(10-22-2019 06:16 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: I think there needs to be a 10 P5 scheduling standard across the major conferences. I’d be interested to see what % of P5 vs G5/FCS games were won by the P5 by 14 points or more. There’s just too many pointless massacres out there
The issue here Muskie, for every conference, is the TV contracts. Every time one is negotiated you have to have a bargaining chip to secure any kind of a raise and the Commissioner's rely upon this to keep AD's happy.
As fans we want to see 10P games. AD's want the larger crowds because it makes the local merchants happy, it pleases donors, and the only ones it makes antsy are the coaches.
But the simple truth is almost every conference barters those kinds of perks to the networks judiciously.
I think it is one reason no conference jumped to 16 schools. Right now we are getting a bump with additions. With divisions that means you had to add two to keep things balanced for scheduling. So we went from 10 to 12, from 12 to 14, and likely will move to 16 next time around. Now with the Boomers exiting being part of the demographics after 2030 we may see more movement sooner rather than later.
So nobody's giving the networks 10P games until after they make additions. If they don't make additions they'll sell a 9th conference game first, or a 2nd OOC P game to move to 10. And they'll keep doing this dance until they are all P games but that won't happen until after the Spring Game is moved to August and becomes a pre-season game.
Now that latter move pleases local merchants because an August pre season game will be the guaranteed 7th home game, it will be played at night because of the heat of the day, and that means the hotels get booked, the restaurants filled, and bookstores sell a ton of team crap before the season really gets started. So I think this will eventually happen.
If we add 2 more schools by 2024-5 then this gets bumped back 6 to 10 years because if you give the networks too much at once you don't glean as much out of them. So AD's and commissioners aren't going to jump to the end game. They are going to milk it concession by concession.
But I don't think there's much left to barter. 2 additions is one. 10 P games is another. And with the movement of the Spring Game to a pre-season game (which helps networks in the dead weeks of August) then it paves the way for 12 P games. So the next three contract periods will probably put us there, but it's not happening all at once. And it has nothing to do with what fans want. It has everything to do with how the schools can optimize each media renewal.