(05-28-2020 09:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: Assuming the entire P5 (and Notre Dame) breakaway to start: that's the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, PAC and SEC (65 teams) for football. Anything more than 80 teams in this new football set-up does not really maximize revenue, so, in theory, you have a cap of an additional 15-teams (80 max), for football purposes. ...
Maximizing revenue
for whom???
Start with the ACC, Big12, Big Ten, PAC and SEC.
Now, in terms of football revenues FOR those conference, what does it cost those conferences to add the AAC? Basically, nothing. The MWC? Nothing. CUSA? Nothing. How about strapping on the entire Funbelt? Nothing. Even a bit of MACtion? Nothing.
The SEC is getting it's FB money. If the media value of FB goes it, it will find a way to keep on doing so. Ditto the Big Ten. Adding the AAC doesn't cut the FB revenues of the SEC or the Big Ten at all. That's why we have the "FBS", after all.
The reason why the whole system is organized to keep down the number of conferences while allowing the lower conferences to keep promoting a trickle of new Division 1 schools and lower tier FBS conferences to promote a trickle of FCS schools is because the name of the game is not giving up more auto-bids to schools who would never get an at-large bid.
The pot of money is the BASKETBALL tournament money that is being funneled into keeping the entire NCAA system afloat.
Round the tourney revenues down to $800m for simplicity. 30% goes into the participant pool, so $240m. The first table I see is a bit long in the teeth at 2007-2012, but for back of the envelope old & real beats made up, so 10% ACC, 11% Big12, 11% Big Ten, 8% PAC-12, and 8% SEC, so 48%. It'll be higher 2012-2019, I'm sure, but round that to 50%, or $120m.
Suppose that the new "American Collegiate Athletics Association", ACAA takes 20% of tourney media revenue to pay the bills, and 80% is distributed, and a 64 school tournament drops down to 9-10 conferences ... even with 4 fewer entries, that is 8 more at large spots.
For simplicity, suppose they end up in the hands of the P5, that's up from 50% of 30% of $800m, or $120m ...
... to 62.5% of 80% of $800m, which is $400m
... an increase of $280m.
(And if it's actually presently 62.5% and it bumps it to 75%, that's $150m to $480m, which is an increase of $330m, so even better.)
And if the value of the tourney grows, the P5 would continue to gain the lion's share of the media value, rather than an agent's commission.
But only if the media value of the tournament is maintained. Adding conferences that add more to the perceived media value of the conference than they will cost the P5 in tournament shares would be the "revenue maximization".
It's pretty much immaterial how much money they are worth as Football conferences, since each football conference eats what it kills.