(06-05-2023 09:38 AM)OneSockUp Wrote: (06-02-2023 10:21 PM)JRsec Wrote: (06-02-2023 09:13 PM)OneSockUp Wrote: (06-02-2023 02:05 PM)JRsec Wrote: The point is that you don't let the Big 10 grow nationally around you and then grow into your markets. ESPN knows this. The SEC knows this. It is why we took the best to our West.
The only way another league will catch up to the SEC is if the SEC overextends itself. Literally, that's it.
Eight of the ten best football programs in the nation are in the SEC, and they are all in better shape moving forward than any other programs in the country. Why would they mess with that? For Texas and Oklahoma, sure. But for Clemson and UNC? That's just throwing a lifeline to rivals.
If you don't know business I can't help you. You can't overextend yourself when the cost of expanding doesn't impact your revenue.
When it comes to recruiting, the SEC currently has a few competitive advantages over their competition, and they are huge:
If you want to play the very best every weekend, you go to the SEC. That's where you find Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee, and Auburn. They all have championships since 1998.
If you want to play against UNC, Boston College, Syracuse, and Virginia -- with one game against Clemson most years -- you go to Florida State.
If you want to play against Northwester, Rutgers, Illinois, and Purdue, you can go to the Big Ten.
Based solely on competition, if you are an elite athlete, and all other things being equal, you go to the SEC.
Then take the demographics of where recruits are from into account: Outside of California, the best recruits in the nation come from band that stretches from Texas to Arkansas to the Carolinas to Florida. If you want to play close to home, the SEC has an advantage.
The SEC's facilities are already at least on par with the very best of the rest of the college football world.
The SEC's rabid alumni bases will not fall behind on NIL money.
So as it stands, the SEC is in a far far better position than any of its competitors.
Once you add UNC, Clemson, Florida State, and Virginia, current SEC schools will begin to lose recruits to those new arrivals because the first, biggest advantage that the SEC has over the ACC -- the very fact that SEC schools are in the SEC and ACC schools are not -- will be lost. So the SEC would begin to cannibalize its recruiting and make current SEC programs worse. That is a very real concern.
The next step is money: Adding UNC, Clemson, Florida State, and one of the Virginia Schools would dilute revenue for the rest of the SEC going forward. Texas and Oklahoma were clear money-makers. At the very most, the best of the ACC would be a break-even proposition for the SEC.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten has demonstrated that it is not out to dominate the athletic world. Their goal, as a conference, is different. They want elite academic institutions that will grow the Big Ten's brand from coast to coast. That meant adding Rutgers, which has as about as much athletic clout as New Mexico State, and Maryland, who has ended a football season ranked four times in the last forty years.
As long as the SEC makes decisions based on its athletics -- it is after all an athletic conference -- and the Big Ten makes decisions based on some other set of criteria, the SEC will come out on top.
Well written and I don't disagree with anything you have said, except for one point. The Big Ten in the Southeast will hurt our revenue production because it opens our markets, which we dominate, to them for advertising purposes and in a world where NIL and Pay for Play exits money matters even more. Toss in the transfer portal and it means those with the most money can entice developed talent away. In that world the bench depth, as it already has done, dwindles. Nobody has a solid #2 QB in terms of ability because they transfer to start elsewhere. In fact, all skill positions begin to erode in depth as the kids slotted second want exposure for the draft.
The advantages the SEC currently have are changing except for one, we still have the most access to the best recruits because they are local. I would rather share that access with North Carolina or a Virginia school which doesn't care about football as much and share them with Clemson and FSU who do, and compete with us anyway, and to limit the Big Ten's reach into our area to simply playing an away game or two against these schools, than to allow them to regularly come into the area and weekly draw a % of our TV market at competing times and from the sizeable audience share we have, thereby reducing our advertising returns by providing alternative routes to reach our market. This is why they obsess now over Notre Dame. They would make even more in many of their cities if Notre Dame was one of them.
Texas and Oklahoma add market, brand, and must-see TV, like our top half. North Carolina adds market and spiffs interest nationally in SEC basketball. Toss in a Virginia school and it adds more market, and if it is UVa it adds to hoops interest, if Virginia Tech it expands football reach. That's 20 million which puts those two additions roughly equal to taking a third market like Texas and Florida. Of course that adds value. The taking of a second Florida school addresses major scheduling issues for the conference since most members want to play games in Florida and UF can only play 4 home conference games a year and is obligated to FSU annually. Since that is a need who would your rather add, FSU which delivers 35% of the state to Florida's 42%, Miami which in a good year gives you 19% and in a bad one closer to 14%, or do you prefer to grow the AAU brand of South Florida and pick up the #13 market? FSU makes us the most money.
Your argument works to a degree for a school like Georgia Tech. The Big 10 would take a share of the Atlanta market the SEC doesn't seek now. Ditto for Miami where Florida and FSU would only reach a % of the market and the SEC does fine without it now. So those two don't hurt us, but they add to the Big 10's market reach which gives them more money. Still, if we are adding the dominant players in North Carolina and Virginia, we will outpace them again.
While we don't "need" to go national, we at the very least need to continue to make additions which expand our region with dominant brands. Since we will eventually have no G5 or FCS games left to play, North Carolina, Virginia, Kansas would add dominant brands which will, without the NCAA, double in their basketball revenue production, add interest to our basketball on the national level, and which won't threaten the distribution of our football talent, while they add revenue to the SECN as well. F.S.U., I've covered, as access for scheduling in Florida. Frankly we could justify Miami for the same reason, they just don't add as much, but content wise as a name vs name would hold value. Clemson is in my mind the only debatable addition most mention. They add the other half of a market we roughly have half of now. They are a wash in almost every way. Taking them however would remove the only brand a better funded conference could utilize.
If you think that a defensive approach is not practical, you would have been at odds with Roy Kramer and the presidents in 1991. The SEC formed its first defensive strategy for realignment then as they recognized the need for regional brand dominance and the defense of markets in the Southeast. They knew Delaney wanted into the Southeast and that East Coast was his road map. A move to 16 was discussed seriously then, but a move to 20 was on the page even then and it comprised schools the SEC didn't necessarily want to pursue but saw as essential if a competitor entered the area. Again, simple business. If you don't want your competition to make inroads into your area then you leave them no decent scraps with which to gain a toehold.
I do think we can expand our region with brands. 20 can be done effectively and profitably. And all of this is if realignment works as it has in the past 3 episodes of it. I just don't believe it is happening for the same reasons and in the same way. Networks seem to have much more invested in what happens now. They are enamored of expanded playoffs and a NFL model. And if the numbers continue to erode for cable and profits remain low for streaming then perhaps, they will abandon their push for an NFL model. We'll see. North Carolina, Virginia or Virginia Tech, and Florida State remain solid additions financially, brand wise, and market wise for the SEC. Take Clemson or Kansas and stop at 20 and we will have accomplished most objectives efficiently. It cuts off a profitable path for the Big 10 to follow, it strengthens the total sports package of the conference, and it does so profitably, and without harming the football strength of the conference.
Now if ESPN and FOX remain bent on a NFL model and are willing to pay for 24 schools in the Big 10 and SEC, then defending our region, as Kramer said, Slive said, and Sankey is now saying is what makes sense for us, especially if the model changes and the future remains uncertain for the media. Playing and staying locally will help us keep our advantages and will continue to drive revenue even if the Networks can't figure it out their carriage models. The sport is extremely popular in our region. Travel for away games is solid, and if we don't keep 3 buy games to have 7 home tickets for the books, it would be nice to have some brand name basketball first schools for a mid or near end season breather on the schedule.
We'll see. There are no absolutes in the present business climate, in the shifting demographics as Boomers age and exit, no certainty in finances, or national security, and the young aren't playing nearly as much as previous generations. Keeping sports local will remain and SEC emphasis whether we have 20 or 24.
People who believe it breaks cohesion don't grasp how much cohesion is created by remaining within the Southeast and Southwest. I expect cohesion and regional identity to be more important in changing times, not less. But, we'll see.
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Does ESPN want to Merge the SEC & ACC?
