(12-13-2017 01:27 AM)Transic_nyc Wrote: Just saw your post on the main board detailing some unhappiness from a USC booster about the PAC schedule. Yet another wrinkle in the realignment speculation saga. I can't make hay over what will happen out there. They may iron out their differences or come to some compromise before the end of the contract.
As time goes on it may become apparent that having one major conference representing the western states may be the best chance of achieving competitive balance. Imagine if you're Colorado and you join a conference so that you can play USC. Years later USC decides that they'd rather leave the conference than play Wazzu and Colorado...or would they be open to a new conference that allows them to play a few of their old rivals plus programs like Oklahoma?
I'm not sure there is some grand conspiracy to radically rearrange affiliations across the country but there seems to be so much activity behind the scenes that I would not be surprised if everything we know about college football gets turned upside-down.
To make sense of it all you have to do is follow the folly to realize it's a haphazard developing conspiracy and there's nothing grand about it. Imagine that all of the following is true.
Delaney and the Big 10 add Penn State. The Big East's dreams of landing them are shot. ESPN takes notice.
Roy Kramer wants the SEC to profit by a loophole rule established for lower levels of the NCAA and adds two schools so he can have a CCG. Secretly he tries to move to 16 taking the cream of the programs on his perimeter. ESPN in its infancy of trying to cobble together respect for the ACC learns of the plan when valuations are sought by the SEC so they divert an important burgeoning program to build the ACC cred and F.S.U. joins the ACC.
Delaney rejects a contract with ESPN and starts his own network (independent at first).
ESPN realizes that he will need strong Northeast markets to make it really work so they start bleeding the Big East to try to sew up product Delaney might like and in the meantime they let him fumble with carriage issues they don't lift a finger to help.
So Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech get poached first and ESPN parks them in the closest and cheapest parking lot they can. Connecticut threatens to sue and ticks of what might have been their future home (the ACC).
People, including the network scoff at the CCG idea of the SEC. So the SEC makes a ton of money on it and the idea catches on.
Delaney says, "I got to have me some CCG money too!" So in order to accomplish this end they take Nebraska. Ouch! With ESPN having covered the better football properties of the Big East by parking them in the ACC and with them thinking that things were sewed up enough to prevent Big J1M from improving the outlook for his private network Nebraska comes as a big surprise. I mean they knew that Texas and A&M and Oklahoma were in talks with the SEC in '91, but they thought all of that died down with the disintegration of the SWC and the birth of the Big 12. Holy Huskers Batman how in the hell did Jim land Nebraska? What else is afoot?
Scott sees this and makes a play for Texahoma. When that falls through he takes Colorado and Utah. Now he's got his CCG too! A&M remembers their talks with the SEC and ESPN warms up to a huge plan to move Missouri & A&M to the SEC and to pull Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Notre Dame right out from under FOX and NBC and really build a valuable product out of the ACC. But it's going to cost the ACC markets for the SEC with N.C. State and Virginia Tech moving over. Chapel Hill counts the division of votes with the new fantastic four and the football first schools and bails on the deal.
The LHN is born to lasso Bevo but it pisses off A&M and the Big 12 brethren.
ESPN panics and Missouri and A&M go ahead and join the SEC.
Pitt and Syracuse are scarfed up and Notre Dame wangles a partial deal like they had in the Big East.
Fearful of losing Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas ESPN pursues sweet T3 deals but OU signs one with FOX. Things are precarious for landing that top product and Texas may bolt West with OU on the second round of Texahoma talks only this time it would be Tech and OSU with UT and OU anyway so T.C.U. and WVU join the Big 12 and a GOR is slapped in place.
Maryland bolts for money they had hoped to make when the Fantastic Four coming on board fell through making the ACC shaky so Louisville is added and a GOR slapped into place.
So the PAX of Mouse settles in with all the GOR's and sweet T3 deals, but no ACCN because the programs needed to pull it off were rejected.
Meanwhile Newbie FOX gets a wake up call as to how ESPN was going to scoop the goody out of the Big 12 so they get proactive and buy into the BTN and a network cold war settles over the field. Problem is it cost them a lot of money for a 51% stake and they still don't have a dog in the hunt in the Southeast where between the SEC, ACC, and AAC ESPN has all of the property sewed up.
Enter technology which makes the old cable market model suddenly vulnerable and probably obsolete in short order.
The brakes are slammed to the floor and realignment halts until probably 2021-23.
Then the proposed Disney FOX deal is hatched and if it goes through resolution fo the LHN (which heretofore has been the source of major discontent in that conference) becomes resolvable since all of the Big 12 T3 would be in ESPN's hands and the creation of the Big 12N becomes a real possibility.
Meanwhile the changing pay model and the lack of carriage for the PACN has the West Coasters in a financial drought when it comes to TV revenue. Maybe this PACN thing isn't going to pay off after all. Maybe something else is needed.
So you see there was never a grand plan, but there were plenty of backroom manipulations going on, but not by brainiacs but by fumble fisted reactionaries responding to unfolding events.
And lost in all of that is a 1970's model for how Super Conferences of 16 could maximize market penetration.
So duh! Maybe it happens or maybe it doesn't, but the tumblers have never been more aligned for resolution to such a set up as right now. If the don't screw it up it might finally actually happen.
Stay tuned boys and girls! Same Mouse Time! Same Mouse Channels!