(09-16-2022 09:13 PM)Poster Wrote: (09-16-2022 03:26 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (09-16-2022 03:09 PM)Claw Wrote: I still think Kansas fits the overall mold for an SEC school.
It would close up the geography nicely, add another state flagship, culturally compatible, and great basketball.
If football stays bad it pads the records of the winners. If it gets good that's a win too.
The SEC wasn't built on TV market analysis. I don't think their future expansion will be driven exclusively by TV revenue.
Eh - I don't know about that here.
Texas A&M and Missouri were additions with the clear intent of adding households for creating a conference TV network (which was eventually launched).
Texas and Oklahoma are massive national brands that clearly help the national Tier 1 TV contracts along with UT being the flagship of a monster state.
Those schools may all fit into the SEC for reasons other than TV money, but they certainly all definitely added a ton of TV revenue at the times of their respective expansions.
You’re correct to a point, but there still isn’t a lot of evidence that the SEC would make a Maryland/Rutgers type expansion.
And I’m not sure the SEC really wanted Mizzou that much- they mostly seem to have been selected because the SEC couldn’t find anybody else to be Texas A&M’s partner.
Mizzou2SEC was a website which preexisted their entry by 2 years. SEC fans were being primed for N.C. State and Va Tech while ESPN was working hard with Deloss Dodds about considering the ACC and bringing pals (N.D. & Oklahoma and possibly Kansas). The SEC would get A&M, Missouri, Va Tech, and N.C. State and the SEC and ACC would move to 16 each with an ACCN opening a year following the SECN.
The idea was to scoop all of the B12 value before FOX got wind of it. The 2 conferences would have been set up for rivalries and would have given ESPN two massive content conferences to pit against each other.
It's why John Pennington (Mr. SEC) was selling folks weekly on NCSt and Va Tech and the value they would bring. It's why Clay Travis was pimping the same and hyping the potential value of the SECN with ridiculous numbers.
There were 3 issues which arose which created chaos.
1. Duke, UNC, Wake, and UVa allegedly realized that without Va Tech and NC State's votes and given Dodds relationship with Swarbrick that BC, Pitt & Cuse could side with ND on ACC matters while OU, Ga Tech, Clemson, Miami, and Texas could easily join forces with ND and the Big East schools and outvote Tobacco Road. So they balked in the final stages.
2. Maryland needing a cash infusion and which was counting on what would have been a huge boost in ACC revenue bolted when it fell apart and of course it never went public in a trial and Maryland got out relatively cheaply by today's standards.
3. Boren at Oklahoma never really bought in and insisted on Oklahoma State's inclusion. When he got no encouragement on the initial deal he shopped the same to the SEC leading many to believe Missouri was Oklahoma's replacement. They weren't and the SEC's hands were tied by their contracts renegotiation clause which required 2 new markets before ESPN would adjust value. OSU would have been a duplicate market. The SEC was willing to entertain adding OU as a third but not with OSU.
Anyway it fell apart, and as with all realignment deals that fail it never happened, except their was fallout evidence everywhere.
When the SEC "allegedly" met with Va Tech at the Greenbriar in W.V. the Dude of W.V. saw the flight tracker on the SEC's jet and assumed West Virginia was headed to the SEC. It wasn't. To appease the SEC FSU and Clemson were announced on a crawler on ESPN as headed to the SEC which in the wake of the failed deal they were supposedly cleared to do until. Until N.D. countered ESPN with a partial deal like the Big East had given them but not if the 2 big football schools left. Clemson and FSU were pulled within a few days and full carriage was offered the SECN as a salve.
The fictitious misinterpretation of the Gentlemen's agreement was put out when in reality it had been Slives request for S. Carolina and Florida not to nominate instate rivals as they had wanted to do to protect their donation games and ticket priorities, Florida having nominated FSU in '90. Slive promised them if we added 2 new markets first all restrictions would be lifted and profit would be the only future qualifier.
And finally the ACC got a 2 million dollar bump not to have a network. Oh, and due to ESPN's near coup of all B12 value schools GOR's were instituted in the B12 to protect FOX's investment and in the ACC to keep schools from bolting like Maryland now that they would be stuck at a low value compared to other conferences.
My point is Missouri was not a sub. They were a market add where one school secured a whole state. Odd fit? Yes, but they weren't a perfect fit anywhere.
Texas and Oklahoma which had been in talks with the SEC since '87-88 moved back to ESPN's front burner for the SEC and now they are here.
All of this is why if something happens to the ACC you can bet ESPN will want their top brands completely within their control, and that's not the Big 10.