(06-22-2022 09:29 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:13 AM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  9-12

It all depends on the conference and what they want to accomplish.

Agree.

Question to those who think 9-12 is the optimal number: Why is it that 3 P5 conferences have 14 members and that 2 G5 conferences have decided to expand to 14 members? Was that not optimal from their standpoint?

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I don't think any conference set out to get to 14 members out of some sense that this is an "ideal" number. In fact, I believe they went to 14 for purely financial reasons, despite the fact that it's an inherently less than ideal number. They went to 14 (or more) because a media partner offered them more money to do so.

My personal preference - what I would view as "ideal" - is that it provide an opportunity to play every conference member every year, and have the same number of home games and away games every year so no member is disadvantaged by an unbalanced schedule. The only number that does that for both football and basketball and still leaves room for playing OOC rivals and other attractive matchups is nine.

A conference championship game is unnecessary and serves no purpose other than generating more cash. While that purpose is compelling, it doesn't fit my idea of "ideal". The SEC didn't grow to 12 in order to hold a CCG, they grew to 12 and then realized they could monetize that. But if you are going to be larger than nine, then 12 is probably the next best.

(06-22-2022 10:55 AM)topper1296 Wrote:  My vote is for 9-12. 14 or more is way too big (CUSA learned this lesson and the SBC is about to). You have to split up the revenue pie into too many pieces (this matters more for G5 conferences than P5 conferences) and you don't get to play teams from the other division very often.

I dont think SBC is doing the exact same thing as CUSA.

Per school payout is guaranteed by ESPN.
Scheduling will be focused within respective East/West divisions.
Tighter geographical footprints and less travel costs among eastern schools and western schools.
Familiarity and regional rivalries within 7 Eastern teams. Same for 7 Western teams.

In fact if WKU + 1 more school is interested, and ESPN stays a willing partner, I dont see why SBC cant go 16. Essentially two groups of 8 schools in a big happy family.

(06-22-2022 01:30 PM)Crayton Wrote:  26.6 teams. That way 5 champs and 3 at larges go to the playoff.

(06-22-2022 06:12 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  I dont think SBC is doing the exact same thing as CUSA.


Scheduling will be focused within respective East/West divisions.

How is this different than what CUSA did? Despite what your new Thundering Herd friends are telling you, the 14 team CUSA had two geographically based divisions, too.

(06-22-2022 03:33 PM)Chappy Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 02:46 PM)Crayton Wrote:  From a fan perspective, playing the same 8 teams (ala a single round-robin) is not fun. Give me variety… but still give me a fair shot at a conference title.

See, I like facing the same 8 teams every year in football. Familiarity breeds rivalry.

The Gators play 8 teams every year. I only care about 2 being annual. Play 4 of the other 6 (if that) and add 2 more top flight southeastern US opponents.

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:28 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 11:06 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Any even number, as long as all the conferences are at the same size.

That's an interesting answer.

Questions:

Why is "an even number" better than an odd?

Why "as long as all the conferences are at the same size?"

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Even number of teams means all can play at the same time in-conference.

This is why God gave us bye weeks.

9. 4 conference home games and 4 conference away games. 11 is the right number for total games, so you have 3 OOC games and 8 conference games.

12 regular season games and conference championship games are just there for revenue.

(06-22-2022 09:27 PM)72Tiger Wrote:  9. 4 conference home games and 4 conference away games. 11 is the right number for total games, so you have 3 OOC games and 8 conference games.

12 regular season games and conference championship games are just there for revenue.

It has long been known that it is extremely boring to play exactly the same conference schedule, year after year after "same old, same old" year!

The Big Ten teams' schedules are a lot more interesting now than they were when they played exactly the same schedule year after year, ad nauseum.

(06-22-2022 08:52 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 06:12 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  I dont think SBC is doing the exact same thing as CUSA.


Scheduling will be focused within respective East/West divisions.

How is this different than what CUSA did? Despite what your new Thundering Herd friends are telling you, the 14 team CUSA had two geographically based divisions, too.

Our ADs explained the SBC expansion had specific scheduling plans in mind to play mostly within divisions to drive up regional interests.

I heard there were a lot of cross country trips to Texas.

(06-22-2022 09:18 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:28 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 11:06 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Any even number, as long as all the conferences are at the same size.

That's an interesting answer.

Questions:

Why is "an even number" better than an odd?

Why "as long as all the conferences are at the same size?"

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Even number of teams means all can play at the same time in-conference.

This is why God gave us bye weeks.

And when you're forced to use bye weeks or OOC games to fill in the gaps in your conference schedule, that's not an ideal scenario.

According to Notre Dame fans, one.

(06-22-2022 09:44 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:18 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:28 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 11:06 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Any even number, as long as all the conferences are at the same size.

That's an interesting answer.

Questions:

Why is "an even number" better than an odd?

Why "as long as all the conferences are at the same size?"

.

Even number of teams means all can play at the same time in-conference.

This is why God gave us bye weeks.

And when you're forced to use bye weeks or OOC games to fill in the gaps in your conference schedule, that's not an ideal scenario.

Ok, why is it less than ideal to fill in the gaps in conference schedule with bye weeks or OOC games?

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(06-22-2022 10:30 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:44 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:18 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:28 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  That's an interesting answer.

Questions:

Why is "an even number" better than an odd?

Why "as long as all the conferences are at the same size?"

.

Even number of teams means all can play at the same time in-conference.

This is why God gave us bye weeks.

And when you're forced to use bye weeks or OOC games to fill in the gaps in your conference schedule, that's not an ideal scenario.

Ok, why is it less than ideal to fill in the gaps in conference schedule with bye weeks or OOC games?

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It's awkward scheduling for one. Also, you've got a situation in rivalry week where someone goes without a conference rival. There are reasons why leagues generally try to aim for an even number of football members. It so happens that because they want to play 8 conference games a year, having 9 teams works for CUSA, but that doesn't make 9 an empirical ideal.

(06-22-2022 11:07 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 10:30 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:44 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:18 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Even number of teams means all can play at the same time in-conference.

This is why God gave us bye weeks.

And when you're forced to use bye weeks or OOC games to fill in the gaps in your conference schedule, that's not an ideal scenario.

Ok, why is it less than ideal to fill in the gaps in conference schedule with bye weeks or OOC games?

.

It's awkward scheduling for one. Also, you've got a situation in rivalry week where someone goes without a conference rival. There are reasons why leagues generally try to aim for an even number of football members. It so happens that because they want to play 8 conference games a year, having 9 teams works for CUSA, but that doesn't make 9 an empirical ideal.

Ok. I didn't even realize that "rivalry week" was a thing, nationally. There are teams, such as Michigan, that have two major rivalries (OSU & MSU), so they have two "rivalry week(s)." In addition, there are teams that don't have a major rival that they play every year, so if it is national, it's not universal.

As far as bye weeks are concerned, it seems like their introduction, in and of itself, was probably a good thing, for a variety of reasons. Of course, bye weeks only work for the sport as a whole - from a viewership standpoint - because they are staggered across teams. Psychologically speaking, the week off probably builds viewership demand to a certain extent, by reducing the supply of games to watch.

I grew up as a huge Big Ten fan during my playing years growing up, but after a few years, I started to get really bored with the same old Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois games every single year. I have become much more of a G5 than a P5 fan since then, having moved from the midwest, but if I still lived there, I would find it easier to be a Big Ten fan and would like the option of watching the home team play Penn State or Nebraska each year instead of Northwestern and Illinois, for example.

Thus, if I still were a Big Ten fan, I would consider their expansion to 14 to be a positive, and I would be in favor of seeing them expand to 16 to match the SEC. If I had my druthers, I would like to see them add Missouri and a team such as Pittsburgh.

p.s. btw, Maryland and Rutgers weren't great football additions from the perspective of the original Big Ten fans, but Maryland was a fine basketball addition.

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(06-22-2022 11:24 AM)Troy_Fan_15 Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 10:55 AM)topper1296 Wrote:  My vote is for 9-12. 14 or more is way too big (CUSA learned this lesson and the SBC is about to). You have to split up the revenue pie into too many pieces (this matters more for G5 conferences than P5 conferences) and you don't get to play teams from the other division very often.

The Sun Belt will have a better deal in place for 14 teams than C-USA did and so it shouldn't be as bad. The loss in revenue of having 14 vs 12 is counter-balanced by the fact there are less airport trips and more bus trips.

I think SBC have money if they add 2 more teams. Missouri State is one of them. Chattanooga could be the other. Both schools could help bump the mens basketball up.

(06-22-2022 11:07 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 10:30 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:44 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 09:18 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Even number of teams means all can play at the same time in-conference.

This is why God gave us bye weeks.

And when you're forced to use bye weeks or OOC games to fill in the gaps in your conference schedule, that's not an ideal scenario.

Ok, why is it less than ideal to fill in the gaps in conference schedule with bye weeks or OOC games?

.

It's awkward scheduling for one. Also, you've got a situation in rivalry week where someone goes without a conference rival. There are reasons why leagues generally try to aim for an even number of football members. It so happens that because they want to play 8 conference games a year, having 9 teams works for CUSA, but that doesn't make 9 an empirical ideal.

The even-numbered 14 team CUSA didn't really do rivalry week because they didn't have 7 sets of rivals. But if we're being ideal here, I guess we're also assuming the ideal makeup of teams (each of whom will have at least one rival)?

I don't think it's a big deal to have a bye week. This is a non-factor for me.

(06-23-2022 03:28 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 11:24 AM)Troy_Fan_15 Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 10:55 AM)topper1296 Wrote:  My vote is for 9-12. 14 or more is way too big (CUSA learned this lesson and the SBC is about to). You have to split up the revenue pie into too many pieces (this matters more for G5 conferences than P5 conferences) and you don't get to play teams from the other division very often.

The Sun Belt will have a better deal in place for 14 teams than C-USA did and so it shouldn't be as bad. The loss in revenue of having 14 vs 12 is counter-balanced by the fact there are less airport trips and more bus trips.

I think SBC have money if they add 2 more teams. Missouri State is one of them. Chattanooga could be the other. Both schools could help bump the mens basketball up.

Give me La Tech & WKU. Both have good basketball and already are FBS. Plus they have existing rivalries/potential rivals in the SBC. It’s a win/win. The other 2 can take their spot in the C-USA.

Nine is great for football but not for basketball, because you’re looking at 16 conference games when everyone else is at 18 or 20, making OOC scheduling trickier.

10 is great for basketball but in football you either lose the round robin or an OOC date with nine games

11 is great provided that a) your conference is good enough that 20 basketball games does its teams more harm than good and b) you don’t have 11 football members

Anything above 11 obviously kills the RR but might still be the best option depending on how the geography works with scheduling, or if you take the A10 approach of improving the core sport by any means necessary.

In the end it depends on what’s important to you

(06-22-2022 09:01 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  8 is actually the minimum for FBS, that is to say, 8 full members have to sponsor the sport—affiliates can’t be counted towards the total. It’s in essence the “Big East Rule” due to their hybrid 4-full, 4 affiliate model in the early 90s.

In the final year of FBS WAC football (for now) we had 7. I assume there was a waiver situation going on.

I've said this elsewhere in CUSA expansion discussions, but I think I'd rather lose a team and go to 8 than add any realistic option and go to 10 (but naturally would prefer sticking with 9 for now to either).

(06-22-2022 05:50 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  And having all conferences the same size satisfies my OCD.

(06-23-2022 08:42 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Nine is great for football but not for basketball, because you’re looking at 16 conference games when everyone else is at 18 or 20, making OOC scheduling trickier.

Nerdlinger solved that problem. If everyone is at 9, there are plenty of OOC games to go around.