The only add for the B1G that makes sense is to partner with the Pac and go to 20 -

Add Wash, Or, Stanf, Cal, UCLA and USC

Would the ACC try to go to 18 - 20 and take WV, ISU, KS, Ok St and Baylor from B12? The Central Time members could do home and home in bball and olympic sports with only 2-3 trips east a year (doable).

In FB you could reasonably create divisions, with a WEST:
ISU, KU, OSU, Baylor, Louisville, WV, Pitt, hell lets add Cincinatti, Syracuse

(08-19-2021 12:44 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  I do think the 16 team Big East problem could be an issue for the SEC. Imagine that East division with Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Kerntucky. It could be too strong in football. In the Big East strong programs like DePaul and St. John's became cellar dwellers. Cellar dwellers like USF and Rutgers got even worse. Providence, Seton Hall and Georgetown all took a downturn. There were just too many powers in the Big East.

Georgetown was actually strong in the 15 team Big East configuration (2005-2013): seven NCAA's, three regular season titles, 2007 Final Four.

As a Hoya you clearly remember their results better than me. But after that 2007 year they only got past the 2nd round once in the NCAA (and that only to the 3rd). I guess that is what made me think of them as mediocre.

(08-19-2021 12:43 PM)jgkojak Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 12:02 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:56 AM)Claw Wrote:  When you add at the "winners" end of the conference, you further decimate the "losers" end of your conference.

Wouldn't a balanced approach add from both ends to protect the balance of the conference? A functioning conference is more complicated than the revenue of a few top schools. The ACC is a good example of a poorly functioning conference - as was the Big XII. It is only producing two top football programs. A functioning conference requires enough fodder for the big boys to eat well.

From that aspect, Kansas is perfect for the SEC. It's a great fit for reasons other than money: flagship, AAU, contiguous geography. That helps balance the lower end of football while elevating basketball. The problem is a second pick to come with them but you could make a similar case for Iowa State. That footprint would be unassailable.

I agree on Kansas' value to the SEC. I would balance them out with an eastern add like North Carolina, but I don't think you could pry them loose with a crowbar. Imagine having KU, UNC and UK in the same conference. The bluest of the bluebloods under one roof.

No way Kansas goes to the SEC

Kansas would turn down an invitation?

I know nothing about the culture at Kansas.

Enlighten me.

(08-19-2021 11:56 AM)Claw Wrote:  When you add at the "winners" end of the conference, you further decimate the "losers" end of your conference.

Wouldn't a balanced approach add from both ends to protect the balance of the conference? A functioning conference is more complicated than the revenue of a few top schools. The ACC is a good example of a poorly functioning conference - as was the Big XII. It is only producing two top football programs. A functioning conference requires enough fodder for the big boys to eat well.

From that aspect, Kansas is perfect for the SEC. It's a great fit for reasons other than money: flagship, AAU, contiguous geography. That helps balance the lower end of football while elevating basketball. The problem is a second pick to come with them but you could make a similar case for Iowa State. That footprint would be unassailable.

For the SEC (similar to the B1G), Kansas makes sense if it’s the even-numbered addition. Like Mizzou, as a stand-alone addition there are too many red flags. Financial success is not a given. It’s in a smaller, outlying market and can have really bad football.

"Dead weight"
Look at it this way, when Ohio State and Michigan were being thrown around as joining the SEC, never, NEVER going to happen with the current SEC lineup. Ohio State isn't leaving the BIG to join the SEC if Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Kentucky are members at the very least. I apologize to those schools I mentioned, but it's the hard truth. They aren't leaving Illinois, Rutgers, Purdue and Northwestern behind for that.

Now, if the SEC want's to unload some of their "dead weight", then and only then will things become more serious. You all can throw your revenue numbers around all you want, but there are schools that will never belong in a top tier "National Conference" and that includes some schools of the SEC.

The talk of SEC breaking away if they don't get their way is, imo, pretty far fetched. So a network is going to pay the SEC current money or higher for games in a league that is just Southern? For example, Ohio State is in a different league, is that what is meant by this "break away" talk? I can't imagine the SEC TV numbers doing anything but dropping if this was the case. Why the heck would anyone in the Midwest care of the SEC and tune in if they didn't impact the Northern conference? Losing Northeast and Midwest interest wouldn't be healthy for any network, i would think?

Simply my own thoughts!

(08-19-2021 12:57 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:56 AM)Claw Wrote:  When you add at the "winners" end of the conference, you further decimate the "losers" end of your conference.

Wouldn't a balanced approach add from both ends to protect the balance of the conference? A functioning conference is more complicated than the revenue of a few top schools. The ACC is a good example of a poorly functioning conference - as was the Big XII. It is only producing two top football programs. A functioning conference requires enough fodder for the big boys to eat well.

From that aspect, Kansas is perfect for the SEC. It's a great fit for reasons other than money: flagship, AAU, contiguous geography. That helps balance the lower end of football while elevating basketball. The problem is a second pick to come with them but you could make a similar case for Iowa State. That footprint would be unassailable.

For the SEC (similar to the B1G), Kansas makes sense if it’s the even-numbered addition. Like Mizzou, as a stand-alone addition there are too many red flags. Financial success is not a given. It’s in a smaller, outlying market and can have really bad football.

Kansas is a dessert topping. Oklahoma and Missouri get regional rivalry games. You pick up basketball, an AAU member, and nail down another state flagship. It fits, and something that fits WILL make money over the long term.

I also think the SEC academicians would jump for joy at adding Kansas. They probably would for Iowa State as well.

The whole is greater than parts.

(08-19-2021 01:41 PM)Claw Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 12:57 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:56 AM)Claw Wrote:  When you add at the "winners" end of the conference, you further decimate the "losers" end of your conference.

Wouldn't a balanced approach add from both ends to protect the balance of the conference? A functioning conference is more complicated than the revenue of a few top schools. The ACC is a good example of a poorly functioning conference - as was the Big XII. It is only producing two top football programs. A functioning conference requires enough fodder for the big boys to eat well.

From that aspect, Kansas is perfect for the SEC. It's a great fit for reasons other than money: flagship, AAU, contiguous geography. That helps balance the lower end of football while elevating basketball. The problem is a second pick to come with them but you could make a similar case for Iowa State. That footprint would be unassailable.

For the SEC (similar to the B1G), Kansas makes sense if it’s the even-numbered addition. Like Mizzou, as a stand-alone addition there are too many red flags. Financial success is not a given. It’s in a smaller, outlying market and can have really bad football.

Kansas is a dessert topping. Oklahoma and Missouri get regional rivalry games. You pick up basketball, an AAU member, and nail down another state flagship. It fits, and something that fits WILL make money over the long term.

I also think the SEC academicians would jump for joy at adding Kansas. They probably would for Iowa State as well.

The whole is greater than parts.

IMO, the SEC would be foolish to add Kansas. They bring hoops and that's it, and the SEC has never lived or died with hoops, even though it's been pretty good at hoops overall anyway. Their football, which does matter, is putrid, plus the SEC is getting arguably too heavy with ex-B12 teams anyway. Add too many of them and you undermine the "SE" culture of the conference. That could lead to schism in the long run, which would hurt the conference way more than Kansas could ever help it.

Academically, Kansas is #124 in US News. That's decent for an SEC school, but IMO nothing that moves the needle in terms of the perception of SEC academics.

The last additions to the SEC in order:

Arkansas
South Carolina
Texas A&M
Missouri
Oklahoma
Texas

All three of these schools fit the profile. I can't imagine the SEC passing on all three.

West Virginia
Kansas
Iowa State

(08-19-2021 10:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  At some point, and in some ways I think we have already passed that point, the elite schools don't really NEED the obscene amounts of revenue that they generate. Yet they, and their conferences, are always seeking more. Some may see this pursuit of obscene riches to be unseemly (most of them from non-elite alma maters) and may even wonder about what motivates it.

I believe the answer to that is that conference realignment has become a sport unto itself, and media contracts are the way the sport keeps score. To mix metaphors, the SEC's move to acquire UT and OU is checkmate in this game. We can only hope that now college football can do what ecosystems do and seek some kind of equilibrium recognizing who is the grand master and who are the challengers.

Hope, that is, unless we fans aren't ready for the realignment game to be over, having gotten addicted to the lure of imagining even more fanciful chess moves by schools and conferences and looking for a fix. What would forums like this one be without more scenarios to talk about? They are to realignment what fantasy leagues are to the NFL.

We may need to actually get a life. What a dreadful thought.

Neuausrichtung ist tot. How shall we comfort ourselves..?

(08-19-2021 12:31 PM)YNot Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:56 AM)Claw Wrote:  When you add at the "winners" end of the conference, you further decimate the "losers" end of your conference.

Wouldn't a balanced approach add from both ends to protect the balance of the conference? A functioning conference is more complicated than the revenue of a few top schools. The ACC is a good example of a poorly functioning conference - as was the Big XII. It is only producing two top football programs. A functioning conference requires enough fodder for the big boys to eat well.

From that aspect, Kansas is perfect for the SEC. It's a great fit for reasons other than money: flagship, AAU, contiguous geography. That helps balance the lower end of football while elevating basketball. The problem is a second pick to come with them but you could make a similar case for Iowa State. That footprint would be unassailable.

Could the SEC pry away Nebraska from the B1G?

Nebraska - flagship, contiguous, high expectations and resources - proven 70-80K fans capability even during mediocre seasons. Delivers high-level in-conference Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry. SEC affiliation and Texas recruiting could bring them back, but very solid addition, even if they're a perennial mid-pack team.

Kansas - flagship, contiguous, AAU delivers the Missouri-Kansas rivalry, balances lower end of football with Blue Blood basketball.

SEC dominates college football from Southeast to Texas and through the Plains.

SEC
Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M
LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss St., Alabama, Auburn
Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida

9-game 5x4 schedule pairs most in the conference at least three times in six years (though would need some accommodation for Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia rivalry games).

Instead of Nebraska from he B1G, Why not Indiana with Kansas ? Another Blueblood and currently a ranked Football program. Doubt They would leave though

(08-19-2021 08:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, I do think that there is a law of diminishing returns.

Texas was THE single biggest expansion option out there. It was the case back in 2010 and it was the case today. THEY were the *end game*. Every single other conference realignment option - even Notre Dame, much less FSU and Clemson - isn't worth as much as Texas. When you add them and yet another elite brand (Oklahoma) with no one else coming along as filler (as what would have happened in the Pac-16 proposal), there's simply nothing better than that scenario. The UT/OU additions raise the bar so high for future revenue in the SEC that I honestly don't think any combination outside of some truly wacky conspiracy theorist ideas of them adding Notre Dame and raiding the Big Ten could make them any more money.

To ken_d's point, there do need to be some losers in every league. That's part of why I don't buy a college football Super League occurring (at least in the sense of a full 12-game schedule) since the powers that finish last in that league would no longer continue to be powers. Note that in the soccer context where we saw a Super League attempted earlier this year, the intent there was for those teams to break off from the Champions League as opposed to the country-specific leagues. This meant that the superpowers would continue to play and exert their dominance over local teams in their home country leagues. In essence, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea still wanted to beat up on the local teams in the English Premier League since winning locally is still key to their brands, but wanted the Europe-wide competition to be only against equivalent superpowers (e.g. F.C. Barcelona and Real Madrid). It was a *dual* system that the soccer superpowers were after.

The equivalent in college football would be for the superpowers to continue to play in their home conferences where they can similarly beat up on local teams, but then have an entirely separate postseason where they'd be *guaranteed* to play only other superpowers from other conferences. Ironically, this is sort of what the old pre-BCS bowl system was with bowls choosing schools almost entirely based on brand names.

Now, I do think the difference between the Big Ten/SEC and the other power conferences is that the conference realignment value of those "losers" is generally much higher. To use ken_d's examples, Rutgers and Illinois have been finishing at the bottom of the Big Ten football standings lately, but these aren't tiny schools that aren't bringing the conference any money. To the contrary, they're huge flagship AAU schools that have a massive alumni presence in two of the three largest metro areas in the country (NYC and Chicago) in key recruiting regions for all sports (outside of football, they're arguably the two most important basketball recruiting areas - it's not an accident that the Big Ten has often been the deepest basketball league since adding Rutgers and Maryland) and, when it comes to the money, they are directly the reason why the BTN gets basic cable carriage in those home markets. Ohio State and Michigan aren't getting that NYC and Chicago TV money without Rutgers and Illinois. Frankly, those types of schools are actually perfect for Ohio State and Michigan for the bottom of the league - they can take their major market money for the BTN, give close games for their alums in those major markets, and then take all of their states' best recruits. Rutgers and Illinois then say, "Thank you sir! May I have another?" as they cash their checks in exchange. They're sort of like the New York Jets in the NFL - they're *perfect* as bad teams because they provide a lot of exposure in major markets for the top teams.

The Big 12, though, is an example of where the "losers" weren't bringing enough to the table. As you can now see in where none of their schools are attractive to the other power conferences, that depth wasn't there. Who brought the largest major media markets (plural) of any value within the Big 12? Texas. Who brought the best recruiting area? Texas. Who had the biggest national brand? Texas. Who had the best academics? Texas. All of that was wrapped into the single school of Texas. (Sure, Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech are located in the state of Texas, but they simply don't *bring* the state like the University of Texas itself in the sense that they could deliver a conference network for the Big 12 in the way Rutgers and Illinois do for their states in the Big Ten.) That was always the underlying vulnerability in the Big 12 - Texas and Oklahoma leaving alone could kill that league in terms of power conference status.

Think of it this way: The Big Ten has 11 flagship schools and their 3 non-flagships are all AAU members. (The AAU membership is relevant since it means they're academically on par or better than a flagship.) The new SEC will have 12 flagship schools plus 2 other AAU members. The Pac-12 has 7 flagship schools plus 2 super-elite private AAU members (Stanford and USC). The ACC has only 2 flagship schools, but their non-flagships include 3 AAU members along with a roster of elite privates... plus their two biggest football brands (Florida State and Clemson) don't even fit into either category. It's not an accident that the Big Ten and SEC have long separated themselves: they have a depth of schools that bring entire *states*, not just local markets. The Pac-12 and ACC don't have quite the same depth, but they aren't as many "dead weight" schools as you would think.

The Big 12? They now only have 1 flagship (Kansas) plus one other AAU member (Iowa State). Even with UT and OU, they only had 3 flagship schools total plus 1 other AAU member. When you looked under the hood of the Big 12, it was apparent just how much Texas and Oklahoma were propping up the entire league. So, it's not a surprise that they were exposed even though they had been distributing more money to conference members compared to the Pac-12.

The Big 10 and the SEC simply have incomparable fundamental strengths compared to the other conferences. In addition to other strengths they also have a core of members who have cultural cohesion and a long history. There may be a few bumps with newer members here and there (aTm’s fan base clearly isn’t thrilled to welcome the Longhorns, for example), but nothing insurmountable.

Next up you have the ACC and PAC. The ACC is a bit of a mashup, but it also has a core with history and common values (in this case a reverence for hoops). The PAC’s history and distant geography give it cohesion as well. There’s a lot of unrealized potential there even if many on the west coast value traditional college sports less.

I do think it’s possible that those conferences could over-expand and both cannibalize existing brands and reduce the cohesion that brought them strength. But having made the moves they have, the Big 10 and SEC can afford to be more deliberate moving forward.

Diminishing returns then becomes a prime topic for the Big XII. They likely could position themselves as “the best of the rest” with thoughtful expansion, but at what point would additions bring no more value? If they do it right they may well create something worth more than the sum of its parts, but I’m not sure anyone knows exactly how to achieve that.

If you add too few, you don’t expand the footprint meaningfully or add new inventory. If you add too many, you may have a toe in a lot of states, but the quality of inventory would be seen as questionable. Elevating brands may be possible, but that takes a lot of time absent unique circumstances like those of ‘80s/90s Miami.

(08-19-2021 01:45 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 01:41 PM)Claw Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 12:57 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:56 AM)Claw Wrote:  When you add at the "winners" end of the conference, you further decimate the "losers" end of your conference.

Wouldn't a balanced approach add from both ends to protect the balance of the conference? A functioning conference is more complicated than the revenue of a few top schools. The ACC is a good example of a poorly functioning conference - as was the Big XII. It is only producing two top football programs. A functioning conference requires enough fodder for the big boys to eat well.

From that aspect, Kansas is perfect for the SEC. It's a great fit for reasons other than money: flagship, AAU, contiguous geography. That helps balance the lower end of football while elevating basketball. The problem is a second pick to come with them but you could make a similar case for Iowa State. That footprint would be unassailable.

For the SEC (similar to the B1G), Kansas makes sense if it’s the even-numbered addition. Like Mizzou, as a stand-alone addition there are too many red flags. Financial success is not a given. It’s in a smaller, outlying market and can have really bad football.

Kansas is a dessert topping. Oklahoma and Missouri get regional rivalry games. You pick up basketball, an AAU member, and nail down another state flagship. It fits, and something that fits WILL make money over the long term.

I also think the SEC academicians would jump for joy at adding Kansas. They probably would for Iowa State as well.

The whole is greater than parts.

IMO, the SEC would be foolish to add Kansas. They bring hoops and that's it, and the SEC has never lived or died with hoops, even though it's been pretty good at hoops overall anyway. Their football, which does matter, is putrid, plus the SEC is getting arguably too heavy with ex-B12 teams anyway. Add too many of them and you undermine the "SE" culture of the conference. That could lead to schism in the long run, which would hurt the conference way more than Kansas could ever help it.

Academically, Kansas is #124 in US News. That's decent for an SEC school, but IMO nothing that moves the needle in terms of the perception of SEC academics.

Kansas has been a member of the AAU since 1909. If it were not already a member, its current academic and research metrics probably wouldn't warrant consideration as a worthy addition.

(08-19-2021 12:04 AM)BatonRougeEscapee Wrote:  Is the next step in realignment breaking away without the dead weight?

Every P conference would make more TV money per school if they dropped their two least valuable TV properties.

They don't try to do that because the additional money isn't enough, in the minds of university presidents, to justify the trouble of kicking two members to the curb.

Not only would it be messy, it would be divisive because presidents wouldn't easily agree on which schools to kick out, even if it was legally easy to do. It wouldn't be some weird version of "Survivor" where message board and Twitter fans get to vote two schools off the island. It would be political, and the schools voted out by university presidents in these hypothetical exercises would often be different from what an internet mob would do.

So, I think that whole "breakaway fro older members who aren't as valuable" concept is a valid point.... but it's for the MIDDLE CONFERENCES, not the top, or bottom.

See the C-USA thread, because C-USA is a middle basketball league and bottom football league. It makes SENSE for the top to ditch the bottom, because how bad the bottom five are, and how far away 3 of the top 9 are.

The A-10 would make sense for the top to ditch the bottom, except that there's four teams at the top (Dayton, St. Bonaventure, VCU and Davidson) and TWO teams at the bottom (LaSalle, Fordham) and the 8 teams yo-yo back and forth between 24-8 NCAA bid seasons and 13-19 rebuilding seasons; so there's no way to split in half. And not a ton of candidates who are more like the top four than the "middle 8" because they added them already and Gonzaga refuses to move their campus to Cleveland or Detroit.

(08-19-2021 02:07 PM)chester Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 10:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  At some point, and in some ways I think we have already passed that point, the elite schools don't really NEED the obscene amounts of revenue that they generate. Yet they, and their conferences, are always seeking more. Some may see this pursuit of obscene riches to be unseemly (most of them from non-elite alma maters) and may even wonder about what motivates it.

I believe the answer to that is that conference realignment has become a sport unto itself, and media contracts are the way the sport keeps score. To mix metaphors, the SEC's move to acquire UT and OU is checkmate in this game. We can only hope that now college football can do what ecosystems do and seek some kind of equilibrium recognizing who is the grand master and who are the challengers.

Hope, that is, unless we fans aren't ready for the realignment game to be over, having gotten addicted to the lure of imagining even more fanciful chess moves by schools and conferences and looking for a fix. What would forums like this one be without more scenarios to talk about? They are to realignment what fantasy leagues are to the NFL.

We may need to actually get a life. What a dreadful thought.

Neuausrichtung ist tot. How shall we comfort ourselves..?

Nein! Es ist ein gaskammer. It's about survival after massive paradigm shifts. They are seeking as much as they can get because the American military doesn't look invincible, we are carrying nearly 35 trillion in debt, Federal funds are getting much tighter, and future enrollees scarce with a downward trend in middle class birth rates and automation, and as Boomers (the last generation with reasonably large disposable incomes) pass. And much of that wealth dies with them as their pensions are terminal as well.

You will witness even more separation over the next 5 years and unprecedented change in these institutions over the decade following that. The errors in judgment on all of this are simple to lump together, and plentiful on this board. Most posters refuse to see a changing world in which the U.S. will no longer be the apex power, the dollar's value will be called into question, and tomorrow will not be like today, and certainly not like the last half century. Darwin is taking over in higher education and as civilized as it may be, the survivors will have climbed up the corpses of old friends in order to survive.

Realignment is not about football power and while the SEC may be out of profitable moves top brands will continue to cluster because they are seeking as much revenue as possible from as many streams as possible and sports is one of them. The direness of it is why the networks have the control that they do. It isn't about championships, or a new form of checkmate. It's about having maximum appeal to prospective students and being recognized as being set apart. So exclusivity is a goal, and being preeminent in your state a necessity.

The diminishing returns for conference expansion doesn't really apply to the SEC or Big Ten, because they're the two most valuable properties in college sports.

The argument is that "this addition doesn't 'Grow The Pie' by enough to pay for itself." But as the top dogs in college sports, they can demand their pie grows to meet their needs because they've damaged everyone else so badly via expansion and taking their teams.

If the SEC took Clemson and Florida State, the only teams with two NY6 appearances outside of the Big Ten/SEC left would be: Notre Dame (own TV deal), Pac-12 schools playing late on the West Coast, Baylor and UCF.


The Diminishing Returns principle exists in a balanced marketplace -- aka, the last round of expansion -- but going forward, the demand for winning your rights is greater than the diminishing returns of adding more schools.

The SEC can add Clemson, Florida State, NC State and Va Tech;
The Big Ten can add UVA, UNC, Ga Tech, Miami;

And both conferences can name their price, because Fox can't let ESPN get BOTH or they're left with what?

(08-19-2021 10:34 PM)JSchmack Wrote:  The diminishing returns for conference expansion doesn't really apply to the SEC or Big Ten, because they're the two most valuable properties in college sports.

... And both conferences can name their price, because Fox can't let ESPN get BOTH or they're left with what?

They cannot demand more than the telecast partners expect to earn from them.

They "need" massive piles of money because the fight for coaches and facilities to impress teenage young men is an arms race ... that arms race will consume as much money as is made available for it to consume.

The price is already so rich for the Big Ten that ESPN and Fox split the rights to be able to afford it. Fox just has to be able to offer enough for half that ESPN cannot afford to take the whole package.

To be sure, the SEC and Big Ten can "name their own price", but if they name a price that is too high, there won't be any takers.

(08-19-2021 10:54 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  They cannot demand more than the telecast partners expect to earn from them.

They "need" massive piles of money because the fight for coaches and facilities to impress teenage young men is an arms race ... that arms race will consume as much money as is made available for it to consume.

The price is already so rich for the Big Ten that ESPN and Fox split the rights to be able to afford it. Fox just has to be able to offer enough for half that ESPN cannot afford to take the whole package.

To be sure, the SEC and Big Ten can "name their own price", but if they name a price that is too high, there won't be any takers.

I agree, with caveats and objections.

Of course they have to be realistic, but "growing the pie" will be realistic for them to add properties for the foreseeable future.

The price for the SEC and Big Ten will keep going up as long as the price of those conferences from which they steal from and are rendered less valuable and less relevant can have their price tags cut.

The more the SEC grows, the less need ESPN has for the Big 12, C-USA, MAC, Sun Belt, etc.

We saw this in pro sports... as ESPN kept spending more and more on NFL, MLB and NBA... they dropped the NHL.

(It's EXTREMELY interesting to me that ESPN just outbid NBC for the NHL.... A few months before Texas/Oklahoma announced their SEC move. It's almost like... they knew there was more value in November to June hockey programming to 25 national fan bases in a smaller sport than to Big 12 basketball programming to the Big 12 footprint after 2025!).


ESPN will be able to keep giving the SEC more and more and more by giving the Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten, ACC, and all their basketball-only properties less and less as long as the SEC remains the dominant power in college football -- which they WILL because ESPN has already been telling everyone that the SEC is the dominant power in college football since before they actually WERE.

And FOX will have no choice but to give the Big Ten what THEY want, because getting Big Ten viewers at a high price is much better than committing money to a conference that could be AAC levels vs the SEC/Big Ten.

There is a reason we are ALL looking ahead to the ACC getting plundered and divided up by the SEC/Big Ten. And that's because the number of equal elite conferences, and the number of TV networks spending on sports being equal is terrible for bidding wars.

(08-19-2021 11:24 PM)JSchmack Wrote:  The price for the SEC and Big Ten will keep going up as long as the price of those conferences from which they steal from and are rendered less valuable and less relevant can have their price tags cut. ...

Except that not all of the value is transferred, so it's a negative sum game rather than a zero sum game ... that is, raid the ACC out of being a "power conference" anymore, and the brand value you add to the SEC and Big Ten is not likely to be equal to the brand value you destroy in the ACC.

The schools that your cast out of the "elite ranks" represent fanbases that will shrink by more than the fanbases of the remaining "elite" conferences can grow. Add on top of that the fact that not all of the value of bringing in new, high profile schools is an increase in net media value of the conference, as there are only so many conference wins to go around. If you increase the number of conference games to continue to let old conference foes play each other while incorporating the new school into the fold, that decreases the number of OOC wins that can be scheduled against St. Mary's of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

I sometimes suspect that there are some posters on this board who are so "excited" by the prospect of major conference realignment that the preference of theirs for "something interesting to happen" gets projected into conference realignment being a positive sum game, when it's a negative sum game.

(08-19-2021 11:51 AM)YNot Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 11:28 AM)bullet Wrote:  More than the "flagship," the Big 10 has 14 schools in 11 different states. The SEC currently has 14 schools in 11 different states. The Pac 12 has 12 schools in only 6 states. The ACC has 14 schools in 9 states. The Big 12 has 10 in only 5 states. The Big 10 and SEC aren't double dipping. While FSU would be nice for the SEC, realistically, they probably add more value to the ACC since the SEC already has Florida.

Has more to do with market penetration via flagship and elite programs than member-to-state ratio. The SEC absolutely shares the major Florida markets with the ACC and will definitely improve Florida market penetration with FSU.

Likewise, the ACC would improve immensely if it added Georgia and Florida, even though that would double dip and hurt the member-to-state ratio.

California is HUGE - you need more than USC to corner the enormous SoCal and Bay Area markets. (Though, I do agree that Oregon and Washington and the California schools would deliver the Northwest market - OSU and Wazzu are legacy inclusions and essentially leaches).

Texas is also huge, but Texas and A&M plus Oklahoma, LSU, and Arkansas all deliver market penetration to the point that the SEC will overshadow all others in the DFW, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin college football markets.

Actually, I disagree on California. If that state was really huge into college football, I'm sure the SEC would at least entertained the option of going coast to coast. Truthfully, the state of California, as it relates to college football, only consists of one decent market, and that's Southern California. That is the one part of the part that really cares about college football, IMHO. The Bay Area is much more into pro football.

I remember asking a coworker who was originally from New York and visited family there frequently who the big teams were. The Giants were the first team out of his mouth, along with the Bills, I believe. I asked him about Syracuse, and he acted like he never heard of them!!!

Similarly, I have a friend who grew up in Napa Valley, and he told me awhile back, that the San Francisco 49ers vs the (now)Las Vegas Raiders was like the Iron Bowl out there. If anyone is a "leach," it's Cal and Stanford!!!!