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If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
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ken d Offline
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Post: #21
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 02:59 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Ken, it's clear you've put a lot of thought into this. You're getting a lot of crap here (some from me) but it's easy for others to shoot down new ideas.

I think your overall idea of one big entity negotiating with ESPN has some merit. This isn't the 1980s anymore, and I think most schools realize that they'd be better off in the long run by sticking together. The extra negotiating power would seriously bite into the margins that ESPN/Fox are earning off CFB/CBB.

The problem is that it requires about 20-30 of the top schools to stick together at all costs. Otherwise ESPN will figure out who it can overpay to kill the whole system. For example, they're currently overpaying Texas for the Longhorn Network in order to preserve the current status quo.

I wouldn't say I've gotten any crap. Just different opinions/perspectives, which is kind of the point of forums like this.

You are right about the need for leadership from the top programs. You're also right in your implied point that ESPN would want to kill such a system. The fact that it would seem to them to be not in their best interest is precisely why it would be in the schools' best interest. They are leaving a lot on the table right now.

If you look carefully at the divisions as I proposed them, I think you will find that by and large they don't require any heroic sacrifices by anybody. No animals (or schools) were harmed in the production of this model. One thing I did after I put this on paper was to search for significant games/rivalries that would be lost by this change. Not only could I not find any, this seemed to actually restore many that had been lost in earlier realignments.

Some of the northeastern schools might not be happy about losing Miami from their regular schedules, but they had lost them once before and didn't have the tradeoff of getting Notre Dame every year instead. I'd be curious how fans of those schools would feel about this. Frankly, I would expect at least a little relief that they would still (or once again) have a place at the table.
02-17-2015 03:24 PM
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ken d Offline
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Post: #22
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 03:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 02:59 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I think your overall idea of one big entity negotiating with ESPN has some merit. This isn't the 1980s anymore, and I think most schools realize that they'd be better off in the long run by sticking together. The extra negotiating power would seriously bite into the margins that ESPN/Fox are earning off CFB/CBB.

The problem is that it requires about 20-30 of the top schools to stick together at all costs. Otherwise ESPN will figure out who it can overpay to kill the whole system. For example, they're currently overpaying Texas for the Longhorn Network in order to preserve the current status quo.

Why would that many schools stick together at all costs? I doubt they could even agree on whether to be paid equally or who would get more money than the others. It's one thing to persuade Ohio State to grudgingly share with schools like Purdue and Minnesota who have been their conference mates for 100 years. It's quite another to persuade them to share equally with Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State.

At most, there might be an alliance between two P5 conferences to jointly negotiate TV deals, but even that would likely fall apart in squabbles over control and the division of money.

Wedge, you make it sound like those schools are coming to the party empty handed just looking to feed at Ohio State's trough. Maybe OSU is currently getting $50 million a year from potentially shared sources while many others are only getting $40 million. But OSU doesn't have to give up anything to bring those others up to $55 million. That would come from better bargaining leverage and efficiency, that would in turn raise OSU's net revenues at the same time. The whole pie would be bigger, so OSU's slice need not be smaller.
02-17-2015 03:35 PM
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Captain Bearcat Offline
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Post: #23
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
Your proposed divisions would be a Godsend to Cincinnati fans. Annual games against Louisville, Kentucky, Pitt, and Notre Dame! Wake Forest is a little odd, but basketball exposure in NC, NY, and Boston would be great too. Add in non-conference basketball games in Chicago and DC and we'd be completely set.
02-17-2015 03:37 PM
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ken d Offline
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Post: #24
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 03:37 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Your proposed divisions would be a Godsend to Cincinnati fans. Annual games against Louisville, Kentucky, Pitt, and Notre Dame! Wake Forest is a little odd, but basketball exposure in NC, NY, and Boston would be great too. Add in non-conference basketball games in Chicago and DC and we'd be completely set.

I notice you didn't mention West Virginia. I kind of thought that would be a nice regional rivalry there.

Wake was indeed the red headed stepchild here. I needed a ninth for that division, and it seemed a lot easier to separate them from the other NC schools than anybody else. If you read all the realignment suggestions that argue Wake shouldn't even be in the P5, I would think they would be happy just to still have a seat. They are keeping a low profile these days.

With 4 football games outside their division, they could still hope to play UNC and NC State regularly, if not every year (they don't under the current set up), and they could establish some new FBS rivalries with fledgling programs like Appalachian State and Charlotte which might be useful in a division where wins will be hard to come by.

This setup also reduces the conference hoops schedule from 18 to 16, with a full double round robin. That frees up a couple of games in the early part of the season. All in all, it turned out better after I wrote it all down than I thought it would when all I had was a concept.
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2015 03:54 PM by ken d.)
02-17-2015 03:52 PM
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Wedge Offline
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Post: #25
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 03:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 02:59 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I think your overall idea of one big entity negotiating with ESPN has some merit. This isn't the 1980s anymore, and I think most schools realize that they'd be better off in the long run by sticking together. The extra negotiating power would seriously bite into the margins that ESPN/Fox are earning off CFB/CBB.

The problem is that it requires about 20-30 of the top schools to stick together at all costs. Otherwise ESPN will figure out who it can overpay to kill the whole system. For example, they're currently overpaying Texas for the Longhorn Network in order to preserve the current status quo.

Why would that many schools stick together at all costs? I doubt they could even agree on whether to be paid equally or who would get more money than the others. It's one thing to persuade Ohio State to grudgingly share with schools like Purdue and Minnesota who have been their conference mates for 100 years. It's quite another to persuade them to share equally with Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State.

At most, there might be an alliance between two P5 conferences to jointly negotiate TV deals, but even that would likely fall apart in squabbles over control and the division of money.

Wedge, you make it sound like those schools are coming to the party empty handed just looking to feed at Ohio State's trough. Maybe OSU is currently getting $50 million a year from potentially shared sources while many others are only getting $40 million. But OSU doesn't have to give up anything to bring those others up to $55 million. That would come from better bargaining leverage and efficiency, that would in turn raise OSU's net revenues at the same time. The whole pie would be bigger, so OSU's slice need not be smaller.

Eh. That's the argument Larry Scott used to get USC and UCLA to agree to equal sharing: "You'll make more tomorrow than you're making today, so why not share equally?" But the answer to that is that Ohio State is much more valuable to TV than Purdue, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State, so why shouldn't they be paid accordingly.
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2015 04:43 PM by Wedge.)
02-17-2015 04:43 PM
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Post: #26
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 01:06 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 12:54 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 12:17 PM)ken d Wrote:  They are divided into eight 9-team divisions.

Football drives the bus, but P5 schools aren't going to form football-only conferences. For all-sports conferences, there is a distinct advantage in having 10 or more schools -- not every varsity sport will be played by every team in the conference, so if you have 12, for example, and 4 don't have a women's soccer team, you're still ok because the conference still has 8 soccer teams.

But, since football does drive the bus, there is also little incentive to add 7 or 8 more members to the P5 "club" unless each of them adds at least average value to TV deals.

Why not the P5 getting a bit smaller? The SEC, Big Ten, and ACC already have 14 each. Each could get the same amount of TV money, and split it 12 ways instead of 14, and still have two divisions and the football title game, if each dropped two of their least valuable members.

Another possibility -- which IMO is more likely -- is that the most valuable programs will demand an end to equal TV revenue sharing within the conference, so that Purdue gets a much smaller share than Ohio State, Wazzu gets less than USC, Vandy gets less than Bama, etc.

I take it as a given that, once in the club, you aren't going to get kicked out unless you leave a turd in the punchbowl. And your more likely solution - unequal revenue sharing - is pretty much what the original Big 12 model looked like. How did that work out for them?

By contrast, the most successful model - the Big Ten - took revenue equality further than any other conference. They even had a revenue sharing plan for gate receipts.

The SWC had revenue sharing for gate receipts. It was on the verge of breaking apart, so it changed that, but eventually broke apart anyway.
02-17-2015 05:24 PM
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jrj84105 Offline
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Post: #27
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 04:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Eh. That's the argument Larry Scott used to get USC and UCLA to agree to equal sharing: "You'll make more tomorrow than you're making today, so why not share equally?" But the answer to that is that Ohio State is much more valuable to TV than Purdue, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State, so why shouldn't they be paid accordingly.
I think the answer to that is very clearly that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Schools like tOSU have more added value than Purdue, but most of the value is really in college football as a whole, not in the individual teams.

The value of the whole is largely based on providing access to the greatest number of people, and our professional leagues find the best financial balance between providing access and diluting the product at about 30 teams each. College football's numbers are probably a little higher due to the number of historically elite teams outside of major population centers or in overlapping population centers (and those schools outside of major population centers have some of the most avid fans). Maximum profitability for college football is probably somewhere around 40-50 schools in a single league.

Coincidentally, if you put the B1G in the driver's seat, there just over 30 AAU/P5 schools and an additional ~5-10 P5 schools with academic profiles similar to the AAU members. Some of the SEC powerhouses are outside the B1G's brand profile, but the B1G could basically capture the rest, reinforce its brand, and operate like a professional league while hitting that sweet spot of market saturation without dilution. If the elites are more concerned with profit differential rather than actual profit, it wouldn't work, but I think the professional leagues have set the model for where college sports will go.
02-17-2015 06:47 PM
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ken d Offline
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Post: #28
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 04:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 02:59 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I think your overall idea of one big entity negotiating with ESPN has some merit. This isn't the 1980s anymore, and I think most schools realize that they'd be better off in the long run by sticking together. The extra negotiating power would seriously bite into the margins that ESPN/Fox are earning off CFB/CBB.

The problem is that it requires about 20-30 of the top schools to stick together at all costs. Otherwise ESPN will figure out who it can overpay to kill the whole system. For example, they're currently overpaying Texas for the Longhorn Network in order to preserve the current status quo.

Why would that many schools stick together at all costs? I doubt they could even agree on whether to be paid equally or who would get more money than the others. It's one thing to persuade Ohio State to grudgingly share with schools like Purdue and Minnesota who have been their conference mates for 100 years. It's quite another to persuade them to share equally with Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State.

At most, there might be an alliance between two P5 conferences to jointly negotiate TV deals, but even that would likely fall apart in squabbles over control and the division of money.

Wedge, you make it sound like those schools are coming to the party empty handed just looking to feed at Ohio State's trough. Maybe OSU is currently getting $50 million a year from potentially shared sources while many others are only getting $40 million. But OSU doesn't have to give up anything to bring those others up to $55 million. That would come from better bargaining leverage and efficiency, that would in turn raise OSU's net revenues at the same time. The whole pie would be bigger, so OSU's slice need not be smaller.

Eh. That's the argument Larry Scott used to get USC and UCLA to agree to equal sharing: "You'll make more tomorrow than you're making today, so why not share equally?" But the answer to that is that Ohio State is much more valuable to TV than Purdue, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State, so why shouldn't they be paid accordingly.

Are they being paid more now by the Big Ten than Purdue or Minnesota? Part of OSU's value derived from belonging to a conference that had more value as a group than its members would have had on their own. Is that philosophically any different if the conference were much larger in size?

I might feel differently if the purpose of intercollegiate athletics were to make bigger profits by winning more often. I don't think you will find any university presidents who would say that is one of the goals for their school. Is there no amount of money that is more than an athletic program really needs to meet its legitimate goals? If any school is at or above such an amount, it's the Buckeyes.
02-17-2015 06:50 PM
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Post: #29
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 12:33 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  The winning formula these days is a conference composed mostly of the big public, research flagship/Landgrant that represent statewide audiences across an entire Megaregion with as little redundancy within the footprint as possible.

The B1G and SEC do this best. The B12 does this worst.

UConn:

1) big (sort of ... 29,000 including grad students)
2) research (yes, and growing exponentially)
3) flagship (absolutely)
4) land grant (yes, plus sea grant & space grant)
5) statewide audience (definitely)
6) mega region (NYC, southern New England)
7) little redundancy (slight overlap in NYC metro area w/Rutgers & Syracuse, but they own a top 25 market with Hartford/Springfield/New Haven)
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2015 11:11 PM by UConn-SMU.)
02-17-2015 07:59 PM
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Post: #30
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
UConns issue isn't wether or not they are a P5 type candidate.

The issue is room in a P5 conference that will take them.

The ACC is out for political reasons, is the northern schools don't want more BB competition and the southern schools don't want another northern basketball first school dragging down their SOS and ticket sales in FB.

Maybe the B1G is possible but they currently seem uninterested with a non-AAU school in NE
02-17-2015 08:21 PM
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Wedge Offline
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Post: #31
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 06:50 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 04:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 02:59 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I think your overall idea of one big entity negotiating with ESPN has some merit. This isn't the 1980s anymore, and I think most schools realize that they'd be better off in the long run by sticking together. The extra negotiating power would seriously bite into the margins that ESPN/Fox are earning off CFB/CBB.

The problem is that it requires about 20-30 of the top schools to stick together at all costs. Otherwise ESPN will figure out who it can overpay to kill the whole system. For example, they're currently overpaying Texas for the Longhorn Network in order to preserve the current status quo.

Why would that many schools stick together at all costs? I doubt they could even agree on whether to be paid equally or who would get more money than the others. It's one thing to persuade Ohio State to grudgingly share with schools like Purdue and Minnesota who have been their conference mates for 100 years. It's quite another to persuade them to share equally with Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State.

At most, there might be an alliance between two P5 conferences to jointly negotiate TV deals, but even that would likely fall apart in squabbles over control and the division of money.

Wedge, you make it sound like those schools are coming to the party empty handed just looking to feed at Ohio State's trough. Maybe OSU is currently getting $50 million a year from potentially shared sources while many others are only getting $40 million. But OSU doesn't have to give up anything to bring those others up to $55 million. That would come from better bargaining leverage and efficiency, that would in turn raise OSU's net revenues at the same time. The whole pie would be bigger, so OSU's slice need not be smaller.

Eh. That's the argument Larry Scott used to get USC and UCLA to agree to equal sharing: "You'll make more tomorrow than you're making today, so why not share equally?" But the answer to that is that Ohio State is much more valuable to TV than Purdue, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State, so why shouldn't they be paid accordingly.

Are they being paid more now by the Big Ten than Purdue or Minnesota? Part of OSU's value derived from belonging to a conference that had more value as a group than its members would have had on their own. Is that philosophically any different if the conference were much larger in size?

I might feel differently if the purpose of intercollegiate athletics were to make bigger profits by winning more often. I don't think you will find any university presidents who would say that is one of the goals for their school. Is there no amount of money that is more than an athletic program really needs to meet its legitimate goals? If any school is at or above such an amount, it's the Buckeyes.

OK, now you're talking about what you think Ohio State should want, instead of what they probably actually want. My guess is that the people making their athletic/financial decisions are much closer to Gordon Gekko than Mother Teresa.

And if the Buckeyes already have enough, then the status quo is fine for them and they need no further realignment at all.
02-17-2015 10:08 PM
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Post: #32
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
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02-17-2015 10:32 PM
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Post: #33
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
I don't think equal revenue sharing from media contracts means that things are anywhere close to actually being equal.

These athletics programs are really nothing more that marketing endeavors for the universities, and although revenue is a big part of the picture, ultimately positive exposure and a perception of excellence are what the athletic budgets are meant to deliver.

The tOSU's and USC's of CFB may share media revenue equally with conference mates, but they aren't the schools filling the 9PM Thursday kickoff time slot on the conference network while Purdue is playing at 3PM on ABC on Saturday. Even with equal revenue sharing, the elite schools are getting a disproportionate share of the exposure that is really the rationale for the whole system. So I don't think equal media contract payouts are the altruistic sacrifice that's they're being made out to be.
02-18-2015 12:02 AM
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Post: #34
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
stupid
02-18-2015 08:43 AM
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Post: #35
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-18-2015 12:02 AM)jrj84105 Wrote:  I don't think equal revenue sharing from media contracts means that things are anywhere close to actually being equal.

These athletics programs are really nothing more that marketing endeavors for the universities, and although revenue is a big part of the picture, ultimately positive exposure and a perception of excellence are what the athletic budgets are meant to deliver.

The tOSU's and USC's of CFB may share media revenue equally with conference mates, but they aren't the schools filling the 9PM Thursday kickoff time slot on the conference network while Purdue is playing at 3PM on ABC on Saturday. Even with equal revenue sharing, the elite schools are getting a disproportionate share of the exposure that is really the rationale for the whole system. So I don't think equal media contract payouts are the altruistic sacrifice that's they're being made out to be.

No one in the Big Ten is playing many Thursday night games.

2014 starting times of Purdue home games:
noon Saturday vs WMU
noon Saturday vs CMU
7:30 Saturday vs Notre Dame (neutral site in Indianapolis)
noon Saturday vs Southern Illinois
noon Saturday vs Iowa
3:30 Saturday vs MSU
noon Saturday vs Wisconsin
noon Saturday vs Northwestern

2014 start times of Ohio State home games:
8:00 Saturday vs Virginia Tech
noon Saturday vs Kent State
6:00 Saturday vs Cincinnati
3:30 Saturday vs Rutgers
8:00 Saturday vs Illinois
noon Saturday vs Indiana
noon Saturday vs Michigan

Most Big Ten fans I know would say that Purdue got the better scheduling times this year. (for some reason Big Ten fansl seem to prize earlier start times, while UC fans prefer late start times).
02-18-2015 01:05 PM
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ken d Offline
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Post: #36
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 10:08 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 06:50 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 04:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  
(02-17-2015 03:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Why would that many schools stick together at all costs? I doubt they could even agree on whether to be paid equally or who would get more money than the others. It's one thing to persuade Ohio State to grudgingly share with schools like Purdue and Minnesota who have been their conference mates for 100 years. It's quite another to persuade them to share equally with Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State.

At most, there might be an alliance between two P5 conferences to jointly negotiate TV deals, but even that would likely fall apart in squabbles over control and the division of money.

Wedge, you make it sound like those schools are coming to the party empty handed just looking to feed at Ohio State's trough. Maybe OSU is currently getting $50 million a year from potentially shared sources while many others are only getting $40 million. But OSU doesn't have to give up anything to bring those others up to $55 million. That would come from better bargaining leverage and efficiency, that would in turn raise OSU's net revenues at the same time. The whole pie would be bigger, so OSU's slice need not be smaller.

Eh. That's the argument Larry Scott used to get USC and UCLA to agree to equal sharing: "You'll make more tomorrow than you're making today, so why not share equally?" But the answer to that is that Ohio State is much more valuable to TV than Purdue, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Boston College, Wazzu, or Oklahoma State, so why shouldn't they be paid accordingly.

Are they being paid more now by the Big Ten than Purdue or Minnesota? Part of OSU's value derived from belonging to a conference that had more value as a group than its members would have had on their own. Is that philosophically any different if the conference were much larger in size?

I might feel differently if the purpose of intercollegiate athletics were to make bigger profits by winning more often. I don't think you will find any university presidents who would say that is one of the goals for their school. Is there no amount of money that is more than an athletic program really needs to meet its legitimate goals? If any school is at or above such an amount, it's the Buckeyes.

OK, now you're talking about what you think Ohio State should want, instead of what they probably actually want. My guess is that the people making their athletic/financial decisions are much closer to Gordon Gekko than Mother Teresa.

And if the Buckeyes already have enough, then the status quo is fine for them and they need no further realignment at all.

Collectively, I'd guess the university presidents would probably be more like Gordon Gee than Gordon Gecko. Frankly, I think the status quo would be just fine by OSU. The problem is, few believe the status quo will hold, so everybody is planning their preemptive strikes. That's likely to be very destabilizing, and the outcome could be much worse than what we have now.

But what if schools like OSU decide they are worth more than their league members, and decide to strike out on their own? Picture this: A 13 team league, consisting of Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU from the SEC, Florida State and Notre Dame from the ACC, Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12, Ohio State and Wisconsin from the Big Ten, and USC and Oregon from the PAC.

They play a full 12 game round robin, then have an 8 team playoff and declare the winner the national champion. They keep all the money for themselves. How much would ESPN pay for that, and what would be left over for everybody else?
02-18-2015 01:41 PM
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Post: #37
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 12:01 PM)ken d Wrote:  I propose a 72 member conference that shares TV, bowl and tournament revenues equally. Let it negotiate with the Mouse from a position of ultimate strength.

We basically already have that - it's called the G5. For practical purposes, the CFP treats the G5 as one giant conference.
02-18-2015 01:45 PM
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Post: #38
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 12:01 PM)ken d Wrote:  For most of college football's existence, teams got together with peer institutions in their region to play as (mostly) friendly rivals. They formed conferences to support their mutual self-interest. Most of the money came from ticket sales and boosters. Then TV happened. Many schools continued along much as they had before. But at least one, and gradually everyone, came to realize that TV was the new game, and the game was on.

The Big Ten has arguably been the most successful at this new game. I believe they were the first to use the language of business to describe the game they were playing. Jim Delaney talked often about how hard they had worked to "build their brand". He saw they were winning this game, and he was very active in both promoting the brand and expanding its reach. Even when they were not the best on the field, they continued to succeed at the negotiating table.

Some folks, myself included, are beginning to think the game has gotten out of hand at its highest level. I would hope that some of the leaders of these primarily academic institutions would welcome a paradigm shift that would restore some of the balance between athletics and academics before it is hopelessly too late (if it isn't already).

I would love to see the pursuit of media riches change from being a competitive, eat or be eaten battle to the death. Especially because a single dominant network like ESPN gets fabulously rich when there are numerous conferences fighting with each other to get the best deal, while the losers have to settle for Fox. Conferences have expanded by realizing they improve their negotiation position when they are bigger. So why not stop competing with each other and cooperate instead?

I propose a 72 member conference that shares TV, bowl and tournament revenues equally. Let it negotiate with the Mouse from a position of ultimate strength. The P5 revenues are already relatively close, and far in excess of what most of their members really need to operate their athletic programs. Just think how much overhead could be reduced with a mega-merger.

Who knows? Maybe some of that money could be used to support academics.

I say we should all swallow our pride, declare the Big Ten the winner of the game we've been playing, and start a new, different game.

The NFL is a single entity that negotiates the TV deal on behalf of all teams. So the concept definitely has an advantage over separate conferences negotiating only for their own teams.

Obviously you couldn't call the new co-op league the "(Really) Big Ten". But perhaps the National Collegiate Football League (NCFL) would work.
02-18-2015 04:59 PM
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MplsBison Offline
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Post: #39
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-17-2015 12:17 PM)ken d Wrote:  Here are my 72 teams. They are divided into eight 9-team divisions. They are listed in order of each schools average attendance over the past 4 years. The average attendance for each proposed division is in parentheses after the division name.

Pacific (49,315)
USC, Washington, UCLA, Oregon, Cal, Stanford, Oregon St, San Diego St, Washington St

Southwest (50,661)
Oklahoma, BYU, Texas Tech, Arizona St, Oklahoma St, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Boise St

Prairie (57,014)
Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Iowa St, Kansas State, Illinois. Minnesota, Kansas, Northwestern

East (66,842)
Michigan, Ohio St, Penn State, Michigan St, Purdue, Rutgers, Indiana, Maryland, UConn

Northeast (44,466)
Notre Dame, Kentucky, Louisville, Cincy, West Virginia, Pitt, Syracuse, BC, Wake Forest

Atlantic (52,623)
Clemson, FSU, Va Tech, NC State, UNC, Miami, Ga Tech, Virginia, Duke

Southeast (73,658)
Alabama, Tenn, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, S. Carolina, ECU, UCF, Vanderbilt

Central (66,991)
Texas, LSU, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Missouri, Miss St, Ole Miss, Baylor, TCU

Here is where I disagree with you.

Conferences will want to save some sense of pride and tradition. So why not simply break up into 7 team divisions along conference divisions lines? In other words, B1G West, B1G East, etc.

I think retaining some semblance of that conference tradition will trump trying to package the divisions as geographically neatly as possible.

Each PAC division could add one more and each XII division could add two more. One of those adds obviously has to be Notre Dame. But from there, those last five spots will be an intense battle.

Each team in a particular division plays all six of its division mates (3/3 home/away). Then do something clever with the remaining six games (play a team in another division that finished the same division rank last year, cross-division rivalry games, etc.)


Of course, I can guarantee that the rest of the G5 teams that are left out of this sweet deal will come charging headlong with a fat lawsuit. There are still plenty of G5 teams left that can get their senator's ear. So you might have to include the entire G5 in the party.
(This post was last modified: 02-18-2015 05:10 PM by MplsBison.)
02-18-2015 05:01 PM
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Post: #40
RE: If 24 teams is a megaconference, what would you call this?
(02-18-2015 04:59 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  The NFL is a single entity that negotiates the TV deal on behalf of all teams.

The NFL is indeed a single entity, but colleges collectively negotiating TV deals would be a loose hodgepodge of schools with vastly different agendas, finances, program strengths, and levels of fan support. The Jacksonville Jaguars have far more in common with the Patriots and the Cowboys than Ohio University football does with Ohio State football. Some people wish that all colleges fielding sports teams are (or should be) on the same footing and have the same interests and goals, but wishing doesn't make it so.
02-18-2015 05:51 PM
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