(06-17-2022 10:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-17-2022 12:24 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 11:56 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 11:25 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  .

For every person who expects the SEC to stop expanding, there seems to be someone who expect either a continuing expansion or a merger resulting in fewer than 5 power conferences.

Question: Why do so many people seem to expect further SEC expansion of some kind (either adding members or merging/absorbing other conferences)?

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This is a conference realignment forum. We’re total action junkies and crave it even when a proposed action doesn’t make sense. We don’t even bat an eye when people suggest that there will be two 24-team super conferences or other Armageddon scenarios. Many of us are incapable of thinking of something as huge as the SEC adding UT and OU as anything but *needing* more dominos and are in denial that the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC don’t have any interest in the current Big 12 schools.

The “normal” world doesn’t see it this way. They think about conference realignment when it’s actually happening, but don’t think about it all in al of those years in between when it’s not happening.

Frank, Texas and Oklahoma had been in the works since 1987, albeit with feelers and flirtations sprinkled in. My point is just because we may go 6-8 years without an announced move, doesn't mean realignment discussions ever stop. They may change directions, cool, and re-heat, but they have never ceased with due diligence valuations, back door what ifs, and decisions made long ago waiting for the right moment, or knowing when to back away and stick. But there really aren't any sustained periods of absolute stasis and that goes back decades.

That's fair enough. I get that no one really knows what's going to happen or that you can never say never.

I guess I should clarify the scope of my analysis: it's power conference realignment in the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and/or Pac-12 based on adding Schools XYZ in order to create larger media deals that I believe is over. There could certainly be much more movement in the Big 12 and other conferences over the next several years, but they're not the ones that I'm talking about here.

Now, could there be massive changes to or the elimination of the NCAA that would spur other forms of realignment among the power conferences? Could there be a break off of the top 20 to 30 brands in all college football to create a super league? Could Notre Dame finally decide to give up independence at some point for some reason? I would grant that all of it is *possible* and, in that sense, there could be further power conference realignment.

However, the fact remains that the entire driver of all conference realignment from the 1960s through today has been to increase per school revenue. It's not about increasing total revenue - it's about making *per school* revenue larger. If that figure doesn't increase for a particular conference, then expansion doesn't happen.

For the Big Ten and SEC, they have or are about to have media deals that will pay them in the $60-70 million-plus per school range.

In 2010-2013, an expansion where each school was worth $20 million per year was worth it for the Big Ten and SEC. Hence, the additions of Rutgers and Maryland for the Big Ten and Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC became substantial revenue generators with a "Moneyball" approach of adding markets to increase revenue more than the brands themselves.

In today's world, it's going to take each Big Ten or SEC expansion target to bring in $70 million-plus per year simply for those conferences to break even. That's a *massive* difference compared to just a decade ago. The "Moneyball" approach won't work anymore: simply being a solid school in a major market isn't enough for the Big Ten and SEC with the levels of revenue that they have.

There might be only 2 schools in all of college football that I would have faith in bringing in $70 million per year to either the Big Ten or SEC: Notre Dame and USC. That's it.

In the case of ND, it's easy. If they're actually willing to drop independence, then you just pair them up with one other school (who could be anyone - Kansas, UVA, Sam Houston State - it almost doesn't matter) and print money just like the UT/OU addition to the SEC. The issue, of course, is that ND is a specific enigma whose entire identity as a school is intertwined with football independence for reasons that go far beyond money. I'll always grant ND as an exception to every scenario - if they're willing to drop independence, then sure, it could trigger mass scale power conference realignment again. However, ND doesn't think the way that any other school in America thinks, so predicating anything based on ND dropping independence is effectively predicating your retirement on winning the lottery. You better have other plans for retirement outside of the winning the lottery or you're in serious trouble.

For USC, I preface this by saying again that for all of the massive impact that the UT/OU move to the SEC has (for reasons that I've already explained), it was still a traditional small "c" conservative move for the SEC for realignment purposes. The SEC just needed to add two schools without any "fat" (e.g. Texas Tech and Oklahoma State") that wouldn't add value. Geographically, UT and OU are in or contiguous to existing SEC markets, so that makes the chances of this working out long-term much greater. In terms of the things that fans actually care about such as rivalries, this expansion move actually *restores* rivalries (UT vs. A&M and Arkansas) as oppose to destroying them (like many other conference realignment moves). Take away all of the money involved and the UT/OU move to the SEC *still* makes sense.

There's nothing small "c" conservative about, say, adding USC to the Big Ten. If you add them alone or with one other school, you leave USC on a geographic island while destroying all of their rivalries. That might make more money in the short-term, but that's a recipe for a long-term divorce.

The problem is that for USC to actually feel comfortable with moving for the long-term, the Big Ten effectively needs to add most (if not all) of the Pac-12 schools to make it work. That's a problem financially for the Big Ten because they would now be adding a lot of "fat" that doesn't actually bring value. While adding USC with one other school could bring in the $70 million per year per school breakeven amount, the financials are almost impossible if it requires adding 4, 6 or more schools in expansion.

Even with other conceivable schools that the Big Ten and/or SEC would be interested in, particularly UNC, it's not going to work with a straight-line addition of 2 schools like UT/OU. No one is getting UNC by adding them alone - it's going to require Duke and UVA at a minimum, too. When getting UNC means adding a minimum of 4 schools, the math once again gets shaky. Whenever says the Big Ten or SEC should add 4 schools, that requires that expansion to be worth $280 million per year in total as a *minimum*. It doesn't matter even if schools like FSU and Clemson are involved - I don't that there's a combo of any 4 ACC and Pac-12 schools that exists that would reach that level without ND and/or USC.

A lot of people here are so obsessed with consolidation that they're forgetting that the financial figures still have to work. The Big Ten and SEC could add 4 schools with $80 million total less than a decade ago and still make money on expansion. Now, they're effectively requiring $80 million PER SCHOOL to make money on expansion. It's an entirely different atmosphere now financially. THAT is where my skepticism comes in.

To use an entertainment industry example (as I believe it's relevant since sports are effectively the entertainment industry now), look at Disney's expansion in the 2005-2020 period. It added the massive brands of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox all in orderly succession. There are plenty of other properties that would love to get bought by Disney today and you can argue would make sense within their portfolio, but the point is that Disney got so much value out of those prior expansions that there's literally nothing else out there that moves the needle for them. Disney's future fortunes are going to be based on maximizing the value of their *current* assets like Marvel and Star Wars in a way that no new acquisition is going to matter.

That's where I believe that the Big Ten and SEC are at this point (with the caveat that ND is always a wild card). They have derived so much value from their current lineups that not even schools like Florida State and Clemson move the needle anymore. Just throwing out fantasy lineups of all of the top football brands all in 1 or 2 conferences is fun, but it's a pointless exercise if the financials don't work... and that's where I see the Big Ten and SEC right now. Nothing can make more money than the expansion of UT and OU... and if there's no bigger expansion out there in a world where each expansion HAS to make more money than the last one in order to work out financially, it stands to reason that future expansion won't happen.

Of course, I felt the same way before the SEC added Mizzou and A&M and the ACC added Pitt and SU and the Big 10 added Rutgers and Maryland. I thought the list warranting expansion beyond 12 was USC, UCLA, Texas, OU, FSU, ND. Pretty short. But it wasn't that short.