(05-17-2017 06:16 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote: I am not following along with any of this? What are you guys talking about? Is this some sort of weird inside joke that I am missing out on? Teams North of the Potomac? What does that even mean beyond the obvious goofy geographical nonsense?
The Megaconference is something I and a few others hypothesize to be the end game of all the realignment and TV fighting. It's sort of the creature you create if your only goal is to make as much money as possible. Have some copypasta:
#TeamMegaconference
Atlantic Division: UVA, VT, UNC, NCST, Duke, WF, Pitt, WVU, UofL
Coastal Division: Clemson, USC-E, UGAg, GT, TN, FSU, UF, Auburn, UK
Southeastern Division: Alabama, Ole Miss, Miss State, LSU, Arkansas, TAMU, Texas, Vandy, Miami
Plains Division: Baylor, TCU, TTU, OU, Oklahoma St, Mizzou, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska
Permanent Rivals:
Duke-GT, TN-VT, FSU-Miami, Clemson-NCST, UNC-SC, UofL-UK, Auburn-Alabama, Vandy-WF, Texas-OU, TAMU-TCU, Baylor-TTU, OklahomaSt-Arkansas, UVA-Mizzou, Nebraska-UGAg (Corndawgs!), UF-LSU, Pitt-KState, Ole Miss-Kansas, WVU-MissState
Other Definite Megaconferences: B1G+Pac-12+UCONN+ND+BC+Cuse
Plausible Other Megaconferences: SE Sun Belt + SE C-USA + SE AAC || MWC + Gulf Sun Belt + Gulf C-USA + Gulf AAC + Plausible FCS callups (NDSU/Montana/etc)
Surviving Largely Unchanged: MAC
Surviving Independents: Service Academies
- Nobody screwed over, everybody still in, everybody makes more money. This also means no political moves to stop/change things.
- IDEAL conference scheduling. You can have 4 division games and 4 teams with a bye, or 4 division games and 2 crossover games.
- Spring game replaced by exhibition game against FCS that does not count against standings. Game sold as part of season ticket sales at near game prices.
- No more games against FCS during the regular season.
- Out of conference scheduling would likely creep down to just one game a year (a big pre-season game at a neutral site or OOC rivalry) to maximize TV inventory and minimize scheduling costs by eliminating "paycheck" games and expensive cancellation replacements.
- The two megaconferences have four TV channels dedicated just to them with divisional representative HQ locations
--- ACC/SEC/Big12: Dallas, Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte
--- B1G/Pac12/ND/BC/UCONN/Cuse: New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, (Denver/Seattle/Boston/San Francisco)
... How convenient that there are already ESPN and FOX studios in nearly all of those cities ...
- 16 team playoff, just like with FCS.
- Each division champ in the power megaconferences are autobid => 8 teams.
--- If G5 conferences remain unchanged ... autobid from any undefeated G5.
--- If the G5 reorganizes into megaconferences, then they can get conference based autobids. I could see that rule leading to a world where the G5 becomes two megaconferences:
------ 1) MAC + NE AAC/C-USA/Sun Belt + MWC
------ 2) SE/Gulf AAC/C-USA/Sun Belt
------ The service academies could go either way or broker a deal between them to stay independent.
- In either case, fill remaining slots at large by committee.
So, ultimately what the G5 gets out of it is:
- Increased revenue due to above restructuring of rules/pre-season/etc
- If they're willing to play ball and form their own megaconferences, they get the bonuses of:
--- Guaranteed playoff access and thus a guaranteed big paycheck
--- Guaranteed national exposure via playoff
--- Guaranteed big time game against big boys via playoff
--- Decreased travel costs
--- Increased gate/TV revenue due to better more regional schedule
And that ladies and gents is how you maximize revenue FOR EVERYBODY involved, realign everybody towards their ideal, and not create a situation where people are getting screwed over and thus political forces come into play. As a bonus, this group is big enough to start putting in place more sane recruiting restrictions (which everybody wants), and maybe work towards restoring financial sanity in college football with staff/facility/spending caps (which the 10-15 or so biggest football factories do NOT want, but which everybody ELSE does).