(11-20-2023 02:15 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 12:27 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:36 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  I don't think anyone is saying conference bundling isn't beneficial to the lesser brands.

I think the Big Ten would even allow a hybrid deal before letting go of OSU or Michigan. Those programs aren't Notre Dame–they aren't going to sit around and sacrifice revenue if their free market value surpasses their Big Ten share, which subsidizes at least half a dozen other programs.

Bundling their 2 weakest games is beneficial to Ohio St. and Michigan as well. And with risk mitigation, bundling all Ohio St. and Michigan games is beneficial, as long as you have strong partners as you do in the Big 10 or SEC.

The benefit to Ohio State of bundling with Rutgers is that Ohio State needs SOMEBODY to play them and take the L.

It's a balance of power negotiation whether in 5-10 years it's more profitable for Ohio STate to share with Rutgers, giving the bottom half of the standings a share of the pie -- or link up with the Alabamas and keep-what-you-kill.

Yes - part of *maintaining* the brand value is that these schools continue to win more often than not, so every league is inherently going to have a bottom half. Even a Super League would eventually develop a bottom half among them (which is one factor that may ultimately curb a Super League because no current blue blood school wants to see themselves as a bottom half school).

The other part is that the bottom half schools of the Big Ten and SEC are generally pretty “efficient” in meeting some other need for the league: a major TV market, a top basketball program, a flagship for a large population state, etc. In your example, it’s not just that Ohio State gets a win against Rutgers, but also that Rutgers is a flagship school in a good recruiting area (New Jersey) and directly located in the most important TV market of them all (NYC). There’s extra monetization there with Rutgers being the particular patsy getting beat up compared to, say, Buffalo or Toledo. In a way, schools like Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois and Northwestern are perfect types of opponents - someone has to lose to Ohio State and Michigan in football, so you’d rather have those schools bring something else of value to the table. Same thing with Kentucky and Vandy in the SEC (and every once in awhile one of those large market additions actually makes some noise, like Missouri this season).

In that very first Big Ten expansion post that I wrote all of those years ago, I set forth two rules for expansion:

(1) Think like a university president and not like a sports fan; and

(2) 11 + 1 = 13

A lot of people remember the first rule, but often forget about the second one. Rule #2 is that the whole needs to have greater value than the sum of its parts. The Big Ten and SEC have managed to do this: those leagues actually *are* creating greater value above and beyond the individual values of Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and the rest of the members alone.

Ohio State and Michigan, for instance, do make a lot of money off of Rutgers, Maryland, and Illinois because they’re all bringing in a lot of cable fees from the NYC, DC/Baltimore, and Chicago markets. Now, whether that continues in the future with streaming is a fair question, but even then, advertisers still do place a significant premium on viewers in the larger markets (as they generally have higher incomes and inherently more access to retail stores, financial services, etc.). Similarly, Alabama derives a lot of value from being in a league that includes a lot of markets that are significantly larger than their own home market.

That’s why the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC haven’t ever squawked about wanting unequal media revenue compared to the “lesser” members - they’re taking the NFL approach as opposed to the 2010s Big 12 approach in how they allowed Texas to have their own LHN deal (and call me crazy, but the NFL is just a wee bit more successful). Note that the leagues that had financial fissures - the Big 12, Pac-12 and now ACC - all had a common issue where their most valuable school was also their most important market and recruiting area: Texas for the Big 12, USC for the Pac-12, and now FSU for the ACC. This gave those top brands completely outsized impact on their leagues by themselves. That dynamic never existed in the Big Ten and SEC, which is why the larger brands have had a lot more harmony with the smaller brands.

I generally agree with most of your opinions, but the bolded statement is just naive hubris. What is in the best interest of the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC can change, and is not necessarily permanently aligned with their respective conferences. The rising revenue generally covers-up a lot of problems…disagreements are less likely to become public, the alternatives to generating revenue are more complex and risky, and there is more patience with leaders. The proposal by the top European soccer clubs a few years ago proved that game-changing revenue increases could topple successful, long-term affiliations. For example, I could see a Champions League-like or Super League proposals being financially attractive to top brands of the P2.

I’ve been consistent in stating that a Super League could very well happen. My pushback is mainly the notion that Ohio State and Alabama are in a hunt for unequal revenue sharing in their existing leagues. Every unequal revenue sharing arrangement proposal has been a sign that a league is about to lose its most valuable members anyway (see the Big 12 before and possibly the ACC in the future). I continue to point back to the Big 12 - they did EVERYTHING to keep Texas happy in terms of unequal revenue sharing and it still wasn’t enough to keep them.

So, if the most valuable schools have to ask for unequal revenue sharing in the first place, then that means your conference shell is already on the downswing and those valuable schools are going to eventually leave no matter what you do. Hence, I find it more likely that Ohio State and Alabama leave for a separate Super League than they would have unequal revenue sharing in their existing leagues.

(11-19-2023 05:32 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:11 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:03 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 02:55 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  The BIG has that broadcasting deal with NBC. Does the BIG, with their hopes of adding Notre Dame in the future, view NBC’s lucrative extension to Notre Dame as supporting their expansion goals or view it as detriment?

To me, Notre Dame intends to remain fb independent for the long term. NBC is a major enabler along with the ACC whose ground is beginning to show widening cracks.

The BIG will dream on. Same with the ACC and how ESPN could press the factor. Notre Dame sees the gimmicks to lure them. They’ll take the advantageous parts, but won’t bite the carrots tied to fb conference membership. Notre Dame is more clever than their suitors.

It amazes me that after over three decades of ND doing everything possible to avoid joining a football conference, some people keep hoping and expecting ND to abandon independence.

With a 12 team playoff, a new, big money NBC deal and a new, lucrative Under Armour deal happening in the past year or so, the trends are not good for those still holding out such hopes.

I am old enough to recall there were quite a few here, on Twitter and elsewhere who were absolutely certain over the past two years that ND would not get a deal near that amount and would have to knuckle under to the Big Ten or ACC.........

I think some realignmentoligists have caught the millenarian bug. We don't have a lot of end-of-the-world religious cults these days, so mass upheaval in college sports scratches that itch to both A) be living in important, pivotal times and B) be one of the elect who knows what is To Be Revealed when the great day comes and the doubters all proven wrong.

Ten years ago it was the pleasing mathematical symmetry of 4 x 16, a 64 team college football system. Now it's 2 megaleagues, or more often (for some reason) 3 megaleagues and pretending that the Kansas-Duke-Arizona-Miami-Louisville league would be on the same plane as the SEC and Big TEn, rather than just left on the scrap heap.

Me, I like feedling my ego when I can guess correctly over a few years what's going to happen to the RSNs, what's going to happen to CBS Paramount, what's going to happen to Fox, what's going to happen to ESPN Disney. What happens to sports, and to college football, is mostly downstream from that.

But a lot of us are committed to our predictions on an almost religious basis, not on a probabilistic gambling basis. If Notre Dame isn't going to be forced into compliance with the Great Ineffable Plan today, well, maybe in 2029.

the Great Ineffable Plan is never wrong, never fails after all.

As to the Bold and Underlined: We have one and it is believed the Iranian Ayatollah who hopes to usher in the 12th Caliphate, which will bring about the end times and Paradise, and that cat has nuclear potential. I yearn for the days of the Branch Davidians and Major Applewhite, or their predecessor James Jones. Those guys mostly just hurt themselves and their followers. The current one is problematic.

As to the Second Bold and Italicized: The networks are just working with the natural decline which is happening. Consolidation strengthens the upper echelon serving their purposes for enhanced national audience, serving the purposes of the NFL which no matter what people think need a viable feeder program for the filling of their ranks, and meets the needs of schools facing increased overhead from court rulings and changing times and inflated costs.

The third lesser conference was called an amalgamation conference by me because without one to clear the baseline of revenue the others could not coalesce as effectively. With the recent rulings from the courts it may not be needed if the increase in overhead is dramatic enough to cull the top 72 schools down to 56 or so. 2 Super Conferences could absorb that many without being too large.

And it's not prognostication when the direction has been singular for 30 years and now extraneous economic factors will naturally shrink the top tier even further.

The NBC deal only signals a potential direction for the Irish if we do indeed wind up with two conferences in an upper tier of 48-56 schools. Landing 60 million or not landing 60 million neither puts the Irish closer to full inclusion in a conference nor farther away from it, but it does mean that until 2030 NBC has a larger stake in them than ESPN or FOX.

Notre Dame will have little control over a 2 conference league should one form. And since continued rulings in the direction of pay for play are happening the formation of such seems likelier than not. The mission of the NCAA is now obsolete for the largest schools, and it's hold on hoops deleterious to profiting from that sport.

But we shall see. Watching the decline of old corporate chains has been the greatest influence in my observations of what is happening in football. We are now seeing a culling of inventory and a breaking of it into Premium Quality, Mid Range Quality, and Bargain Quality. Next will come the deletion of the Mid Range so that people will either subscribe for the Premium or stream for the bargain. And when larger still viable chains have bought up older and sometimes less effective chains (think SWC/Big 8 and PAC) that means the tiering of product is underway now. It's for profit now, so the rules of business will apply.

NBC has purchased more temporary leverage with Notre Dame. ESPN has purchased more temporary leverage with the SEC and ACC and FOX has it with the Big 10. ESPN and FOX agreed on T2 and T3 holdings, they are now called the Big 12. Now if the ACC eventually suffers defections they will join the Big 12 as future T2 & T3 rights, unless they rebrand as the premier hoops conference. It will be interesting to see what happens.

JRsec, I highlighted a few of your points. That ND-NBC deal extension that reaches through 2029 renders more assurance ND will further strengthen their ongoing solid commitment to football independence. That independence is also "dependent" on their agreement for five ACC games on average yearly. Where that is most valuable, is the guarantee of mid-to-late season games with quality opponents.

If the P2 further expands and separates administratively, financially, and scheduling-wise, from the rest of FBS, will Notre Dame be carried along as an incorporated or equal entity, along with the rights and privileges of associating with the most elite college sports institutions and their programs? That negotiating factor would be quite interesting.

Agree, the leverage is temporary, but it could be extended or eventually canceled. Media networks can be fickle, or undergo corporate overhaul or absorption.

For the next seven or so years, ND has as much security, with acceptable fiscal terms, as their brethren in the two prime conferences. I don't believe there will be numerous extractions from the ACC in the near future whereby ND then exclaims "we got to get out of here". That said, schools such as FSU, Clemson, and maybe UNC, are determined to head to the P2, at least a couple most likely to the SEC, well before the point of a seven year conclusion.

(11-20-2023 11:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:02 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 10:52 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 10:37 AM)djsuperfly Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 10:19 AM)esayem Wrote:  Disney? Who needs Disney when Notre Dame or USC go straight to consumer and incorporate students in media curriculum?

Disney, in a vacuum, wasn't the point. The point is streaming isn't profitable. Think about it this way:

RSNs were charging cable companies $2-$3 per subscriber. RSNs that have gone DTC are charging $20-$30 a month--or about 10x. ESPN (just ESPN--not ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ACC Network, SEC Network) is $10 a month per cable subscriber. So, to maintain current profits that would be $100 a month for just ESPN content. I love sports, but I'm not paying that.

And the point is: right now, even though I don't watch much college basketball, I watch Duke-UNC because it's there on ESPN. I'm not, however, going to pay $20 a month, even for one month, to subscribe to a UNC Streaming service just to watch the game.

If you have 10 million-ish people watching The Game: how many of those are die-hard Michigan and Ohio State fans and how many of those are just casual viewers? I imagine if that game is only available on a Michigan Streaming service and an Ohio State Streaming service, that you have 1-2 million viewers tops.

Look what happened to boxing. In the 1970s and early 1980s, top boxing matches were huge events on network TV. the biggest biggest events were on closed circuit TV, on ABC on tape-delay

HBO and Showtime came in with wads of cash, and the biggest events moved to Pay Per View and subscription-only HBO and Showtime. They made a ton of money, but the audience stopped growing and started dwindling. Boxing lost its audience.

And schools make a lot more bundling their lesser games in conference networks than they did on the PPV model many of them used to use.

I don't think anyone is saying conference bundling isn't beneficial to the lesser brands.

I think the Big Ten would even allow a hybrid deal before letting go of OSU or Michigan. Those programs aren't Notre Dame–they aren't going to sit around and sacrifice revenue if their free market value surpasses their Big Ten share, which subsidizes at least half a dozen other programs.

IMO, Notre Dame is very instructive for schools like Michigan, Ohio State, USC, etc. who might be thinking about going independent. Because no brand is bigger per se than Notre Dame. Those brands mentioned above are on the same tier, but not bigger.

And yet, Notre Dame doesn't make as much as B1G and SEC schools do. So IMO these schools are unlikely to go Indie, which IMO asking for unequal revenue is tantamount to doing. This IMO means that there are synergistic effects to being in a conference, even with clearly lesser brands.

Bottom line IMO is that even the top brands have to play somebody. Nor do I think is there an appetite for a "super league" of 20 or so top brands where they all just play each other like it is the NBA or something. IMO, even Ohio State fans don't want to play Michigan, USC, Alabama, Notre Dame and LSU every week. They like the rivalries, and the rhythm of a season where games versus lesser foes build up to the big games with the top brands.

Just MO.

(11-20-2023 03:23 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:02 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 10:52 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 10:37 AM)djsuperfly Wrote:  Disney, in a vacuum, wasn't the point. The point is streaming isn't profitable. Think about it this way:

RSNs were charging cable companies $2-$3 per subscriber. RSNs that have gone DTC are charging $20-$30 a month--or about 10x. ESPN (just ESPN--not ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ACC Network, SEC Network) is $10 a month per cable subscriber. So, to maintain current profits that would be $100 a month for just ESPN content. I love sports, but I'm not paying that.

And the point is: right now, even though I don't watch much college basketball, I watch Duke-UNC because it's there on ESPN. I'm not, however, going to pay $20 a month, even for one month, to subscribe to a UNC Streaming service just to watch the game.

If you have 10 million-ish people watching The Game: how many of those are die-hard Michigan and Ohio State fans and how many of those are just casual viewers? I imagine if that game is only available on a Michigan Streaming service and an Ohio State Streaming service, that you have 1-2 million viewers tops.

Look what happened to boxing. In the 1970s and early 1980s, top boxing matches were huge events on network TV. the biggest biggest events were on closed circuit TV, on ABC on tape-delay

HBO and Showtime came in with wads of cash, and the biggest events moved to Pay Per View and subscription-only HBO and Showtime. They made a ton of money, but the audience stopped growing and started dwindling. Boxing lost its audience.

And schools make a lot more bundling their lesser games in conference networks than they did on the PPV model many of them used to use.

I don't think anyone is saying conference bundling isn't beneficial to the lesser brands.

I think the Big Ten would even allow a hybrid deal before letting go of OSU or Michigan. Those programs aren't Notre Dame–they aren't going to sit around and sacrifice revenue if their free market value surpasses their Big Ten share, which subsidizes at least half a dozen other programs.

IMO, Notre Dame is very instructive for schools like Michigan, Ohio State, USC, etc. who might be thinking about going independent. Because no brand is bigger per se than Notre Dame. Those brands mentioned above are on the same tier, but not bigger.

And yet, Notre Dame doesn't make as much as B1G and SEC schools do. So IMO these schools are unlikely to go Indie, which IMO asking for unequal revenue is tantamount to doing. This IMO means that there are synergistic effects to being in a conference, even with clearly lesser brands.

Bottom line IMO is that even the top brands have to play somebody. Nor do I think is there an appetite for a "super league" of 20 or so top brands where they all just play each other like it is the NBA or something. IMO, even Ohio State fans don't want to play Michigan, USC, Alabama, Notre Dame and LSU every week. They like the rivalries, and the rhythm of a season where games versus lesser foes build up to the big games with the top brands.

Just MO.

Yeah - that’s likely the biggest impediment to a Super League.

Financially, a Super League certainly makes a lot of sense if the goal to extract the most TV revenue possible, so I can’t ever say that it won’t happen considering what we’ve seen in conference realignment.

However, the maintenance of an elite brand depends on a consistent high degree of success and, by definition, a bunch of Super League teams will end up not being elite anymore because someone still has to lose in *that* league. Some blue blood brand is going to end up as the “Rutgers” of the Super League.

At the same time, the very actions of the top brands of the Big Ten and SEC show that they *don’t* want a murderer’s row schedule even with their new expansions. Nick Saban complained that the proposed locked rivalries in the SEC were unfair to Alabama because they’d have to play Tennessee as the “weak” rival (based on the SEC’s use of records over the past decade) while the third rival for everyone else would be weaker Meanwhile, Ohio State and Penn State straight up dropped their rivalry in the Big Ten. These are massive big name rivalry games with huge TV ratings that anyone would reasonably believe would be untouchable, yet the Third Saturday in October apparently might not be sacrosanct and OSU-PSU was straight up killed.

Essentially, the biggest brands like the money that the other biggest brands bring to their leagues, but that doesn’t mean that they actually want to be playing all big brands every week. The Big Ten and SEC seem pretty balanced right now in that regard where the big brands are scheduled to play another 2 or 3 of the other big brands each year and then the middle and lower tier brands are mixed in.

In a way, it’s sort of old school with all of the talk that we have here about money: the big brands still do care about actually winning games and championships.

(11-20-2023 02:38 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 08:40 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 01:11 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  I am curious to see the details including

1. Financial terms
2. How many games on Peacock (I sense more ND games would be on Peacock)
3. required number of ND/B10 match ups if any

This ND student paper article says the NBC deal provides:

1) $50 million a year;

2) One Peacock game per year (same as current deal);

3) Nothing on this yet, if at all.



https://ndsmcobserver.com/2023/11/notre-...ough-2029/

We will see.

I have been skeptical about $60 - $70 million figures originally floated. If ND does get a $50 million, that would be still huge success in my opinion.

ND’s next deal is reported to be double of the current deal. But $50 million figure seems to be just a guess.

The current payout is $22 million. $22x2 = $44 million

At the same time, I think ND will get more than $17 million from the ACC. Probably at least $20 million on average over the next five years.

See what?

ND is private, so is NBC.

You will never see an official public announcement of the financial terms of this contract.

The best you will get, as with all ND/NBC deals since 1991, is best guesses by sportswriters, bloggers and rumors from "insiders".

(11-20-2023 10:35 AM)HP-TBDPITL Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 10:23 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 09:04 AM)HP-TBDPITL Wrote:  Correct me if I'm wrong here....

In the past (20 years ago or whatever), Notre Dame made more media money than every other program. Isn't that right?

Now there are going to be about 30 programs making more money than Notre Dame and this contract will keep them in the ballpark pf those 30 others, isn't that correct?

If so, let's temper the celebration for ND. Independence is dead. Notre Dame just will be the last one standing.

What this contract really does is give the middle finger to both FSU and Clemson and the rest of the ACC. 2036 is a looong way off.

Every Big Ten school has made more than ND since the creation of the BTN (16 years ago).

That's helpful. I knew there was a tipping point. So 20 years back, ND was King. Now they have been passed by two large conferences and even programs like Oregon and Washington will pass them eventually once they get full revenue share.

ND has been playing with the ACC, literally and figuratively for the past 10 years or whatever....just using them. To the point that the ACC just added Stanford.

The reality is that Notre Dame also signed the Grant of Rights...just not for football. So they want the ACC to continue in this fashion until 2036. Wouldn't even surprise me if they pushed for the longest term possible when it was originally negotiated.

Could be. Anything to stay independent and out of the clutches of a conference, especially the Big Ten.

P.S. This NBC deal is not a middle finger to FSU or Clemson.

It is indifference. What they do is up to them.

They are on their own trying to get more money, just like ND was.

(11-20-2023 03:12 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:32 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:11 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:03 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 02:55 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  The BIG has that broadcasting deal with NBC. Does the BIG, with their hopes of adding Notre Dame in the future, view NBC’s lucrative extension to Notre Dame as supporting their expansion goals or view it as detriment?

To me, Notre Dame intends to remain fb independent for the long term. NBC is a major enabler along with the ACC whose ground is beginning to show widening cracks.

The BIG will dream on. Same with the ACC and how ESPN could press the factor. Notre Dame sees the gimmicks to lure them. They’ll take the advantageous parts, but won’t bite the carrots tied to fb conference membership. Notre Dame is more clever than their suitors.

It amazes me that after over three decades of ND doing everything possible to avoid joining a football conference, some people keep hoping and expecting ND to abandon independence.

With a 12 team playoff, a new, big money NBC deal and a new, lucrative Under Armour deal happening in the past year or so, the trends are not good for those still holding out such hopes.

I am old enough to recall there were quite a few here, on Twitter and elsewhere who were absolutely certain over the past two years that ND would not get a deal near that amount and would have to knuckle under to the Big Ten or ACC.........

I think some realignmentoligists have caught the millenarian bug. We don't have a lot of end-of-the-world religious cults these days, so mass upheaval in college sports scratches that itch to both A) be living in important, pivotal times and B) be one of the elect who knows what is To Be Revealed when the great day comes and the doubters all proven wrong.

Ten years ago it was the pleasing mathematical symmetry of 4 x 16, a 64 team college football system. Now it's 2 megaleagues, or more often (for some reason) 3 megaleagues and pretending that the Kansas-Duke-Arizona-Miami-Louisville league would be on the same plane as the SEC and Big TEn, rather than just left on the scrap heap.

Me, I like feedling my ego when I can guess correctly over a few years what's going to happen to the RSNs, what's going to happen to CBS Paramount, what's going to happen to Fox, what's going to happen to ESPN Disney. What happens to sports, and to college football, is mostly downstream from that.

But a lot of us are committed to our predictions on an almost religious basis, not on a probabilistic gambling basis. If Notre Dame isn't going to be forced into compliance with the Great Ineffable Plan today, well, maybe in 2029.

the Great Ineffable Plan is never wrong, never fails after all.

As to the Bold and Underlined: We have one and it is believed the Iranian Ayatollah who hopes to usher in the 12th Caliphate, which will bring about the end times and Paradise, and that cat has nuclear potential. I yearn for the days of the Branch Davidians and Major Applewhite, or their predecessor James Jones. Those guys mostly just hurt themselves and their followers. The current one is problematic.

As to the Second Bold and Italicized: The networks are just working with the natural decline which is happening. Consolidation strengthens the upper echelon serving their purposes for enhanced national audience, serving the purposes of the NFL which no matter what people think need a viable feeder program for the filling of their ranks, and meets the needs of schools facing increased overhead from court rulings and changing times and inflated costs.

The third lesser conference was called an amalgamation conference by me because without one to clear the baseline of revenue the others could not coalesce as effectively. With the recent rulings from the courts it may not be needed if the increase in overhead is dramatic enough to cull the top 72 schools down to 56 or so. 2 Super Conferences could absorb that many without being too large.

And it's not prognostication when the direction has been singular for 30 years and now extraneous economic factors will naturally shrink the top tier even further.

The NBC deal only signals a potential direction for the Irish if we do indeed wind up with two conferences in an upper tier of 48-56 schools. Landing 60 million or not landing 60 million neither puts the Irish closer to full inclusion in a conference nor farther away from it, but it does mean that until 2030 NBC has a larger stake in them than ESPN or FOX.

Notre Dame will have little control over a 2 conference league should one form. And since continued rulings in the direction of pay for play are happening the formation of such seems likelier than not. The mission of the NCAA is now obsolete for the largest schools, and it's hold on hoops deleterious to profiting from that sport.

But we shall see. Watching the decline of old corporate chains has been the greatest influence in my observations of what is happening in football. We are now seeing a culling of inventory and a breaking of it into Premium Quality, Mid Range Quality, and Bargain Quality. Next will come the deletion of the Mid Range so that people will either subscribe for the Premium or stream for the bargain. And when larger still viable chains have bought up older and sometimes less effective chains (think SWC/Big 8 and PAC) that means the tiering of product is underway now. It's for profit now, so the rules of business will apply.

NBC has purchased more temporary leverage with Notre Dame. ESPN has purchased more temporary leverage with the SEC and ACC and FOX has it with the Big 10. ESPN and FOX agreed on T2 and T3 holdings, they are now called the Big 12. Now if the ACC eventually suffers defections they will join the Big 12 as future T2 & T3 rights, unless they rebrand as the premier hoops conference. It will be interesting to see what happens.

JRsec, I highlighted a few of your points. That ND-NBC deal extension that reaches through 2029 renders more assurance ND will further strengthen their ongoing solid commitment to football independence. That independence is also "dependent" on their agreement for five ACC games on average yearly. Where that is most valuable, is the guarantee of mid-to-late season games with quality opponents.

If the P2 further expands and separates administratively, financially, and scheduling-wise, from the rest of FBS, will Notre Dame be carried along as an incorporated or equal entity, along with the rights and privileges of associating with the most elite college sports institutions and their programs? That negotiating factor would be quite interesting.

Agree, the leverage is temporary, but it could be extended or eventually canceled. Media networks can be fickle, or undergo corporate overhaul or absorption.

For the next seven or so years, ND has as much security, with acceptable fiscal terms, as their brethren in the two prime conferences. I don't believe there will be numerous extractions from the ACC in the near future whereby ND then exclaims "we got to get out of here". That said, schools such as FSU, Clemson, and maybe UNC, are determined to head to the P2, at least a couple most likely to the SEC, well before the point of a seven year conclusion.

Not all that interesting. It's in the SEC's interest to keep ND out of the B1G, so we'll work to accommodate them in any theoretical "P2 only" breakaway. Ditto for the B1G if ND starts leaning towards the SEC. Realistically, the only way they might ever change their preference for independence is if they were offered original membership in a P1.

(11-20-2023 04:32 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 03:12 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:32 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:11 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:03 PM)TerryD Wrote:  It amazes me that after over three decades of ND doing everything possible to avoid joining a football conference, some people keep hoping and expecting ND to abandon independence.

With a 12 team playoff, a new, big money NBC deal and a new, lucrative Under Armour deal happening in the past year or so, the trends are not good for those still holding out such hopes.

I am old enough to recall there were quite a few here, on Twitter and elsewhere who were absolutely certain over the past two years that ND would not get a deal near that amount and would have to knuckle under to the Big Ten or ACC.........

I think some realignmentoligists have caught the millenarian bug. We don't have a lot of end-of-the-world religious cults these days, so mass upheaval in college sports scratches that itch to both A) be living in important, pivotal times and B) be one of the elect who knows what is To Be Revealed when the great day comes and the doubters all proven wrong.

Ten years ago it was the pleasing mathematical symmetry of 4 x 16, a 64 team college football system. Now it's 2 megaleagues, or more often (for some reason) 3 megaleagues and pretending that the Kansas-Duke-Arizona-Miami-Louisville league would be on the same plane as the SEC and Big TEn, rather than just left on the scrap heap.

Me, I like feedling my ego when I can guess correctly over a few years what's going to happen to the RSNs, what's going to happen to CBS Paramount, what's going to happen to Fox, what's going to happen to ESPN Disney. What happens to sports, and to college football, is mostly downstream from that.

But a lot of us are committed to our predictions on an almost religious basis, not on a probabilistic gambling basis. If Notre Dame isn't going to be forced into compliance with the Great Ineffable Plan today, well, maybe in 2029.

the Great Ineffable Plan is never wrong, never fails after all.

As to the Bold and Underlined: We have one and it is believed the Iranian Ayatollah who hopes to usher in the 12th Caliphate, which will bring about the end times and Paradise, and that cat has nuclear potential. I yearn for the days of the Branch Davidians and Major Applewhite, or their predecessor James Jones. Those guys mostly just hurt themselves and their followers. The current one is problematic.

As to the Second Bold and Italicized: The networks are just working with the natural decline which is happening. Consolidation strengthens the upper echelon serving their purposes for enhanced national audience, serving the purposes of the NFL which no matter what people think need a viable feeder program for the filling of their ranks, and meets the needs of schools facing increased overhead from court rulings and changing times and inflated costs.

The third lesser conference was called an amalgamation conference by me because without one to clear the baseline of revenue the others could not coalesce as effectively. With the recent rulings from the courts it may not be needed if the increase in overhead is dramatic enough to cull the top 72 schools down to 56 or so. 2 Super Conferences could absorb that many without being too large.

And it's not prognostication when the direction has been singular for 30 years and now extraneous economic factors will naturally shrink the top tier even further.

The NBC deal only signals a potential direction for the Irish if we do indeed wind up with two conferences in an upper tier of 48-56 schools. Landing 60 million or not landing 60 million neither puts the Irish closer to full inclusion in a conference nor farther away from it, but it does mean that until 2030 NBC has a larger stake in them than ESPN or FOX.

Notre Dame will have little control over a 2 conference league should one form. And since continued rulings in the direction of pay for play are happening the formation of such seems likelier than not. The mission of the NCAA is now obsolete for the largest schools, and it's hold on hoops deleterious to profiting from that sport.

But we shall see. Watching the decline of old corporate chains has been the greatest influence in my observations of what is happening in football. We are now seeing a culling of inventory and a breaking of it into Premium Quality, Mid Range Quality, and Bargain Quality. Next will come the deletion of the Mid Range so that people will either subscribe for the Premium or stream for the bargain. And when larger still viable chains have bought up older and sometimes less effective chains (think SWC/Big 8 and PAC) that means the tiering of product is underway now. It's for profit now, so the rules of business will apply.

NBC has purchased more temporary leverage with Notre Dame. ESPN has purchased more temporary leverage with the SEC and ACC and FOX has it with the Big 10. ESPN and FOX agreed on T2 and T3 holdings, they are now called the Big 12. Now if the ACC eventually suffers defections they will join the Big 12 as future T2 & T3 rights, unless they rebrand as the premier hoops conference. It will be interesting to see what happens.

JRsec, I highlighted a few of your points. That ND-NBC deal extension that reaches through 2029 renders more assurance ND will further strengthen their ongoing solid commitment to football independence. That independence is also "dependent" on their agreement for five ACC games on average yearly. Where that is most valuable, is the guarantee of mid-to-late season games with quality opponents.

If the P2 further expands and separates administratively, financially, and scheduling-wise, from the rest of FBS, will Notre Dame be carried along as an incorporated or equal entity, along with the rights and privileges of associating with the most elite college sports institutions and their programs? That negotiating factor would be quite interesting.

Agree, the leverage is temporary, but it could be extended or eventually canceled. Media networks can be fickle, or undergo corporate overhaul or absorption.

For the next seven or so years, ND has as much security, with acceptable fiscal terms, as their brethren in the two prime conferences. I don't believe there will be numerous extractions from the ACC in the near future whereby ND then exclaims "we got to get out of here". That said, schools such as FSU, Clemson, and maybe UNC, are determined to head to the P2, at least a couple most likely to the SEC, well before the point of a seven year conclusion.

Not all that interesting. It's in the SEC's interest to keep ND out of the B1G, so we'll work to accommodate them in any theoretical "P2 only" breakaway. Ditto for the B1G if ND starts leaning towards the SEC. Realistically, the only way they might ever change their preference for independence is if they were offered original membership in a P1.

ND has never wanted to even belong to a football conference, let alone want to lead, form or control one.

The idea of forming one in its image may be a last ditch fallback position (say, the ACC) if independence is by then absolutely impossible, but not before then.

I will have to live in a P1 world before I would believe it can exist.

(11-20-2023 04:22 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 02:38 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 08:40 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 01:11 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  I am curious to see the details including

1. Financial terms
2. How many games on Peacock (I sense more ND games would be on Peacock)
3. required number of ND/B10 match ups if any

This ND student paper article says the NBC deal provides:

1) $50 million a year;

2) One Peacock game per year (same as current deal);

3) Nothing on this yet, if at all.



https://ndsmcobserver.com/2023/11/notre-...ough-2029/

We will see.

I have been skeptical about $60 - $70 million figures originally floated. If ND does get a $50 million, that would be still huge success in my opinion.

ND’s next deal is reported to be double of the current deal. But $50 million figure seems to be just a guess.

The current payout is $22 million. $22x2 = $44 million

At the same time, I think ND will get more than $17 million from the ACC. Probably at least $20 million on average over the next five years.

See what?

ND is private, so is NBC.

You will never see an official public announcement of the financial terms of this contract.

The best you will get, as with all ND/NBC deals since 1991, is best guesses by sportswriters, bloggers and rumors from "insiders".

Sure. But I expect we will eventually see better reports than the ND student paper article.

(11-20-2023 02:54 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 02:34 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 02:15 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 12:27 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:36 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  The benefit to Ohio State of bundling with Rutgers is that Ohio State needs SOMEBODY to play them and take the L.

It's a balance of power negotiation whether in 5-10 years it's more profitable for Ohio STate to share with Rutgers, giving the bottom half of the standings a share of the pie -- or link up with the Alabamas and keep-what-you-kill.

Yes - part of *maintaining* the brand value is that these schools continue to win more often than not, so every league is inherently going to have a bottom half. Even a Super League would eventually develop a bottom half among them (which is one factor that may ultimately curb a Super League because no current blue blood school wants to see themselves as a bottom half school).

The other part is that the bottom half schools of the Big Ten and SEC are generally pretty “efficient” in meeting some other need for the league: a major TV market, a top basketball program, a flagship for a large population state, etc. In your example, it’s not just that Ohio State gets a win against Rutgers, but also that Rutgers is a flagship school in a good recruiting area (New Jersey) and directly located in the most important TV market of them all (NYC). There’s extra monetization there with Rutgers being the particular patsy getting beat up compared to, say, Buffalo or Toledo. In a way, schools like Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois and Northwestern are perfect types of opponents - someone has to lose to Ohio State and Michigan in football, so you’d rather have those schools bring something else of value to the table. Same thing with Kentucky and Vandy in the SEC (and every once in awhile one of those large market additions actually makes some noise, like Missouri this season).

In that very first Big Ten expansion post that I wrote all of those years ago, I set forth two rules for expansion:

(1) Think like a university president and not like a sports fan; and

(2) 11 + 1 = 13

A lot of people remember the first rule, but often forget about the second one. Rule #2 is that the whole needs to have greater value than the sum of its parts. The Big Ten and SEC have managed to do this: those leagues actually *are* creating greater value above and beyond the individual values of Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and the rest of the members alone.

Ohio State and Michigan, for instance, do make a lot of money off of Rutgers, Maryland, and Illinois because they’re all bringing in a lot of cable fees from the NYC, DC/Baltimore, and Chicago markets. Now, whether that continues in the future with streaming is a fair question, but even then, advertisers still do place a significant premium on viewers in the larger markets (as they generally have higher incomes and inherently more access to retail stores, financial services, etc.). Similarly, Alabama derives a lot of value from being in a league that includes a lot of markets that are significantly larger than their own home market.

That’s why the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC haven’t ever squawked about wanting unequal media revenue compared to the “lesser” members - they’re taking the NFL approach as opposed to the 2010s Big 12 approach in how they allowed Texas to have their own LHN deal (and call me crazy, but the NFL is just a wee bit more successful). Note that the leagues that had financial fissures - the Big 12, Pac-12 and now ACC - all had a common issue where their most valuable school was also their most important market and recruiting area: Texas for the Big 12, USC for the Pac-12, and now FSU for the ACC. This gave those top brands completely outsized impact on their leagues by themselves. That dynamic never existed in the Big Ten and SEC, which is why the larger brands have had a lot more harmony with the smaller brands.

I generally agree with most of your opinions, but the bolded statement is just naive hubris. What is in the best interest of the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC can change, and is not necessarily permanently aligned with their respective conferences. The rising revenue generally covers-up a lot of problems…disagreements are less likely to become public, the alternatives to generating revenue are more complex and risky, and there is more patience with leaders. The proposal by the top European soccer clubs a few years ago proved that game-changing revenue increases could topple successful, long-term affiliations. For example, I could see a Champions League-like or Super League proposals being financially attractive to top brands of the P2.

Correct, his Big Ten was showing.

I believe they overplayed their hand. Their future now relies on old world additions Maryland/Rutgers and two programs FOX didn't find worth restructuring their deal over. The Big Ten absolutely has to land a USC type football program next round to keep their payments up.

I can see a few outcomes:


1) land FSU, which they hope will increase everyone's share and/or finally harpoon white whale, Notre Dame

2) add new, lesser football brand members and give them partial payments in order to subsidize current membership and keep them happy until the next deal

3) unequal revenue sharing, which leads into what I am ultimately predicting happens with the absolute top brands


People acting like college football isn't a wild west arms race are in denial. There is no CFB draft to ensure competitive fairness. It's not the NFL and the comparisons are frankly irrelevant.

The Irish can hardly find their way to Tallahassee, can you imagine those snooty Michigan folks trying to navigate the hinterland of Florida?

Is Tallahassee any worse than State College?

The trouble with any super-conference model is that someone is going to have to absorb losses. I think a super league would only be able to have a 6-game conference schedule. Each member would want to be able to still use buy games and 2-for-1s with lesser competitors to avoid any truly catastrophic final records.

(11-20-2023 03:52 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 03:23 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:22 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:02 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 10:52 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  Look what happened to boxing. In the 1970s and early 1980s, top boxing matches were huge events on network TV. the biggest biggest events were on closed circuit TV, on ABC on tape-delay

HBO and Showtime came in with wads of cash, and the biggest events moved to Pay Per View and subscription-only HBO and Showtime. They made a ton of money, but the audience stopped growing and started dwindling. Boxing lost its audience.

And schools make a lot more bundling their lesser games in conference networks than they did on the PPV model many of them used to use.

I don't think anyone is saying conference bundling isn't beneficial to the lesser brands.

I think the Big Ten would even allow a hybrid deal before letting go of OSU or Michigan. Those programs aren't Notre Dame–they aren't going to sit around and sacrifice revenue if their free market value surpasses their Big Ten share, which subsidizes at least half a dozen other programs.

IMO, Notre Dame is very instructive for schools like Michigan, Ohio State, USC, etc. who might be thinking about going independent. Because no brand is bigger per se than Notre Dame. Those brands mentioned above are on the same tier, but not bigger.

And yet, Notre Dame doesn't make as much as B1G and SEC schools do. So IMO these schools are unlikely to go Indie, which IMO asking for unequal revenue is tantamount to doing. This IMO means that there are synergistic effects to being in a conference, even with clearly lesser brands.

Bottom line IMO is that even the top brands have to play somebody. Nor do I think is there an appetite for a "super league" of 20 or so top brands where they all just play each other like it is the NBA or something. IMO, even Ohio State fans don't want to play Michigan, USC, Alabama, Notre Dame and LSU every week. They like the rivalries, and the rhythm of a season where games versus lesser foes build up to the big games with the top brands.

Just MO.

Yeah - that’s likely the biggest impediment to a Super League.

Financially, a Super League certainly makes a lot of sense if the goal to extract the most TV revenue possible, so I can’t ever say that it won’t happen considering what we’ve seen in conference realignment.

However, the maintenance of an elite brand depends on a consistent high degree of success and, by definition, a bunch of Super League teams will end up not being elite anymore because someone still has to lose in *that* league. Some blue blood brand is going to end up as the “Rutgers” of the Super League.

At the same time, the very actions of the top brands of the Big Ten and SEC show that they *don’t* want a murderer’s row schedule even with their new expansions. Nick Saban complained that the proposed locked rivalries in the SEC were unfair to Alabama because they’d have to play Tennessee as the “weak” rival (based on the SEC’s use of records over the past decade) while the third rival for everyone else would be weaker Meanwhile, Ohio State and Penn State straight up dropped their rivalry in the Big Ten. These are massive big name rivalry games with huge TV ratings that anyone would reasonably believe would be untouchable, yet the Third Saturday in October apparently might not be sacrosanct and OSU-PSU was straight up killed.

Essentially, the biggest brands like the money that the other biggest brands bring to their leagues, but that doesn’t mean that they actually want to be playing all big brands every week. The Big Ten and SEC seem pretty balanced right now in that regard where the big brands are scheduled to play another 2 or 3 of the other big brands each year and then the middle and lower tier brands are mixed in.

In a way, it’s sort of old school with all of the talk that we have here about money: the big brands still do care about actually winning games and championships.

Your beloved NFL is the super league. You have continuously referenced the NFL, but you draw the line on monetary gain when it comes to competitiveness?

Well, we saw what happened to Texas and Oklahoma. They traded their kingdom for murderer’s row. Which ACC schools are being talked about the most? FSU and Clemson leaving their cushy thrones to join murderer’s row.

I’m not sure either of your arguments are based on what is actually happening. Even USC and Oregon are trading dubs for dollars.

I’m actually on record saying Texas wouldn’t leave the Big XII and their own network for murderer’s row. Welp, I took an L on that one. Consolidation leads to a super league, the only thing that can prevent it is lucrative ND style deals or unequal revenue sharing.

(11-20-2023 06:36 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The trouble with any super-conference model is that someone is going to have to absorb losses. I think a super league would only be able to have a 6-game conference schedule. Each member would want to be able to still use buy games and 2-for-1s with lesser competitors to avoid any truly catastrophic final records.

I figured the Super League would have 12-16 teams and 6 or 7 conference games so they could still beat up on other schools. Kind of like the SEC 50s/60s/early 70s.

(11-20-2023 08:17 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 06:36 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The trouble with any super-conference model is that someone is going to have to absorb losses. I think a super league would only be able to have a 6-game conference schedule. Each member would want to be able to still use buy games and 2-for-1s with lesser competitors to avoid any truly catastrophic final records.

I figured the Super League would have 12-16 teams and 6 or 7 conference games so they could still beat up on other schools. Kind of like the SEC 50s/60s/early 70s.

The networks will be dropping dimes to get what they want. All P schools in league of 48 to 56 schools. The mid tier P5's will be the new buy games and the networks will have what they want. You won't see any FCS or G5 schools on the schedule. That's the coming upper tier. 10-2 and 9-3 will become the new 12-0 and 11-1.

(11-20-2023 06:36 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The trouble with any super-conference model is that someone is going to have to absorb losses. I think a super league would only be able to have a 6-game conference schedule. Each member would want to be able to still use buy games and 2-for-1s with lesser competitors to avoid any truly catastrophic final records.

IMO, a hybrid-Champions League / breakaway model could make sense and maximize payouts in college athletics. The top 10 football brands join forces to enhance the regular season schedules. These permanent members would be OSU, MI, PSU & USC from the B1G; plus Bama, Georgia, LSU, Texas & Oklahoma from the SEC; and ND. These top brands negotiate ND-type deals with their legacy conferences…they keep non-football sports in their legacy conference, in exchange for 5 annual football games. The 5 games versus their legacy conference teams maintains needed rivals and winning percentage. They could also invite the top four conference champions from the prior season to create greater variety and inclusion in their schedules. Their conference regular season would be maxed at 6 games.

If elite talent continues to be hoarded into fewer teams, then continued consolidation of brands makes sense.

(11-20-2023 02:15 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 12:27 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ... That’s why the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC haven’t ever squawked about wanting unequal media revenue compared to the “lesser” members[/b] - they’re taking the NFL approach as opposed to the 2010s Big 12 approach in how they allowed Texas to have their own LHN deal (and call me crazy, but the NFL is just a wee bit more successful). Note that the leagues that had financial fissures - the Big 12, Pac-12 and now ACC - all had a common issue where their most valuable school was also their most important market and recruiting area: Texas for the Big 12, USC for the Pac-12, and now FSU for the ACC. This gave those top brands completely outsized impact on their leagues by themselves. That dynamic never existed in the Big Ten and SEC, which is why the larger brands have had a lot more harmony with the smaller brands.

I generally agree with most of your opinions, but the bolded statement is just naive hubris. What is in the best interest of the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC can change, and is not necessarily permanently aligned with their respective conferences. ...

Taking observations of what has happened and projecting into it a prediction about what will happen, and then attacking that prediction which was not in the original, is a straw horse logical fallacy.

The argument Frank makes logically implies that if uneven revenue sharing within the Big Ten should become necessary to the most valuable schools in the conference, that is the red flag that its previously secure position is no longer secure.

(11-20-2023 04:46 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 04:32 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 03:12 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:32 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 05:11 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  I think some realignmentoligists have caught the millenarian bug. We don't have a lot of end-of-the-world religious cults these days, so mass upheaval in college sports scratches that itch to both A) be living in important, pivotal times and B) be one of the elect who knows what is To Be Revealed when the great day comes and the doubters all proven wrong.

Ten years ago it was the pleasing mathematical symmetry of 4 x 16, a 64 team college football system. Now it's 2 megaleagues, or more often (for some reason) 3 megaleagues and pretending that the Kansas-Duke-Arizona-Miami-Louisville league would be on the same plane as the SEC and Big TEn, rather than just left on the scrap heap.

Me, I like feedling my ego when I can guess correctly over a few years what's going to happen to the RSNs, what's going to happen to CBS Paramount, what's going to happen to Fox, what's going to happen to ESPN Disney. What happens to sports, and to college football, is mostly downstream from that.

But a lot of us are committed to our predictions on an almost religious basis, not on a probabilistic gambling basis. If Notre Dame isn't going to be forced into compliance with the Great Ineffable Plan today, well, maybe in 2029.

the Great Ineffable Plan is never wrong, never fails after all.

As to the Bold and Underlined: We have one and it is believed the Iranian Ayatollah who hopes to usher in the 12th Caliphate, which will bring about the end times and Paradise, and that cat has nuclear potential. I yearn for the days of the Branch Davidians and Major Applewhite, or their predecessor James Jones. Those guys mostly just hurt themselves and their followers. The current one is problematic.

As to the Second Bold and Italicized: The networks are just working with the natural decline which is happening. Consolidation strengthens the upper echelon serving their purposes for enhanced national audience, serving the purposes of the NFL which no matter what people think need a viable feeder program for the filling of their ranks, and meets the needs of schools facing increased overhead from court rulings and changing times and inflated costs.

The third lesser conference was called an amalgamation conference by me because without one to clear the baseline of revenue the others could not coalesce as effectively. With the recent rulings from the courts it may not be needed if the increase in overhead is dramatic enough to cull the top 72 schools down to 56 or so. 2 Super Conferences could absorb that many without being too large.

And it's not prognostication when the direction has been singular for 30 years and now extraneous economic factors will naturally shrink the top tier even further.

The NBC deal only signals a potential direction for the Irish if we do indeed wind up with two conferences in an upper tier of 48-56 schools. Landing 60 million or not landing 60 million neither puts the Irish closer to full inclusion in a conference nor farther away from it, but it does mean that until 2030 NBC has a larger stake in them than ESPN or FOX.

Notre Dame will have little control over a 2 conference league should one form. And since continued rulings in the direction of pay for play are happening the formation of such seems likelier than not. The mission of the NCAA is now obsolete for the largest schools, and it's hold on hoops deleterious to profiting from that sport.

But we shall see. Watching the decline of old corporate chains has been the greatest influence in my observations of what is happening in football. We are now seeing a culling of inventory and a breaking of it into Premium Quality, Mid Range Quality, and Bargain Quality. Next will come the deletion of the Mid Range so that people will either subscribe for the Premium or stream for the bargain. And when larger still viable chains have bought up older and sometimes less effective chains (think SWC/Big 8 and PAC) that means the tiering of product is underway now. It's for profit now, so the rules of business will apply.

NBC has purchased more temporary leverage with Notre Dame. ESPN has purchased more temporary leverage with the SEC and ACC and FOX has it with the Big 10. ESPN and FOX agreed on T2 and T3 holdings, they are now called the Big 12. Now if the ACC eventually suffers defections they will join the Big 12 as future T2 & T3 rights, unless they rebrand as the premier hoops conference. It will be interesting to see what happens.

JRsec, I highlighted a few of your points. That ND-NBC deal extension that reaches through 2029 renders more assurance ND will further strengthen their ongoing solid commitment to football independence. That independence is also "dependent" on their agreement for five ACC games on average yearly. Where that is most valuable, is the guarantee of mid-to-late season games with quality opponents.

If the P2 further expands and separates administratively, financially, and scheduling-wise, from the rest of FBS, will Notre Dame be carried along as an incorporated or equal entity, along with the rights and privileges of associating with the most elite college sports institutions and their programs? That negotiating factor would be quite interesting.

Agree, the leverage is temporary, but it could be extended or eventually canceled. Media networks can be fickle, or undergo corporate overhaul or absorption.

For the next seven or so years, ND has as much security, with acceptable fiscal terms, as their brethren in the two prime conferences. I don't believe there will be numerous extractions from the ACC in the near future whereby ND then exclaims "we got to get out of here". That said, schools such as FSU, Clemson, and maybe UNC, are determined to head to the P2, at least a couple most likely to the SEC, well before the point of a seven year conclusion.

Not all that interesting. It's in the SEC's interest to keep ND out of the B1G, so we'll work to accommodate them in any theoretical "P2 only" breakaway. Ditto for the B1G if ND starts leaning towards the SEC. Realistically, the only way they might ever change their preference for independence is if they were offered original membership in a P1.

ND has never wanted to even belong to a football conference, let alone want to lead, form or control one.

The idea of forming one in its image may be a last ditch fallback position (say, the ACC) if independence is by then absolutely impossible, but not before then.

I will have to live in a P1 world before I would believe it can exist.

Never?

After Notre Dame defeated Michigan in 1909, the two teams were scheduled to rematch on November 5, 1910. Before the 1910 contest, Yost protested Notre Dame's intended use of two players (Philbrook and Dimmick) that he believed were ineligible and cancelled the 1910 meeting when Notre Dame did not bench the two players in question. Yost later refused to schedule Notre Dame for any later seasons, deepening the feud between Yost and Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne. After cancelling the series, Yost was instrumental in corralling together the member schools of the Western Conference (the current day Big Ten Conference), refusing entry to Notre Dame and suggesting that conference members should not schedule the Fighting Irish. As a result of the boycott by Midwest opponents, Notre Dame scheduled games against schools on the east coast and west coast, such as USC and Army, and did not play Michigan again until 1942.

(11-20-2023 06:36 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The trouble with any super-conference model is that someone is going to have to absorb losses. I think a super league would only be able to have a 6-game conference schedule. Each member would want to be able to still use buy games and 2-for-1s with lesser competitors to avoid any truly catastrophic final records.

Interested in seeing how the new SEC shakes. Simply, too many bulls in one pen. It’s unnatural. Rome’s become too big. Alexander’s conquered the world. Too many ego’s in a small geographic footprint.

How do you grow and in what direction.

Could see the SEC bursting at the seams by 2032.

(11-20-2023 10:35 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 04:46 PM)TerryD Wrote:  ... ND has never wanted to even belong to a football conference, let alone want to lead, form or control one. ...

Never?

After Notre Dame defeated Michigan in 1909, ...

Never in the modern college football era.

(11-20-2023 03:00 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 02:15 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 12:27 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:36 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(11-20-2023 11:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  Bundling their 2 weakest games is beneficial to Ohio St. and Michigan as well. And with risk mitigation, bundling all Ohio St. and Michigan games is beneficial, as long as you have strong partners as you do in the Big 10 or SEC.

The benefit to Ohio State of bundling with Rutgers is that Ohio State needs SOMEBODY to play them and take the L.

It's a balance of power negotiation whether in 5-10 years it's more profitable for Ohio STate to share with Rutgers, giving the bottom half of the standings a share of the pie -- or link up with the Alabamas and keep-what-you-kill.

Yes - part of *maintaining* the brand value is that these schools continue to win more often than not, so every league is inherently going to have a bottom half. Even a Super League would eventually develop a bottom half among them (which is one factor that may ultimately curb a Super League because no current blue blood school wants to see themselves as a bottom half school).

The other part is that the bottom half schools of the Big Ten and SEC are generally pretty “efficient” in meeting some other need for the league: a major TV market, a top basketball program, a flagship for a large population state, etc. In your example, it’s not just that Ohio State gets a win against Rutgers, but also that Rutgers is a flagship school in a good recruiting area (New Jersey) and directly located in the most important TV market of them all (NYC). There’s extra monetization there with Rutgers being the particular patsy getting beat up compared to, say, Buffalo or Toledo. In a way, schools like Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois and Northwestern are perfect types of opponents - someone has to lose to Ohio State and Michigan in football, so you’d rather have those schools bring something else of value to the table. Same thing with Kentucky and Vandy in the SEC (and every once in awhile one of those large market additions actually makes some noise, like Missouri this season).

In that very first Big Ten expansion post that I wrote all of those years ago, I set forth two rules for expansion:

(1) Think like a university president and not like a sports fan; and

(2) 11 + 1 = 13

A lot of people remember the first rule, but often forget about the second one. Rule #2 is that the whole needs to have greater value than the sum of its parts. The Big Ten and SEC have managed to do this: those leagues actually *are* creating greater value above and beyond the individual values of Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and the rest of the members alone.

Ohio State and Michigan, for instance, do make a lot of money off of Rutgers, Maryland, and Illinois because they’re all bringing in a lot of cable fees from the NYC, DC/Baltimore, and Chicago markets. Now, whether that continues in the future with streaming is a fair question, but even then, advertisers still do place a significant premium on viewers in the larger markets (as they generally have higher incomes and inherently more access to retail stores, financial services, etc.). Similarly, Alabama derives a lot of value from being in a league that includes a lot of markets that are significantly larger than their own home market.

That’s why the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC haven’t ever squawked about wanting unequal media revenue compared to the “lesser” members - they’re taking the NFL approach as opposed to the 2010s Big 12 approach in how they allowed Texas to have their own LHN deal (and call me crazy, but the NFL is just a wee bit more successful). Note that the leagues that had financial fissures - the Big 12, Pac-12 and now ACC - all had a common issue where their most valuable school was also their most important market and recruiting area: Texas for the Big 12, USC for the Pac-12, and now FSU for the ACC. This gave those top brands completely outsized impact on their leagues by themselves. That dynamic never existed in the Big Ten and SEC, which is why the larger brands have had a lot more harmony with the smaller brands.

I generally agree with most of your opinions, but the bolded statement is just naive hubris. What is in the best interest of the top brand name schools in the Big Ten and SEC can change, and is not necessarily permanently aligned with their respective conferences. The rising revenue generally covers-up a lot of problems…disagreements are less likely to become public, the alternatives to generating revenue are more complex and risky, and there is more patience with leaders. The proposal by the top European soccer clubs a few years ago proved that game-changing revenue increases could topple successful, long-term affiliations. For example, I could see a Champions League-like or Super League proposals being financially attractive to top brands of the P2.

I’ve been consistent in stating that a Super League could very well happen. My pushback is mainly the notion that Ohio State and Alabama are in a hunt for unequal revenue sharing in their existing leagues. Every unequal revenue sharing arrangement proposal has been a sign that a league is about to lose its most valuable members anyway (see the Big 12 before and possibly the ACC in the future). I continue to point back to the Big 12 - they did EVERYTHING to keep Texas happy in terms of unequal revenue sharing and it still wasn’t enough to keep them.

So, if the most valuable schools have to ask for unequal revenue sharing in the first place, then that means your conference shell is already on the downswing and those valuable schools are going to eventually leave no matter what you do. Hence, I find it more likely that Ohio State and Alabama leave for a separate Super League than they would have unequal revenue sharing in their existing leagues.

It’s a straw man argument. Very few schools seek unequal revenue. I’m not sure that Texas ever sought unequal revenue (wasn’t it Nebraska that promoted its creation in the B12?)…although once the LHN was formed, Texas was unwilling to give-up their financial windfall. Regardless, revenue was not the main reason why Texas left the B12. In addition, USC & UCLA actually relinquished unequal revenue distribution as part of PAC expansion and new media deal in 2010. The real problem is that other conferences can’t keep up with the revenue growth of the B1G and SEC.