(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  ....
As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.
....

Some clarification would be helpful here, I think. Millennials, now the most numerous generation, are not 'Gen Z.' They are Gen Y (the one after X) and heading into their 40s. Gen Z, aka 'zoomers,' are their kids—the generation filling college campuses now.

Millennials worldwide stand to become the wealthiest generation in history over the next twenty years via inherited properties. It's fair to say that, thanks to their dominating numbers, their tastes already drive entertainment. In the near future we can expect this influence to increase as they grow more affluent and advertisers grow correspondingly more eager to reach them.

Though millennials have a reputation for being less interested in live sports than the two generations before them, recent research reveals little change in their actual level of interest. What's different is how millennials watch. This has led their sports viewing activity to be undercounted.

Their kids, though, born in this century, truly are less interested. Zoomers have an ongoing appetite for online content of all sorts, though, and often follow sports after they engage with athletes online. They love e-sports. This generation is also exceptionally principled about treating men's and women's athletics the same—a priority that media content providers remain years behind.

(03-04-2024 03:42 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 10:36 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:32 AM)djsuperfly Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:28 AM)esayem Wrote:  This is true for the Big Ten, but I believe the SEC has a handful of pro-rata additions baked into their contract.

Pro-rata additions just make sure the existing schools don't lose money; they don't necessarily increase money for those same schools, though.

Right. At the same time, eventually each of those schools need to pay for themselves in the long-term. The Big Ten took Washington and Oregon because their studies showed that they would ultimately add value in the long-term (so the fact that they are being paid partial revenue shares initially is just a bonus for the Big Ten). Matt Brown and others have indicated this in their reporting. In contrast, the Big Ten didn’t take Stanford and Cal even though the league would have been temporarily fine financially with the deal that Stanford/Cal took with the ACC (with a *vastly* reduced share) because it was determined that those schools wouldn’t be able to pay for themselves as equal members in the future.

Right, and eventually the market will inform the Big Ten that Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern etc do not pay for themselves because the conference has over expanded.

What the market is telling the B1G today is “you’re doing a LOT better than the ACC”. Perhaps you guys should be taking notes from your glass house instead of throwing Stones from it.

Oh, sorry. I guess I am not allowed to survey the landscape.

I've broken it down plenty of times as to why the ACC doesn't have the same media payouts and it comes down to lack of t-shirt fans.

(03-04-2024 04:18 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  ....
As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.
....

Some clarification would be helpful here, I think. Millennials, now the most numerous generation, are not 'Gen Z.' They are Gen Y (the one after X) and heading into their 40s. Gen Z, aka 'zoomers,' are their kids—the generation filling college campuses now.

Millennials worldwide stand to become the wealthiest generation in history over the next ten years via inherited properties. It's fair to say that, thanks to their dominating numbers, their tastes already drive entertainment. In the near future we can expect this influence to increase as they grow more affluent and advertisers grow correspondingly more eager to reach them.

Though millennials have a reputation for being less interested in live sports than the two generations before them, recent research reveals little change in their actual level of interest. What's different is how millennials watch. This has led their sports viewing activity to be undercounted.

Their kids, though, born in this century, truly are less interested. Zoomers have an ongoing appetite for online content of all sorts, though, and often follow sports after they engage with athletes online. They love e-sports. This generation is also exceptionally principled about treating men's and women's athletics the same—a priority that media content providers remain years behind.

And that I'm sure is cited accurately but the data is clap trap. Boomers are where they are financially in part because of their parents who owed nothing and owned outright pretty much everything they possessed. They were never broad users of consumer credit. Boomers are only where they are because they are likely the last generation to retire with pensions and they inherited enough from mom and pop to cover their keep up with the Joneses lavish lifestyle (as compared to previous generations). Gen X has NET debt like the Boomers, but has had less upward mobility than their parents and tended to have fewer children. They inherited and will inherit less than Boomers (when adjusted for inflation) and they will use that to pay down debt and provide for retirement. I'm sure Millennials will inherit a lot of accumulated wealth, but they have a lot personal debt. My in laws were WWII generation and my father in law a Veteran. They lived in the first home they bought until their deaths. They paid 13,000 for it in 1961. The home know appraises for 270,000 but the lot upon which it sits is worth nearly a half million if a new home were constructed upon it. They left 1/4 million to charity 30% more to 3 grandchildren, the home to my wife, and a rental they had purchased to their son. What they prepared for was nursing home insurance, something my parents did not. My parents may have had twice as much as they did, but half as much left to my mom who is still very vibrant at nearly 90.

Nursing home expense runs over 6,000 a month.

In the 1980's corporations bought into 3 businesses. Hospitals, Nursing Homes/Assisted Care, and Funeral Homes. They were positioning to take a cut from the dying WWII generation. They will hold those positions until the Boomers have passed and by the time Millennials are in advanced years they figure to have most of the wealth once in middle class hands. And they will have gotten it through debt accrued in life as each generation ages, has children, educates those children and buys them transportation and then are soaked in old age with the millennial generation lousy when it comes to their health and life insurance positions, let alone their end-of-life insurance needs.

I call this clap trap because in my years spent helping people with their finances as one of many hats I wore in nonprofit, the amount inherited may look accurate and impressive until adjusted for inflation, reduced by personal debt held, and projected into an end of life which is more controlled by hospitals and nursing homes than ever before.

Rosy pictures are great for their investors, but the reality is each subsequent generation has less than the one before it when you factor in inflation, debt, and insurances needed to stave off end of life expenses. The average funeral is between 14 and 15 thousand dollars if you haven't prepaid and bought your plots. Insurance for Nursing Home and Assisted Living will run you over 1000 a month if you wait until you are nearing retirement to buy it. Wait until you are in your late 60's and it's a lot more, sometimes approaching 3,000 a month in your 70's. If you have a parent in nursing care who has 500,000 in savings and no insurance and they live 10 years your family is 220,000 in debt when they die, or they are put in a facility which takes government assistance (which while fine by me, is appalling to many). Personally, I'd rather go Deep Sea Fishing and just not come home.

So Gitanole, if schools are assuaging themselves with these giddy numbers, I'd say take a more sober long term look at the siphons in place on those inheritances, because what will remain after the issues they face daily take their toll will be much less optimistic, and that is by design.

(03-04-2024 04:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 04:18 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  ....
As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.
....

Some clarification would be helpful here, I think. Millennials, now the most numerous generation, are not 'Gen Z.' They are Gen Y (the one after X) and heading into their 40s. Gen Z, aka 'zoomers,' are their kids—the generation filling college campuses now.

Millennials worldwide stand to become the wealthiest generation in history over the next ten years via inherited properties. It's fair to say that, thanks to their dominating numbers, their tastes already drive entertainment. In the near future we can expect this influence to increase as they grow more affluent and advertisers grow correspondingly more eager to reach them.

Though millennials have a reputation for being less interested in live sports than the two generations before them, recent research reveals little change in their actual level of interest. What's different is how millennials watch. This has led their sports viewing activity to be undercounted.

Their kids, though, born in this century, truly are less interested. Zoomers have an ongoing appetite for online content of all sorts, though, and often follow sports after they engage with athletes online. They love e-sports. This generation is also exceptionally principled about treating men's and women's athletics the same—a priority that media content providers remain years behind.

And that I'm sure is cited accurately but the data is clap trap. Boomers are where they are financially in part because of their parents who owed nothing and owned outright pretty much everything they possessed. They were never broad users of consumer credit. Boomers are only where they are because they are likely the last generation to retire with pensions and they inherited enough from mom and pop to cover their keep up with the Joneses lavish lifestyle (as compared to previous generations). Gen X has NET debt like the Boomers, but has had less upward mobility than their parents and tended to have fewer children. They inherited and will inherit less than Boomers (when adjusted for inflation) and they will use that to pay down debt and provide for retirement. I'm sure Millennials will inherit a lot of accumulated wealth, but they have a lot personal debt. My in laws were WWII generation and my father in law a Veteran. They lived in the first home they bought until their deaths. They paid 13,000 for it in 1961. The home know appraises for 270,000 but the lot upon which it sits is worth nearly a half million if a new home were constructed upon it. They left 1/4 million to charity 30% more to 3 grandchildren, the home to my wife, and a rental they had purchased to their son. What they prepared for was nursing home insurance, something my parents did not. My parents may have had twice as much as they did, but half as much left to my mom who is still very vibrant at nearly 90.

Nursing home expense runs over 6,000 a month.

In the 1980's corporations bought into 3 businesses. Hospitals, Nursing Homes/Assisted Care, and Funeral Homes. They were positioning to take a cut from the dying WWII generation. They will hold those positions until the Boomers have passed and by the time Millennials are in advanced years they figure to have most of the wealth once in middle class hands. And they will have gotten it through debt accrued in life as each generation ages, has children, educates those children and buys them transportation and then are soaked in old age with the millennial generation lousy when it comes to their health and life insurance positions, let alone their end-of-life insurance needs.

I call this clap trap because in my years spent helping people with their finances as one of many hats I wore in nonprofit, the amount inherited may look accurate and impressive until adjusted for inflation, reduced by personal debt held, and projected into an end of life which is more controlled by hospitals and nursing homes than ever before.

Rosy pictures are great for their investors, but the reality is each subsequent generation has less than the one before it when you factor in inflation, debt, and insurances needed to stave off end of life expenses. The average funeral is between 14 and 15 thousand dollars if you haven't prepaid and bought your plots. Insurance for Nursing Home and Assisted Living will run you over 1000 a month if you wait until you are nearing retirement to buy it. Wait until you are in your late 60's and it's a lot more, sometimes approaching 3,000 a month in your 70's. If you have a parent in nursing care who has 500,000 in savings and no insurance and they live 10 years your family is 220,000 in debt when they die, or they are put in a facility which takes government assistance (which while fine by me, is appalling to many). Personally, I'd rather go Deep Sea Fishing and just not come home.

So Gitanole, if schools are assuaging themselves with these giddy numbers, I'd say take a more sober long term look at the siphons in place on those inheritances, because what will remain after the issues they face daily take their toll will be much less optimistic, and that is by design.

College football is not going to decline no matter the demographics. Are there challenges? Of course, but people of all ages still love football. People love seeing crowded, full stadiums of hyper intense fans. Football is the number one sport in the US, and it is not even close. College football is growing and expanding. You can bet against it if you want, but plenty of invests are going all-in college football right now, damn the demographics.

(03-04-2024 09:18 PM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 04:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 04:18 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  ....
As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.
....

Some clarification would be helpful here, I think. Millennials, now the most numerous generation, are not 'Gen Z.' They are Gen Y (the one after X) and heading into their 40s. Gen Z, aka 'zoomers,' are their kids—the generation filling college campuses now.

Millennials worldwide stand to become the wealthiest generation in history over the next ten years via inherited properties. It's fair to say that, thanks to their dominating numbers, their tastes already drive entertainment. In the near future we can expect this influence to increase as they grow more affluent and advertisers grow correspondingly more eager to reach them.

Though millennials have a reputation for being less interested in live sports than the two generations before them, recent research reveals little change in their actual level of interest. What's different is how millennials watch. This has led their sports viewing activity to be undercounted.

Their kids, though, born in this century, truly are less interested. Zoomers have an ongoing appetite for online content of all sorts, though, and often follow sports after they engage with athletes online. They love e-sports. This generation is also exceptionally principled about treating men's and women's athletics the same—a priority that media content providers remain years behind.

And that I'm sure is cited accurately but the data is clap trap. Boomers are where they are financially in part because of their parents who owed nothing and owned outright pretty much everything they possessed. They were never broad users of consumer credit. Boomers are only where they are because they are likely the last generation to retire with pensions and they inherited enough from mom and pop to cover their keep up with the Joneses lavish lifestyle (as compared to previous generations). Gen X has NET debt like the Boomers, but has had less upward mobility than their parents and tended to have fewer children. They inherited and will inherit less than Boomers (when adjusted for inflation) and they will use that to pay down debt and provide for retirement. I'm sure Millennials will inherit a lot of accumulated wealth, but they have a lot personal debt. My in laws were WWII generation and my father in law a Veteran. They lived in the first home they bought until their deaths. They paid 13,000 for it in 1961. The home know appraises for 270,000 but the lot upon which it sits is worth nearly a half million if a new home were constructed upon it. They left 1/4 million to charity 30% more to 3 grandchildren, the home to my wife, and a rental they had purchased to their son. What they prepared for was nursing home insurance, something my parents did not. My parents may have had twice as much as they did, but half as much left to my mom who is still very vibrant at nearly 90.

Nursing home expense runs over 6,000 a month.

In the 1980's corporations bought into 3 businesses. Hospitals, Nursing Homes/Assisted Care, and Funeral Homes. They were positioning to take a cut from the dying WWII generation. They will hold those positions until the Boomers have passed and by the time Millennials are in advanced years they figure to have most of the wealth once in middle class hands. And they will have gotten it through debt accrued in life as each generation ages, has children, educates those children and buys them transportation and then are soaked in old age with the millennial generation lousy when it comes to their health and life insurance positions, let alone their end-of-life insurance needs.

I call this clap trap because in my years spent helping people with their finances as one of many hats I wore in nonprofit, the amount inherited may look accurate and impressive until adjusted for inflation, reduced by personal debt held, and projected into an end of life which is more controlled by hospitals and nursing homes than ever before.

Rosy pictures are great for their investors, but the reality is each subsequent generation has less than the one before it when you factor in inflation, debt, and insurances needed to stave off end of life expenses. The average funeral is between 14 and 15 thousand dollars if you haven't prepaid and bought your plots. Insurance for Nursing Home and Assisted Living will run you over 1000 a month if you wait until you are nearing retirement to buy it. Wait until you are in your late 60's and it's a lot more, sometimes approaching 3,000 a month in your 70's. If you have a parent in nursing care who has 500,000 in savings and no insurance and they live 10 years your family is 220,000 in debt when they die, or they are put in a facility which takes government assistance (which while fine by me, is appalling to many). Personally, I'd rather go Deep Sea Fishing and just not come home.

So Gitanole, if schools are assuaging themselves with these giddy numbers, I'd say take a more sober long term look at the siphons in place on those inheritances, because what will remain after the issues they face daily take their toll will be much less optimistic, and that is by design.

College football is not going to decline no matter the demographics. Are there challenges? Of course, but people of all ages still love football. People love seeing crowded, full stadiums of hyper intense fans. Football is the number one sport in the US, and it is not even close. College football is growing and expanding. You can bet against it if you want, but plenty of invests are going all-in college football right now, damn the demographics.

Well two plus two isn't 5. Demographics are somewhat against it but culturally speaking it will remain popular for the foreseeable future. We were discussing however wealth dynamics. It is not favorable for the middle class. Corporations control the perks and have used them to eliminate a lot of private business which once competed with them by product knowledge and service. The wealth drain is real at multiple levels, employment opportunities, competitive pricing, in food, supplies, building materials, and end of life matters. It will impact college sports. But as long as there is a need for public distraction football will remain as this era's bread and circuses. You'll know it's gone when it disappears at the high school level where in the SE and SW it is still quite viable. Nationally it is in decline already. Make no mistake it is diminishing.

So less upward mobility in the work force, inflation, and rising insurance and health care products are squeezing people in all decades of their lives. And the nonsense added to vehicles making a pickup truck cost what Jaguar once did and transportation costs compounded by fuel costs are all combining to squeeze the middle class. And much of it is deliberately manipulated. Why? To sap your family and any inheritance it might receive. Of all the decades of my life, I despise the events of this one the most.

(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 10:19 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 10:02 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:10 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 02:59 AM)JRsec Wrote:  At 18? No.

At 20? No.

At 24? Yes. But likely only in the SEC. North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State, Virginia, and Virginia Tech will move to any better paying conference which would take all 5.

The Big 10 if it wants to make a reasonable and money saving move to divisions of 6 with a conference of 24 simply wouldn't have enough slots. The SEC would.

The SEC would still have a slot for a second Florida school and it wouldn't matter that much if it was FSU or Miami. They would still have room for a needed 6th Western school in Kansas. And could then decide between Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Louisville. With Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, and Virginia in hand the need for Louisville wouldn't be that great. Georgia Tech is a very nice academic addition, but not particularly strong in any sport and lagging in revenue production and with Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, and Georgia drawing from the Atlanta market adding Clemson would bring another football value multiplier and also pick up a bit of the Atlanta market. I think Clemson would be #8.

But 24 members is the size that must be attained for this to happen at all.

You have been including Kansas in your SEC expansionsion hypothticals for a few weeks consistently. Now you have also added Duke, which is in part more likely in that either Duke and Kansas both get invited or neither gets invited. Either basketball matters, or in their cases, big brand basketball matters, or it doesn't. It probably doesn't. If that is true, nothing else that makes them advantageous to the SEC matters either.

We all adjust details to fit the landscape, but JR has been steadfast for a long time about three things:
1. Kansas is a plus for the SEC
2. A second Florida school is desired by the SEC
3. We can expect big changes happening faster than many have expected
3a. This includes anything about the ACC that has the year '2036' printed on it

If you see a JR expansion scenario that doesn't mention Kansas to the SEC, call the FBI. Kidnappers are posting from his account.

JR has literally wriiten thousands of scenarios, some with Kansas, some without.

And why would I have written thousands of scenarios over 10 years here? I'll remind you that the first ones I wrote were 3 x 20 set ups in which the SEC and Big 10 expanded, the Big 10 out of the PAC 12 and the SEC out of the ACC because those were the two most natural expansions and the Big 12 grew on its own. That has proven to be reasonably accurate. I added Kansas when Texas and Oklahoma came on board. Their total WSJ valuation is second only to Notre Dame's of the remaining schools potentially available due to realignment, and their organic fit with the new SEC West is undeniable.

Kansas entered the picture when Texas and Oklahoma joined, and I always expected Texas and Oklahoma to eventually join because they both have been in talks with the SEC for 30 years or longer and the talks never fully ended. Texas's business model is their top priority and when the SWC succumbed to a death penalty for SMU and only 2 states in its footprint when the subscription pay model was coming into place, Texas made its next best play, a merger of brands with the Big 8 where their chief rival was located, Oklahoma. And why would they do that? It was the next best possible option for their business model (which was to play as many games in the state of Texas as possible. For conference play Texas was out of state once every two years under the SWC. In the Big 12 they had 4 home games 3 teams from Texas to play so 5 or 6 games in Texas plus the buy games annually. They chose the SEC because of proximity and the number of their rivals we possessed. It was the next best choice to the Big 12. And while in the Big 12 Ausitn worked quite amicably with Lawrence. And Kansas fills a need for massive hoops brand to pit against Kentucky.

Internal issues in Birmingham are mostly squabbles handled in house but occasionally they get a structural problem. The structural issue they have right now is lack of access to playing games in Florida because the Gators simply can't accommodate the demands. Simple solution: a second Florida school.

As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.

When court rulings apply to both NIL and employment status it is going to impact both revenue sports. Duke and North Carolina have tremendous brand power, just in the second money sport and not the first. The SEC obviously wants into North Carolina and taking South Carolina to go with Arkansas under Commissioner Kramer, after a larger move failed, was seen as building two bridges, one to Texas and the other to North Carolina. In 2011 after Cunningham had just become UNC's AD they reached out to the SEC in the wake of Maryland's departure to see if in the event further ACC defections happened if UNC and Duke would have a home in the SEC. Slive told them yes. So, if hoops brands are going to be impacted by the same legal forces altering football, and they will, I would assume that consideration is still viable. With the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to Alabama, L.S.U. Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, A&M and Auburn does the SEC need more football brands to max out football revenue? Not really. Could the SEC pick up more revenue by maxing out hoops? Most probably. Therefore, if taking N.C. State lands us North Carolina and Duke, especially if we can pick up at least 1 Virginia school I see a definite lean in this direction. Between North Carolina and Virginia you are adding 20 million plus growth to the SEC reach. A second Florida school double dips that state of 22 million. It is not only a reasonable move to make but a prudent one.

What all of you discount is what happens when the SEC and Big 10 lead a breakaway. Their content becomes the content for networks on Saturdays in an extended Fall Collegiate Season with the expanded playoffs. The schools in those conferences will have the greatest natural draw for audience assembled. CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX 54 will all want games. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FS1 and FS2 will all want games. The SECN and BTN will have at least 2 per weekend. The number of schools in each conference will be determined by the amount of inventory needed to fill all of these slots. If a third conference in the upper tier breakaway is needed due to opt ins that too will have options to fill what the G5 once filled.

ESPN and FOX combining to stream with HULU in one massive sports package is not an accident either.

Football and basketball will combine to keep more revenue for the schools involved with their own playoff and tournament and there is zero danger of a backlash. What's not shown OTA is streamed. Who's in will be everyone who opts in. Who's excluded will be everyone who can't afford pay for play. We'll likely be looking at 60 to 72 schools and quite likely 3 conferences. But the SEC / Big 10 will dominate the OTA time because of the draw. And when football crowns a champ, basketball takes center stage and Kansas, Duke, and North Carolina are 3 of the 4 winningest programs of all time. Kansas is #1 and Kentucky #2. The networks get this even if fans don't.

As to the number of scenarios, those were the permutations foreseeable by me at any given time depending upon the variables in play.

The board is more set now. The variables are fewer, and the top teams on the board in terms of value are #Notre Dame at .928 billion. #2 Kansas at .427 billion, #3 Florida State at .390 billion, #4 Clemson at .380 billion and down from there.

I've always pinned these data sets: Total Revenue Production / Attendance (and it does matter as donations for tickets and ticket sales are still a major source of revenue) / WSJ valuations because it measures the financial impact outside of the school itself upon the businesses within its spere of influence / and TV numbers when I can find a good a source which is tough.

Look at what it is the Big 10 and SEC emphasizes, consider their needs, and if those two picks first the rest falls into place. Realignment & Consolidation is nothing more than product placement to enhance value.

No doubt a big reason my Aggies warmed up the adding Texas a couple years ago: there are only 2 Brands in Texas, 3 of you count OU as far North Texas, and now we have them all. When we go to a 9 game schedule, that will be 9 home games for A&M and Texas plus another 4.5 for OU, it works out to nearly 1 trip to this neck of the woods for every SEC school every year. A 2nd Florida school, preferably FSU but Miami works too, and we’re more like 1.5 trips to texahoma and Florida combined per year. But the real Power move is BOTH FSU and Miami. 3 schools on each end of the SEC, nearly 2 trips per year to Florida/Texahoma on average for everybody, and your fan base (and our media overlords) will get excited for a whole lot of games involving any of those 6 schools.

THAT is the sort of Realignment that everybody can get excited about. I’m still bullish on Clemson and UNC, too, but FSU/Miami would be a bold and smart move for us.

(03-04-2024 03:35 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:25 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:28 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:17 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I’m a pretty big believer that conferences will only expand if they make more money per school for existing members.

At a certain point, math gets in the way.

The financial bar is *higher* for team #20 in the Big Ten and SEC than they were for team #16. Similarly, the bar is higher for team #24 than team #20.

There is no school in history that had more leverage to get whoever it wanted into a conference than Texas. We saw from the emails released in 2010 that they were insisting upon bringing Texas Tech to wherever it moved or else there would be no deal. The then-Pac-10 actually offered that and there were Big 12 schools that actually SIGNED documents to join that league, but Texas eventually backed out.

If Texas ultimately left the Big 12 with only Oklahoma (who is a valuable blue blood in its own right), then I just don’t see how UNC can force anyone to take NC State. I’m not saying that NC State doesn’t have value, but it’s simply not enough to add to the Big Ten or SEC and UNC itself isn’t so overwhelming valuable (in the way that Texas was) for a package deal to make sense.

The collapse of the Pac-12 really showed a LOT: it takes a Washington/Oregon-level brand to add money to the Big Ten (and by extension, the SEC), a combo of large market and elite academics isn’t good enough anymore (or else Stanford and Cal would be in the Big Ten), and there are a bunch of schools that are worth *something* (e.g. the Four Corners schools) but not necessarily enough to include in the Big Ten or SEC.

There are a lot of schools in the ACC that are like the Four Corners and Stanford/Cal, so there are a lot of schools with *some* value. However, I can count on one hand the number of ACC schools with Washington/Oregon-level value (and you’d probably have at least 1 or 2 fingers left over). I think many people vastly overrate the number of ACC schools that add money to the Big Ten/SEC, but paradoxically underrate how many schools have Four Corners-level value (where the ACC would survive even if it lost its 4 most valuable schools).

This is true for the Big Ten, but I believe the SEC has a handful of pro-rata additions baked into their contract.

I strongly agree with Frank here. Is it possible that we both end up with a bunch more schools and a 2 Conference breakaway with 2-tiered payouts? Yes. However, the available evidence today, based upon 30+ years of P5 realignment, tells us that each school must pay their own way and bring the value long term. For a long time there was the Missouri Line, then it was the UCLA line, and now it’s the Washington Line.

If you don’t have a Capital B Brand like Washington, don’t bother calling us, and even if you do, we may or may not ever call you.

You're oversimplifying things here. The Missouri (or Rutgers, Maryland etc) addition was because their market mattered at the time. We're moving away from that.

The fact of the matter is ESPN baked in the flexibility to expand into the SEC's contract without having to open it back up. The Big Ten did not. The SEC doesn't have near the dregs the Big Ten has, so adding a Virginia, Duke, or NC State is not going to send them into a tizzy whether you agree or not.

It’s not about whether I agree, it’s about whether 12 Presidents agree. Good luck getting 12 of them to vote to dilute their own revenues and voting power long term. But maybe SEC Presidents are really Charles Foster Kane at heart, longing for their Rosebuds, instead of the Robber Barons that we all assume them to be.

(03-04-2024 04:23 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:42 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 10:36 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:32 AM)djsuperfly Wrote:  Pro-rata additions just make sure the existing schools don't lose money; they don't necessarily increase money for those same schools, though.

Right. At the same time, eventually each of those schools need to pay for themselves in the long-term. The Big Ten took Washington and Oregon because their studies showed that they would ultimately add value in the long-term (so the fact that they are being paid partial revenue shares initially is just a bonus for the Big Ten). Matt Brown and others have indicated this in their reporting. In contrast, the Big Ten didn’t take Stanford and Cal even though the league would have been temporarily fine financially with the deal that Stanford/Cal took with the ACC (with a *vastly* reduced share) because it was determined that those schools wouldn’t be able to pay for themselves as equal members in the future.

Right, and eventually the market will inform the Big Ten that Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern etc do not pay for themselves because the conference has over expanded.

What the market is telling the B1G today is “you’re doing a LOT better than the ACC”. Perhaps you guys should be taking notes from your glass house instead of throwing Stones from it.

Oh, sorry. I guess I am not allowed to survey the landscape.

I've broken it down plenty of times as to why the ACC doesn't have the same media payouts and it comes down to lack of t-shirt fans.

Yeah, either that or lack of eyeballs on their football games. Tomato/tomahto.

(03-04-2024 10:56 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:35 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:25 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:28 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:17 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I’m a pretty big believer that conferences will only expand if they make more money per school for existing members.

At a certain point, math gets in the way.

The financial bar is *higher* for team #20 in the Big Ten and SEC than they were for team #16. Similarly, the bar is higher for team #24 than team #20.

There is no school in history that had more leverage to get whoever it wanted into a conference than Texas. We saw from the emails released in 2010 that they were insisting upon bringing Texas Tech to wherever it moved or else there would be no deal. The then-Pac-10 actually offered that and there were Big 12 schools that actually SIGNED documents to join that league, but Texas eventually backed out.

If Texas ultimately left the Big 12 with only Oklahoma (who is a valuable blue blood in its own right), then I just don’t see how UNC can force anyone to take NC State. I’m not saying that NC State doesn’t have value, but it’s simply not enough to add to the Big Ten or SEC and UNC itself isn’t so overwhelming valuable (in the way that Texas was) for a package deal to make sense.

The collapse of the Pac-12 really showed a LOT: it takes a Washington/Oregon-level brand to add money to the Big Ten (and by extension, the SEC), a combo of large market and elite academics isn’t good enough anymore (or else Stanford and Cal would be in the Big Ten), and there are a bunch of schools that are worth *something* (e.g. the Four Corners schools) but not necessarily enough to include in the Big Ten or SEC.

There are a lot of schools in the ACC that are like the Four Corners and Stanford/Cal, so there are a lot of schools with *some* value. However, I can count on one hand the number of ACC schools with Washington/Oregon-level value (and you’d probably have at least 1 or 2 fingers left over). I think many people vastly overrate the number of ACC schools that add money to the Big Ten/SEC, but paradoxically underrate how many schools have Four Corners-level value (where the ACC would survive even if it lost its 4 most valuable schools).

This is true for the Big Ten, but I believe the SEC has a handful of pro-rata additions baked into their contract.

I strongly agree with Frank here. Is it possible that we both end up with a bunch more schools and a 2 Conference breakaway with 2-tiered payouts? Yes. However, the available evidence today, based upon 30+ years of P5 realignment, tells us that each school must pay their own way and bring the value long term. For a long time there was the Missouri Line, then it was the UCLA line, and now it’s the Washington Line.

If you don’t have a Capital B Brand like Washington, don’t bother calling us, and even if you do, we may or may not ever call you.

You're oversimplifying things here. The Missouri (or Rutgers, Maryland etc) addition was because their market mattered at the time. We're moving away from that.

The fact of the matter is ESPN baked in the flexibility to expand into the SEC's contract without having to open it back up. The Big Ten did not. The SEC doesn't have near the dregs the Big Ten has, so adding a Virginia, Duke, or NC State is not going to send them into a tizzy whether you agree or not.

It’s not about whether I agree, it’s about whether 12 Presidents agree. Good luck getting 12 of them to vote to dilute their own revenues and voting power long term. But maybe SEC Presidents are really Charles Foster Kane at heart, longing for their Rosebuds, instead of the Robber Barons that we all assume them to be.

Robber Barons were about building monopolies. The SEC and B1G are building monopolies of the top tier of college football programs.

The SEC and B1G will continue to build their respective houses to maximize their overall value. The best of the rest will then join together to claim the title of the third strongest conference, and I bet the group of the next most valuable does the same to claim spot number four.

I find it hard to believe that Texas will have 2 schools in P2

NC & Va will have 5

(03-04-2024 04:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 04:18 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  ....
As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.
....

Some clarification would be helpful here, I think. Millennials, now the most numerous generation, are not 'Gen Z.' They are Gen Y (the one after X) and heading into their 40s. Gen Z, aka 'zoomers,' are their kids—the generation filling college campuses now.

Millennials worldwide stand to become the wealthiest generation in history over the next ten years via inherited properties. It's fair to say that, thanks to their dominating numbers, their tastes already drive entertainment. In the near future we can expect this influence to increase as they grow more affluent and advertisers grow correspondingly more eager to reach them.

Though millennials have a reputation for being less interested in live sports than the two generations before them, recent research reveals little change in their actual level of interest. What's different is how millennials watch. This has led their sports viewing activity to be undercounted.

Their kids, though, born in this century, truly are less interested. Zoomers have an ongoing appetite for online content of all sorts, though, and often follow sports after they engage with athletes online. They love e-sports. This generation is also exceptionally principled about treating men's and women's athletics the same—a priority that media content providers remain years behind.

And that I'm sure is cited accurately but the data is clap trap. Boomers are where they are financially in part because of their parents who owed nothing and owned outright pretty much everything they possessed. They were never broad users of consumer credit. Boomers are only where they are because they are likely the last generation to retire with pensions and they inherited enough from mom and pop to cover their keep up with the Joneses lavish lifestyle (as compared to previous generations). Gen X has NET debt like the Boomers, but has had less upward mobility than their parents and tended to have fewer children. They inherited and will inherit less than Boomers (when adjusted for inflation) and they will use that to pay down debt and provide for retirement. I'm sure Millennials will inherit a lot of accumulated wealth, but they have a lot personal debt. My in laws were WWII generation and my father in law a Veteran. They lived in the first home they bought until their deaths. They paid 13,000 for it in 1961. The home know appraises for 270,000 but the lot upon which it sits is worth nearly a half million if a new home were constructed upon it. They left 1/4 million to charity 30% more to 3 grandchildren, the home to my wife, and a rental they had purchased to their son. What they prepared for was nursing home insurance, something my parents did not. My parents may have had twice as much as they did, but half as much left to my mom who is still very vibrant at nearly 90.

Nursing home expense runs over 6,000 a month.

In the 1980's corporations bought into 3 businesses. Hospitals, Nursing Homes/Assisted Care, and Funeral Homes. They were positioning to take a cut from the dying WWII generation. They will hold those positions until the Boomers have passed and by the time Millennials are in advanced years they figure to have most of the wealth once in middle class hands. And they will have gotten it through debt accrued in life as each generation ages, has children, educates those children and buys them transportation and then are soaked in old age with the millennial generation lousy when it comes to their health and life insurance positions, let alone their end-of-life insurance needs.

I call this clap trap because in my years spent helping people with their finances as one of many hats I wore in nonprofit, the amount inherited may look accurate and impressive until adjusted for inflation, reduced by personal debt held, and projected into an end of life which is more controlled by hospitals and nursing homes than ever before.

Rosy pictures are great for their investors, but the reality is each subsequent generation has less than the one before it when you factor in inflation, debt, and insurances needed to stave off end of life expenses. The average funeral is between 14 and 15 thousand dollars if you haven't prepaid and bought your plots. Insurance for Nursing Home and Assisted Living will run you over 1000 a month if you wait until you are nearing retirement to buy it. Wait until you are in your late 60's and it's a lot more, sometimes approaching 3,000 a month in your 70's. If you have a parent in nursing care who has 500,000 in savings and no insurance and they live 10 years your family is 220,000 in debt when they die, or they are put in a facility which takes government assistance (which while fine by me, is appalling to many). Personally, I'd rather go Deep Sea Fishing and just not come home.

So Gitanole, if schools are assuaging themselves with these giddy numbers, I'd say take a more sober long term look at the siphons in place on those inheritances, because what will remain after the issues they face daily take their toll will be much less optimistic, and that is by design.

The seismic economic shift is a global story. It's not just a US thing.

The fact that millennials stand to inherit as much as 90 trillion dollars in the US alone between now and 2044 is definitely not blinding anyone to the problems that persist. If anything, issues of economic fairness will grow more urgent as the already affluent prove to be those who also inherit the most.

I share the data because this generational transfer of wealth will be an important part of the demographic picture going forward. Millennials are already the most numerous generation in today's population. And in any generation, whether you carry debt or not: when you inherit a house, you notice.

(03-04-2024 09:18 PM)Lurker Above Wrote:  College football is not going to decline no matter the demographics. Are there challenges? Of course, but people of all ages still love football. People love seeing crowded, full stadiums of hyper intense fans. Football is the number one sport in the US, and it is not even close. College football is growing and expanding. You can bet against it if you want, but plenty of invests are going all-in college football right now, damn the demographics.

American football may not be the 'it' sport next century that it is now, but there's every reason to bet that its near future looks good.

The Zoomers (Gen Z) might be the generation that gives it the ice bath. At the moment they're not nearly as interested in football as their parents and grandparents have been.

But it doesn't do to count out human ingenuity. Marketing, like life, finds a way.

(03-04-2024 09:17 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I’m a pretty big believer that conferences will only expand if they make more money per school for existing members.

At a certain point, math gets in the way.

The financial bar is *higher* for team #20 in the Big Ten and SEC than they were for team #16. Similarly, the bar is higher for team #24 than team #20.

There is no school in history that had more leverage to get whoever it wanted into a conference than Texas. We saw from the emails released in 2010 that they were insisting upon bringing Texas Tech to wherever it moved or else there would be no deal. The then-Pac-10 actually offered that and there were Big 12 schools that actually SIGNED documents to join that league, but Texas eventually backed out.

If Texas ultimately left the Big 12 with only Oklahoma (who is a valuable blue blood in its own right), then I just don’t see how UNC can force anyone to take NC State. I’m not saying that NC State doesn’t have value, but it’s simply not enough to add to the Big Ten or SEC and UNC itself isn’t so overwhelming valuable (in the way that Texas was) for a package deal to make sense.

The collapse of the Pac-12 really showed a LOT: it takes a Washington/Oregon-level brand to add money to the Big Ten (and by extension, the SEC), a combo of large market and elite academics isn’t good enough anymore (or else Stanford and Cal would be in the Big Ten), and there are a bunch of schools that are worth *something* (e.g. the Four Corners schools) but not necessarily enough to include in the Big Ten or SEC.

There are a lot of schools in the ACC that are like the Four Corners and Stanford/Cal, so there are a lot of schools with *some* value.However, I can count on one hand the number of ACC schools with Washington/Oregon-level value (and you’d probably have at least 1 or 2 fingers left over). I think many people vastly overrate the number of ACC schools that add money to the Big Ten/SEC, but paradoxically underrate how many schools have Four Corners-level value (where the ACC would survive even if it lost its 4 most valuable schools).

agree ND, NC, FSU, Va, Clemson/UM. take your pick from those and you are done.
Those are also perfect to get Big/Sec up to 20 each.
B12 gets Pitt, Nc State, Vt, plus one for 20.

(03-04-2024 11:07 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 04:23 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:42 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 10:36 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 09:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right. At the same time, eventually each of those schools need to pay for themselves in the long-term. The Big Ten took Washington and Oregon because their studies showed that they would ultimately add value in the long-term (so the fact that they are being paid partial revenue shares initially is just a bonus for the Big Ten). Matt Brown and others have indicated this in their reporting. In contrast, the Big Ten didn’t take Stanford and Cal even though the league would have been temporarily fine financially with the deal that Stanford/Cal took with the ACC (with a *vastly* reduced share) because it was determined that those schools wouldn’t be able to pay for themselves as equal members in the future.

Right, and eventually the market will inform the Big Ten that Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern etc do not pay for themselves because the conference has over expanded.

What the market is telling the B1G today is “you’re doing a LOT better than the ACC”. Perhaps you guys should be taking notes from your glass house instead of throwing Stones from it.

Oh, sorry. I guess I am not allowed to survey the landscape.

I've broken it down plenty of times as to why the ACC doesn't have the same media payouts and it comes down to lack of t-shirt fans.

Yeah, either that or lack of eyeballs on their football games. Tomato/tomahto.

lol the ACC still garners millions of viewers. It’s all relative. I love the elitist attitude because your favorite football team has a lot more yokels in t-shirts watching their games.Hard to take you seriously

(03-04-2024 04:18 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 03:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  ....
As to the timeline? It's demographic. Most Boomers will be older than 80 with the majority of them at and just entering their 90s if they are still alive in 2036. As a driving force for college football fandom, they will be ebbing and with them the dollars generated from interest in the sport as no subsequent generational grouping has their wealth or their interest. Yes, I've seen stats on what Gen Z will inherit, but they are also one of the most indebted generations in American history, in part thanks to student loans. Gen X is more Boomer oriented in likes, but less in volume. So, nobody is waiting to milk the last 10 golden years of college football. Whatever happens, happens fairly soon.
....

Some clarification would be helpful here, I think. Millennials, now the most numerous generation, are not 'Gen Z.' They are Gen Y (the one after X) and heading into their 40s. Gen Z, aka 'zoomers,' are their kids—the generation filling college campuses now.

Millennials worldwide stand to become the wealthiest generation in history over the next twenty years via inherited properties. It's fair to say that, thanks to their dominating numbers, their tastes already drive entertainment. In the near future we can expect this influence to increase as they grow more affluent and advertisers grow correspondingly more eager to reach them.

Though millennials have a reputation for being less interested in live sports than the two generations before them, recent research reveals little change in their actual level of interest. What's different is how millennials watch. This has led their sports viewing activity to be undercounted.

Their kids, though, born in this century, truly are less interested. Zoomers have an ongoing appetite for online content of all sorts, though, and often follow sports after they engage with athletes online. They love e-sports. This generation is also exceptionally principled about treating men's and women's athletics the same—a priority that media content providers remain years behind.

Gen Z (Zoomers) think everyone over 40 is a “Boomer”.

Boomers think all young people are “Millennials”.

To your point, the reality is that Millennials are in their 30s and early-40s (maybe a few in their late-20s depending on the definition). These are full grown adults in the middle of their careers. The research about Millennial sports viewing habits back up what I’ve seen anecdotally that it really isn’t a drastic change from Boomers and Gen X. Millennials grew up in the monoculture of the 1980s and 1990s, which was the last period where people largely watched the same handful of programs and listened to the same types of music on a mass scale.

Gen Z has never known that type of monoculture - everything and all interests are totally dispersed and micro-targeted into specific niches. That is actually what makes the small handful of cultural touchstones that have broad appeal like the monoculture that we used to have - the NFL, Taylor Swift, Marvel movies (at least up until Endgame) - pretty extraordinary in this environment since it’s largely impossible otherwise.

To that point, it’s all relative with Gen Z. They consume less of long-form content on every level. Netflix and other streaming services with original programming is really powered by the older Millennial generation - it’s streaming, but they are still sitting down and watching a full show or movie. Gen Z has a handful of shows and movies that they gravitate toward, but their content consumption is otherwise dominated by short-form videos on YouTube and TikTok.

Gen Z unquestionably watches less sports on an absolute basis than older generations. That isn’t even a debate. However, I don’t think they necessarily are less interested in sports on a *relative* basis when you look at how dispersed their viewing habits are overall. The NFL is still the #1-watched type of TV program for that Gen Z group and they overindex on watching the NBA (which is why the NBA is in such great position to cash in on their next TV deal). When you compare sports viewership by Gen Z compared to other mass media - original TV programs, movies, etc. - sports actually looks pretty favorable.

Gen Z is also the first generation to grow up with mobile sports gambling and I can’t emphasize enough that they *love* gambling on sports. This is their hook for sports as much or more than personal emotional fandom. Every sports league understands this which is why every sports league is in bed with the gambling companies and doing everything that they can to get into Vegas (when they totally avoided it a decade ago). For better or worse, sports leagues see gambling as the most powerful factor to keep Gen Z interested. Remember that Gen Z has their entire life “gamified” on their phones and sports gambling is another “gaming app” for them.

As for the future economic state of these generations… we’ll see. Are there a lot of factors that make me worried for my kids (Gen Z) down the road? Absolutely.

However, every generation in modern history has been convinced that their children’s generation would be worse off and that hasn’t ended up being the case. The Greatest Generation thought the Boomers would squander all of the economic gains after World War II and the malaise that the global economy had in the 1970s would be a permanent state, but that didn’t happen.

I’m at the tail end of Gen X (an “Xennial”) and my Boomer high school economics teacher said straight up to us in class, “You’re going to be the first generation that’s economically worse off than their parents.” That also didn’t happen.

Boomers figured out how to open up the financial system to the masses - there used to be significant barriers to being in the stock market and buying investment real estate and that was opened completely. Gen X and Millennials created massive wealth generating engines in tech. There is a high likelihood that Gen Z will figure out something that we can’t even imagine today that will make us say in 20-30 years, “Why did we think that they’d be worse off?”

This isn’t to discount a whole lot of negatives that may make a lot of things harder for Gen Z - high costs for college and housing, AI replacing jobs, etc. - but humans have continuously shown that they can adapt and create new things in ways that weren’t predictable to prior generations.

I used to think that Duke would be a valuable addition for the SEC or B1G. I don't think that anymore. And I still think Duke is more valuable than NC State.

So IMO, UNC cannot bring anyone along.

IMO, the recent machinations of the NC legislature and other organs is a manifestation of this. I think they realize that NC State isn't getting a P2 invite should the ACC collapse, and they have taken actions to protect NC State.

Futile actions, I believe, but that is the motivation.

Just MO.

Count me in the camp that says Duke’s future is far from certain. They aren’t a football powerhouse so they don’t add any value to the P2.

(03-04-2024 09:18 PM)Lurker Above Wrote:  College football is not going to decline no matter the demographics. Are there challenges? Of course, but people of all ages still love football. People love seeing crowded, full stadiums of hyper intense fans. Football is the number one sport in the US, and it is not even close. College football is growing and expanding. You can bet against it if you want, but plenty of invests are going all-in college football right now, damn the demographics.

You could have written the same thing around 1960, just replace "baseball" with everywhere you wrote football. Things change.

(03-05-2024 12:24 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Count me in the camp that says Duke’s future is far from certain. They aren’t a football powerhouse so they don’t add any value to the P2.

The only football “powerhouse” is trying to sue their way out. That should tell you all you need to know.

(03-05-2024 09:53 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  I used to think that Duke would be a valuable addition for the SEC or B1G. I don't think that anymore. And I still think Duke is more valuable than NC State.

So IMO, UNC cannot bring anyone along.

IMO, the recent machinations of the NC legislature and other organs is a manifestation of this. I think they realize that NC State isn't getting a P2 invite should the ACC collapse, and they have taken actions to protect NC State.

Futile actions, I believe, but that is the motivation.

Just MO.

It solely depends on how much value is assigned to basketball.

I believe that Duke is to basketball as Notre Dame is to football: the single biggest national brand. It shows in the TV ratings year-after-year. UNC, Kansas and Kentucky may technically have larger fan bases as huge state schools, but Duke is the unique national draw.

So, either blue blood basketball is worth something in P2 expansion or it isn’t. If it is, then I’d argue that Duke is more valuable than Kansas, for sure. (UNC likely still has an overall value advantage over Duke.) If it’s not worth much of anything, then it’s not so much Duke isn’t valuable, but rather basketball isn’t valuable (because there’s no more valuable basketball school than Duke for national TV purposes).