XLance
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I Root For: Carolina
Location: Greensboro, NC
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RE: New North Carolina House Bill prevents extending media rights if conference boycotts
(04-18-2017 02:17 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: (04-17-2017 03:45 PM)XLance Wrote: (04-17-2017 12:15 PM)JRsec Wrote: (04-17-2017 11:26 AM)XLance Wrote: (04-17-2017 10:19 AM)JRsec Wrote: Nice fiction X. The brand of the SEC is by itself worth so much more that such an agenda would not be profitable. SECN on ESPN is a marriage of brands that is worth 3 x the money of the Big 10 Network and you can look that up. Missouri and Arkansas aren't leaving it and the Big 12 won't be merging intact with the SEC either. The only conference that ever might merge with the SEC is yours and even then I believe it would not be a full merger.
The idea here is still to make moves that maximize profits, or protect key brands. ESPN is going to be looking to add brands to the ACC if they are indeed serious about your network. The Achilles heel of the plan for the ACCN is weak branding within sports categories. Your basketball branding is strong so no problems there. But you only have 1 strong national brand in football, F.S.U.. Clemson is a strong and growing regional brand. Virginia Tech, Miami, Georgia Tech, and Pittsburgh are old fading brands but there is hope for Miami and Virginia Tech. Louisville is a growing brand but not of the strength of Clemson. So just like your football season last year you have great breadth in the middle, but really only two brands producing. This leaves you weak in brand vs brand content in the one sport that produces almost 85% of all revenue.
What I could see is the promotion in income of Virginia Tech, Miami, Louisville, Clemson, Georgia Tech and maybe a Pitt and the brand acquisition of North Carolina and Duke and possibly Syracuse if the taking of Syracuse and Pitt would still help to attract the commitment of Notre Dame, and the taking of N.C. State and Virginia as catalysts for some kind of merger of product between the SEC and ACC. Then those 27 schools could have Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Iowa State added to them. Now ESPN keeps all of the states presently under its control except Massachusetts. Takes the best possible branding and mixes them into that uber football, uber basketball, uber baseball, uber softball, conference. The combined 32 schools would include and 12 AAU schools which could form a quite powerful academic alliance.
Divisions:
Arkansas, Iowa State, Kansas, L.S.U., Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Kentucky, Louisville, Notre Dame, Miami, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia, Virginia Tech
Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, N.C. State, South Carolina, Virginia
Now those divisions would all have great regional interest. The three more easterly divisions all have a Florida School. The Western division has two Texas schools. That gives all schools important trips into recruiting grounds. I don't think North Carolina could ask for a much better division for them. Texas keeps its buddies and gains better games. Alabama and Auburn have their two most important other rivals in the division.
And by doing this and using the SEC as the glue in the middle to pull it together ESPN keeps the name, but adds major brands to the East and West to combine their overhead and multiply their content value. They essentially have 80% of the branding of college sports contained within what would have amounted to 2 conferences of 16 but under one roof and associated with the top brand.
Dick Tracy's two way wrist radio was thought to be fiction too!
That's because Dick Tracy was fiction. But that's not because of the crime or gadgets, it's because there is no woman out there as perfect as Tess Trueheart!
Check this out:
Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri
Texas, Arkansas, TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, West Virginia
Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Miss State, Vanderbilt, Alabama
Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina
That surely makes a lot of people happy and makes it easy to sell network subscriptions. I would think the LHN would have to compensate the SECN or the loan of a couple of schools, but if coupled with the ACCN, that sure is a lot of states/people....just look at it on a map.
The ACC could stay as is and just have 7 teams fight for what the Big 12 and SEC could advance with 6. When Notre Dame is ready we just have an 8 team division and a 7 team division.
Compact, very regional and comprehensive.
Who are you talking to that says it's becoming more likely the SEC will sell off a couple schools to the Big 12? Including a school that just left that league that happens to be on the verge of collapse? These people haven't tried to get you to go snipe hunting have they?
Which final model do you subscribe to?
We know that the reason for realignment is money, right?
And the increase in money is going to come from the networks because playoffs are going to be expanded and viewership always escalates during the playoffs. Playoffs generate interest which draws in the casual fan. You only have to look at the World Series and Superbowl tournament to know that.
College football looked at the pod model, which is how the NFL is set up. Where the NFL had 32 teams the College version was going to have 64 (and maybe plus 1) divided into 4 conferences of 16, but for various reasons it didn't work out. Nobody could agree on who went where.
Enter the baseball model.
30 teams divided into two leagues. Each league has three divisions of 5. Eventually you get to three champions and a wild card entry that battle it out for the League championship to advance to the World Series. Pretty simple, lots of folks get involved, baseball makes money.
How did baseball attain the symmetry to make all of this work?
The National League gave up their stake in Texas and the Texas market and allowed the Houston Astros to leave the National league (where they had been for over 50 years) and join the American League so that each league could have an equal number of teams (15), the same number of divisions (3) and the same number of teams in a division (5). Now imagine that the number of teams might be 11 or 12 for college football. And if it is 11 for all conferences with the exception of the PAC (which keeps 12) then every conference would have to shed some teams, right? Because we would need to add at least one more division which could be made up of discarded teams.
Of the 4 schools that the SEC has added in the last 30 years or so (A&M, Missouri, South Carolina and Arkansas) which one has the most value to the SEC? If you said anything other than A&M you would be wrong! Can you imagine where this is going? Lets cut to the chase.
Arkansas and Missouri to the Big 12
New division is formed by: Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Pitt, Temple, UConn, Boston College and Syracuse.
South Carolina joins the other ACC schools for 11.
Notre Dame remains semi-independent, has their other sports attached to either the ACC or the New division, but plays at least 5 games per year with each league and keeps their NBC deal.
So your two leagues are...let's call them ESPN and FOX
With three divisions each:
New division, B1G and PAC in the FOX League and the ACC, SEC and Big 12 in the ESPN League
Who might think this stuff up? ....that would dare move three SEC schools and organize a structure for profitable playoffs. Just folks who devise various strategies and develop scenarios to maximize ROI. Interesting, don't you think?
Don't miss what's really important.
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