Here's what I've got:

SEC, B1G, Pac-12, ACC all stand pat.

Big 12 (no longer power conference-therefore no BYU) adds:

Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis, and UCF

American adds 7 schools from Mountain West:

East: ECU, Navy, SMU, USF, Temple, Tulsa, Tulane
West: Air Force, Colorado State, Boise State, New Mexico, Nevada, UNLV, SDSU

Mountain West adds 5 schools from C-USA and 1 from Sun Belt and 1 independent:

West: Utah State, Wyoming, Fresno State, San Jose State, Hawaii, NMSU
East: Rice, UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, LaTech, Texas State

MAC adds 2 schools from C-USA:

West: CMU, WMU, EMU, NIU, Toledo, Ball State, WKU
East: Akron, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Kent State, Miami, Ohio, Marshall

C-USA adds 7 schools from Sun Belt:

West: UAB, Southern Miss, Arkansas State, Louisiana, MTSU, Troy, Charlotte
East: FAU, FIU, ODU, CCU, App State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State

Independents include:

Notre Dame, BYU, UConn, Army, UMass, Liberty, South Alabama, UL Monroe

The Sun Belt dissolves as it is down to 4 Olympic members and 2 football members.

Not sure seven schools would sign up for what is a one-bid basketball conference in C-USA with limited bowl opportunities. An eight team Sun Belt would probably get the same opportunities.

why would AAC schools join the L8?, a lot depends on how the playoffs are, 6-6?, maybe UCONN to the b12

(08-19-2021 09:14 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Not sure seven schools would sign up for what is a one-bid basketball conference in C-USA with limited bowl opportunities. An eight team Sun Belt would probably get the same opportunities.

Maybe but you can't have a seven-team football conference and be viable. One would eat the other and C-USA has a better name brand.

(08-19-2021 09:20 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  why would AAC schools join the L8?, a lot depends on how the playoffs are, 6-6?, maybe UCONN to the b12

Big 12 has a better brand than the AAC. UConn is happy in the Big East.

Schools like Houston and Cincy would rather play Baylor and Oklahoma State than Temple and USF.

(08-19-2021 09:22 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:20 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  why would AAC schools join the L8?, a lot depends on how the playoffs are, 6-6?, maybe UCONN to the b12

Big 12 has a better brand than the AAC. UConn is happy in the Big East.

Schools like Houston and Cincy would rather play Baylor and Oklahoma State than Temple and USF.

This is simply not true...

(08-19-2021 09:35 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:22 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:20 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  why would AAC schools join the L8?, a lot depends on how the playoffs are, 6-6?, maybe UCONN to the b12

Big 12 has a better brand than the AAC. UConn is happy in the Big East.

Schools like Houston and Cincy would rather play Baylor and Oklahoma State than Temple and USF.

This is simply not true...

Which part?

Big 12 is not going to add 4 schools. More like 1 or 2 and stop.

(08-19-2021 09:59 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Big 12 is not going to add 4 schools. More like 1 or 2 and stop.

1 is not going to happen, 2 is a very real possibility. If 9 was never a superior value proposition for the Big12 after they were raided before, with the largest part of their value resting on Oklahoma and Texas, it's not now, when the remaining value is more evenly spread among the R8.

It does depend on how high the potential telecast partners value the R8, and while various people have various opinions on that, it's the telecast partners who will determine what they are willing to pay to land the rights.

If they are worth half of the current contract, as the commissioner optimistically estimated, they add two to avoid bottlenecks in their weekly inventory and stop. If they are worth a quarter of the current contract, as some have suggested, they can easily find four AAC schools which will be par or better adds.

However, even if the four school add is the working scenario, the rest of this has some parts that are quite wild:

(08-19-2021 09:10 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  American adds 7 schools from Mountain West:

East: ECU, Navy, SMU, USF, Temple, Tulsa, Tulane
West: Air Force, Colorado State, Boise State, New Mexico, Nevada, UNLV, SDSU

This would seem to take Old Dominion's complaint about sending the women's softball team to Texas and double the budget pain for more than double the schools. Seven also seems excessive, since locked cross division rivals (for Navy / Air Force) works better with two six school divisions ... five in division games, one locked cross division game, play the remaining five cross division games two at a time. Also, if you lock one pair, you only really have to lock a second pair for balance, the rest can be unlocked. And in any event, 14 schools is in the diminishing returns range. I think it may be New Mexico and one of the Nevada schools left behind if the American tries to rebuild clear "best of the Go5" status.

Quote: Mountain West adds 5 schools from C-USA and 1 from Sun Belt and 1 independent:

West: Utah State, Wyoming, Fresno State, San Jose State, Hawaii, NMSU
East: Rice, UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, LaTech, Texas State

But you over-raided the MWC by two (and even then, it's quite possible that the MWC holds in the face of an attempted AAC raid), so you are over-raiding CUSA as well. The MWC doesn't extend as far as Louisiana, the Nevada school is in the West rather than NMSU, New Mexico is in the east.

Quote: MAC adds 2 schools from C-USA:

West: CMU, WMU, EMU, NIU, Toledo, Ball State, WKU
East: Akron, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Kent State, Miami, Ohio, Marshall

Why would a conference take WKU without taking its rivalry game? 100 miles is far enough apart that it's not double dipping the same market. But that's a moot point, since comparing either to its current alignment, the MAC stands pat.

Quote: C-USA adds 7 schools from Sun Belt:

But even in this extreme Go5 realignment scenario, CUSA really only loses 4, so it only needs two. If it can raid the Sunbelt -- which on the premise that the CUSA can be raided by the MAC would seem unlikely -- the Sunbelt can add UMass and NMSU FB-only and have 10/10.

(08-19-2021 09:43 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:35 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:22 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:20 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  why would AAC schools join the L8?, a lot depends on how the playoffs are, 6-6?, maybe UCONN to the b12

Big 12 has a better brand than the AAC. UConn is happy in the Big East.

Schools like Houston and Cincy would rather play Baylor and Oklahoma State than Temple and USF.

This is simply not true...

Which part?

second part

(08-19-2021 09:35 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:22 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 09:20 PM)JHS55 Wrote:  why would AAC schools join the L8?, a lot depends on how the playoffs are, 6-6?, maybe UCONN to the b12

Big 12 has a better brand than the AAC. UConn is happy in the Big East.

Schools like Houston and Cincy would rather play Baylor and Oklahoma State than Temple and USF.

This is simply not true...

Of course it's true. Do you think our Houston alum state senator was campaigning for a Houston invite at the B12 Texas Senate hearing because UH doesnt want into the Big12? C'mon now.

B12 adds Cinci and Houston and is at 10 and done for probably 5 or maybe even 10 years

BruceMcF,

Do the financial math. A 9th should add anywhere from $1.3 to $1.9m tho each of the member schools in media revenue depending upon who is chosen. The 10th, when I ran calculations (removing BYU, because they are either the 9th school or not taken at all), I came up with valuations their at most added $30,000 per school or at worst cost $20,000 per school. When you are talking $13.5-14.5m that is a rounding error. If that 10th school goes into a 5 or 6 year drought for winning seasons, that could pull the values rather negative.

When you get to the 11th and then 12th the finances get very negative. Especially as you are dealing with the 3rd, 4th 5th or even 6th best choices (figuring one or two schools either pass or cannot come to agreement). The 3rd and 4th are very likely not to add even $1 of media revenue, but will take shares. This could be very negative , as in costing every school $2-3m per year in distributions.

Even the 2nd school borderline. I agree 10 is better than 9, but it needs to be a home run 10. If BYU is the 9th, then to me Cincinnati with it's long history of NCAA at-large berths, combined with Luke Fickell as locked in coach for awhile is probably that school. But it's very dicey if BYU is out and Cincy is your 9th, as UCF is a negative on basketball credits (and the 10th must help on basketball, since that is the differentiator), while Houston adds no new market and some recruiting cannibalism is introduce, and Memphis was not acceptable before for probably academic reasons, which are still there.

Given that I can easily see the Big 12 adding one school and unless their media partner demands a 10th stand on that until they find the partner that is a lock for the 10th. (I do think 10 is more likely than 9, for the psychology, but it's not a dead give, nor actually necessary.)

But under no circumstances will they go to 11 or 12. The financial math is very negative. And the only reason the Big 12 will function is so the remaining eight can draw down the money from Texas and Oklahoma, in survival mode to bridge to a possible realignment closer to the end of the ACC GoR. So it's 100% about conserving money. The 3rd and 4th add run completely in the face of that. (And there is no David Boren being psychologically disadvantaged anymore.)

(08-19-2021 11:14 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  BruceMcF,

Do the financial math. A 9th should add anywhere from $1.3 to $1.9m tho each of the member schools in media revenue depending upon who is chosen. The 10th, when I ran calculations (removing BYU, because they are either the 9th school or not taken at all), I came up with valuations their at most added $30,000 per school or at worst cost $20,000 per school. When you are talking $13.5-14.5m that is a rounding error. If that 10th school goes into a 5 or 6 year drought for winning seasons, that could pull the values rather negative.

But you are selling a portfolio that yields a volatile return on a week by week basis, and the degree of volatility is part of the valuation. The greater the volatility of returns, the lower the portfolio value relative to the same average expected return.

Having eight or nine schools depresses the value of the weekly inventory relative to the average expected value of the schools. Once the conference gets into the heart of the conference schedule, in most weeks there are three or four games to choose from, which increases the volatility of the value of the inventory from week to week. And part of that is how the conference race is going ... it can't be fixed in advance at the time the conference games are scheduled.

If the 10th school is a push in terms of average media value on a per school basis, it is a win in terms of inventory value.

This was, indeed, part of the challenge facing the Big Eight as we recall college football moving from the traveling fan bases conference value model to the conference media contract value model ... seven conference games and too many weeks that are hard to hype was an additional factor, on top of the main problem of not a large enough population base in the conference footprint.

I generally hate predictions like this, but yours doesn’t involve the ACC, B1G, or PAC doing anything stupid, so I’m cool with it.

I agree on a lot of parts. I think immediately Big Ten, ACC, and PAC-12 stay pat. The Big 12 does expand but it makes more sense for it to be small from a money perspective. I didn't really consider a single addition before but definitely possible. I still think 2 is more likely though (makes them 2 schools smaller than next biggest power 5 and think they'll want stay in range even if smaller). I do think they continue to get called a power 5 conference. It will be like the old Big East, clearly much higher than the Group of 5, but also a gap in lot of metrics to other power conferences. I am torn on whether BYU is invited, but agree they are #9 or not at all.

I don't see the American raiding the Mountain West. I think they had the chance for that, but the time for it has come and gone. Take over options from the west, will prefer a more regional league to a weakened American. American would stay at 10 if loses 1 in my view. Lose more than that, and they expand with their view of the best of a lot of options from Conference USA, Sun Belt, or MAC.

I stopped reading at “American adds 7 schools from Mountain West.”

I’m not sure in what universe an AAC that’s just lost Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis and UCF would be able to poach from the MWC but I’m fairly confident we don’t live in it.

(08-20-2021 12:19 AM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  I stopped reading at “American adds 7 schools from Mountain West.”

I’m not sure in what universe an AAC that’s just lost Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis and UCF would be able to poach from the MWC but I’m fairly confident we don’t live in it.

Yeah, that's the sharpest turn from plausible scenario territory into "What If Story" territory.

The Sun Belt will, at most, lose one football school, Texas State. We'll eventualy add Marshall and possibly two of USM, UAB, or JMU.

No Belt school will move to C-USA. The Belt offers a good relationship with ESPN, a better broadcasting contract, could form two regional divisions that make sense, strong rivalries, and schools that are like minded.

Plus, I believe we generally like and support our conference mates and want to see them do well. Some we love to hate but would never want to be in a conference without them. C-USA has several teams we just depise.

(08-19-2021 09:10 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  Here's what I've got:

SEC, B1G, Pac-12, ACC all stand pat.

Big 12 (no longer power conference-therefore no BYU) adds:

Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis, and UCF

At this point I think Wichita State approaches the MWC, and Navy might decide football independence is better.

Then the American and C-USA merge into two conferences, each retaining an NCAA autobid and participation in the playoff cash distributions but aligned with ESPN for television rights.

The East is then Temple, ECU, USF, Marshall, ODU, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, and Florida International.

West is Tulsa, SMU, Tulane, Rice, Southern Mississippi, UAB, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, UTSA, and UTEP.

A scheduling alliance allows for match-ups between the two conferences attractive to ESPN and designed to enhance multiple NCAA basketball bids.