(07-16-2016 01:01 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: (07-15-2016 11:44 PM)hawghiggs Wrote: (07-15-2016 01:37 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: (07-14-2016 10:33 PM)hawghiggs Wrote: I think we could be in for a major upheaval in conference affiliation soon. Allowing conferences to have a championship game with 10 members was huge. What happens if the number gets tweaked again to say 8 or 9 members? What if the playoff does get expanded. The need to be in a mega-conference will quickly decrease not increase.
I think that ship has sailed.
1. The money is too great in larger leagues. The smaller your league, the smaller your financial outlook.
2. As odd as it may sound, the Big 12's ability to host a championship game didn't make the conference more stable. Deregulation of the requirements for CCGs was more about giving other leagues freedom to play with their alignments. Allowing a situation where the Big 12 could make a little extra money without having to expand actually makes the league more likely to disband in the future. The reason being that they don't have to re-up on a new contract to get more money. The current GOR is still in place.
3. The playoff won't be expanded anytime soon. I don't think the tail would wag the dog. We'd have to move to 7 or 8 leagues first before they really consider expanding the playoff.
1, Only because of the current TV model. But that seems to be quickly changing. As more people switch to a Sling TV type network. The funding for large conference will dry up. But to be fair. It will dry up for smaller ones also.
2, The Big 12 has always been unstable. It was from the get go. The Big 8 was basically forced to expand for a championship game.
3. The playoff will expand after the first cycle. Which will be in about 10 years.
1. The model as it stands does rely on non-viewing subscribers, but other than that I don't things will change too much. Live content will still be valuable to OTA networks and good ad rates will follow. The biggest difference will be that there won't be as many cable subs to subsidize budgets. We don't necessarily know that a streaming service won't provide just as much money though.
Anyway, the bigger the footprint the more potential viewers a league will have so the fundamental dynamics wouldn't change too much.
2. I know the league has been unstable, but my point was that if a smaller league like the Big 12 isn't inherently more stable than the others then the odds of the trend back to smaller leagues occurring is very small. If the Big 12 is going to have trouble then what makes us think the others wouldn't be in the same boat?
3. It's possible, but if the Big 12 goes away in 6 years and we get a de facto champs only playoff then the Power leagues aren't going to have much of an incentive to expand. That's especially true if we continue down the road of concussions and head injuries steering feelings on scheduling and participation rates. Especially if we end up adding conference semis then there's going to come a saturation point where people won't want more games.
That's all true. But, there is another reason we won't be revisiting smaller conferences, overhead. To pay the corporate salaries, the maintenance on office space, the cost of ancillary staff, etc., is just to much of a burden for fewer schools. The hidden inducement to larger conferences is in the elimination of duplicated expense and the lowering of overall costs.
In that regard two divisions of eight (or two small regional conferences) operating under one umbrella is more efficient.
This is why in 2012 I posted the 3 x 20 model (and I think a 3 x 24) here in a conversation with Omniorange to address what was the impossible division of the Big 12. I still think it has applications although I don't think we are going to jump to it next.
The idea is to group three major conferences more geographically and to try to balance them as much as is practical competitively.
The easy way to accomplish this has always been to send 8 Big 12 schools to the PAC (enough to dissolve the conference) and 6 ACC schools to the Big 10 and SEC respectively.
If you want to include the B.Y.U.'s, Connecticut's, Cincinnati's, etc. then we just add enough of the 4 remaining P schools and strong regional G5 schools, or service academies if they change their mins and want inclusion, to get to 24.
Army, Navy, Connecticut, and Air Force to the Big 10 along with Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse, Notre Dame, North Carolina State and Virginia Tech.
Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Duke take the SEC to 20. Add Miami, West Virginia, Louisville, and T.C.U. to the SEC to make 24.
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and the PAC's compromise Baylor gives them 20. Then they can B.Y.U., either Nevada or U.N.L.V., New Mexico, and either San Diego State / Hawaii, or Boise to get to 24.
Now you have 3 more regionally located conferences with enough schools to have very regional divisions and inclusive of roughly the top 72 programs in investment in athletics. There are enough top programs and enough mid level programs to provide balanced competition and they would be close enough to keep it more economical for all.
So here we are 4 years later and nothing is resolved and the real issues (those of economics) have not really been addressed.
I would still be a fan of something like this:
One Major Conference of 4 Divisions of 8 Schools Each: 7 Divisional Games, 1 Permanent Rival, 4 Rotational Conference Games
Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Miami, South Carolina
Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
Arkansas, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech
