Wait, are you guys predicting the future of college sports? For fun, top 10 college sports in 2050:

1) Esports
2) Capture the Flag
3) Paintball
4) Basketball (12 ft goals, 32ft 3pt line from center)
5) Mesoamerican Ball (big comeback for the classic American game, sans human sacrifice)
6) Baseball
7) Soccor (sp?)
8) Sham Battling (flour bag bullets)
9) Flag Football
10) Horror Housening (lowest combined blood pressure wins)

(01-10-2020 10:57 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 10:43 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 10:30 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 10:23 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 10:10 PM)JRsec Wrote:  No he's not. At least not completely. Soccer and American Interest are subsets that do not intersect and particularly not for television.

JRSec, you trust know I respect you and appreciate your posts. I strongly follow the SEC (living in Nashville and being passionate about "all things Vanderbilt"). I would not go as far to say I'm "correct" about the soccer topic. But for you to note that I'm "not" correct ... it simply seems a bit of a stretch.

"Soccer and American Interest" might not "intersect" (as you note) NOW... but I feel they very well might as this great nation moves into the future (and I'm NOT a soccer fan).

Nothing against you Bill, but one thing American's are trending to is more action, and constant action, and lots of points. This is true for football where defense is becoming passe'. It's been true for basketball where the shot clock was put in to please viewer interest, and it has hurt one of the best American games, baseball. Baseball looks faced paced and exciting compared to soccer. What American Soccer is becoming is an acceptable women's sport. But even then Softball shines by comparison and is becoming a revenue sport at some schools.

I know I'm old but I learned a long time ago to judge the public trends and the trends are for shorter sports competitions with lots of action, and soccer just doesn't fit that bill. I see no great future for soccer in this country outside of being a solid sport for women in college which few people will watch.

I do agree, JRSec, that Americans are trending toward "more action" but they are doing so with the thought that team sports be played in a more "time compact manner" (which soccer is and football is not). And with the changing demographics in our country ... I simple see a bright future for soccer (and less so for American football). Now in 30 years, I'll be dead (I'm pushing 60). So my argument is pure hypothetical speculation.

I'm also (admittedly) a bit biased because Nashville is getting an MLS franchise and I want pro soccer to do well to benefit my city. So maybe I'm not the best man to be posting regarding this topic.

Well Bill I wish you a long and happy life, but I don't think it will be uplifted by American soccer. No doubt that immigration brings a love for that sport, but then that also bodes well for baseball.

If I had to bet on who the superstars would be 30 years from now I'd say probably online gamers, because of the common interest of so many. Those will probably feature head to head competition in some form of reality TV. Olympians will do well because it is brief not having a season, and everyone expects to watch it on television. I think the main games will be around, but Pop Culture always raises the unexpected and then it fades like Polo, Horse Racing, Indy Car Racing, NASCAR, Boxing, and the waning of country club sports like Golf and Tennis which looked like world beaters from the 60's through the 90's, but are now losing impact.

To be popular a sport has to be played by enough people to create a large mutual interest. Therefore it should be cheap to play, probably not require large open spaces as they are disappearing and cost money to maintain. Basketball will stick around because it is indoors and fast paced, but it may drag as a commonly played sport. Baseball has gotten too expensive to play, football too dangerous in the minds of many parents, and the computer is king. It's only a matter of time before online gaming becomes cult hero status. And by the way, the latter, like football did a century ago, has application for our military future.

This is a very interesting post. I would add that volleyball (which I enjoy watching) could gain some traction and have some staying power as society evolves. Both females and males can play, it's fast paced, the games are not too time-consuming and it's visual (small court, big ball, players not covered in padding/uniforms, etc.).

(01-10-2020 10:33 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 09:54 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 04:55 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 04:03 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Let's be blunt: Most of the athletic programs in the Belt, MAC and C-USA have no business offering 1-A football. And as a Middle Tennessee State grad, it pains me to say that.

If the admins at these schools were farsighted, they would start building now (and some are) to have very strong soccer programs within the next 30 years or so — while phasing out football.

A move like this is marketing suicide and would get those admins (correctly) fired before it went anywhere.

Many students go to school because of FBS football. Many more alums donate back to their school because FBS football fosters their connection with the school.

College soccer does neither. It's irrelevant. Millions of people watch meaningless bowl games. No one watches college soccer. College *hockey* brings in more money per school than college soccer.

Dazzle is correct. And it is an unproven myth that football has an impact on marketing at such schools.

I mean, if you are really going to go to college for football why on earth would you go to your typical MAC or CUSA school? That's like someone going to my USF because you love D1 hoops. Makes zero sense.

I went to NIU because of FBS football. I’ve met countless people who’ve done the same. MAC/CUSA schools give an FBS culture to students who can’t gain admission to certain schools, are priced out of certain schools, or that MAC/CUSA school is simply the affordable school locally that offers FBS football for people who don’t want to move away.

I was an NIU FB fan before college. If NIU’s 2003 season of beating Alabama/Maryland/Iowa St, peaking in the top-10 of BCS, & playing in College Gameday at Bowling Green doesn’t happen — I probably don’t end up attending NIU. That put NIU at the forefront of my mind through Jr High/High School (can’t get into Northwestern, Illinois super expensive) and molded me into a Huskie fan.

Take away FBS football, and I would’ve thought of NIU the same as EIU or WIU.

I don't doubt that was your experience, but I do very much doubt it isn't pretty much idiosyncratic. It beggars belief that any significant number of students go to NIU or Easter Michigan or Louisiana-Monroe for the football. No 10 year old ever grew up thinking "I can't wait until I can go to Western Michigan and cheer on the football team!". If that's their attitude, they go to one of the giant 50,000 student football factories with famous football, very few of whom are hard to get in to (Michigan is an exception).

Even in Illinois, a school like UIC has no football but its enrollment is way higher than NIU's, which has fallen precipitously.

IIRC, from 2010 - 2014, NIU had five straight 11-win seasons on the field, which coincided with a collapse in enrollment, not growth.

There's just no linkage at those kinds of school there, or if there it is very weak and tenuous. And I'm not dumping on other - I like that USF has football, but if we didn't have football we'd still be the same USF we are now. Our enrollment and funding was growing by leaps and bounds before football.

(01-10-2020 10:10 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 09:54 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 04:55 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 04:03 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Let's be blunt: Most of the athletic programs in the Belt, MAC and C-USA have no business offering 1-A football. And as a Middle Tennessee State grad, it pains me to say that.

If the admins at these schools were farsighted, they would start building now (and some are) to have very strong soccer programs within the next 30 years or so — while phasing out football.

A move like this is marketing suicide and would get those admins (correctly) fired before it went anywhere.

Many students go to school because of FBS football. Many more alums donate back to their school because FBS football fosters their connection with the school.

College soccer does neither. It's irrelevant. Millions of people watch meaningless bowl games. No one watches college soccer. College *hockey* brings in more money per school than college soccer.

Dazzle is correct. And it is an unproven myth that football has an impact on marketing at such schools.

I mean, if you are really going to go to college for football why on earth would you go to your typical MAC or CUSA school? That's like someone going to my USF because you love D1 hoops. Makes zero sense.

No he's not. At least not completely. Soccer and American Interest are subsets that do not intersect and particularly not for television.

FWIW, I was referring to his statement about most MAC and CUSA and SB schools should not have FBS football.

But as for soccer, while I am not a fan, it does seem that there is more soccer on TV, major TV, than ever. To my surprise, the MLS has survived and seemingly thrived, and there is a lot of European soccer on the weekends, on major channels like FOX and NBC and ESPN. That never used to be the case.

No, it's nothing like the NFL of course but it is growing, not declining.

FWIW, there are also different definitions of what makes a sport "fast paced and exciting". You and I think it is obvious that sports like basketball and football are much more fast-paced and dynamic than soccer. But I have friends in Europe who, to my surprise, scoff at that notion. They note that in soccer, play is continuous, the clock never stops, which to them means constant action. They blanch at all the timeouts and stoppages of play in our football and basketball, to them, that makes those sports slow and tedious.

On the "fast paced and exciting," theme ... would that the ladies used such adjectives to describe the romancing skills of Bill Dazzle.

Sadly, they often opt instead for words that apply to Virginia men's basketball (which, actually, now that I think about it, is not necessarily a bad thing).

(01-10-2020 10:59 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 03:53 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 03:45 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 03:41 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-10-2020 02:04 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  It used to be that membership in a BCS conference was proof that you were "in" the club. Now, you're only "in" if you have a legitimate shot of making the playoffs.

If anything for the average P5 they have changed for the better.

E.g., thirty years ago, a Minnesota could go undefeated in the regular season and still have maybe only a 20% chance of being voted #1.

Twenty years ago, they might have had a 30% chance of getting in to the BCS title game.

But now? An unbeaten Minnesota would surely have made the CFP playoffs.

So basically, all P5 now have a clear win-and-in path to the playoffs whereas they didn't in the past.

Well 60 years ago, Minnesota lost 2 games and still won the MNC.

That's like saying 70 years ago Army won a national title. Both Army and Minnesota were powers during that time, but both have fallen from that perch long ago.

So I think my point stands. The current CFP is the first setup that really gives all P5 teams, even the lowliest, a clear win-and-in path. There's no way a P5 champ is going to go unbeaten and miss the playoffs.

That's something I think the Tanks of this forum miss out on about the current CFP when they say there's this strong desire for P5 champs to get in automatically: Basically, if you are a P5 team and you go unbeaten, you are assured of making the playoffs. Any P5 champ - an Iowa State and a Mississippi State, not just a Texas or an LSU. That matters because college football does have an ethos of being undefeated - teams that go undefeated, even against soft schedules, and do not get a chance to play in a big bowl or for the title do draw sympathy, that strikes many as unfair. UCF in 2017 is an example, Boise and Utah got sympathy 10 years ago, even 1998 Tulane still occasionally comes up.

But if you lose a game, even if you are a super-power like an Alabama or Texas, your claim to playing for a title is not viewed with much sympathy.

And in today's CFP, the only P5 champs that won't make the playoffs are ones that have lost. That doesn't bother even the big powers nearly so much. You can't have a situation like 2004 when a unbeaten P5 champ didn't make the BCS title game.

And how many unbeaten seasons does a school have? The point is for a 1 loss team like Baylor or TCU in 2014. Or for a year when a school pulls a conference title out after a slow start.

Texas is one of the top national powers. They have had 14 seasons without a loss during the regular season (including seasons where they had a tie but no losses). But only 7 of those have been since 1923 and 4 of those were in a 10 year period with DKR. So from 1924-1961 and 1971-2019, only 3. Unbeaten seasons are rare even for the top programs.

No question, among P5 schools, unbeaten seasons are rare. But, I don't think that changes my point, which is that IMO, the P5 conferences care a lot more about their undefeated champs making the playoffs than they do about a champ who has lost getting in.

For example, in 2017 and 2018, Ohio State, as powerful a program as there is in the country, from the B1G, the co-most powerful of the P5 conferences, lost just one game and won the B1G and still missed the playoffs. Yet there was barely a murmur from them about that.

But had Ohio State gone undefeated either of those years and yet still missed the playoffs, I think there would have been an instant revolt in the B1G and we'd have a new playoff system in place already.

But of course thanks to the CFP that wouldn't have happened, because unlike with the BCS, it is functionally impossible for that to have happened. And undefeated Ohio State, or any B1G team, would always make the CFP playoffs. So IMO, the structure of the CFP takes a lot of the "sting" about P5 champs missing the playoffs.

(01-11-2020 08:51 AM)chester Wrote:  Wait, are you guys predicting the future of college sports? For fun, top 10 college sports in 2050:

1) Esports
2) Capture the Flag
3) Paintball
4) Basketball (12 ft goals, 32ft 3pt line from center)
5) Mesoamerican Ball (big comeback for the classic American game, sans human sacrifice)
6) Baseball
7) Soccor (sp?)
8) Sham Battling (flour bag bullets)
9) Flag Football
10) Horror Housening (lowest combined blood pressure wins)

Don't forget Ultimate.