I find this interesting because he is a prominent ESPN voice...at least when it comes to the SEC and college sports. Apparently, he also used his slot on Finebaum today to discuss it although I was not watching.

Here are the tweets:

--------------------
Mel Tucker leaving Colorado for Michigan State is a 24 hour story. It will fade.

The bigger story that’s not going away is the rapid erosion of the PAC-12 being a relevant factor in major college football.

The gap is already huge and only growing bigger each and every year.
10:35 AM · Feb 12, 2020

----------------------
Drastic times call for drastic measures.

It’s time for the Pac-12 & Big 12 to being discussions of merging in CFB.

Yes, there will be lawyers
Yes, it will upset some schools.

But it’s the only other I can see how the PAC-12 will have any real place in CFB by 2030.

-------------------
Big 10 & SEC are roughly distributing $20M more to their schools per year than Big 12 & Pac-12.

$100,000,000+ per school more in 5 years.

You have to pivot.

Sell equity stake in a forthcoming Big12/Pac12 CFB conference to get $ now, then negotiate big TV deal in ‘25

Only shot

--------------------
While scoffed at, Larry Scott’s idea of selling an equity stake in their upcoming media rights is interesting

The issue, Pac-12 needs a better product. Hence the need for a partner....(Big 12)

A CFB conference w/ Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon & USC as it’s anchors is highly sellable

Take the 14 strongest out of the 22 and make a new conference.

Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Utah
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

Here's the question...

You place schools like Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC or Big Ten for that matter and you increase everyone's content value. Good for those parties.

The primary issue is you also reduce the number of games available that meet a certain threshold of value.

For example, a game of Alabama vs Texas is more valuable than a game of Alabama vs Ole Miss or Texas vs Oklahoma State. That's granted, but you factor that sort of dynamic out over 12 games and you might actually reduce your potential audience. In other words, is it better to have more match-ups like Texas vs Alabama even if you reduce the total number of quality match-ups that garner significant ratings? Or is it better to have more match-ups that feature the blue bloods vs middle tier Power schools?

Which is more beneficial to the bottom line of a TV network? We have to consider the number of time slots that a network like ABC/ESPN would want to fill and that would be significant. We also have to consider what they're paying to get it.

I think we also have to consider the investment in the CFP. Most probably don't want to expand the playoff even though it may happen, but if you schedule more playoff quality match-ups for the regular season then the potentiality of meaningful games in the postseason is reduced. That is to say, if 4 conferences are going to be represented then at least 3 of them need to produce quality champions/participants or the whole thing is going to be a snooze. The real games happened in the regular season...or at the very least, most of the best teams were simply left out because they all came from one league.

Also granted, this sort of dynamic has diminishing returns. You start matching up Texas against North Texas or Alabama against Southern Miss and the effect is not the same. I think we could all agree that Power teams for the most part will garner bigger ratings on average.

So the question follows...how many do you cull out? Because you cull out too many and you reduce the number of quality broadcasts available for the seemingly innumerable windows available across all the ESPN platforms.

Let's say ESPN was paying top money for 40 schools. That's probably cheaper than maintaining an upper tier around 60 schools, but what's the ROI? That's the most significant number.

The other question would be in regards to Burns' thoughts...is he a company man toeing the company line? Or is he just generating content for a talk show?

Because if ESPN is in a position to concern themselves with the game on a macro level then they might as well pull some strings and "form" a Western conference that has relevance. Perhaps the SEC and Big Ten would be allowed to feed off the ACC at that point?

(02-13-2020 06:14 AM)XLance Wrote:  Take the 14 strongest out of the 22 and make a new conference.

Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Utah
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

Looks fine to me.

XII leftovers add to get to 12:

West: Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, TCU, Baylor, Houston
East: Memphis, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Temple, Central Florida, South Florida

(02-13-2020 01:20 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 06:14 AM)XLance Wrote:  Take the 14 strongest out of the 22 and make a new conference.

Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Utah
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

Looks fine to me.

XII leftovers add to get to 12:

West: Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, TCU, Baylor, Houston
East: Memphis, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Temple, Central Florida, South Florida

Not bad.

But I would think there would still be a western shift:
East: ISU, KSU, OSU, TCU, Baylor, Houston
West: Boise, CSU, New Mexico, SDSU, BYU, UNLV?

(02-13-2020 01:20 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 06:14 AM)XLance Wrote:  Take the 14 strongest out of the 22 and make a new conference.

Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Utah
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

Looks fine to me.

XII leftovers add to get to 12:

West: Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, TCU, Baylor, Houston
East: Memphis, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Temple, Central Florida, South Florida

Yes that works, just not well enough to keep Texas on top and Oklahoma in the top 10 in revenue.

And there are major political issues within Washington, Oregon, Kansas, and Oklahoma. And quite frankly with the PAC's snobbery Iowa State merits inclusion while Arizona State does not academically.

The easiest way for them to merge (which they can since both GOR's expire within the same year) would be to move to 20 with Texas, Texas Tech, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma state, Iowa State, and possibly T.C.U. joining the 12 schools of the PAC to form a 20 member conference with 4 divisions of 5.

West Virginia and Baylor would have to find homes.

But of course if that happened it would do nothing to help the ACC play catch up and within a few years the Big 10 and SEC would both move to 20 out of the ACC leaving 3 of those schools out of the club.

(02-13-2020 02:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 01:20 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 06:14 AM)XLance Wrote:  Take the 14 strongest out of the 22 and make a new conference.

Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Utah
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

Looks fine to me.

XII leftovers add to get to 12:

West: Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, TCU, Baylor, Houston
East: Memphis, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Temple, Central Florida, South Florida

Yes that works, just not well enough to keep Texas on top and Oklahoma in the top 10 in revenue.

And there are major political issues within Washington, Oregon, Kansas, and Oklahoma. And quite frankly with the PAC's snobbery Iowa State merits inclusion while Arizona State does not academically.

The easiest way for them to merge (which they can since both GOR's expire within the same year) would be to move to 20 with Texas, Texas Tech, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma state, Iowa State, and possibly T.C.U. joining the 12 schools of the PAC to form a 20 member conference with 4 divisions of 5.

West Virginia and Baylor would have to find homes.

But of course if that happened it would do nothing to help the ACC play catch up and within a few years the Big 10 and SEC would both move to 20 out of the ACC leaving 3 of those schools out of the club.

There would be no reason to include OSU & WSU in that group, the league would be stronger with 18 or adding 2 of these 3 BYU, UH, BSU.

Or just have Texas and Oklahoma join the Pac-12.

(02-13-2020 03:31 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Or just have Texas and Oklahoma join the Pac-12.

there is no chance of that happening.

(02-13-2020 02:30 PM)Win5002 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 02:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 01:20 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 06:14 AM)XLance Wrote:  Take the 14 strongest out of the 22 and make a new conference.

Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Utah
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

Looks fine to me.

XII leftovers add to get to 12:

West: Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, TCU, Baylor, Houston
East: Memphis, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Temple, Central Florida, South Florida

Yes that works, just not well enough to keep Texas on top and Oklahoma in the top 10 in revenue.

And there are major political issues within Washington, Oregon, Kansas, and Oklahoma. And quite frankly with the PAC's snobbery Iowa State merits inclusion while Arizona State does not academically.

The easiest way for them to merge (which they can since both GOR's expire within the same year) would be to move to 20 with Texas, Texas Tech, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma state, Iowa State, and possibly T.C.U. joining the 12 schools of the PAC to form a 20 member conference with 4 divisions of 5.

West Virginia and Baylor would have to find homes.

But of course if that happened it would do nothing to help the ACC play catch up and within a few years the Big 10 and SEC would both move to 20 out of the ACC leaving 3 of those schools out of the club.

There would be no reason to include OSU & WSU in that group, the league would be stronger with 18 or adding 2 of these 3 BYU, UH, BSU.

Never underestimate the ability of PAC officials to seize he downside of any arrangement and with politics as they are it would simply be much easier to accomplish the objective this way. In theory you are right. In practice my money is on that which eliminates no PAC school ever how underserving.

I think there's only one way that the PAC 12 could take the heart out of the Big 12.

That's if several of Texas and Oklahoma's friends are coming along(I don't think it would necessarily have to be all of them). AND if ESPN is paying the bills.

That sort of dynamic could fit into a Disney-based plan of controlling basically every corner of college football/basketball and anything else. That way, they guarantee a nationally relevant product.

The contracts of the PAC and Big 12 lining up is what really makes it possible, but if any other network or FAANG company gets involved then it probably can't happen. ESPN will not simply relinquish control of Texas and Oklahoma to another media entity. They can just pay them more and stick them somewhere else if need be.

If the PAC realizes their error in rebuffing ESPN's offer a couple of years ago then it could work, but the PAC must be willing to sign over most of their rights to ESPN.

(02-14-2020 01:34 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I think there's only one way that the PAC 12 could take the heart out of the Big 12.

That's if several of Texas and Oklahoma's friends are coming along(I don't think it would necessarily have to be all of them). AND if ESPN is paying the bills.

That sort of dynamic could fit into a Disney-based plan of controlling basically every corner of college football/basketball and anything else. That way, they guarantee a nationally relevant product.

The contracts of the PAC and Big 12 lining up is what really makes it possible, but if any other network or FAANG company gets involved then it probably can't happen. ESPN will not simply relinquish control of Texas and Oklahoma to another media entity. They can just pay them more and stick them somewhere else if need be.

If the PAC realizes their error in rebuffing ESPN's offer a couple of years ago then it could work, but the PAC must be willing to sign over most of their rights to ESPN.

PAC should have sold those rights over to ESPN years ago to try and get carriage when the network renegotiated its tv packages with broadcasters back when the ACCN got added to the lineup of channels. Might be best for those schools to hang on to any remaining rights and see what their best options are moving forward.

I still think the PAC is the weakest and most likely to get poached this round of musical conferences. People want to keep looking at the third highest grossing conference, the Big 12, and say that’s where the want and need to realign is the strongest, but it’s not. It’s further west.

(02-15-2020 03:34 AM)murrdcu Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 01:34 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I think there's only one way that the PAC 12 could take the heart out of the Big 12.

That's if several of Texas and Oklahoma's friends are coming along(I don't think it would necessarily have to be all of them). AND if ESPN is paying the bills.

That sort of dynamic could fit into a Disney-based plan of controlling basically every corner of college football/basketball and anything else. That way, they guarantee a nationally relevant product.

The contracts of the PAC and Big 12 lining up is what really makes it possible, but if any other network or FAANG company gets involved then it probably can't happen. ESPN will not simply relinquish control of Texas and Oklahoma to another media entity. They can just pay them more and stick them somewhere else if need be.

If the PAC realizes their error in rebuffing ESPN's offer a couple of years ago then it could work, but the PAC must be willing to sign over most of their rights to ESPN.

PAC should have sold those rights over to ESPN years ago to try and get carriage when the network renegotiated its tv packages with broadcasters back when the ACCN got added to the lineup of channels. Might be best for those schools to hang on to any remaining rights and see what their best options are moving forward.

I still think the PAC is the weakest and most likely to get poached this round of musical conferences. People want to keep looking at the third highest grossing conference, the Big 12, and say that’s where the want and need to realign is the strongest, but it’s not. It’s further west.

The PAC doesn't really have anything worth poaching, IMO. Seriously, compare the PAC markets to the SEC or Big Ten. No one really come close, IMO.