(03-01-2017 11:48 PM)Win5002 Wrote: (03-01-2017 01:00 PM)JRsec Wrote: (03-01-2017 09:47 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: I don't see why anyone would stay in the Big 12 if they don't have to.
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will have a ticket out in the SEC if that's what's necessary. The PAC will take a couple of extra TX schools to get Texas most likely.
If the GOR ends then there's really nothing any of these schools can do about the big boys leaving. After all, there are still old Big East schools that got left behind from the BCS era and there's not much they can do.
He knows that what I posted earlier is true. If the PAC were to throw in with ESPN and could land Texa-homa, or even Texa-homa plus Kansas and Iowa State/KState that such a scenario would be the only one that could bring relative stability, but that any scenario in which the Big 10 or SEC either split the powers of the Big 12, or take 2 or more of them will be a scenario in which one or both of those conferences outdistance the PAC and ACC permanently. So if the SEC pulls of Texa-homa it only serves to destabilize the ACC in the long run. If the Big 10 lands OU & KU and Texas heads anywhere other than the ACC again it destabilizes the ACC.
How does it destabilize the ACC? if the schools are split between the SEC & Big 10 it locks those two conference in to 50 million plus a year in TV revenue. With both the SEC and Big 10 making more in gate it permanently locks the ACC into a deficit of 10 million plus with 10 million being their top projection.
If either the SEC or Big 10 were to take all 3 top Big 12 prizes it makes the matter even worse. Texas and Oklahoma remains large brands. Notre Dame's brand is big, but fading, especially in the non church era.
If we want a balanced college football I really merging the Big 12 minus WVU & Baylor with the PAC 12 is the best thing. This would leave 4 viable leagues that are balanced with brands and strength. WVU could join with ND to the ACC. Because the PAC/Big 12 would be so large of a region having 20 members may make it easier in creating pods or one standings where you only lock in 4 games each year to keep travel reasonable. I think this wouldn't be terrible for Texas & OU because they wouldn't have to play that many games late at night. There could be a rule games that are played in the Pacific time zone have to start by 6 or 7p.m. CST. By combining the states of Texas and California the league would always have a large enough recruiting base as well.
If you wanted to keep the leagues all balanced number wise and still try to give the PAC quality expansion so the leagues are balanced competitive wise. You could do this with the existing teams if Texas and OU are willing to separate:
PAC: Texas, TT, TCU & OSU
ACC: ND & WVU
B1G: Kansas & Missouri or Vandy **contingent on SEC allowing one to leave and one of the schools being willing, my guess is Missouri still would but they are a great connector geographically to the 3 schools below.
SEC: OU, ISU, KSU
I think your thinking on this is in the right direction for the sake of balance. The trick is making the PAC payoff for the Big 12 members moving there. Big 12 members will make appx. 36 million each next year in TV rights. The PAC will be lucky to make 27 and some project only a 1 or 2 million increase over last year's figures which would put them closer to 24 or 25. Sure Texas and Oklahoma together could boost them, if you count households at 1.40 in carriage fees which the SEC (and nobody else) gets and if you double that amount for content value you boost the PAC's payouts by 4.8 million. Then if you assume that UT & OU would help them land Direct TV or some others who so far have refused the PACN you might be able to bump that another 3 million per school. Well those are overly generous estimates on all counts and it still only gets the PAC to 35 million per school and that's not including Texas Tech or Oklahoma State's share. So if Texa-homa moved to the PAC in all likelihood it would be for less. Not much less, but less. And that's the rub.
In 2010 the Big 12 could have laid the bear trap for the ACC. All they had to do was take Louisville, West Virginia, and Cincinnati along with T.C.U.. Then when Maryland bolted from the ACC the defection would have hamstrung the earning potential of the ACC, Notre Dame might have been reluctant to affiliate under those conditions, and the pressure for the football first schools to play catch up might have been enough to render them the fatal blow.
Texas and Oklahoma (possibly Kansas) did not want to risk being locked into the Big 12 with few immediate options available to them. So they took the two schools who could leave the earliest (not bad additions though) and kept their TV contract viable. They knew they might be able to escape a 10 member conference but a 12 member conference threw the voting on future issues into doubt. So they froze!
Maryland left, Louisville heads to the ACC, and suddenly it's the Big 12 that can't expand to play catch up. It was shortsighted and best and stupid at worst.
Now I think that Texas and a couple of buddies could move to the PAC because truly Texas is not as worried about money. The Big 10 and the SEC are going to fight over OU with the Big 10 offering the CIC and the SEC possibly holding the only door open that the Cowboys could take to escape a bad situation.
Don't get me wrong, I would be okay with any kind of build up of the PAC that could lead to some balance. But the Big 10 and SEC could have easily picked apart 4 to 6 brands each from the ACC, made their conferences much more regionally oriented and the division fairly tight, and the Big 12 could have picked off a couple to 4 of those as well and the balance would have been there.
Now it looks as though we are destined for a Big 2 and a Distant 2 and who knows how long that will last. I think it could lead to the formation of 2 leagues of 30 to 36 schools each, but that will likely be past my lifetime. All it would take for us to get there is for either the SEC or Big 10 to land two of the three top Big 12 brands.
Let's say that ESPN gets aggressive here and uses the SEC to offer a Texa-homa deal. The SEC could move to 18 schools in 3 division of 6 and the new Western Division would be Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech. That's doable and the payout would be north of 50 million for the SEC. The Big 10 would take Kansas and another and their payouts would be close to 50 million. The ACC would be third well off the pace and the PAC would lag. Eventually the ACC would join with the SEC to form a league controlled by ESPN and the PAC would do the same with the Big 10.
IMO that's the future if we don't find balance in these final moves. But right now balance doesn't look viable because the PAC even with just UT and OU can't get up to the present pay level of the Big 12 and that's a really big problem.
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The SEC and Realignment: A Review of a 25 Year Old Strategy
