First off, I won't pretend any of this is a prediction. I (and many others on here) saw Texas/OU to the SEC coming for years but the reality of the USC/UCLA move happening as opposed to just being offseason message board fodder shocked me. With that out of the way, I think there's a strong case for the Big Ten standing pat for awhile at 16 instead of growing larger (at least until the ACC GOR is up and/or if ND actually has and wants to execute an early buyout which started being floated, unconfirmed, yesterday.)

- Obviously, the LA schools will not be conveniently traveling to conference games; they know this, and seem to be comfortable sending Olympic sports across the country for the truckload of money they're getting out of the deal. I think the need to build a division/pod/whatever to satisfy them is a non-issue.

- For everyone else in the conference, it's at most one trip to LA a year, which is hardly a significant travel burden for a conference that already stretches from NJ to Lincoln. Adding more west coast teams however means multiple trips back and forth.

- At 16, the conference can do 3-6-6 scheduling for football. Everybody plays everybody in a two year window; hosts and visits everybody in a four year window. Adding more west coast teams not only grows the conference to the point that those intervals grow for everyone else to play each other, it also cuts down on opportunities to send their own teams to LA, which would seem to be a major reason for expanding in the first place. No one is going to be grumbling about going to LA every other year, those will be major recruiting opportunities.

- As has been pointed out elsewhere, is there anyone else in the leftover PAC that's worth an extra $100 million a year? Because if that's the number the current 16 are looking at getting when this media deal is wrapped up, anything less than that means that they'll all be making less money simply for the sake of expanding. The BTN is obviously a huge factor in this - for all I know maybe getting it into Seattle/Portland/Bay Area/Phoenix/Denver is actually worth an extra $100 million per market added when all is said and done, but I wouldn't think so.

(07-01-2022 11:17 AM)Just Joe Wrote:  First off, I won't pretend any of this is a prediction. I (and many others on here) saw Texas/OU to the SEC coming for years but the reality of the USC/UCLA move happening as opposed to just being offseason message board fodder shocked me. With that out of the way, I think there's a strong case for the Big Ten standing pat for awhile at 16 instead of growing larger (at least until the ACC GOR is up and/or if ND actually has and wants to execute an early buyout which started being floated, unconfirmed, yesterday.)

I very much agree. The Los Angeles megamarket, and USC as a "king program" bring enough to the table to make adding them profitable. I don't think that's true of anybody else in the PAC. I don't think it was true of anybody in the PAC except USC yesterday, with UCLA as a tag-along. I *really* don't think it's true of the enhanced, 16-team B1G with CFB dominance in Chicago, NYC and LA. (LA CSMA is 18 million, San Francisco CSMA is 9 million.)

Quote:- Obviously, the LA schools will not be conveniently traveling to conference games; they know this, and seem to be comfortable sending Olympic sports across the country for the truckload of money they're getting out of the deal. I think the need to build a division/pod/whatever to satisfy them is a non-issue.

- For everyone else in the conference, it's at most one trip to LA a year, which is hardly a significant travel burden for a conference that already stretches from NJ to Lincoln. Adding more west coast teams however means multiple trips back and forth.

Right. Adding Colorado and Utah, or Stanford and Washington, means that instead of one West Coast trip a year and one round-trip plane flight, you're talking multiple West Coast trips, interrupted by plane flights.

Under-appreciated point: A travel partner for a school on an island isn't really for convenience of the island school. It's for the convenience of everyone who has to travel there. UTEP doesn't get much from adding NMSU to CUSA. But Louisiana Tech or MTSU get to at least play two road games on the long trip now instead of one.

If the "travel partners" are a 2-3 hour flight away from each other, it helps a lot less.

Quote:- As has been pointed out elsewhere, is there anyone else in the leftover PAC that's worth an extra $100 million a year? Because if that's the number the current 16 are looking at getting when this media deal is wrapped up, anything less than that means that they'll all be making less money simply for the sake of expanding. The BTN is obviously a huge factor in this - for all I know maybe getting it into Seattle/Portland/Bay Area/Phoenix/Denver is actually worth an extra $100 million per market added when all is said and done, but I wouldn't think so.

I think the market for new, expensive basic cable channels is much less friendly than it was in 2010-15. Seattle and Phoenix and Denver and Sacramento have lived without basic-cable coverage of PAC 12 Tier 2 sports up until now, they're not going to suffer without it under the Big Ten umbrella. There's only so much leveraging of Fox NEws Channel you can do.

Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

I am a 16 team fan for the max. But that number could be exceeded by the SEC and/or BIG rather soon.

Yes.

The BIG (and the SEC) wil have no incentive to expand if the target schools wll not bring enough value to increase the average payout.

ND’s buy out won’t be cheap at this point and a potential law suit may be involved as well. ND may be able to leave around 2030 and that’s when the BIG would/should expand to 18 or 20.

(07-01-2022 12:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

That's because we didn't know that Southern California (the school and the metro) were on the table.

Now, everything outside of the SEC is on the table. And I don't see a pair that adds $100M in value that doesn't include "Notre Dame".

18-team scheduling can still work well for the B1G.

For Olympic sports, form 4-school Pacific scheduling pod. That provides 6 intra-pod games for each team in the Pacific pod. With a 20-game conference schedule, that leaves 7 home games to host from among the other 14 B1G members.

I believe the math still works for just a single West-Coast road trip for each legacy B1G school. Most would get either USC-UCLA or Washington-Oregon road trip combo...for Seattle-Eugene, that's a 1-hour non-stop flight or 5-hour bus ride in between...

(07-01-2022 12:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

At this point, invite Notre Dame and Kansas for all-sports. The Big Ten would add two football bluebloods in one week (USC and Notre Dame) and two basketball bluebloods in one week (UCLA and Kansas.) They can do a mic drop or they can tell the SEC, "your move."

(07-01-2022 01:36 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 12:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

At this point, invite Notre Dame and Kansas for all-sports. The Big Ten would add two football bluebloods in one week (USC and Notre Dame) and two basketball bluebloods in one week (UCLA and Kansas.) They can do a mic drop or they can tell the SEC, "your move."

I would surely think the Big Ten is working on ND and KU as we post on this board.

(07-01-2022 12:45 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 12:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

That's because we didn't know that Southern California (the school and the metro) were on the table.

Now, everything outside of the SEC is on the table. And I don't see a pair that adds $100M in value that doesn't include "Notre Dame".

This.

The basic principles still apply. USC/UCLA move proves what we already knew:

Geography doesn’t matter.
Relationship (between the BIG and the PAC) doesn’t matter.
$$$ is the king.

The BIG has a “financial” incentive to add any school other than ND?

(07-01-2022 01:38 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I would surely think the Big Ten is working on ND and KU as we post on this board.

I think Utah and Colorado are more attractive than Kansas. I'd say Kansas in the least attractive of the remaining AAU schools in the PAC. I don't think BBall is particularly relevant. Self will retire sooner than later and it's not like the B1G is starving for BBall powerhouses.

Same reasons I don't feel Kansas is a fit for the SEC either. They are in no man's land with horrible results on the football field.

(07-01-2022 01:38 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 01:36 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 12:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

At this point, invite Notre Dame and Kansas for all-sports. The Big Ten would add two football bluebloods in one week (USC and Notre Dame) and two basketball bluebloods in one week (UCLA and Kansas.) They can do a mic drop or they can tell the SEC, "your move."

I would surely think the Big Ten is working on ND and KU as we post on this board.

I think it’s obvious that they’re working on ND. They’re without question the most valuable potential addition.

While KU wouldn’t absolutely shock me, and blue blood programs with truly unique histories don’t grow on trees, I don’t see it quite yet at least. I think that they’ll do their due diligence and work to establish a good relationship, but I don’t think that they pull the trigger on it.

(07-01-2022 03:19 PM)BewareThePhog Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 01:38 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 01:36 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(07-01-2022 12:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Well, I was essentially arguing what you were saying up until 24 hours ago:there would be diminishing returns for any Big Ten expansion without ND involved. That seems to be out the window now.

At this point, invite Notre Dame and Kansas for all-sports. The Big Ten would add two football bluebloods in one week (USC and Notre Dame) and two basketball bluebloods in one week (UCLA and Kansas.) They can do a mic drop or they can tell the SEC, "your move."

I would surely think the Big Ten is working on ND and KU as we post on this board.

I think it’s obvious that they’re working on ND. They’re without question the most valuable potential addition.

While KU wouldn’t absolutely shock me, and blue blood programs with truly unique histories don’t grow on trees, I don’t see it quite yet at least. I think that they’ll do their due diligence and work to establish a good relationship, but I don’t think that they pull the trigger on it.

Let's put it this way: if ND is actually going to join the Big Ten (which definitely should NOT ever be assumed), they could certainly be bringing in someone even bigger than KU (and I have historically been one of the people that thought KU to the Big Ten was at least *plausible* at some point) and/or we'll take whoever ND wants within reason (e.g. essentially any P5 school with good academics). If it's Stanford, then it's Stanford. If it's BC, then it's BC. If it's Miami, then it's Miami.

Maybe the big 10 could have unbalanced divisions. Let’s say the big 10 adds 10 pac 12 schools and forms a big 10 west of 10 members that act as a stand alone conference. Than they invite Kansas and say ND or Missouri to create two 8 team divisions, big 10 central and big 10 east that could also basically act as stand alone or you could tie them more sense they are smaller, ie have them have a football title game. The big 10 could partner or take over the rose bowl and play the 10 team big 10 west winner vs the central/east playoff winner in the rose bowl.