Could the PAC look at adding Texas and Rice to go to 14?

Rice is getting more competitive with the new 35 million dollar football building and is located directly in Houston, a better market location than Texas Tech or Baylor.

The two best academic schools in Texas are UT and Rice so I could see PAC presidents more likely to go for it.

I am bumping my Pure Speculation thread.

Consider the challenges the PAC 12 is having monetizing the value out of their conference network.

Consider the challenges Texas is going through.

(09-16-2015 02:35 PM)chess Wrote:  I am bumping my Pure Speculation thread.

Consider the challenges the PAC 12 is having monetizing the value out of their conference network.

Consider the challenges Texas is going through.

Forget Texas for any expansion candidate. Nobody wants a headache right now with the Longhorns.

If we're talking big moves then moving Stanford, Cal, USC and UCLA to the BIG seems as likely as anything else. That moves make sense in terms of academics, media markets and of course $$$. It would create a national conference that may be more attractive the SEC and complete control of the Rose Bowl etc

Jackson

(09-16-2015 02:54 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  If we're talking big moves then moving Stanford, Cal, USC and UCLA to the BIG seems as likely as anything else. That moves make sense in terms of academics, media markets and of course $$$. It would create a national conference that may be more attractive the SEC and complete control of the Rose Bowl etc

You get around the exit fees by inviting enough members for full dissolution of the PAC, reducing redundant small markets.

West: Washington, Oregon, Cal, Furd, USC, UCLA, ASU, UA
Central: Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, NW, ILL
East: Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, RU, UMD

Bump it up to 30 later with KU, Mizzou, UT, OU, UVA, UNC

West: UW, UO, Cal, Furd, USC, UCLA, ASU, UA, UU, CU
Central: KU, Mizzou, UT, OU, Neb, Iowa, MN, Wisconsin, NW, ILL
East: Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, RU, UMD, UVA, UNC

(03-06-2015 09:21 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(03-06-2015 08:37 PM)chess Wrote:  The markets are "Texas", "Southern Cal", "UCLA", "Stanford", and "California" wishing to make more revenue that their current contracts will justify. They are the power players like Ohio State, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Michigan are power players.

Creating a new conference may allow them to sidestep their current limitations.

but lets look at reality

if SMU brings that "market" why are they not in the Big 12 VS TCU.....and if you were looking for the "dfw market" why would you add a program that is not doing well over the recent long haul VS the one that did very well in a G5 conference and got invited to a P5 conference and has done well in their 3rd year in that conference.....well you wouldn't do that

and if Houston delivered the Houston market then why is Houston not in aP5 conference and more importantly to use the own opinions of Houston against them......if A&M is "taking" the Houston market from "da bevoz confernced" (as an idiot would call it) well why in the hell is UH letting A&M "take/own" "their market"......well because it is NOT THEIR MARKET and THEY DO NOT DELIVER IT and more importantly the idea that all of the people running around in UT shirts (or OU or Texas Tech or anyone else) is suddenly tossing those in the trash and buying an A&M shirt (instead of a UH shirt for some reason) is dramatically over stated ad over blown

it is simply NOT A FACTOR to get a barely warm body in a "market" and try and make claim to that market and to believe that all of the sudden fans that have cheered for a team for a long time will suddenly abandon that team

good to know you have not been arrested yet....STAY HOME IT IS COLD AND WINTERY OUT!

If you take half the schools and effectively make it clear to the entire viewing audience that due to the structure of the playoff, these schools have ZERO chance to ever get into the playoff---its really the height of stupidity to point their way and say---"Look, they get lower TV ratings than the P5." Duh. Ya think? If you structurally eliminated all the eastern teams from the NFL playoffs---would you be surprised if tv ratings and attendance then fell in the east. Oh, and don't forget, just for grins, you'd also go ahead and largely eliminate games with teams that ARE eligible for the playoffs. NO way that would have an effect on ratings and attendance long term....

Texas has been eliminated from the playoffs for just a couple of years (due simply to being crappy---not because of any structural reason) and already the fanbase is eroding. Texas has 10K fewer season tickets sold and their tv ratings have declined significantly. Imagine if they had been structurally eliminated from ANY chance at the playoff---regardless of how many games they won---since the early 1990's. What would that fanbase look like after 2 decades? Well, that's the exact head wind that every G5 faces.

Despite being told over and over their teams cannot possibly ever be in the playoff because their SOS is insufficient-----regardless of how many games they win---G5 fans still continue to buy tickets, show up at their stadiums, and watch their teams on TV. Given that dismal reality, its amazing ANYONE shows up to G5 games. Yet, despite the fact that their teams are eliminated from playoff contention before the first kickoff, G5 fans still show up---perhaps making them the most loyal college football fans in the nation (or the most foolish, depending on how cynical you happen to be).

As far as this thread goes, I think the Pac-12 has to expand east. They wont dump anyone---conferences don't do that. Besides, I think the Pac-12 presidents like the company they currently keep. For any eastward expansion to really be financially successful---it must enter the Texas market. Obviously, the Pac-12 wants the University of Texas to be the vehicle that gives them access to the state and until that possibility is completely eliminated, they will not move on to plan B. That said, a plan B using Houston and SMU would likely work fairly well for the Pac-12's purpose----it just wouldn't be a prestigious as getting UT. The Big-10 is already reaping profits from Rutgers and Maryland, the UH+SMU move would work similarly. The fact is games featuring UH vs UCLA/Arizona/Utah/USC are going to be far more interesting to the Houston/Texas market than UH vs ECU/Temple/USF/Tulsa. The Pac-12 can make money off that fact---but its clearly not going to be their plan A.

(09-16-2015 02:46 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(09-16-2015 02:35 PM)chess Wrote:  I am bumping my Pure Speculation thread.

Consider the challenges the PAC 12 is having monetizing the value out of their conference network.

Consider the challenges Texas is going through.

Forget Texas for any expansion candidate. Nobody wants a headache right now with the Longhorns.

If by "nobody", you meant the other 4 P5 conferences would take them in a nanosecond, you'd be correct

(03-16-2015 01:06 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  Could the PAC look at adding Texas and Rice to go to 14?

Rice is getting more competitive with the new 35 million dollar football building and is located directly in Houston, a better market location than Texas Tech or Baylor.

The two best academic schools in Texas are UT and Rice so I could see PAC presidents more likely to go for it.

To me that is the likely compromise they would end up making. UT with LHN just does not make sense in the PAC. It makes sense in the ACC. That likely means moving some schools with Fox t-3 deals over to the PAC. I could see KU, KSU, OU, OSU, TT, and Rice going to the PAC. They get a nice package of well funded AD's, rabid fanbases, national brands in FB and BB, higher rates for PACN in Texas, Central time zone content, and the Texas academic version of Stanford. That's likely a pretty easy sell to presidents.

That sends UT as a partial along with WVU, ISU, Baylor, and TCU to the ACC or possibly WVU and TCU to the SEC or ISU and UConn to the B1G.. Conference is blown up, no lawsuits. TV partners are happy.

(03-10-2015 09:18 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-10-2015 07:30 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  BaylorGuy if we are a decade down the road and the economic model is essentially the same on the academic side and athletic side minor moves is the safest bet in the world.

But take JR's hypothesis, which I mostly buy into, that the underlying academic funding model is poised for major disruption and that disruption results in athletics becoming a direct funding source for the university to maintain or increase their budget, the dynamic of realignment changes dramatically.

If college athletics ever becomes that lucrative -- i.e., makes enough money to not only pay for itself but to give tens of millions every year to the university general fund at most P5 schools -- then there will be a big shakeout.

But then (as we've discussed on this board before), the most obvious first move is contraction, not expansion. How much TV money would the SEC make if they could find a way to kick out Vanderbilt and Mississippi State? Or if the Big Ten booted Purdue and Northwestern? As much as they were making already, and they'd get to split that money 12 ways instead of 14. If distributed conference revenue is $420 million/year (slightly less than what the Big Ten projects it will be making under its next TV deal), then a two-school contraction increases each remaining school's take by $5 million/year. If TV rights experience NFL-like growth and conference revenue becomes twice that, then two-school contraction gives the remaining 12 an extra $10 million a year. That's a greater per-school increase than any P5 conference could get from expansion, even if they added Texas and no one else, let alone if they make any other addition.

Obviously you could increase TV revenue even more (and cut out more of the relatively less-valuable programs) by creating some kind of superduperconference, e.g., cherry-picking six teams from the Big Ten and six from the SEC, but that would be more disruptive to traditional rivalries/relationships and, more importantly, would inflict a whole lot of extra football losses on teams that are used to counting on annual wins against the weaker brethren in their current leagues.

Or if you really want to think outside the box and go full Gordon Gekko, the CFB powers could cash in (and share the money only amongst themselves) by borrowing the Champions League idea from European fútbol. Each team could play a limited football schedule (say, 6 games/year) in their current conference and use the balance of their games to play a CFB Champions League in which the top 2 or 3 teams from each P5 league would compete amongst each other. Each season would have separate titles for conference champs and Champions League champs.

But when you push it as far as some of these ideas, you get back to what the P5 commissioners fear -- the more you make CFB and men's BB look like cash cows, the harder it becomes to avoid paying the athletes as employees and to avoid paying taxes on athletic revenues.

I only want to point out, that barring a change in the setup of college football, if you remove the least valuable teams from a conference, or the "worst teams," a near equal number of teams will take their place as the bad teams. Unless you drastically reduce the number of conference games, on a 12 team conference, 3-4 teams will suck, no matter who they are. If you remove KY, Vandy, Miss and Ole Miss from the SEC, for example, then South Carolina, Arkansas, and probably Missouri will soon suck year in and year out. Just as an example.

(09-16-2015 06:04 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  I only want to point out, that barring a change in the setup of college football, if you remove the least valuable teams from a conference, or the "worst teams," a near equal number of teams will take their place as the bad teams. Unless you drastically reduce the number of conference games, on a 12 team conference, 3-4 teams will suck, no matter who they are. If you remove KY, Vandy, Miss and Ole Miss from the SEC, for example, then South Carolina, Arkansas, and probably Missouri will soon suck year in and year out. Just as an example.

Dropping the lowest-value programs is not about wins and losses on the football field, it's about having an athletic market value far below that of the average conference member, such that removing #13 and #14 and splitting the pie 12 ways is a lot more lucrative per-member than splitting it 14 ways.

Or, maybe the next move will be unequal revenue sharing, which is much easier to implement. Instead of kicking out the programs with lowest athletic market value, just cut their conference revenue share and pay more to the programs whose value really drives the TV deals, and/or pay more to the teams at the top of the conference standings and less to those at the bottom. (IIRC, Premier League splits TV money based in part on the final league standings for the season.)

Wins and losses, over the long term, affect value. Can you name a team who historically is a loser, who's among the most valuable programs today?

(09-16-2015 06:51 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  Wins and losses, over the long term, affect value. Can you amen a team who historically is a loser who's among the most valuable programs today?

There's no connection between that and what I'm suggesting. Taking two teams out of any 14-team league would have little or no effect on the W-L records of the most valuable programs today. Ohio State isn't going to become a perennial 6-6 team just because they have to play Illinois more often after Purdue gets the boot. Alabama isn't going to become a perennial 6-6 team if they play South Carolina more often after Vandy leaves.

Now if you made the top 25 college football teams over the last 10 years play each other exclusively, then some perennial winners would win much less often. But that is nowhere near what I suggested.

(09-16-2015 06:51 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  Wins and losses, over the long term, affect value. Can you amen a team who historically is a loser who's among the most valuable programs today?

Nope

(09-16-2015 06:51 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  Wins and losses, over the long term, affect value. Can you name a team who historically is a loser, who's among the most valuable programs today?

South Carolina

So, the Big XII is earning $9.4 less than the SEC schools.

(03-06-2015 09:21 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(03-06-2015 08:37 PM)chess Wrote:  The markets are "Texas", "Southern Cal", "UCLA", "Stanford", and "California" wishing to make more revenue that their current contracts will justify. They are the power players like Ohio State, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Michigan are power players.

Creating a new conference may allow them to sidestep their current limitations.

but lets look at reality

if SMU brings that "market" why are they not in the Big 12 VS TCU.....and if you were looking for the "dfw market" why would you add a program that is not doing well over the recent long haul VS the one that did very well in a G5 conference and got invited to a P5 conference and has done well in their 3rd year in that conference.....well you wouldn't do that

and if Houston delivered the Houston market then why is Houston not in aP5 conference and more importantly to use the own opinions of Houston against them......if A&M is "taking" the Houston market from "da bevoz confernced" (as an idiot would call it) well why in the hell is UH letting A&M "take/own" "their market"......well because it is NOT THEIR MARKET and THEY DO NOT DELIVER IT and more importantly the idea that all of the people running around in UT shirts (or OU or Texas Tech or anyone else) is suddenly tossing those in the trash and buying an A&M shirt (instead of a UH shirt for some reason) is dramatically over stated ad over blown

it is simply NOT A FACTOR to get a barely warm body in a "market" and try and make claim to that market and to believe that all of the sudden fans that have cheered for a team for a long time will suddenly abandon that team

good to know you have not been arrested yet....STAY HOME IT IS COLD AND WINTERY OUT!

I don't think capturing a market is black and white...it's a percentage of viewers in that market.

Houston and Rice don't traditionally move the needle much in Houston....it's primarily a pro sports town. I certainly haven't seen a Big XII or SEC flag located here...

Houston is making waves though, and for sure they're getting more attention in town. A conference with solid P5 opponents coming to town would definitely improve that, and you'd see Houston interest and viewership (as well as recruiting) start competing more with Texas, A&M, and LSU alums here.

Houston is so big, just capturing a portion of that would be worthwhile for a college sports network. That's why Rutgers is in the B1G 10...They don't capture ALL of NYC per se, but just getting your foot in the door is enough to gain a pretty signficant boost

(03-06-2015 07:59 PM)chess Wrote:  This thread is pure speculation and nothing more.

With the Pac 12 significantly generating less revenue compared to the Big Ten and SEC, could we see some movement by some schools to create more revenue?

What if schools like Texas, Southern Cal, UCLA, Stanford, and California formed the core of a new conference?

The conference could be fleshed out like this-

Texas, Houston, SMU, Oklahoma, Arizona, Arizona State, Southern Cal, UCLA, Stanford, California, Oregon, Washington

Consider what I am suggesting- The proposed conference does not have Washington State, Oregon State, Utah, and Colorado. The addition of Houston (a school that Texas wishes to be a tier one research school like UCLA) does not impact the Big XII but could negatively impact Texas A&M. The addition of SMU is a highly regarded academic school that does not impact the Big XII.

What I am suggesting is a rigging of the population centers of the West and Southwest to create a new conference that may be able to demand the same kind of revenue that the SEC and Big Ten enjoy.

Could the power conferences start eating their own?

Oklahoma and Texas have more incentive IMO to go east....

I don't know what will happen to the PAC 12......if the B1G grew big enough, they could invite the Cali schools, and maybe Colorado and Oregon.

The PAC-16 idea was generally a good idea, but it failed....what do they do now? Getting into Texas is crucial for them IMO....

(02-25-2016 12:28 PM)EvilVodka Wrote:  

(03-06-2015 07:59 PM)chess Wrote:  This thread is pure speculation and nothing more.

With the Pac 12 significantly generating less revenue compared to the Big Ten and SEC, could we see some movement by some schools to create more revenue?

What if schools like Texas, Southern Cal, UCLA, Stanford, and California formed the core of a new conference?

The conference could be fleshed out like this-

Texas, Houston, SMU, Oklahoma, Arizona, Arizona State, Southern Cal, UCLA, Stanford, California, Oregon, Washington

Consider what I am suggesting- The proposed conference does not have Washington State, Oregon State, Utah, and Colorado. The addition of Houston (a school that Texas wishes to be a tier one research school like UCLA) does not impact the Big XII but could negatively impact Texas A&M. The addition of SMU is a highly regarded academic school that does not impact the Big XII.

What I am suggesting is a rigging of the population centers of the West and Southwest to create a new conference that may be able to demand the same kind of revenue that the SEC and Big Ten enjoy.

Could the power conferences start eating their own?

Oklahoma and Texas have more incentive IMO to go east....

I don't know what will happen to the PAC 12......if the B1G grew big enough, they could invite the Cali schools, and maybe Colorado and Oregon.

The PAC-16 idea was generally a good idea, but it failed....what do they do now? Getting into Texas is crucial for them IMO....

Concerning the Big Ten inviting Pac 12 schools- This may be a possibility. Schools like Southern Cal, UCLA, Stanford, and California are not going to be lost on a network that can't get on television and making significantly less dollars than the Big Ten and SEC.

With speculation like this and adding enough schools- The Big Ten could replace the NCAA as the governing body for member schools.