(03-22-2021 05:10 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  I think it would take more than just Boise. If they could get BYU to come along for the ride, that might do it, but BYU doesn’t appear to be interested.

The only way the AAC is going to become a power conference is if they can persuade one or two of the top football powers in the P5 to join them. What are the odds of that?

(03-22-2021 05:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 08:04 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I read this article last week. I've been out of pocket and just getting around to it, but I think this is an interesting discussion.

AAC at a crossroads

Now some will call this bluster and nothing more than a PR campaign. Of course, they could be right, but it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

He knows the AAC isn't going to magically come down with a super rich media deal just because of semantics or a few legislative changes. If the AAC was in the autonomous group then they would surely be the poorest league among them.

Nonetheless, Aresco wants to play by autonomous rules. Their costs would certainly increase if they want to compete in a world where NIL is going to become the norm. That's what is interesting to me.

Aresco threw in a mention of being in the autonomous group at the end of that article, but that didn’t seem to be the focus. Instead, it was all a part of being part of the auto-bid power group if/when there’s a playoff expansion.

To me, it’s a simple matter: if the AAC can convince a contract bowl that their champ is worth more than taking a 2nd/3rd place P5 team or Notre Dame, then they’re “P6”. That has always been the standard and nothing is preventing the AAC from making that deal if it was actually offered. The problem is that it simply isn’t being offered. The marketplace still would rather take a random SEC or Big Ten team in a bowl whether it’s fair or not. As long as that’s the case, the AAC won’t be a power conference. There isn’t any BCS criteria for AQ status here: this is straight up about whether the free market believes that a league is worth $40 million per year or not.

I think that sums it up. That said, I think i have a slightly different view. I think it’s more about getting ESPN to ante up 40 million for a CFP aligned game that features the AAC champ. Once you get that—the venue—be it an existing bowl or a new bowl is the easy part of the equation. It’s worth noting this would not be an entirely charitable move on the part of ESPN. Given that such a move would elevate the AAC to something approximating a P5 league—-it may be a cheap way for ESPN to increase the relevance, value, and viewership of content it currently has locked up until 2032 at a pretty economical price.

The thing is, the AAC champ is not regarded as being worth anything like $40 million. So that means the bulk of the value-added would have to come from a P5 opponent. But, P5 opponents worth that amount are pretty rare too, we're talking basically the champs or runner-up level teams from the P5 conferences.

And those teams already have a better option - being placed in an NY6 bowl as either a champ or an at-large team. None of them would want to get stuck being forced to play the AAC champ. The G5 champ is always the "hot potato" in the NY6 that no bowl wants and no P5 at-large wants to be matched against.

(03-22-2021 03:58 PM)MidknightWhiskey Wrote:  As others have said it comes down to the major bowls involved in the CFP. Will those bowls want to keep an access bowl for the highest ranked champion from AAC, MWC, CUSA, Sunbelt & MAC and risk having Northern Illinois go undefeated or a 1 loss season and play in their bowl? The NY6 bowls already got a taste of it in 2016 with Western Michigan.

If I was a NY6 bowl I'd much rather have the current setup than be tied to the AAC. The current setup gives me the best of five conferences - including the AAC, whereas the AAC tie would saddle me with the AAC alone. That's a lose-lose proposition.

Sure, the NY6 bowls would rather have #8 ranked UCF in 2018 than #15 ranked Western Michigan of 2016. But that's the thing - in the current setup they never have to lose #8 UCF to #16 WMU, because if that's who it comes down to they get #8 UCF.

The only time they get saddled with a non-AAC team is when the AAC has a lousy champion, in which case the would prefer the non-AAC team! For example, you mention 2016 Western Michigan. But if your system had been in place, instead of getting #15 ranked, 13-0 Western Michigan, the NY6 would have gotten ..... #24 and 10-3 Temple. There's no way on earth the major bowls would rather have had that Temple team.

So the current situation is all upside for the NY6 - if the AAC has the best G5 team, well then they get that AAC team. But if the AAC has a down year with a lousy champ, they don't get saddled with that team, they get a better team from the rest of the G5.

(03-22-2021 09:51 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 05:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 08:04 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I read this article last week. I've been out of pocket and just getting around to it, but I think this is an interesting discussion.

AAC at a crossroads

Now some will call this bluster and nothing more than a PR campaign. Of course, they could be right, but it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

He knows the AAC isn't going to magically come down with a super rich media deal just because of semantics or a few legislative changes. If the AAC was in the autonomous group then they would surely be the poorest league among them.

Nonetheless, Aresco wants to play by autonomous rules. Their costs would certainly increase if they want to compete in a world where NIL is going to become the norm. That's what is interesting to me.

Aresco threw in a mention of being in the autonomous group at the end of that article, but that didn’t seem to be the focus. Instead, it was all a part of being part of the auto-bid power group if/when there’s a playoff expansion.

To me, it’s a simple matter: if the AAC can convince a contract bowl that their champ is worth more than taking a 2nd/3rd place P5 team or Notre Dame, then they’re “P6”. That has always been the standard and nothing is preventing the AAC from making that deal if it was actually offered. The problem is that it simply isn’t being offered. The marketplace still would rather take a random SEC or Big Ten team in a bowl whether it’s fair or not. As long as that’s the case, the AAC won’t be a power conference. There isn’t any BCS criteria for AQ status here: this is straight up about whether the free market believes that a league is worth $40 million per year or not.

I think that sums it up. That said, I think i have a slightly different view. I think it’s more about getting ESPN to ante up 40 million for a CFP aligned game that features the AAC champ. Once you get that—the venue—be it an existing bowl or a new bowl is the easy part of the equation. It’s worth noting this would not be an entirely charitable move on the part of ESPN. Given that such a move would elevate the AAC to something approximating a P5 league—-it may be a cheap way for ESPN to increase the relevance, value, and viewership of content it currently has locked up until 2032 at a pretty economical price.

The thing is, the AAC champ is not regarded as being worth anything like $40 million. So that means they bulk of the value-added would have to come from a P5 opponent. But, P5 opponents worth that amount are pretty rare too, we're talking basically the champs or runner-up level teams from the P5 conferences.

And those teams already have a better option - being placed in an NY6 bowl as either a champ or an at-large team. None of them would want to get stuck being forced to play the AAC champ. The G5 champ is always the "hot potato" in the NY6 that no bowl wants and no P5 at-large wants to be matched against.

Doesnt matter. Its pretty likley the Big-12 and Pac-12 (who have no secondary Orange Bowl access like the Big-10 and SEC) would be more than happy to take another 6 million dollar CFP bowl payday. Like I said, its really all about ESPN. Do they like the idea of elevating a 65 game package of economically priced content to the P5 level? If they do---then they might be willing to pull the trigger. The G5 access bowl game has generally drawn pretty close to what the other CFP "exhibition bowls" draw. So, the numbers would be little different from the financials on the other auxillary CFP sponsored "contract" bowls. It would be a long term gamble by ESPN that the elevation would make that AAC (that they have cheap exclusive rights to for 11 more years) content more relevant, more watched, and therefore---more valuable. I mean---7 million a team for anything that comes even close to P5 TV numbers is screaming bargain. What would be interesting is if this is carrot ESPN uses to lure in Boise, BYU, and SDSU to pick up a little extra west coast content. At that point, the price tag goes up to 47 million a year (40 million for the CFP contract bowl, 7 million for Boise, they were already paying for UConn---so SDSU is effectively free--and they were already likely paying BYU something in the 7-10 million range)---but it plugs some content holes and provides cheap insurance in case ESPN cant resign all their current P5 inventory when it starts coming up for renewal in the mid 2020's.

(03-22-2021 11:15 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 09:51 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 05:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 08:04 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I read this article last week. I've been out of pocket and just getting around to it, but I think this is an interesting discussion.

AAC at a crossroads

Now some will call this bluster and nothing more than a PR campaign. Of course, they could be right, but it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

He knows the AAC isn't going to magically come down with a super rich media deal just because of semantics or a few legislative changes. If the AAC was in the autonomous group then they would surely be the poorest league among them.

Nonetheless, Aresco wants to play by autonomous rules. Their costs would certainly increase if they want to compete in a world where NIL is going to become the norm. That's what is interesting to me.

Aresco threw in a mention of being in the autonomous group at the end of that article, but that didn’t seem to be the focus. Instead, it was all a part of being part of the auto-bid power group if/when there’s a playoff expansion.

To me, it’s a simple matter: if the AAC can convince a contract bowl that their champ is worth more than taking a 2nd/3rd place P5 team or Notre Dame, then they’re “P6”. That has always been the standard and nothing is preventing the AAC from making that deal if it was actually offered. The problem is that it simply isn’t being offered. The marketplace still would rather take a random SEC or Big Ten team in a bowl whether it’s fair or not. As long as that’s the case, the AAC won’t be a power conference. There isn’t any BCS criteria for AQ status here: this is straight up about whether the free market believes that a league is worth $40 million per year or not.

I think that sums it up. That said, I think i have a slightly different view. I think it’s more about getting ESPN to ante up 40 million for a CFP aligned game that features the AAC champ. Once you get that—the venue—be it an existing bowl or a new bowl is the easy part of the equation. It’s worth noting this would not be an entirely charitable move on the part of ESPN. Given that such a move would elevate the AAC to something approximating a P5 league—-it may be a cheap way for ESPN to increase the relevance, value, and viewership of content it currently has locked up until 2032 at a pretty economical price.

The thing is, the AAC champ is not regarded as being worth anything like $40 million. So that means they bulk of the value-added would have to come from a P5 opponent. But, P5 opponents worth that amount are pretty rare too, we're talking basically the champs or runner-up level teams from the P5 conferences.

And those teams already have a better option - being placed in an NY6 bowl as either a champ or an at-large team. None of them would want to get stuck being forced to play the AAC champ. The G5 champ is always the "hot potato" in the NY6 that no bowl wants and no P5 at-large wants to be matched against.

Doesnt matter. Its pretty likley the Big-12 and Pac-12 (who have no secondary Orange Bowl access like the Big-10 and SEC) would be more than happy to take another 6 million dollar CFP bowl payday. Like I said, its really all about ESPN. Do they like the idea of elevating a 65 game package of economically priced content to the P5 level? If they do---then they might be willing to pull the trigger. The G5 access bowl game has generally drawn pretty close to what the other CFP "exhibition bowls" draw. So, the numbers would be little different from the financials on the other auxillary CFP sponsored "contract" bowls. It would be a long term gamble by ESPN that the elevation would make that AAC (that they have cheap exclusive rights to for 11 more years) content more relevant, more watched, and therefore---more valuable. I mean---7 million a team for anything that comes even close to P5 TV numbers is screaming bargain. What would be interesting is if this is carrot ESPN uses to lure in Boise, BYU, and SDSU to pick up a little extra west coast content. At that point, the price tag goes up to 47 million a year (40 million for the CFP contract bowl, 7 million for Boise, they were already paying for UConn---so SDSU is effectively free--and they were already likely paying BYU something in the 7-10 million range)---but it plugs some content holes and provides cheap insurance in case ESPN cant resign all their current P5 inventory when it starts coming up for renewal in the mid 2020's.

That's a very optimistic take, but the reality is that it hasn't worked that way. The exact same arguments were made by old Big East football fans 10 years ago: ESPN had all of their content for cheap, they could promote the league as insurance against the other power conferences when they were shopping around for new contracts, they could elevate and create bowls for them to get better opponents, their basketball content was valuable enough that they could leverage it for better football status - you can see all of these arguments in the archives of the now AAC forum. So many old Big East fans truly believed this - and that's when they had brands like West Virginia, Syracuse, Pitt and Louisville still in the league.

Not only did that NOT happen, we all saw that the old Big East was picked apart with its most valuable parts consumed by the other power conferences. I hate to be a downer because there are very good athletic programs in the AAC, but to the extent that the AAC becomes valuable on its own, the other power conferences will naturally evolve to take away the AAC's most valuable parts and the league will be back to square one. It's a classic survival of the fittest evolution. That's what happened to both the old Big East and MWC. There just seems to be a natural order where there's around 65 to 70 total power teams no matter what the conference configurations - there won't be an entire league elevated (and any league that threatens to get elevated will get picked apart and punched back down).

I also think you're very much underestimating the hubris of the P5 - the Big 12 and Pac-12 sure as heck aren't elevating another conference to their level for a $6 million payday. I don't think they'd do it for a $20 million payday. The *relative* power position of the Big 12 and Pac-12 over the AAC and other G5 leagues is actually more important to them compared to the Big Ten and SEC (who have so much money that it's largely irrelevant what happens below them). It IS about exclusivity - to put it bluntly, these are snobby exclusive schools that are in an industry (higher education) that are *rewarded* for being snobby and exclusive. They'll apply that attitude to both academics and athletics. There can be only so many schools at the top and they're going to act in their self-interest to ensure that they're *always* at the top and a big line of demarcation between them and the rest of college sports. The "rising tide lifts all ships" argument absolutely does NOT apply to college football - it's all about *relative* power compared to everyone else even more than absolute power.

(03-23-2021 09:11 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 11:15 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 09:51 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 05:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 08:04 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Aresco threw in a mention of being in the autonomous group at the end of that article, but that didn’t seem to be the focus. Instead, it was all a part of being part of the auto-bid power group if/when there’s a playoff expansion.

To me, it’s a simple matter: if the AAC can convince a contract bowl that their champ is worth more than taking a 2nd/3rd place P5 team or Notre Dame, then they’re “P6”. That has always been the standard and nothing is preventing the AAC from making that deal if it was actually offered. The problem is that it simply isn’t being offered. The marketplace still would rather take a random SEC or Big Ten team in a bowl whether it’s fair or not. As long as that’s the case, the AAC won’t be a power conference. There isn’t any BCS criteria for AQ status here: this is straight up about whether the free market believes that a league is worth $40 million per year or not.

I think that sums it up. That said, I think i have a slightly different view. I think it’s more about getting ESPN to ante up 40 million for a CFP aligned game that features the AAC champ. Once you get that—the venue—be it an existing bowl or a new bowl is the easy part of the equation. It’s worth noting this would not be an entirely charitable move on the part of ESPN. Given that such a move would elevate the AAC to something approximating a P5 league—-it may be a cheap way for ESPN to increase the relevance, value, and viewership of content it currently has locked up until 2032 at a pretty economical price.

The thing is, the AAC champ is not regarded as being worth anything like $40 million. So that means they bulk of the value-added would have to come from a P5 opponent. But, P5 opponents worth that amount are pretty rare too, we're talking basically the champs or runner-up level teams from the P5 conferences.

And those teams already have a better option - being placed in an NY6 bowl as either a champ or an at-large team. None of them would want to get stuck being forced to play the AAC champ. The G5 champ is always the "hot potato" in the NY6 that no bowl wants and no P5 at-large wants to be matched against.

Doesnt matter. Its pretty likley the Big-12 and Pac-12 (who have no secondary Orange Bowl access like the Big-10 and SEC) would be more than happy to take another 6 million dollar CFP bowl payday. Like I said, its really all about ESPN. Do they like the idea of elevating a 65 game package of economically priced content to the P5 level? If they do---then they might be willing to pull the trigger. The G5 access bowl game has generally drawn pretty close to what the other CFP "exhibition bowls" draw. So, the numbers would be little different from the financials on the other auxillary CFP sponsored "contract" bowls. It would be a long term gamble by ESPN that the elevation would make that AAC (that they have cheap exclusive rights to for 11 more years) content more relevant, more watched, and therefore---more valuable. I mean---7 million a team for anything that comes even close to P5 TV numbers is screaming bargain. What would be interesting is if this is carrot ESPN uses to lure in Boise, BYU, and SDSU to pick up a little extra west coast content. At that point, the price tag goes up to 47 million a year (40 million for the CFP contract bowl, 7 million for Boise, they were already paying for UConn---so SDSU is effectively free--and they were already likely paying BYU something in the 7-10 million range)---but it plugs some content holes and provides cheap insurance in case ESPN cant resign all their current P5 inventory when it starts coming up for renewal in the mid 2020's.

That's a very optimistic take, but the reality is that it hasn't worked that way. The exact same arguments were made by old Big East football fans 10 years ago: ESPN had all of their content for cheap, they could promote the league as insurance against the other power conferences when they were shopping around for new contracts, they could elevate and create bowls for them to get better opponents, their basketball content was valuable enough that they could leverage it for better football status - you can see all of these arguments in the archives of the now AAC forum. So many old Big East fans truly believed this - and that's when they had brands like West Virginia, Syracuse, Pitt and Louisville still in the league.

Not only did that NOT happen, we all saw that the old Big East was picked apart with its most valuable parts consumed by the other power conferences. I hate to be a downer because there are very good athletic programs in the AAC, but to the extent that the AAC becomes valuable on its own, the other power conferences will naturally evolve to take away the AAC's most valuable parts and the league will be back to square one. It's a classic survival of the fittest evolution. That's what happened to both the old Big East and MWC. There just seems to be a natural order where there's around 65 to 70 total power teams no matter what the conference configurations - there won't be an entire league elevated (and any league that threatens to get elevated will get picked apart and punched back down).

I also think you're very much underestimating the hubris of the P5 - the Big 12 and Pac-12 sure as heck aren't elevating another conference to their level for a $6 million payday. I don't think they'd do it for a $20 million payday. The *relative* power position of the Big 12 and Pac-12 over the AAC and other G5 leagues is actually more important to them compared to the Big Ten and SEC (who have so much money that it's largely irrelevant what happens below them). It IS about exclusivity - to put it bluntly, these are snobby exclusive schools that are in an industry (higher education) that are *rewarded* for being snobby and exclusive. They'll apply that attitude to both academics and athletics. There can be only so many schools at the top and they're going to act in their self-interest to ensure that they're *always* at the top and a big line of demarcation between them and the rest of college sports. The "rising tide lifts all ships" argument absolutely does NOT apply to college football - it's all about *relative* power compared to everyone else even more than absolute power.

That argument doesn't hold water in most endeavors, not just college football. The thing it fails to take into account that some of those ships are tethered to the bottom by anchors with a fixed length of chain. If the tide goes up too far, they just get swamped. And in most endeavors, TPTB will only give those with anchors enough slack that they will stay at the bottom.

(03-22-2021 11:15 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 09:51 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 05:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 08:04 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I read this article last week. I've been out of pocket and just getting around to it, but I think this is an interesting discussion.

AAC at a crossroads

Now some will call this bluster and nothing more than a PR campaign. Of course, they could be right, but it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

He knows the AAC isn't going to magically come down with a super rich media deal just because of semantics or a few legislative changes. If the AAC was in the autonomous group then they would surely be the poorest league among them.

Nonetheless, Aresco wants to play by autonomous rules. Their costs would certainly increase if they want to compete in a world where NIL is going to become the norm. That's what is interesting to me.

Aresco threw in a mention of being in the autonomous group at the end of that article, but that didn’t seem to be the focus. Instead, it was all a part of being part of the auto-bid power group if/when there’s a playoff expansion.

To me, it’s a simple matter: if the AAC can convince a contract bowl that their champ is worth more than taking a 2nd/3rd place P5 team or Notre Dame, then they’re “P6”. That has always been the standard and nothing is preventing the AAC from making that deal if it was actually offered. The problem is that it simply isn’t being offered. The marketplace still would rather take a random SEC or Big Ten team in a bowl whether it’s fair or not. As long as that’s the case, the AAC won’t be a power conference. There isn’t any BCS criteria for AQ status here: this is straight up about whether the free market believes that a league is worth $40 million per year or not.

I think that sums it up. That said, I think i have a slightly different view. I think it’s more about getting ESPN to ante up 40 million for a CFP aligned game that features the AAC champ. Once you get that—the venue—be it an existing bowl or a new bowl is the easy part of the equation. It’s worth noting this would not be an entirely charitable move on the part of ESPN. Given that such a move would elevate the AAC to something approximating a P5 league—-it may be a cheap way for ESPN to increase the relevance, value, and viewership of content it currently has locked up until 2032 at a pretty economical price.

The thing is, the AAC champ is not regarded as being worth anything like $40 million. So that means they bulk of the value-added would have to come from a P5 opponent. But, P5 opponents worth that amount are pretty rare too, we're talking basically the champs or runner-up level teams from the P5 conferences.

And those teams already have a better option - being placed in an NY6 bowl as either a champ or an at-large team. None of them would want to get stuck being forced to play the AAC champ. The G5 champ is always the "hot potato" in the NY6 that no bowl wants and no P5 at-large wants to be matched against.

Doesnt matter. Its pretty likley the Big-12 and Pac-12 (who have no secondary Orange Bowl access like the Big-10 and SEC) would be more than happy to take another 6 million dollar CFP bowl payday. Like I said, its really all about ESPN. Do they like the idea of elevating a 65 game package of economically priced content to the P5 level? If they do---then they might be willing to pull the trigger. The G5 access bowl game has generally drawn pretty close to what the other CFP "exhibition bowls" draw. So, the numbers would be little different from the financials on the other auxillary CFP sponsored "contract" bowls. It would be a long term gamble by ESPN that the elevation would make that AAC (that they have cheap exclusive rights to for 11 more years) content more relevant, more watched, and therefore---more valuable. I mean---7 million a team for anything that comes even close to P5 TV numbers is screaming bargain. What would be interesting is if this is carrot ESPN uses to lure in Boise, BYU, and SDSU to pick up a little extra west coast content. At that point, the price tag goes up to 47 million a year (40 million for the CFP contract bowl, 7 million for Boise, they were already paying for UConn---so SDSU is effectively free--and they were already likely paying BYU something in the 7-10 million range)---but it plugs some content holes and provides cheap insurance in case ESPN cant resign all their current P5 inventory when it starts coming up for renewal in the mid 2020's.

About your numbers, you said ESPN would pony up $40 million for this bowl, but then say the payout would be $6m for the PAC/B12 rep? What am I missing here.

Also, I'm not sure what the upside for ESPN is. You are basically asking them to pay $40m more per year for content - the AAC champ - that they already get for far less than that. You seem to think that making the AAC a "P" conference in terms of having a contract bowl will suddenly make people more interested in watching AAC content. I don't think it works that way. Getting a contract bowl is in the first case a reflection of market value. ESPN could give the Sun Belt an auto-bid in the Cotton Bowl, but I don't think that would increase interest in Sun Belt football much, if any, at all.

This P/G stuff was relevant for awhile, but it's getting played out and doesn't really reflect the current FBS landscape.

I think there are more levels, like Diamond/Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze.

I think we're getting close to the day where if you're not B10/B12/PAC/SEC/ACC you can't afford to group your olympic sports in the same conference as your football program.

The top "G5ers" will have to group their football programs together to ever hope to get actual access to the championship.

Diamond= P5; 20 football championship slots
Gold= Top 40 G5 schools; 8 football championship slots
Silver= Solid G5s; 3 football championship slots
Bronze= Bottom feeders; 1 football championship PLAY-IN game slot

Notre Dame= 1 dedicated football championship slot

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

Yes - it goes with the "P6" campaign and pretty much every press conference that Aresco has had since the AAC was left out of the power conference conversation.

It's always toughest for the league that believes that it's juuuust outside of the top level but can't move up. The MWC during the last years of the BCS era made essentially the same arguments that the AAC is making now.

On a variation of BKTopper's applying precious metals for tiers, I'd go with a much simpler formulation:

Gold Medalists = P5 conferences
Silver Medalist = AAC
Bronze Medalists = the other G5 conferences

There have been psychological studies that Bronze Medalists in the Olympics are generally much happier with their performances than Silver Medalists. Those people are happy to have won any medal at all, so they're satisfied with the bronze. Silver Medalists, on the other hand, are always wondering about what they didn't do to get the gold and keep going over in their minds that if they could change one or two things, then they would have won it all.

The AAC is a classic Silver Medalist. They feel as if they have done everything right and believe that they're a tier above the Bronze, yet can't break into the Gold Medal ranks. The rest of the G5 is just happy to be there and have a guaranteed collective shot at a NY6 bowl. It's always toughest psychologically for the ones that are directly bumping into the glass ceiling (as opposed to the ones that are far below that ceiling).

That's why the AAC talks so much about being "different" and the MWC did the same at the end of the BCS era. As I've said before, though, the challenge that all of the G5 conferences face is that *relative power* for the P5 is legitimately more important for them than absolute dollars. The power conferences didn't elevate the MWC - instead, they took the most valuable schools and killed off any power conference discussion for them entirely. I believe the same would happen if the AAC ever became a serious threat to rise up another level - the power conferences will pick off the most valuable AAC members before they'd ever elevate the entire conference.

(03-23-2021 10:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

Yes - it goes with the "P6" campaign and pretty much every press conference that Aresco has had since the AAC was left out of the power conference conversation.

It's always toughest for the league that believes that it's juuuust outside of the top level but can't move up. The MWC during the last years of the BCS era made essentially the same arguments that the AAC is making now.

On a variation of BKTopper's applying precious metals for tiers, I'd go with a much simpler formulation:

Gold Medalists = P5 conferences
Silver Medalist = AAC
Bronze Medalists = the other G5 conferences

There have been psychological studies that Bronze Medalists in the Olympics are generally much happier with their performances than Silver Medalists. Those people are happy to have won any medal at all, so they're satisfied with the bronze. Silver Medalists, on the other hand, are always wondering about what they didn't do to get the gold and keep going over in their minds that if they could change one or two things, then they would have won it all.

The AAC is a classic Silver Medalist. They feel as if they have done everything right and believe that they're a tier above the Bronze, yet can't break into the Gold Medal ranks. The rest of the G5 is just happy to be there and have a guaranteed collective shot at a NY6 bowl. It's always toughest psychologically for the ones that are directly bumping into the glass ceiling (as opposed to the ones that are far below that ceiling).

That's why the AAC talks so much about being "different" and the MWC did the same at the end of the BCS era. As I've said before, though, the challenge that all of the G5 conferences face is that *relative power* for the P5 is legitimately more important for them than absolute dollars. The power conferences didn't elevate the MWC - instead, they took the most valuable schools and killed off any power conference discussion for them entirely. I believe the same would happen if the AAC ever became a serious threat to rise up another level - the power conferences will pick off the most valuable AAC members before they'd ever elevate the entire conference.

Great analogy with the medals. IIRC, the studies also show that the worst psychological position at the Olympics, even worse than sliver, is fourth place, just off the podium.

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

All the good AAC schools are just one bad hire away from being mediocre. UCF started their slide back down in 2020.

As a Memphis Tiger fan, and having sat through many seasons of bad football, I will gladly watch the Tiger program accept the silver medal.

(03-23-2021 11:30 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

All the good AAC schools are just one bad hire away from being mediocre. UCF started their slide back down in 2020.

Sure, but there is no tolerance for it for UCF, Houston, Memphis and Cincinnati. The moment a coach slides those schools have they have historically demonstrated they will make a change and find a strong replacement. At Cincinnati we’ve had one bad coach since 2004, and we fired him.

(03-23-2021 11:05 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

Yes - it goes with the "P6" campaign and pretty much every press conference that Aresco has had since the AAC was left out of the power conference conversation.

It's always toughest for the league that believes that it's juuuust outside of the top level but can't move up. The MWC during the last years of the BCS era made essentially the same arguments that the AAC is making now.

On a variation of BKTopper's applying precious metals for tiers, I'd go with a much simpler formulation:

Gold Medalists = P5 conferences
Silver Medalist = AAC
Bronze Medalists = the other G5 conferences

There have been psychological studies that Bronze Medalists in the Olympics are generally much happier with their performances than Silver Medalists. Those people are happy to have won any medal at all, so they're satisfied with the bronze. Silver Medalists, on the other hand, are always wondering about what they didn't do to get the gold and keep going over in their minds that if they could change one or two things, then they would have won it all.

The AAC is a classic Silver Medalist. They feel as if they have done everything right and believe that they're a tier above the Bronze, yet can't break into the Gold Medal ranks. The rest of the G5 is just happy to be there and have a guaranteed collective shot at a NY6 bowl. It's always toughest psychologically for the ones that are directly bumping into the glass ceiling (as opposed to the ones that are far below that ceiling).

That's why the AAC talks so much about being "different" and the MWC did the same at the end of the BCS era. As I've said before, though, the challenge that all of the G5 conferences face is that *relative power* for the P5 is legitimately more important for them than absolute dollars. The power conferences didn't elevate the MWC - instead, they took the most valuable schools and killed off any power conference discussion for them entirely. I believe the same would happen if the AAC ever became a serious threat to rise up another level - the power conferences will pick off the most valuable AAC members before they'd ever elevate the entire conference.

Great analogy with the medals. IIRC, the studies also show that the worst psychological position at the Olympics, even worse than sliver, is fourth place, just off the podium.

That makes total sense to me.

Think about the NCAA Tournament. Maybe it's just me, but I remember a ton of early round upsets, Elite Eight games, and national championship games... yet not many/any national semifinal games. I know that there were certainly a lot of great national semifinal games that went down to the wire, but it's probably difficult to find many people outside of the participants' respective fan bases that remember them.

There's a huge difference between being an Elite Eight team and Final Four team and, similarly, a huge difference between a Final Four team and a national champion. However, a team that wins a national semifinal but then loses the national title game often feels worse about their season than the team that it beat in the national semifinal. The stakes in a national semifinal game have a huge upside (a chance at a national title) but strangely little downside (as the loser is still going to be remembered forever as a Final Four team). In contrast, the national title and Elite Eight games have both huge upside and also huge downside - there's a massive cliff in how you're remembered depending upon whether you win or lose the game. That's probably why those national semifinal games (despite generally being fantastic matchups) are often weirdly forgotten compared to the other rounds of the tournament - the stakes of *losing* aren't quite as stark.

As applied to college conferences, it's always the most difficult for the conference that is on the line of demarcation between being a power conference or non-power conference because power in college sports is NOT linear. There's no such thing as the middle class or even upper middle class in college sports. Instead, it's a total cliff. The AAC doesn't get 50% of the value of a P5 league by being the best G5 conference - instead, it's getting more like 10-20% of the value of a P5 league (and it has to scratch and claw to get that amount). Whenever a conference is close to a cliff, it's no wonder that they want to fight like heck to not fall off of it.

(03-23-2021 10:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

Yes - it goes with the "P6" campaign and pretty much every press conference that Aresco has had since the AAC was left out of the power conference conversation.

It's always toughest for the league that believes that it's juuuust outside of the top level but can't move up. The MWC during the last years of the BCS era made essentially the same arguments that the AAC is making now.

On a variation of BKTopper's applying precious metals for tiers, I'd go with a much simpler formulation:

Gold Medalists = P5 conferences
Silver Medalist = AAC
Bronze Medalists = the other G5 conferences

There have been psychological studies that Bronze Medalists in the Olympics are generally much happier with their performances than Silver Medalists. Those people are happy to have won any medal at all, so they're satisfied with the bronze. Silver Medalists, on the other hand, are always wondering about what they didn't do to get the gold and keep going over in their minds that if they could change one or two things, then they would have won it all.

The AAC is a classic Silver Medalist. They feel as if they have done everything right and believe that they're a tier above the Bronze, yet can't break into the Gold Medal ranks. The rest of the G5 is just happy to be there and have a guaranteed collective shot at a NY6 bowl. It's always toughest psychologically for the ones that are directly bumping into the glass ceiling (as opposed to the ones that are far below that ceiling).

That's why the AAC talks so much about being "different" and the MWC did the same at the end of the BCS era. As I've said before, though, the challenge that all of the G5 conferences face is that *relative power* for the P5 is legitimately more important for them than absolute dollars. The power conferences didn't elevate the MWC - instead, they took the most valuable schools and killed off any power conference discussion for them entirely. I believe the same would happen if the AAC ever became a serious threat to rise up another level - the power conferences will pick off the most valuable AAC members before they'd ever elevate the entire conference.

I actually wouldnt argue with anything your saying....but I would make two points.

All that stuff is correct right up until the day its not. Just as TCU was a G5 worth 1 million a year right up until the day they were suddenly a P5 worth 20 million a year--the same can be true for the "rules" of how conferecnes are treated. The reality is we have only seen conference slide OUT of the power picture is a recent frame of reference which fails to note that the ACC slowly grew into its own as a power conference (the ACC and the WAC were probably on equal footing back in the 70's and early 80's---but they progressed in very different directions). The BCS/CFP landscape of the last 2 to 3 decades really created a landscape where a conference could not organically "grow" high value programs without having them get poached by power conferences. But this BCS period of TV and conference growth all began with the major conferences having only 8 to 10 members and TV contracts that only paid maybe a million a school.

That brings me to my second point---the numbers are SO much larger now that there is a HUGE gulf between the G5 and power conference earnings. There is a large "sweet spot" where a conference can be "power conference worthy" and yet not have members that add enough value to a current P5 to be worth poaching. A conference with an average football attendance of 40K a game and media deal worth 20 million a school would clearly be in the "power conference" range. But a conference like the AAC with no kingpin programs---just a bunch of 30K-50K attendance programs worth 20 million each (assuming they reach such a level)---isnt going to bring the juice needed to provoke poaching from a P5 where each school gets a 50 million+ conference distribution every year---of which only 2-thirds comes from from media. What Im saying is that we may have entered a phase in which the P5 have so many existing members (little room to expand and still be a cohesive conference) which already make so much money that poaching even the best G5's makes no financial sense (see the 2016 Big-12 expansion debacle).

I guess all Im saying is that if ever there was period where a G5 conference COULD develop over time into a P5 without being poached of its best schools---the era would probably look a lot like the current landscape.

(03-23-2021 12:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

Yes - it goes with the "P6" campaign and pretty much every press conference that Aresco has had since the AAC was left out of the power conference conversation.

It's always toughest for the league that believes that it's juuuust outside of the top level but can't move up. The MWC during the last years of the BCS era made essentially the same arguments that the AAC is making now.

On a variation of BKTopper's applying precious metals for tiers, I'd go with a much simpler formulation:

Gold Medalists = P5 conferences
Silver Medalist = AAC
Bronze Medalists = the other G5 conferences

There have been psychological studies that Bronze Medalists in the Olympics are generally much happier with their performances than Silver Medalists. Those people are happy to have won any medal at all, so they're satisfied with the bronze. Silver Medalists, on the other hand, are always wondering about what they didn't do to get the gold and keep going over in their minds that if they could change one or two things, then they would have won it all.

The AAC is a classic Silver Medalist. They feel as if they have done everything right and believe that they're a tier above the Bronze, yet can't break into the Gold Medal ranks. The rest of the G5 is just happy to be there and have a guaranteed collective shot at a NY6 bowl. It's always toughest psychologically for the ones that are directly bumping into the glass ceiling (as opposed to the ones that are far below that ceiling).

That's why the AAC talks so much about being "different" and the MWC did the same at the end of the BCS era. As I've said before, though, the challenge that all of the G5 conferences face is that *relative power* for the P5 is legitimately more important for them than absolute dollars. The power conferences didn't elevate the MWC - instead, they took the most valuable schools and killed off any power conference discussion for them entirely. I believe the same would happen if the AAC ever became a serious threat to rise up another level - the power conferences will pick off the most valuable AAC members before they'd ever elevate the entire conference.

I actually wouldnt argue with anything your saying....but I would make two points.

All that stuff is correct right up until the day its not. Just as TCU was a G5 worth 1 million a year right up until the day they were suddenly a P5 worth 20 million a year--the same can be true for the "rules" of how conferecnes are treated. The reality is we have only seen conference slide OUT of the power picture is a recent frame of reference which fails to note that the ACC slowly grew into its own as a power conference (the ACC and the WAC were probably on equal footing back in the 70's and early 80's---but they progressed in very different directions). The BCS/CFP landscape of the last 2 to 3 decades really created a landscape where a conference could not organically "grow" high value programs without having them get poached by power conferences. But this BCS period of TV and conference growth all began with the major conferences having only 8 to 10 members and TV contracts that only paid maybe a million a school.

That brings me to my second point---the numbers are SO much larger now that there is a HUGE gulf between the G5 and power conference earnings. There is a large "sweet spot" where a conference can be "power conference worthy" and yet not have members that add enough value to a current P5 to be worth poaching. A conference with an average football attendance of 40K a game and media deal worth 20 million a school would clearly be in the "power conference" range. But a conference like the AAC with no kingpin programs---just a bunch of 30K-50K attendance programs worth 20 million each (assuming they reach such a level)---isnt going to bring the juice needed to provoke poaching from a P5 where each school gets a 50 million+ conference distribution every year---of which only 2-thirds comes from from media. What Im saying is that we may have entered a phase in which the P5 have so many existing members (little room to expand and still be a cohesive conference) which already make so much money that poaching even the best G5's makes no financial sense (see the 2016 Big-12 expansion debacle).

I guess all Im saying is that if ever there was period where a G5 conference COULD develop over time into a P5 without being poached of its best schools---the era would probably look a lot like the current landscape.

And, should there be further consolidation among the existing P5 then the AAC would have an even faster path to that goal, assimilation of some of those P5 programs left behind by a disintegrating conference. Let's say OU and KU did head to the Big 10 and Texas and a buddy head to the SEC. You have OSU, KSU, ISU, and TCU & Baylor to add which lends viability to the claim of being a tweener P conference. They already have most of the best of the G5 and they stand at what 11 or 12 full members now?

So if more P5 consolidation happens the AAC stands to pick up credibility, not lose it.

(03-23-2021 01:35 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 12:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-22-2021 04:29 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  it's interesting that Aresco wants to distance the league from the G5 so much.

Is it interesting? It's just business as usual. Aresco's constant message from the day he took that job has been, "We don't belong with the rest of the G5, we are so much better than that riff-raff." His marketing pitch has been as consistent as Verizon claiming to have the best mobile phone network or UPS claiming to be the most reliable way to deliver a package. He is very good at staying on message.

Yes - it goes with the "P6" campaign and pretty much every press conference that Aresco has had since the AAC was left out of the power conference conversation.

It's always toughest for the league that believes that it's juuuust outside of the top level but can't move up. The MWC during the last years of the BCS era made essentially the same arguments that the AAC is making now.

On a variation of BKTopper's applying precious metals for tiers, I'd go with a much simpler formulation:

Gold Medalists = P5 conferences
Silver Medalist = AAC
Bronze Medalists = the other G5 conferences

There have been psychological studies that Bronze Medalists in the Olympics are generally much happier with their performances than Silver Medalists. Those people are happy to have won any medal at all, so they're satisfied with the bronze. Silver Medalists, on the other hand, are always wondering about what they didn't do to get the gold and keep going over in their minds that if they could change one or two things, then they would have won it all.

The AAC is a classic Silver Medalist. They feel as if they have done everything right and believe that they're a tier above the Bronze, yet can't break into the Gold Medal ranks. The rest of the G5 is just happy to be there and have a guaranteed collective shot at a NY6 bowl. It's always toughest psychologically for the ones that are directly bumping into the glass ceiling (as opposed to the ones that are far below that ceiling).

That's why the AAC talks so much about being "different" and the MWC did the same at the end of the BCS era. As I've said before, though, the challenge that all of the G5 conferences face is that *relative power* for the P5 is legitimately more important for them than absolute dollars. The power conferences didn't elevate the MWC - instead, they took the most valuable schools and killed off any power conference discussion for them entirely. I believe the same would happen if the AAC ever became a serious threat to rise up another level - the power conferences will pick off the most valuable AAC members before they'd ever elevate the entire conference.

I actually wouldnt argue with anything your saying....but I would make two points.

All that stuff is correct right up until the day its not. Just as TCU was a G5 worth 1 million a year right up until the day they were suddenly a P5 worth 20 million a year--the same can be true for the "rules" of how conferecnes are treated. The reality is we have only seen conference slide OUT of the power picture is a recent frame of reference which fails to note that the ACC slowly grew into its own as a power conference (the ACC and the WAC were probably on equal footing back in the 70's and early 80's---but they progressed in very different directions). The BCS/CFP landscape of the last 2 to 3 decades really created a landscape where a conference could not organically "grow" high value programs without having them get poached by power conferences. But this BCS period of TV and conference growth all began with the major conferences having only 8 to 10 members and TV contracts that only paid maybe a million a school.

That brings me to my second point---the numbers are SO much larger now that there is a HUGE gulf between the G5 and power conference earnings. There is a large "sweet spot" where a conference can be "power conference worthy" and yet not have members that add enough value to a current P5 to be worth poaching. A conference with an average football attendance of 40K a game and media deal worth 20 million a school would clearly be in the "power conference" range. But a conference like the AAC with no kingpin programs---just a bunch of 30K-50K attendance programs worth 20 million each (assuming they reach such a level)---isnt going to bring the juice needed to provoke poaching from a P5 where each school gets a 50 million+ conference distribution every year---of which only 2-thirds comes from from media. What Im saying is that we may have entered a phase in which the P5 have so many existing members (little room to expand and still be a cohesive conference) which already make so much money that poaching even the best G5's makes no financial sense (see the 2016 Big-12 expansion debacle).

I guess all Im saying is that if ever there was period where a G5 conference COULD develop over time into a P5 without being poached of its best schools---the era would probably look a lot like the current landscape.

And, should there be further consolidation among the existing P5 then the AAC would have an even faster path to that goal, assimilation of some of those P5 programs left behind by a disintegrating conference. Let's say OU and KU did head to the Big 10 and Texas and a buddy head to the SEC. You have OSU, KSU, ISU, and TCU & Baylor to add which lends viability to the claim of being a tweener P conference. They already have most of the best of the G5 and they stand at what 11 or 12 full members now?

So if more P5 consolidation happens the AAC stands to pick up credibility, not lose it.

Wouldn't it be more likely that the remaining six members of the Big 12 would poach the best AAC teams to rebuild? I can't see it going the other way. Take advantage of the opportunity to leave the weak sisters behind.

If they added Houston, Memphis, Cincinnati and UCF they would have a conference which would have had the second best average Sagarin rating in 2019, the last "normal" season, second only to the SEC. Yet, it's not a slam dunk that they would merit the contract with an NY6 bowl that seems to be one criteria for "P" status.

Aresco and the AAC have been pushing the P6 marketing campaign for a few years now, so this headline should not be a surprise. However looking deeper into it, and in my biased view, is the Sun Belt is becoming a problem for the AAC.
If last season, and the early preseason hype of the Sun Belt continues, it then becomes enough of a wall to the P6 narrative that anyone that wants to keep them out can look to use. The Sun Belt doesnt have to be better than the AAC, just close enough to cause the detractors to not appoint the ACC as separate from the rest of the G5. I feel Aresco sees this and the momentum that is building in that direction, his " at a crossroads" comment all but confirms it to me. so this is his attempt to get in front and change the message. 2021 will tell if he is too late.

(03-23-2021 01:58 PM)balanced_view Wrote:  Aresco and the AAC have been pushing the P6 marketing campaign for a few years now, so this headline should not be a surprise. However looking deeper into it, and in my biased view, is the Sun Belt is becoming a problem for the AAC.
If last season, and the early preseason hype of the Sun Belt continues, it then becomes enough of a wall to the P6 narrative that anyone that wants to keep them out can look to use. The Sun Belt doesnt have to be better than the AAC, just close enough to cause the detractors to not appoint the ACC as separate from the rest of the G5. I feel Aresco sees this and the momentum that is building in that direction, his " at a crossroads" comment all but confirms it to me. so this is his attempt to get in front and change the message. 2021 will tell if he is too late.

Agreed. And with Boise St being a shadow of its former self right now, I don't think adding any west coast or mwc schools will help at this point.

Also losing a member to independence can't have helped with the image.