(06-22-2020 12:19 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-22-2020 11:08 AM)miko33 Wrote:  Is this a discussion on how conference academic rankings affect conference expansion? Simply put - it has zero bearing. It's all about whether a school has a large enough fan base willing to spend the money to prop up the conferences - whether it's consuming the content digitally, on site or through donations to the schools athletic departments themselves. The secondary consideration would be whether adding the potential school would cause heartburn due to diverging values - i.e. adding BYU to the PAC12 for example.

Everything else is verbal masturbation to pass the time.

You must not have paid attention the last 15 years. Its very relevant to university presidents who make the decisions, not the ADs.

You say that; however, the moves we have observed look more about conferences expanding their footprints for their cable channels and/or for better TV contract deals among the major networks tbh. It appears that academics COULD be a legit factor; however, IMHO the academic rankings are confounded with the earning potential of the candidates who can move conferences if they want to. Points to consider:

• B1G took Nebraska despite knowing the university was going to be kicked out of the AAU - which surely does not support the CIC (if you assume this actually matters).
• UCONN was working towards AAU admissions plus they currently have solid academics. However, the school is not desired and is moving to the Big East for BB.
• Rutgers - solid academic institution. However, if not for the NYC metro it never gets the B1G invite.
• Rice - great academics, has D1 sports and located in a great state with a lot of population. However, no one is knocking on their door to invite them to a P5 conference.
  

At best, academics is a circuit breaker. Not a very strong one in reality. If Boise could build a national brand like Notre Dame did - and makes no changes in it's academic standings - it would get an invite to a P5 program no question.