 12-1 after 7 innings.
UNC beat VCU 19-8 and it was 19-8 after 8 innings.
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The ten rule after seven innings is widely adopted for conference tournaments but not the NCAA. Pitching staffs can get depleted more quickly in a conference tournament. In addition, not as much is on the line.
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I know with the ridiculous offense of college baseball that teams can possibly come back from 10+ down, but I still would end the games quicker. A team gets 1 at-bat after being down 10+, and it’s over if they can’t close the gap to single digits. I don’t care if that means it’s over after 1.5 innings. And I’d do that all the way through the playoffs.
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https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2022/06/06/Insiders/Sports-media.aspx
It looks like we’ll have to wait a while for B10 media deal news. John Ourand says sources tell him the negotiating is so intense that it’s not likely there will be a deal before the end of June.
The B10 is still deciding how to split the non-Fox part of the package – among one, two or even three other media companies.
CBS, ESPN, NBC and Warner Bros. Discovery still are negotiating actively, as is Amazon, sources said.
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End of June? Brian, did you say end of June? I’m not the kind of guy that says I-told-you-so but then again, what did I say, eh? What did I done tell ya? EeeeeeeHaaaaa!
On a more serious note, I think NBC is in an increasingly desperate situation for sports programming. They forked over $7.75 BILLION for the American media rights to the Olympics through 2032 and so far, that has been a fiscal and ratings train wreck (link 1)
Viewers for ND football are also down, due in part to the bevy of nothingburger games vs ACC weaklings (link 2).
I think NBC is going to make a hard run for a large chunk of B1G media rights. They need that B1G-ND doubleheader and also the B1G-B1G doubleheader on weekends when they don’t air Irish games.
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/savvy-nbcs-olympics-deal-shakier-beijing-83008319
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2021/11/30/Media/Notre-Dame-TV.aspx
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I don’t think either article makes the Olympics of ND Football out as quite the ratings disaster you are saying. Of course, if NBC did overpay for either of these, the solution is not necessarily to overpay for the Big Ten as well.
The Irish start their afternoon home games at 1:30pm ET, which knocks out both of the Big Ten’s afternoon windows. NBC could show day–night doubleheaders those weekends, but there are still a lot of games they’d be unable to show. If NBC wins any B10 games, there needs to be at least one other partner besides Fox. (There are only four 1:30 games this year, so I don’t want to make that problem sound bigger than it is.)
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https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/en/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-Media/2022/06/06/Big
More details. This week the B10 is deciding on what packages networks want, and what prices they will pay. It sounds like WB Discovery and Apple are unlikely partners, but the other 4 are all serious contenders. Unless Amazon bids really big, I’m not sure having streaming-only games is wise at this stage. Way too many people don’t/can’t stream.
So far, CBS has been aggressive about getting a game for its late Saturday afternoon window, and NBC has shown interest in a Saturday night primetime window for Big Ten football. ESPN has made clear its desire to keep Big Ten games on its channels, too. The wild card is Amazon, which has made a strong push to bring the conference’s rights to Prime.
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Streaming might make more sense if BTN didn’t exist. But with BTN taking all of the crappiest games (and occasionally better ones) there is no reason not to have the rest of the inventory on traditional channels.
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/sec/2022/06/07/sec-only-playoff-nuclear-option-greg-sankey-nick-saban/7542128001/
An SEC-only playoff is the nuclear option, so not really an option at all.
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As far as I am concerned, the key is the statement that the nuclear option is no option. That is
clearly true. I can not imagine how the commissioners, coaches, etc. of the other P5 leagues are in the least concerned. If the SEC wants to leave and play by itself with no other major games, go for it. Oh, and run your own basketball tournament.
To me the leverage that the SEC has is the threat to keep playoffs at 4 teams and then the SEC can afford to take its chances. Other than maybe the B1G with a new TV contract, all of the other leagues, including G5, very much need the extra money from a tournament. If the SEC stops that, there is your real threat.
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The Big Ten is really the only league that can afford to tell the SEC to go fish. The Pac-12 and ACC are way behind in the money derby. Although they voted no last time, I don’t see them as intractable opponents. The Pac-12, in fact, said it wants to expand. The B12 and Notre Dame are already in favor of the proposal, as are all of the G5 leagues.
The Big Ten would need to squash playoff expansion practically all by itself. It has done such things in the past and might again, but that is what it would take.
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https://theathletic.com/3354404/2022/06/08/ohio-state-ryan-day-nil/
Stewart Mandel thinks the B10’s no vote on expansion might have been more about ESPN not having to compete against Fox and others for the new deal, than about autobids.
One odd thing he said:
For all the conspiracy theories over the years about ESPN being an SEC mouthpiece, the Big Ten/Fox relationship is far more brazenly buddy-buddy.
ESPN owns 100% of the SEC’s rights and was promoting them even before that. Fox owns 61% of BTN, and BTN controls the B10’s media rights (but note that ESPN owns half the rights). That sure seems like the ESPN/SEC relationship is closer to me.
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I don’t know if Mandel is right or wrong, but he is talking about behavior, not percentage ownership. I mean, NBC has 100% ownership of Notre Dame home games, but outside of that they are not in each other’s hip pocket, as far as I know.
The fact that Fox is in the room while the Big Ten negotiates with other TV partners is pretty remarkable.
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Fox and the B10 own a joint asset that runs these negotiations. They can’t avoid being in negotiations together.
But the B10 works with multiple media companies right now, and is projected to in the future. The SEC have one partner, and they conspired to try to get that media partner a sweetheart deal on an expanded CFP. That sounds more cozy to me than the B10 and Fox.
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If the B10 entered a deal that makes Fox a negotiating partner with its own competition, that seems to confirm Mandel’s hypothesis, not to refute it. Currently, ESPN has 100% of the SEC’s games but someday they’ll come up for bid again. Will ESPN be in the room with the other bidders, the way Fox is now? That’s the question.
From the reading I’ve done, I gather that the existing playoff contracts give ESPN the right of first refusal on any expansion during the life of the agreement. That provision was written years ago, when CBS was the SEC’s main TV partner, not ESPN.
What that means is that any expansion would have to go through ESPN because that is what was contracted, not because the SEC had a nefarious aim. Although you and I don’t know exactly what’s in the contracts, the other conferences surely do. If the SEC was dealing dirty, how do you think Greg Sankey pulled that off without anyone else knowing it?
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Fox has always been a joint owner of BTN, so their relationship with the B10 is by definition different than that of ESPN with the SEC. There is no apples to apples negotiations comparison. Fox/B10 co-own one of the media outlets, and that media outlet controls the B10’s media rights. Why wouldn’t all owners be involved in negotiations? But the result of B10 negotiations is a variety of media rights contracts, not 1 outlet getting everything. The SEC gave ESPN full ownership of the SECN – the B10 only made Fox a co-owner. Then the SEC contracted all their rights to ESPN. That makes the Fox deal less cozy to me.
Like all these media deals, ESPN had an exclusive window on the CFP. I never said otherwise. But who tried to get everyone to forego a trip to the open market and just let ESPN have the whole thing unchallenged for a prolonged extension (it wasn’t for just the remainder of the current period)? And they did that at the same time as secretly expanding with 2 huge brands that would impact decision making. And they tried to get the others to formally agree with no financial (or scheduling) details in place. And then they tried to blame everyone else for expansion not getting approved.
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Why wouldn’t all owners be involved in negotiations?
Of course they would, but you’ve set up a circular argument. By making Fox a co-owner of all its rights, not just of the network that shows the least desirable games, the Big Ten has given Fox a position that no other league’s media partner has. They have also made a ton of money while doing it, so perhaps it was the right decision. But it is valid to point out the difference.
ESPN temporarily has 100% of the SEC’s TV rights, but they own nothing except the network. The rest (and most valuable part) they are merely renting for a period of years, after which they will have to compete again on the same playing field as everyone else. Fox is getting the Big Ten’s tier 1 rights again and did not have to compete for them.
On the playoff, you may have read different material than I did. As I understood, Sankey was part of a 4-man subcommittee assigned to recommend a playoff format. They were not expected to decide every detail of media rights, revenue sharing, or scheduling. The fact that they left those matters unsettled was feature, not a bug. No media report has suggested that the 4-man committee completed less of the job than they were supposed to.
Now, the 4-man subcommittee may very well have underestimated the difficulty of resolving the remaining open questions, but that was a frustration Sankey, Bowlsby, Swarbrick, and Thompson shared equally. They all said they were disappointed that their colleagues could not agree on those details. Not one of them said, even off the record, “Sankey made it much harder for us by adding Texas and Oklahoma behind our backs.”
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Marc,
It’s not an argument, it’s a point of view. I’m not trying to persuade anyone. The situations are apples and oranges, and I disagree with Mandel about which is closer. You are free to be wrong along with him.:)
The Big Ten has given Fox a position that no other league’s media partner has.
Yes, it’s different. That isn’t the same as closer.
ESPN temporarily has 100% of the SEC’s TV rights, but they own nothing except the network.
Yes, “just” the network. But don’t leave out that ESPN also has the CFP rights, as it’s relevant here.
The rest (and most valuable part) they are merely renting for a period of years, after which they will have to compete again on the same playing field as everyone else.
On the same playing field? ESPN has an extant network, the fans are used to it being there, etc. Anyone else would need to start a new network from scratch. While the SEC could move it’s linear rights fairly easily, it’d be much harder to move the SECN sand both sides know that.
Fox is getting the Big Ten’s tier 1 rights again and did not have to compete for them.
How can you possibly say that at this stage? All that is known is that Fox has its package. We don’t know what is in that package, and maybe Fox doesn’t even know for sure at this point. Rumors have CBS and NBC both looking for a “game of the week” type of package. Is that not competition? Might they not take some games Fox might otherwise want? Most expect Fox to end up with a split of the B10’s rights just like now.
As I understood, Sankey was part of a 4-man subcommittee assigned to recommend a playoff format.
I don’t any of us know exactly what level of scheduling details they were supposed to recommend. Were they supposed to recommend rough calendars for when to play the games for each model? If not, how can they recommend a model?
But that’s not where they stopped. They publicly recommended immediate expansion with a no-bid contract extension with ESPN. That was not part of their remit as far as I have read.
And only an idiot would believe any CFP expansion discussion can happen without considering revenue sharing. Autobids, byes, home games, etc. all impact the money. And as the P12 commissioner pointed out, only an idiot would agree to a deal when none of the details are known.
The fact that they left those matters unsettled was feature, not a bug.
Only if they stopped at making a plan recommendation to the committee.
Now, the 4-man subcommittee may very well have underestimated the difficulty of resolving the remaining open questions, but that was a frustration Sankey, Bowlsby, Swarbrick, and Thompson shared equally. They all said they were disappointed that their colleagues could not agree on those details.
No, I don’t read it is equally shared. Sankey seems amazed anyone could possibly disagree with them on the topic – as if whatever plan they generated should be automatically accepted. They seemed to take generic support for CFP expansion as a willingness to accept anything they proposed no matter the circumstances (extension for ESPN, adding OU/UT, ignoring concerns from 3 P5 conferences, etc.).
Lots of them said many things off the record that we will never know about, so I give zero credence to that either way.
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I don’t any of us know exactly what level of scheduling details they were supposed to recommend.
True, but among that very leaky crowd of commissioners and ADs, I have not seen any leveling these accusations at Sankey, whether on the record or off it. That is what makes me think that your accusations are fiction.
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Marc,
I didn’t say they were supposed to have all the details (because none of us knows exactly what they were charged with). I said they tried to push it through without said details and shouldn’t have been surprised when someone said no. For not having any of these details ironed out, it shouldn’t have taken them very long to pick a plan. Frankly, it’s an almost pointless exercise if you aren’t going to consider the major details needed for implementation.
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Kind of looking forward to at least a year of the Big 12 as a 14 team league. Wonder how they will schedule, aside from the obvious of making Oklahoma and Texas travel to Provo and Orlando.
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https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/34069597/cincinnati-houston-ucf-reach-exit-deal-american-join-big-12-2023
The payout deal is incredible – only $18M, and paid over 14 years. The exit fee is $10M, paid in 4 annual installments through 2024. The early exit fee is just $8M spread over 12 years (details from another source: $2.5M/yr through 2024, $750k/yr from 2025-2036).
UConn paid $17M to leave early, so the total is similar. But less than $1M/yr for teams in a P5 conference is roundoff error. Aresco originally asked for $35M each in early exit fees.
I assume they extended the payment schedule to keep the revenue stream open longer as a way to prop up the AAC.
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Logan – I would imagine that there will now be some serious smoke-filled-room-behind-the-scenes negotiations with the B-12, Texas & Oklahoma, and Disney/ABC/ESPN to get UT & OU in the SEC in time for the 2024 season when they pick up all the SEC content.
As part of the B1G/CBS negotiations, CBS may allow ABC to buy the 2023 SEC/CBS games to make room for the B1G.
If Texas and Oklahoma do stay in the B-12 for three more seasons, I guarantee that TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas, K-State, Iowa State and West Virginia won’t voluntarily lose any home sell-outs with UT & OU just for the sake of sending ‘horns and the Sooners on long road trips. If anything, the B-12 newbies go to Austin & Norman to hurt UT & OU’s home gate.
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Alan, I continue to believe that NBC is frantic for Big Ten programming. We’ll see how this works out in the forthcoming weeks.
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Colin,
Frantic seems like a stretch to me. They’ve gone a very long time with just ND plus some HBCU rights. I didn’t hear much about NBC losing out on the Olympics this last time (viewership was about as projected), and it should improve some based on future locations. We also don’t know what other sports rights they are seeking long term and what impact that has on them. Will they keeping moving sports to USA and CNBC now the NBCSN is gone, or will they get fewer rights?
I believe they are interested in the B10, but they may not like the price or the available games. It’s hard to imagine 3 over the air networks being happy with their weekly B10 selections unless the price is just right. How often does each of them pick 1st? How often does each of them pick 2nd? It’s easier if one of them is the premier package (like CBS was for the SEC), or at least if one is the bottom package.
Does NBC want top B10 games, or do they want mostly medium games?
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Olympics viewership was as expected? It was only half that of the prior Games in Korea.
“NBC’s primetime coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics averaged 7.87 million viewers on Monday, 8.70 million on Tuesday and an all-time low 6.93 million on Wednesday, down 52%, 50% and 51% respectively from the equivalent nights in PyeongChang four years ago (16.36M; 17.50M; 14.10M).”
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2022/02/nbc-olympic-ratings-still-low-no-super-bowl-carryover/
Frankly, I don’t expect much of an improvement for the 2024 Games in Paris. Too many pro athletes, too many trans athletes and too much politics. The Olympics have lost their magic.
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Colin,
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-02-23/tv-audience-for-nbcs-olympics-coverage-hits-a-record-low
Yes, as expected. NBC projected terrible ratings and sold ads accordingly. The real catastrophe is when they have to give away make-free ads because the numbers are too low.
Even with the steep decline, NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua said in an interview Wednesday that viewing levels for Beijing were within what the network’s sales and research departments estimated. The Comcast-owned unit was able to satisfy all commitments to advertisers who bought commercial time in the Games, he added.
They hoped for better numbers, and may have projected better numbers when they were bidding for the Olympics, but they got what they projected.
Paris should be better for multiple reasons. The summer games usually do better because more Americans do well, plus the time difference is less. Actually having fans in the stands and not being held in Asia yet again may also help.
* Pros may turn some viewers off, but basketball is one of the most watched summer sports along with women’s gymnastics.
* As for trans athletes, a whopping 3 have ever made the Olympics (1 one a medal in a team sport). That sounds like a political view more than an actual concern.
* Not being in China will help with the politics. Hopefully not being mid-pandemic will help, too.
Decades of scandals (financial, cheating, doping, …) and bad TV coverage have certainly hurt the games, and of course they aren’t what they were back in the pre-cable days. What is? Tape delayed events in an internet and streaming world don’t sell so well.
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I don’t expect much of an improvement for the 2024 Games in Paris. Too many pro athletes, too many trans athletes and too much politics. The Olympics have lost their magic.
Brian debunked most of this, but regarding pro athletes: the IOC has allowed pros since 1988. You think a change ~35 years ago is why Paris will get poor ratings?
When the IOC finally allowed professionals, it was merely bowing to reality. For decades, the Russians were paying their athletes under the table: no-show “jobs” in the Army so they could train full time.
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Marc: “I don’t expect much of an improvement for the 2024 Games in Paris. Too many pro athletes, too many trans athletes and too much politics. The Olympics have lost their magic.
“Brian debunked most of this, but regarding pro athletes: the IOC has allowed pros since 1988. You think a change ~35 years ago is why Paris will get poor ratings?
“When the IOC finally allowed professionals, it was merely bowing to reality. For decades, the Russians were paying their athletes under the table: no-show “jobs” in the Army so they could train full time.”
Debunked? That remains to be seen.Yes, I believe the change to allow pro athletes 35 years ago continues to erode interest in the Olympics.
I think we’re going to see a lot more trans athletes in the Summer Games vs Winter, e.g. swimming. We’ll start seeing more in basketball and soccer too.
And politics – will Russia be banned due to the war in Ukraine? And don’t forget that the U.S. and nine other countries are carried out a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics due to China’s treatment of Uyghurs.
I’m aware the Russians were paying their athletes under the table so they could train full time. That’s why the “Miracle on Ice” was so great. Our amateurs beat ’em.
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In many countries, such as China, the Olympic athletes are in the military. That is their only job, training, while part of the military. They sure sound like professionals, but I will guarantee that the countries involved would argue that they are amateurs.
Some countries vary athlete status depending on the games. When the 2016 games were in Rio, all of the Brazilian athletes were treated very well in the years before the games. Brazil did not wish to be embarrassed at home.
The Chinese spend a particularly large amount on their Paralympic teams. China has the largest Paralympic delegation and wins lots of medals. The Chinese athletes are also tightly controlled in terms of their interactions with athletes from other nations.
There is generally a great deal of comradery between athletes of different nations, but not the Chinese. I am not sure about the Russians, since weird things have happened with their teams in recent years due to the doping scandals.
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Alan,
I’d think the B12/OU/UT/ESPN/Fox have been in negotiations for quite a while. I think the B12, OU and UT are all waiting for ESPN to offer enough money for the move to happen early. OU and UT don’t want to pay the extra fee. The B12 has no reason to make it cheap, as they will lose out on most of the valuable games in their inventory once they leave (plus schools lose home games against OU and UT). As partial B12 rights owner, Fox has no reason to make it cheap for ESPN either. It’s a blow to their options.
“As part of the B1G/CBS negotiations, CBS may allow ABC to buy the 2023 SEC/CBS games to make room for the B1G.”
But that deal is so undervalued right now, how could CBS afford not to show the games? They get SEC ratings for a small fraction of what those games are really worth. How much will ESPN pay to get those rights?
“If Texas and Oklahoma do stay in the B-12 for three more seasons, I guarantee that TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas, K-State, Iowa State and West Virginia won’t voluntarily lose any home sell-outs with UT & OU just for the sake of sending ‘horns and the Sooners on long road trips. If anything, the B-12 newbies go to Austin & Norman to hurt UT & OU’s home gate.”
Agreed. The B12 should give them the worst possible home schedules (all 4 newbies), which as a bonus gets their new members lots of exposure as B12 members. Then let the old members host UT and OU for ticket sales and TV exposure. And give them as many cold weather games as possible (ISU and WV in November) – those are still long road trips.
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Additionally, I think it may be in the remaining B-12 members’ best interests to settle up with OU & UT before the four newbies join. Depending how much FOX & Disney ding the B-12 on their TV contracts, it may be better to split $200-320m settlement in 2023 eight ways ($25-40m each), rather than $160m 12 ways in 2025 ($13.33m each).
In coming up with the numbers, I’m assuming the $80m exit fee is a hard number and the two years left on the GoR (approximately $40 per school per year) is subject to negotiation.
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Alan,
Isn’t it likely that they wrote into their expansion that the penalties from OU and UT leaving only go to the old members, to help keep their media revenues up for a while? The newbies will be getting a big raise once the new deal TV deal starts, they don’t deserve any of the exit fees or penalties.
I’d agree the $80M is probably non-negotiable while the other number has some wiggle room. I’m just not sure how much, since it impacts Fox as well as the B12.
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Speaking of the B12, it seems likely they would go for a shorter media deal this time, right? Say 6 years, then go back to market and hope the new members have gained value for you. I don’t think they want to risk getting a long but undervalued deal like the ACC has.
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Brian – Let’s assume that there’s a 14 team B-12 in 2023. Let’s also assume that Disney and Fox don’t see enough value in the 4 newbies to increase the TV contracts. UT & OU didn’t take part in the decision to bring in four more mouths to feed.
UT & OU can tell the rest of the B-12, as Frank would say “fuck you! Pay me! You wanted these new teams, so they get paid out of your cut. If we have to stay in this conference, give us our $40+ million each per year for 2023 & 2024.”
I doubt Disney & FOX are under any obligation to kick in an extra $160m per year to cover the new B-12 members. The question is what value would they assign to the newbies versus the value of Texas and Oklahoma leaving early.
Disney certainly has an incentive to work something out in that they could make more money with OU & UT in the SEC than they will lose propping up the B-12. FOX doesn’t. That’s why I could see Disney “buying out” FOX by trading some P-12 inventory to make it work.
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Alan,
Unless they get more games, why would they pay more? The newbies lower the value of the average B12 game.
UT and OU might say that, but it depends what the legal documents say about who is entitled to what. UT and OU owe exit penalties, so I doubt they get the whole $40+ M anyway.
The newbies don’t get full shares until after 2 seasons (starting in 2025-26), so there should be money available. It also means the networks wouldn’t need to pay much more. Frankly, the exit penalties from OU and UT will easily cover them.
View at Medium.com
Over 2015-19, OU averaged 2.9M viewers (#8) and UT averaged 2.3M (#13).
The newbies: #48 BYU (0.7M), #52 UH (0.7M), #60 UCF (0.6M), #66 UC (0.4M)
Outside of Utah, those teams don’t get you a whole state watching, either. And since value isn’t linear with average viewers (also have brand and market concerns, etc.), I’d argue the newbies are worth about 10% of UT and OU. After all, all of the B12’s games that earn > 4M viewers involve UT or OU. Without them, the B12 is basically the same as the AAC for viewership.
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The NCAA baseball playoffs have been a bit crazy. #1, 4, 6, 7 and 8 have all been eliminated before the CWS, and #2 and #3 are in advance/elimination games today. #5, #9 and 4 unseeded teams have advanced from the super regionals so far.
People had been talking about #1 Tennessee as an all-time great team.
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College baseball can be crazy like that.
Take a look at 2011 UCLA:
– 2010 NCAA runner up
– Starting rotation of Garret Cole, Trevor Bauer, and Adam Plutko (5 years MLB)
– 9 2011 MLB draft picks (Cole #1 and Bauer #3 overall)
– 6 players who later made an MLB roster
– Regional host (top 16 overall seed)
Lost in the regional to U of San Francisco and UC Irvine.
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The Athletic with an update on the Big Ten’s media deal. Expecting a mid-July announcement.
https://theathletic.com/3363313/2022/06/14/big-ten-tv-deal-faq/
IMHO: The best case scenario for the Big Ten assuming no less than six games a week is Fox Big Noon, CBS Afternoon, NBC Primetime, ESPN following gameday (or 7 PM EST), a weekly FS1 game in the opposite window ESPN is using (i.e. ESPN at 12, FS1 at 7) and the rest on BTN.
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The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel released his Kings, Barons, Knights & Peasants (v4.0) today.
He created a new category for Alabama. Georgia moved up from Baron to King, while UF, FSU, Miami & PSU moved down from King to Baron. Iowa moved up from Knight to Baron, while Stanford, UCLA & VA Tech moved down from Baron to Knight.
Emperor (1) – Alabama+
Kings (9) – Clemson, Georgia+, LSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas & USC
Barons (12) – Auburn, Florida-, Florida State-, Iowa+, Miami-, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, Penn State-, Tennessee, Texas A&M & Wisconsin.
The rest of the B1G include Knights: Minnesota+ & Northwestern; and Peasants: Illinois- (sorry Frank), Indiana, Maryland-, Purdue & Rutgers.
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I disagree with dropping Florida & Florida State while keeping Texas a king. They are all three in the same boat, but UF & FSU have more recent championships. Mandel’s reasoning for keeping Texas is the brand.
I would have kept all three as Kings.
I can see Miami dropping as they are over 20 years removed from their last championship and for the most part haven’t been relevant since they joined the ACC. I agree with this move. Like former Kings Tennessee and Nebraska, they will likely never regain their former lofty status, but they have a better shot than UT & NU.
I also agree with Penn State falling to Baron status. Penn State really hasn’t been Penn State since they joined the B1G.
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Alan,
I agree Texas should’ve dropped. They have the #57 W% over the last decade. At some point that has to matter. USC was #32 – they have to be close to dropping as well.
As for not dropping UF and FSU, they are #26 and #17 in W% this past decade respectively. PSU was #20 and dropped.
I know W% isn’t everything, but it does show trends.
I think NE and TN have to be close to dropping to knights at this point.
W% rankings:
Emperor (1) – #1
Kings (9) – #2-5, 10, 11, 19 (MI), 32, 57
Barons (12) – #8-9 (WI-OR), 16-18, 20, 24, 26, 36, 41, 71 (NE), 73 (TN)
As for PSU not being PSU, what do you mean? They haven’t been “JoePa winning natties” good, though they basically were in 1994. They did have to ride out JoePa’s career winding down (teams always suffer a little with an over the hill coach) and then the scandal. But even then, they are on par with their historical level. And that’s with sharing a division with a peaking OSU. How many times was a good PSU team overshadowed by OSU lately?
PSU W% ranking
Pre-JoePa (1946-1965): #9 0.698
JoePa pre-B10 (1966-1992): #4 0.784
B10 era (1993-2021): #14 0.681
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Kinda hard to imagine Northwestern as a Knight and Purdue as a Peasant. Purdue leads the all-time series 53-33-1 and 12-10 in the last 22 meetings.
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NW has 2 CCG appearances to their credit, plus B10 titles in 1995-96 and 2000.
PU shared the 2000 title with NW, and then 1967 was their previous title (also shared)
Over the past 20 seasons:
NW: 0.528 W% (#55)
PU: 0.440 W% (#92)
Since NW rediscovered football in 1995, they’ve been a substantially better program than PU. They may struggle to beat PU, but oddly they are 10-11 against WI since 1995 and I think everyone would agree WI has been better than NW over that period. Some matchups just don’t work out well.
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College sports programs have structural advantages or disadvantages that tend to persist. For the decade before Alabama hired Nick Saban, they were quite pedestrian. You could have predicted that they were going to come back, because that is what Kings usually do. You would not have predicted Nick Saban’s dominance, but you knew they were not going to be like Wisconsin forever.
Since teams tend to revert to their historical performance, I think such a list should be very slow to change levels. A program needs to prove that it has made a shift (in either direction) that is likely to endure, not just a few good or bad years. Nebraska is a great example: I suspect it has permanently lost the advantages that allowed it to be elite for so long.
To my way of thinking, Texas, Florida, USC, and Penn State are quite similar, so I would have all four still as kings. Texas is a strange case, because the structural advantages are still there, and yet they stubbornly persist in failing to make use of them.
I could more easily see that Miami and Florida State are more like Nebraska, and less likely to return to their former dominance anytime soon.
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Very interesting analysis of fanbase sizes for schools:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MiUOwx8X3H2bSkUOz8a1YhceyJWLLCoJ/view
Missouri ranked #23 nationally. 11th out of 16 in the new SEC. Would rank #5 in the Big Ten, slightly ahead of Nebraska, and behind Michigan State. Also, Missouri would rank #1 n the new Big 12.
Anyway, this seems like the kind of study this site would enjoy.
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That analysis has serious problems, as shown by Syracuse being #14. Certainly ticket sales and viewership numbers don’t reflect that.
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I agree the Syracuse number jumps out as faulty. Overall it seems mostly plausible, but there are some goofy results here and there.
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I couldn’t find the methodology, but if Syracuse is 14th, I am not sure anything here can be trusted.
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To repeat what was just said, for Cuse to have the second highest fan base in the ACC is nuts. There is a minimal or non-existent Syracuse fan base in the NYC area, other than alumni. Interest in Cuse in the NYC area trails Michigan, which is not exactly in the neighborhood. Rutgers (40 miles away) and Notre Dame are by far the leaders in NYC area fan base, and that is true with RU being really lousy for many years. Michigan is fourth or fifth in the NYC market.
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Frank, why are my comments being censored?
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Testing. Past six posts have not appeared.
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Usual causes:
* multiple links
* too much bold or italics
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I will add single link comments not from Twitter and plain old posting errors.
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Neither of those are factors. My posts are being blocked intentionally.
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Testing to see if this works . . . .Colin
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Since it appears CFB is heading to do what ever you want to determine your champion I still think a conference playoff would still be a fun idea.
Teams would play eight conference games (4H/4A) ending the week before Thanksgiving. Teams would be divided into two groups (E/W, Legends/Leaders, doesn’t matter they can change every two years). The teams in the the first group will play at home the first year and away the second. The top two teams in each group play (#1 Group 1 vs #2 Group 2) to qualify for the Big Ten CCG. The remaining five games could be set to improve bowl prospects, play for bowl (i.e. winner gets Citrus bowl invite), or best TV matchup.
Advantages:
– More TV money
– Conference playoff standings are determined by 4H/4A, no advantage or disadvantage by 9th game
– Every other year each team gets to sell a potential conference playoff game.
– More teams in the hunt for the conference playoffs makes more games meaningful
– Big Ten champion will have two conference playoff wins and will most likely be a lock for any playoff.
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Mike,
That seems like a lot of risk of an upset of the top team, especially with a 4 team CFP.
In an expanded playoff, perhaps that’s good as long as there are 3-4 CFP candidates. But at that point, why not just #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3 with the higher seeds hosting (extra TV money can be used to compensate the road teams)? And what if that makes for 3 rematches as playoff games?
I’m not sure how much interest there would be in a B10 playoff like that. The 16-team SEC could make money that way due to their brands and size.
Let’s examine your plan in 2021:
1E MI (8-1) vs 2W MN (6-3)
1W IA (7-2) vs 2E OSU (8-1)
Meanwhile 3E MSU (7-2) plays 3W WI (6-3)? But MSU was #11 in the CFP rankings while Iowa was #13 and neither WI nor MN were ranked. That seems unfair.
Playing by overall seeds in 2021:
1 MI (8-1) vs 4 IA (7-2)
2 OSU (8-1) vs 3 MSU (7-2)
OSU’s schedule would’ve been:
11/13 vs MSU (56-7)
11/20 @ MI (27-42)
11/27 vs MSU (1st playoff round)
12/4 vs MI (likely winners from round 1)
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@Brian –
That seems like a lot of risk of an upset of the top team, especially with a 4 team CFP.
It could be. This is just replacing the the ninth conference game with a (most likely) better quality opponent. I think it will help the resumes of both winners and make it harder to argue against a Big Ten team making the CFP that won the conference playoffs (CCP).
In an expanded playoff, perhaps that’s good as long as there are 3-4 CFP candidates. But at that point, why not just #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3 with the higher seeds hosting (extra TV money can be used to compensate the road teams)?
I don’t think there is enough TV money to compensate the road teams (and their communities) for a lost home game. While its possible to schedule a game with a weeks notice, I think it will be logistical nightmare for the host schools to have the staff, concessions, etc ready on short notice.
And what if that makes for 3 rematches as playoff games?
That’s a possibility. The groups/schedule would have to be designed to limit that as best as they can. For example, locked rivals would be in the same group.
I’m not sure how much interest there would be in a B10 playoff like that. The 16-team SEC could make money that way due to their brands and size.
I would have to think the possibility of Ohio St – Michigan again would be a big driver. If that’s more likely in top 2 or top 4 scenario, I don’t know.
Let’s examine your plan in 2021:
1E MI (8-1) vs 2W MN (6-3)
1W IA (7-2) vs 2E OSU (8-1)
Meanwhile 3E MSU (7-2) plays 3W WI (6-3)? But MSU was #11 in the CFP rankings while Iowa was #13 and neither WI nor MN were ranked. That seems unfair.
Using the current E/W alignment that’s what would have happened. Is it unfair to MSU? Their game against Purdue (that MSU lost) would have even been bigger. Both teams would have been fighting to stay in the playoff hunt. Minnesota, Purdue, and Wisconsin (they tied for second) are all playing meaningful games into November is a feature. Most years two of those teams are going through the motions starting in November. MSU could play Wisconsin to boost their chances for a NY6 game
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Mike,
Why does the B10 need to make the schedules harder for the champs? In a 4-team playoff, the B10 champ has almost always gotten in with 1 loss or less (exception was OSU in 2018 – behind 3 undefeateds and another 1-loss P5 champ). A 2-loss team has never gotten in, and the B10 has only had 1 undefeated champ in the CFP era (ignoring 6-0 OSU in 2020). I’ll take a 1-loss champ with an easier schedule over risking the extra loss.
If the money isn’t sufficient, I suppose teams could always opt out of the B10 playoff. They only get 5 B10 games at home half the time anyway, so I doubt this would be a major ordeal.
As for logistics, the schools know they will play that week. They top few are just unsure of where they will play. All of them could plan to host a game that week until proven they’ll be on the road. Ticket sales might be hard, but that’s not where the money is anyway. Or the B10 could just nominate 2 (or 3, in case) of the contenders as the hosts a couple of weeks in advance.
You can’t promise all locked rivals are in the same group without using divisions I don’t think.
I really don’t know how valuable an OSU/MI rematch just 1-2 weeks later would be, unless the first game was really close or exciting. It wouldn’t bomb, but I think a lot of fans would tune out. I think scheduling the 9th game as the best unplayed matchups that season would make more sense.
Is giving unranked teams a shot at the CFP (in part because they avoided OSU and MI while #11 MSU didn’t) unfair to MSU? Yes. That’s the problem with any preselected groups.
I’d rather just see the B10 have #1 play the top team they didn’t beat yet (rematch of a loss, or first meeting).
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Why does the B10 need to make the schedules harder for the champs? In a 4-team playoff, the B10 champ has almost always gotten in with 1 loss or less (exception was OSU in 2018 – behind 3 undefeateds and another 1-loss P5 champ). A 2-loss team has never gotten in, and the B10 has only had 1 undefeated champ in the CFP era (ignoring 6-0 OSU in 2020). I’ll take a 1-loss champ with an easier schedule over risking the extra loss.
I understand what you are thinking. I prefer keeping as many teams as possible with a chance at a conference championship (and playoff birth if we move to an AQ world) as long as possible to drive interest. Causals love games with high stakes. I admit, my plan will probably cost a playoff spot at some point. Most likely the “Ole Alabama Backdoor” (don’t Google that) where you finish second in the division but make the playoff anyway.
If the money isn’t sufficient, I suppose teams could always opt out of the B10 playoff. They only get 5 B10 games at home half the time anyway, so I doubt this would be a major ordeal.
Teams want seven home games for various reasons. I don’t think TV can make up for the economic impact of home game (tickets, concessions, hotels, etc) If the last week’s sites are not pre-determined then we’d see more guarantee games and less H&H OOC. I don’t think anyone wants that.
As for logistics, the schools know they will play that week. They top few are just unsure of where they will play. All of them could plan to host a game that week until proven they’ll be on the road. Ticket sales might be hard, but that’s not where the money is anyway. Or the B10 could just nominate 2 (or 3, in case) of the contenders as the hosts a couple of weeks in advance.
Its possible, but I don’t think anyone will ever want to do it. No one wants to get stuck with (for example) 100K unsold hotdogs on short notice.
I really don’t know how valuable an OSU/MI rematch just 1-2 weeks later would be, unless the first game was really close or exciting. It wouldn’t bomb, but I think a lot of fans would tune out. I think scheduling the 9th game as the best unplayed matchups that season would make more sense.
IMO – TV is desperate for more OSU-Michigan FB games. Especially if its for conference title. If OSU and Michigan played again in the Big CCG last year, it would have been a block buster.
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Mike,
The logistics are why I don’t think the B10 would ever seriously consider flex scheduling any games. A 4-team B10 playoff will never happen unless it is done at pre-selected (neutral?) sites so they can sell tickets months in advance just like the CCG. I think they’d rather play 3 + 6/10 than try anything too fancy.
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https://saturdaytradition.com/michigan-football/big-ten-revenue-distributions-to-see-notable-increase-per-michigan-ad/
With the upcoming media rights deal, I thought a reminder of how the current one will end might be good. MI is projecting an increase of $9.7M in the B10 revenue distribution in FY23 (final year of current deal), to just below $60M (It was roughly $54M pre-COVID).
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Testing again. I hope this appears but I doubt it.
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Also some basic math:
$60M * 14 schools = $840M
$71.4M * 14 schools = $1.0B
So the projected growth to $1B doesn’t mean all that much, especially if it’s an average value over the term (meaning it starts closer $900M and grows steadily).
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The “threepeat” seems to be emerging as the foremost scenario. Nonetheless, I have some heartburn about having the Big Ten used in a so-called doubleheader with ND on NBC. Why should we enhance their “independent” agenda, like the ACC has done? The Big Ten gains nothing vs programming on another broadcaster and it makes us look like another ND enabler.
https://www.si.com/college/2022/06/09/big-ten-football-media-rights-fox-cbs-nbc
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Colin,
By that logic, the B10 also shouldn’t be on ABC/ESPN because it might help the ACC and SEC. The extra promotion of the B10 on another network and during a ND game should help the B10. That would be 3 networks focused on the B10 to help balance the ESPN bias. And NBC will have to outbid ESPN to get such a package, so the B10 would be making more money as well. Yes, ND will also benefit. That’s unavoidable. Should the B10 cut off its nose to spite its face?
If Fox and CBS get their packages, you’re really just left with ESPN and NBC. There are pros and cons to leaving ESPN, but the last concern of the B10 is whether the new deal helps ND. Fans view ND as an enemy, but the B10 and coaches/ADs don’t.
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Brian: “By that logic, the B10 also shouldn’t be on ABC/ESPN because it might help the ACC and SEC.”
That analogy is inaccurate. Notre Dame has some built-in advantages with this “independent” status that the schools of the ACC, SEC and Big Ten do not have. They get into the playoffs without playing a CCG, 40% of their schedule is ACC cupcakes and they have a national network broadcasting all of their home games.
It will make little difference to the Big Ten if our “threepeat” package is Fox/CBS/NBC or Fox/CBS/ABC. But it will make a big difference to NBC’s sagging viewership of ND football.
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Colin,
The ACC and SEC have other advantages, like being owned by the same network that owns the CFP and controls the media narrative about CFB.
ND doesn’t have to play in a CCG, but they also don’t get a chance to win a CCG to improve their resume – it works both ways.
Well 2/3 of an ACC champ’s schedule is ACC “cupcakes.” And the B10 doesn’t have much room to talk with teams like IL, RU, PU, etc. Even the SEC champs play lots of cupcakes. In some years (when USC, etc. are good) ND has a very tough schedule, just like anyone else.
ND has their own deal, but all the kings essentially have all their games broadcast nationally. OSU had 10 OTA games (5 Fox, 4 ABC), 1 on FS1 and 2 on BTN last season. By having conference networks, P5 teams get a revenue stream ND doesn’t get while still having a ton of games shown nationally. ND makes much less money from their media deal.
The B10 has bigger concerns than any perceived gain others might get. Which network is offering the best package of coverage and money? ABC is committed to the ACC and SEC, plus others. Who says they can promise a weekly B10 primetime game with nearly the same promotion (vs a non-B10 big game on ABC) as opposed to NBC?
ND viewership scales with their success, and is zero concern of the B10. Just because you apparently view ND as the enemy doesn’t mean the B10 does. If they did, they wouldn’t schedule ND. They would fight ND’s power in making decisions over CFB. But they never have and never will.
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By the way, FWIW, I still think the Big Ten will continue having a package on ABC/ESPN. It might end up being the #3 package after FOX and CBS, but it’s not an accident that even all 4 pro sports leagues have gone out of their way to maintain (or in the case of the NHL, return to) their ESPN presence: Disney still have the best multi-platform exposure across all categories of OTA, cable and streaming out of any of the media companies. Remember that basketball is still a component of the TV rights here, so while we are very focused on how many OTA football games there are per week, there’s simply no contest between ESPN and any other linear channel for basketball for weeknight games (which is half of the basketball inventory). That doesn’t mean basketball is driving decision, but if all of these network offers are really in the same ballpark, it’s a differentiator that Disney has compared to everyone else (and I emphasize Disney here as opposed to ESPN as I believe *all* of the Disney platforms together are what makes a huge difference).
Let’s put it this way: if streaming is the future and will be at least a component of this new Big Ten deal, I have faith in Amazon and the Disney bundle in some form (whether Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ continue to be separate or are eventually combined into one) still existing in 5 years. I don’t have that same faith at all in Paramount+ (which CBS wants to leverage) or Peacock (which NBC wants to leverage). With so much streaming competition, they might be straight up wiped out as platforms by the time that this new Big Ten contract ends. Obviously, if ESPN is presenting a bad faith lowball offer, then the Big Ten doesn’t need to give them the time of day. However, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here: if it were simply a matter of the Big Ten choosing who is willing to pay the most, the new TV contracts would have been done already.
Instead, what I think is happening is that everyone is pretty close to each other on the rights fees to the point where it’s a question of what the Big Ten wants for exposure. Once again, don’t just concentrate on the 2 or so OTA games of the week, but if the #3 or #4 game is on ESPN versus CBSSN, Peacock, Paramount+ or Amazon or where all of their weeknight basketball games are heading to.
If I had to bet, I think the Big Ten will end up with what I described above: FOX with essentially the same football and basketball package as it has today, a weekly OTA football game on CBS along with their current basketball package, a third football game on Disney that could be on either ABC Saturday Night or ESPN depending on the matchup, and ESPN keeps its current basketball package.
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Frank,
If the money and coverage are roughly equal, I agree the B10 would lean to staying on ESPN. The current deal forbids being put on low-carriage channels like FS2, so I’m not worried the B10 will be on CBSSN or similar channels. I highly doubt the B10 would accept Peacock-only coverage for a game either. I hope they don’t waste any games on streaming-only, but eventually they will just to chase the money (as they did with non-holiday weeknight games). That will be a mistake with the B10’s aging fan base.
Basketball is a completely separate topic to me. ESPN may get more MBB rights than CFB rights. There’s no reason the two sports need to be similar in terms of coverage – like CBS having some B10 MBB for years. One sport may be used to leverage coverage of the other, but they could be considered separately.
I don’t think it’s as simple as who will pay the most, but there may be a lot of discussion about exactly what priority of picks are in each package versus what windows and channels are being proposed for those games versus how much to pay for each package. A Fox/CBS/NBC split would have quite different terms than a Fox/CBS/ESPN split. I could see tripartite talks taking a lot longer, especially two concurrent sets of them. It’s much tougher to decide on the “best” package when there are so many factors involved.
And that’s ignoring Amazon willingness to throw money at the B10.
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Kindly forgive me for belaboring this but I continue to believe that NBC is between the legendary rock and hard place. In a nutshell the college football season is 15 Saturdays and 15 Thursdays with three time slots for games on each Saturday. NBC televises six ND home games each year which fills up six of those 45 Saturday time slots – 13%. Half of those are against the likes of UVA, NC State or Navy.
Getting the Big Ten for so-called doubleheaders would actually mean six ND-B1G doubleheaders and nine Saturdays with B1G-B1G doubleheaders. The B1G would then be 24 of 30 games televised, or 80%.
NBC needs the Big Ten a lot more than the Big Ten needs NBC. Commish Warren needs to drive a hard bargain before we sign on with the turkey, uh, I mean the peacock.
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I don’t recall any talk of NBC getting more than 1 game per week. It’d be a double header with ND 6 weeks, and with other NBC properties (P12? HBCUs? Other sports?) on other weeks.
Neither of them need the other. The B10 has been just fine without NBC for decades, and NBC has done just fine without much CFB. They can always get P12 rights if they miss on the B10. Plus they are also balancing a lot of pro sports, some of which fill Saturday slots.
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Fans’ animosity towards Notre Dame is NOT shared by university presidents, athletic directors, and conference commissioners. It’s actually quite the opposite. Schools keep scheduling Notre Dame. Everyone (except the ACC) wants ND to remain independent, because if they join any conference, they’re contractually bound to the ACC. Nobody (except the ACC) wants the ACC to get stronger.
The playoff committee consists of the 11 FBS commissioners plus the ND athletic director, Jack Swarbrick. They consider him an equal. When they chartered a subcommittee to consider expanding the playoff, they put Swarbrick on it. He was also on the original subcommittee that proposed the current the 4-team playoff. He didn’t put a gun to their heads; they wanted him there.
Now, it’s perfectly fine to hate Notre Dame as a fan, much as Alabama fans hate Auburn, and Duke fans hate UNC, etc. But you mustn’t let that cloud your judgment where the economics of the sport are concerned.
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I would think CBS is in a worse position than NBC. The Peacock at least has some major college football. If CBS does not sign the Big Ten or the Pac-12, it will become almost irrelevant on fall Saturdays, other than Army–Navy.
Your math on the time slots is wrong, because when Notre Dame plays a home day game, they start at 2:30pm ET, straddling both of the two traditional afternoon windows. On dates the Irish play at home, NBC would (potentially) have a day–night doubleheader, rather than two day games.
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People should stop complaining about playing “cupcakes.” Schools like Ohio State and Alabama need to play schools like Rutgers and Vanderbilt in order to demonstrate their own excellence. If you did have a conference of super stars (Bama, Ohio State, Clemson…) the teams in the conference would go 6 and 6. 12 wins would be impossible, and 9 wins would be nearly unheard of. The conference champion would likely go 8 and 4 or even 7 and 5. The super conference would look a lot like the Ivies on a won/lost basis.
The truth is Ohio State needs Rutgers more than Rutgers needs Ohio State. The Kings need the Princesses to beat up on so that everyone will agree they are Kings.
And stop whining about Notre Dame. They are privileged because over many decades they earned. They are the biggest draw in college football. I bet the TV viewer ship for the Ohio State/Notre Dame game will be nearly record setting.
I was at the previous game in the Shoe with my wife (St. Mary’s) and her sister (also St. Mary’s) and my brother in law. It was a perfect day weatherwise and the most joyous event I have ever attended. Its rarity added the spice.
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Bob, don’t expect much of a football game. The last time that ND beat Ohio St, Jesse Owens was running in the Berlin Olympic Games.
Individual Game Results of Ohio State vs Notre Dame, 1869-2021
Date Opponent (record) Result Score Site
1/1/2016 vs. Notre Dame (10-3) W 44 28 @ Fiesta Bowl
1/2/2006 vs. Notre Dame (9-3) W 34 20 @ Fiesta Bowl
9/28/1996 @ Notre Dame (8-3) W 29 16
9/30/1995 vs. Notre Dame (9-3) W 45 26
10/31/1936 @ Notre Dame (6-2-1) L 2 7
11/2/1935 vs. Notre Dame (7-1-1) L 13 18
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Bob,
I think the result of no cupcakes would be NFL-like W% for teams. A very few would still have elite seasons, but some formerly strong teams would become the cellar dwellers.
That said, OSU does not need RU in any way, shape, or form. RU was given a golden ticket by the B10, and it’s their only chance to address the deficits in their AD. OSU thrived for decades without RU. I agree with your general position about kings needing the cupcakes in CFB, but NFL teams thrive without them. Someone eventually becomes an NFL cupcake for a few decades (Detroit, etc.), but that sport and its teams are mostly thriving (Jacksonville was a bad expansion choice).
I agree ND earned much of what they have. I hate that OSU scheduled them, though. I always enjoyed OSU not playing them despite their proximity. Let UM play them. I’m glad they didn’t play when I had tickets, and I happily refused an offer of tickets to watch them when they did come to OSU. I won’t go this time, either. Hopefully the next AD will return to the sensible policy of not playing them.
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https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2022/06/24/Formula-1-espn-media-rights-us.aspx
F1 Renews its deal with ESPN. AAV goes from 5 to 75-90 Million. Six races occur in US time zones and viewership is around 1 million per race.
What I found interesting: Amazon bid more, Comcast is aggressively perusing content for Peacock, and Netflix made a bid. All good signs for CFB conferences.
Sources said that Amazon put forth a higher bid — said to be around $100M per year — with the right to sublicense to a linear broadcast network. Comcast’s offer was similar to ESPN’s monetarily, sources said. Comcast’s offered would have put several of its races on its Peacock streaming service — in addition to linear coverage on NBC and USA Network. Through its Sky subsidiary, Comcast is a big F1 partner outside of the U.S. Netflix had discussions with F1 and actually made an offer, but its bid wasn’t close on money. F1 executives made it clear that they were not ready to put all of its races on a streaming service yet.
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Interesting to contrast this with MLS’s 10 year deal with Apple+. Both are trying to grow their fan bases, and you would think getting eyeballs is more important that maximizing revenue for the long-term growth of the sport. OTOH, if you are targeting young cord-cutters who are open to new fan allegiances, being on streaming may get more eyeballs than basic cable.
F1’s rise in the US has been largely attributed to the Netflix doc series Drive to Survive. It’s driven by star-power far more than MLS, which is far from the best league in the world and doesn’t have the biggest stars. MLS feels like it should be headed more towards a local-market based model like MLB/NHL as opposed to NBA/NFL with big marketable names.
Maybe the real difference is that F1 already has a revenue base internationally and their US market share doesn’t matter as much, while MLS needs to maximize this as their primary source of revenue outside of ticket sales.
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ACC to drop divisions for 2023 season. 3-5-5 model permanent rivals adopted.
https://theacc.com/news/2022/6/28/acc-announces-football-schedule-model-for-2023-26.aspx
Boston College: Miami, Pitt, Syracuse
Clemson: Florida State, Georgia Tech, NC State
Duke: North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest
Florida State: Clemson, Miami, Syracuse
Georgia Tech: Clemson, Louisville, Wake Forest
Louisville: Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia
Miami: Boston College, Florida State, Louisville
North Carolina: Duke, NC State, Virginia
NC State: Clemson, Duke, North Carolina
Pitt: Boston College, Syracuse, Virginia Tech
Syracuse: Boston College, Florida State, Pitt
Virginia: Louisville, North Carolina, Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech: Pitt, Virginia, Wake Forest
Wake Forest: Duke, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech
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My posts are not showing up, so trying this again: USC/UCLA to the Big Ten.
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Mine aren’t showing up either.
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Are you on a mobile device? My posts there are the ones that didn’t make it. In the past, when posts get a lot of comments WordPress tends to struggle on mobile.
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That one worked!
My thoughts:
1. Frank’s post about UT/OU being the endgame makes this endgame part 2?
2. Is the Big Ten really going to just take two and leave Oregon and Washington out there? If they take Oregon and Washington can they leave Stanford and Cal? If they take Stanford and Cal do they take Arizona St. and Colorado? If you take ASU and Colorado than how can you not take Utah and Arizona? That seems like a lot of work just to get rid of Oregon St and Washington St. Do they leave the Arizona schools for the SEC/MW and just take USC/UCLA/Stan/Cal/UW/UO/UU/CU for 22? One last call to Notre Dame + 1 (ASU/UA/Kansas) to make 24? Do you take the USC/UCLA/Stan/Cal/UW/UO and wait for the ACC teams? I don’t think they are just going to 16. I’m sure Phil Knight is already revving up the check book.
3. The PTN/Larry Scott is a debacle for the ages.
4. For all the criticism John Swofford gets, the ACC is still around with its ESPN friendly TV deal. There are probably 10 teams thanking their lucky stars to have trapped the other four inside the ACC. They may not make the most media money, but its a small price to pay to still have a seat at the table.
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5. I guess we know why the Big Ten’s TV deal isn’t done.
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So much for THE ALLIANCE and all their aspirational flowery prose about doing things the right way, and standing up to the dirty ole ESS-EEE-SEE.
Turns out The Alliance was more like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, only to have the B1G launch Operation Barbarosa on the P-12 a year later.
Seriously, as I wrote this time last year, the UT & OU to the SEC, was the first step toward a Disney League and a FOX League for college football. USC & UCLA to the B1G is just the next step. I wouldn’t be shocked it every P-12 school – except Oregon State and Washington State – eventually get a B1G invite to get to 24. Then the SEC responds by picking their best eight in the ACC – UNC, Duke, NC State, VA Tech, UVA, Miami, Florida State & Clemson – when available.
In the words of Frank the Tank, serious baller move by the B1G. Congratulations on the second best expansion move.
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Stream of consciousness:
Good job Big Ten.
I think they have to expect some other Pac 12 schools will follow…and maybe Kansas finally gets thrown in if there’s an odd number (making a bridge out west).
I imagine Nebraska is going to try and get both schools as annual opponents to try and open up California recruiting.
That “alliance” worked out as well as we all thought! That is, those of use who didn’t pretend that the Big Ten was a “noble defender” of the ACC and Pac 12 against the “evil SEC”.
The new playoff negotiations will be fun! Big Ten: “I don’t see why anyone would want any automatic bids whatsoever!”
Big Ten championship game in the Rose Bowl.
Some years ago, the SWC and the Big 8 looked at an alliance, then the Big 8 effectively grabbed 4 SWC schools and left the others behind (though it was technically a new conference). Some years later the Big 12 and Pac 12 looked at forming some kind of alliance and/or scheduling agreement, then the Pac 12 offered 4 Big 12 schools membership and almost pulled off the Pac 16. For several years the Pac 12 has been trying to form a scheduling alliance with the Big Ten…
For the Big 12: they have to be wishing this all happened last summer…the leftover Big 12 and Pac 12 schools could end up merging, but they might end up wishing they hadn’t added more Eastern schools beforehand.
For the Pac 12: I think somewhere in one of these posts I said the Pac 12 schools not named USC should have grabbed the more desirable Big 12 schools last year precisely in case this happened. Rather than the Pac 12 picking and choosing Big 12 schools to add, they probably have to merge now. Or form an actual alliance with a real, honest-to-goodness scheduling agreement. If that happens they probably will add San Diego to get a presence back in Southern California.
For the ACC….how many years before Grant of Rights expires is everyone going to line up their destination? Will UNC announce a move to the SEC 7 years in advance? UVA to the Big Ten 6 years ahead of time?
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This will never happen of course, but I would love if the leftover Pac-10 and the Big 12 schools merged and formed a two tiered conference with soccer-style relegation and promotion.
“2025 Utah vs BYU. Utes are looking to improved their bowl game prospects while the Cougars need a win to avoid relegation to the ‘B’ league next season…”
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USC/UCLA to the Big Ten was only a matter of time once Texas/OU chose the SEC.
I think this won’t end with just USC and UCLA.
Washington/Oregon may also join and ditch Washington State/Oregon State to make it happen. Before ditching them would have been impossible, but if USC and UCLA force this, then they can.
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Maybe Washington/Oregon but Colorado would get the Big Ten into the Mountain Time Zone and the robust Denver TV market. Their long-time archrival is Nebraska.
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I think this sets up the Big Ten to go much further in the next decade. I would be shocked if this ends at just USC/UCLA.
What happens when the Big Ten is pulling in 3x as much as the ACC in 10 years. All of a sudden, the door opens to Florida State, UNC (maybe with Duke), etc.
And then there’s ND of course, I think ND will eventually be involved.
Either way, this prevents the SEC from running away with the whole game once Texas/OU go there.
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The amount of money now that the B1G media contracts will be worth will be insane. At some point, the top ACC schools will be in play for either the B1G or SEC and the grant of rights won’t matter much due to the sheer dollars involved.
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Speaking of the ACC schools…
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It’s 200 miles longer to drive from Boston to Miami (ACC) than it is to drive from Lincoln to Los Angeles.
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FWIW…an Oregon fan site claims the end goal for the B1G is 20, but the league wants Kansas and TCU to be two of the final four additions. There also doesn’t appear to be any rush to make those final additions.
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Welp – today’s news brought me out of blogging semi-retirement again. A brand new post:
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Well, the end of “college “ athletics is upon us. I expected the SEC moves, but I’m more than a bit disappointed the B1G is participating. Can we just total up athletic expenditures and declare championships? Isn’t that all that matters now? Oh, in FB $s. The other “activities” don’t actually matter even though most alumni didn’t participate in it, at any level.
PS: let’s save time and mail the B1G baseball trophy to Westwood now. Those advocating UO/UW can send the TandF/XC to Eugene.
And NONE of those schools wrestle!
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