(07-22-2021 12:44 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(07-22-2021 12:07 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(07-22-2021 11:58 AM)usffan Wrote:  If you're CBS and/or Fox, you're watching ESPN maximizing the new contract they just signed when they locked up the SEC by snatching two of the most valuable pieces of the Big XII. And you know that the B1G, Pac-12 and the Big XII rights are all coming up. The question is - can you craft something that would keep you in that same stratosphere? I thing one or both (working together to undermine ESPN) go to the B1G and try to convince them to do something bold by bringing the 4 California schools plus Oregon and Washington (all AAU schools) into the fold. In doing so, you lock up the entire west coast and several major metropolitan areas. That's a 20 team conference, so you'd clearly have to have something like 5 team pods which aren't as neat as the SEC, but you pretty well get away from any "GOR" issues from the ACC and you get the most valuable remaining properties. Then you let the Pac-12 remnants and the Big XII remnants merge to form a "best of the rest" conference if they wish.

USFFan

Interesting idea.

A truly BIG idea would be to create a 3rd west coast division and raid the PAC
USC
UCLA
Cal
Stanford
Oregon
Washington
Arizona (AAU) or Arizona St (Phoenix + Ice Hockey Program)

This would give the Big 10 a 21 team conference, although it would be more league at that point, that controls the entire country west of Texas and North of Virginia.

Would FOX be willing to pay a per team SEC + Texas/OU level payout to achieve this?

Realistically, I don't see that happening at that scale.

That being said, it might be a good time for the Big Ten and Pac-12 to resurrect the partnership/alliance that ended up getting killed (by the Pac-12 side) a few years ago. That may honestly be better than any expansion option either league has right now.

A pooling of the their TV rights?

Could they get the pie big enough that at 26 way split is enough to match the new 16 team SEC's per team payout?