According to Brett McMurphy of CBS Sports (and now corroborated by numerous other reports), TCU has been invited to the Big 12. There’s also speculation that there will be another announcement from the Big 12 today. My guess is that it would have to do with also adding BYU or maybe DeLoss Dodds has hoodwinked Missouri into staying. I’ll have more thoughts later, but you can use this post as a new open thread to discuss the latest news.
(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)
FRANK THE TANK'S SLANT 
First!
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Go Green on the off week!
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TCU and the Big East. Lasted about as long as a George Steinbrenner managerial hire in 1979….
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Congrats to the Big 12. Any conference with TCU in it is clearly safe from raiding.
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lol
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More bad news for the Big East, and good news for the folks in Fort Worth.
One wonders whether Texas backed this move, or if for once UT was overruled by the vassals.
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BTW… how does THAT email work?
From: TCU President and A.D.
To:Various Big East officials
CC: Various TCU officials and lawyers
Subject: Bad News 😦
Dear John and Co.,
Unfortunately, the Big XII went ahead and offered us membership. Who knew? Anyhoo, as you might imagine, we really have to go ahead and take it. Can your people let my people know what to do to get this wrapped up? Do we make the check out to “The Big East”?
Thanks again for the nice dinner last weekend. Good luck on the Temple/Villanova pickle. 😉
Sincerely,
TCU
P.S. How do you spell that Italian dessert that we liked? I need to look it up…
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EZCUSE,
Checks made payable to THE BIG EAST.
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To: TCU
From: BIG EAST
F – U – D – G – E
Sincerely,
John, Commish
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To: Athletic staff
From: TCU athletic department
A reminder: You no longer have to capitalize “Big” when referring to the conference the university is joining next year. It’s secure about its status, and doesn’t need to inflate its own sense of self-importance.
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But you do need to use Roman numerals. Not as secure about the number of teams.
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But don’t forget, only in the logo. The actual name of the conference is just Big 12 and it contains somewhere between 8 and 11 teams at the moment depending on how you look at it.
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I doubt Victor Boschini and Chris Del Conte had any trouble spelling the names of their desserts.
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What does that tweet about the additional announcement say? The link won’t open on my phone.
I’m completely fine with adding TCU in the post-A&M environment, FWIW.
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Seriously though, here’s TCU conference history the last 15 years:
Pre 1994: TCU a member of the Southwest Conference
1994-5: 6 schools leave the SWC and end up in a different conference than TCU due to Big 8 raid
1996: TCU joins WAC
1999: 8 members (including 4 remaining founding members) leave the WAC
2001: TCU joins CUSA
2003-5: 8 members of CUSA decide to leave to Big East raid
2005: TCU joins Mountain West
2010: The two conference pillars, Utah (Pac-12 raid) and BYU decide to leave rather than spend another year with TCU
2011: TCU announces that it’s joining the Big East
2011: Pitt and Syracuse (the two remaining Big East members who were all sports since they add football) leave for the ACC
2011: TCU joins the Big 12
What the hell is wrong with your school Jake?
(I’m mostly joking, but why does TCU always seem to be involved? In every major conference move, TCU was in the raided conference, joined the conference that was raided, or both.)
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That’s more conference changes than Virginia Tech (Metro, to Atlantic 10, to Big East, to ACC), especially since football was involved for all of them, unlike the case of the Gobblers.
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You know Utah and BYU leaving the Mountain West has nothing to do with TCU. It’s all about straight cash, homey.
I’d suggest that this suggests the end of the Big East as a conference, but now that Notre Dame is moving its hockey to the America Eastit’s just going to die as a viable football conference.
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That means now Texas will leave and join the Big Ten.
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Man, everyone is fast today. Go Hawks in Happy Valley this weekend.
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WOW. Mizzou doesn’t have enough votes to get into the SEC…BUT, if L-vill, BYU, and WV go to big 12 along with TCU now, then maybe THAT changes the votes needed to get Mizzou in the SEC. BUT, will Mizzou go ahead with moving o the SEC or stay with a newly reconfigured Big12. This is so much fun…
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If Missouri chooses to stay in the Big 12 (no matter how it’s reconfigured) if it has a legit chance to join the SEC, it clearly has the most masochistic administration in higher education.
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Over on the WildCat Report, two commenters have similar conflicting dream scenarios.
OSU-NYC writes:
In another thread, I read where the Ohio State plane was in the Maryland area over the weekend. This is the same plane that was tied to the conference re-alignment madness of 2010. Also, this plane was in College Station the weekend before A&M went to the SEC; and apparently it has been in Austin 2 times recently.
I don’t put too much credence in it since it could be completely un-related to conference realignment. However, you have to think that the Big 10 and Maryland have had discussions considering Maryland was one of the 3 teams in the ACC (FSU, and one other) that lobbied against raising the exit fee. Now, maybe they’re solid in the ACC … who knows. However, if the ACC doesn’t get that contract re-negotiated, in a few years, Big 10 teams are going to be pulling in double the money of Maryland (and MD is a school facing big money issues).
Just as a hypothetical, let’s say Maryland is in play. Who ya got? Maryland or Missouri? I think I would give the edge to Maryland in 1.) Markets/Demographics 2.) Academics 3.) Basketball. Missouri would have a slight edge in football historically (i think).
XOVERX writes:
Even if we assume Texas/ND has some say so, MO is an excellent school that UT/ND ought to approve in a heartbeat.
Add MO, and if Texas could later sweet-talk OU in, then the B1G would hem in the SEC to the west with some powerful, name state schools. Plus the B1G would be contiguous.
Texas draws over 100,000 per game. +AAU +Massive TV +Top-drawer sports brand
Oklahoma draws over 85,000 per game. +Excellent sports brand
Missouri draws over 61,000 per game. +AAU +Significant TV
You keep TX/OU, plus you reinstate OU/NU and TX/NU. This is some powerful football. The linchpin is Missouri, oddly enough.
Over the years, you bring up NU and OU to academic standards.
There’s a real opportunity here for the B1G. Hope some thought is given to this opportunity because MU is leaving the B12. If it’s not to the B1G, then it’s to the SEC.
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Just as a hypothetical, let’s say Maryland is in play. Who ya got? Maryland or Missouri? I think I would give the edge to Maryland in 1.) Markets/Demographics 2.) Academics 3.) Basketball. Missouri would have a slight edge in football historically (i think).
Actually, I’m pretty sure Missouri has never beaten Maryland in football; they met several times in the late ’40s and early ’50s, when Jim Tatum was coaching the Terrapins and Don Faurot the Tigers. I believe the final of one of those games (1954?) was 74-13.
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I still can’t believe that the name of the 3rd school that voted against the further raising of the ACC exit fees hasn’t been leaked yet. I’d love to know who that was.
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Wake Forest?
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Wake Forest?
That would truly be weird, to see the Deacons go to the SEC — though it might be brilliant counterbranding by Wake officials. While the Triangle schools emphasize ACC tradition and East Carolina tries to become the state’s football school without the necessary BCS membership to do it, putting Wake in the SEC would effectively make it North Carolina’s version of Vanderbilt without a U. of Tennessee to get in the way. It’d be a gamble for the SEC to take Wake, but if it wants the North Carolina market so badly, it might just work — especially since Jim Grobe arguably gets more out of less than any coach in the country. Give him SEC-level talent, and he might upset a few of the big boys.
If UNC, State and Duke are secure in the ACC, Wake might be a left-field option. If it succeeded, it would be the ultimate testimony to the power of the SEC brand.
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Anybody lend any credence to the idea that the B1G wouldn’t want to take more than 2 schools from the Big Xii, for the sake of branding purposes? That is, perhaps they wouldn’t want this to appear like a merger between themselves and half the Big Xii (Nebraska + Mizzou and/or Oklahoma and/or Texas). I feel like I remember a rumor from last year that the COPC nixed the idea of adding more than 2 Big Xii schools; maybe that’s why.
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@vp19
WF was tongue in cheek, but I like your reply.
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@Other Mike
For “branding” purposes? No. But there’s definitely a worry about the identity and cohesion of the conference, something that can be threatened by adding several teams as a bloc.
It all depends on the schools really. The bigger the school, the bigger the headache.
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Great move by the Big 12. Next questions:
1) Can it convince Mizzou to stay?
Arguments for staying in the Big 12 include retaining regional, historic rivalries with former Big Eight teams; retention of access to Texas recruiting, rather than having to build relationships with high school coaches in the SEC states from scratch; granting of rights eliminates worries that others will defect B12 in the future; arguably more financially appealing since B12’s 1st tier rights are up for renewal much sooner than the SEC, and staying means Mizzou avoids exit fee.
2) What is BYU’s leadership really thinking?
Repeating what many others have stated, BYU is hard to get a read on because its leadership isn’t simply a chancellor and a board of directors; it’s the LDS church itself. The opportunity to join the only BCS league it will ever have a chance to join, with marquee members Texas and Oklahoma in the league, and with the opportunity to use BYUtv in the same way it would as an independent, should be enough of a sales pitch in and of itself. But BYU leadership may care more about independence than most of us understand.
3) Will Texas politicians be able to twist the Big 12’s arms into taking other Texas schools like SMU, Rice, or, most likely, Houston?
Watching a Texas school that does NOT get state funding get admitted into the league may give pro-Houston politicians the proper ammunition to get the Cougars in the league. Their argument, “If you’re letting TCU in, you have to let a public school in.” (Don’t mistake this as my own suggestion that Houston should be invited.)
4) What are the contingency plans?
If Mizzou stays and BYU joins, is #12 going to be Boise, Air Force, or Louisville?
If Mizzou stays and BYU doesn’t join, does the Big 12 simply add TCU and call it a day?
If Mizzou leaves and BYU joins, does the Big 12 stop there at 10? Does it add Louisville and either Cincinnati or West Virginia to get to 12?
If Mizzou leaves and BYU doesn’t join, does that take Boise, as a far-away school in a tiny market with lowly-regarded academics and no travel partner, off the table? Is Air Force as a singular addition to get to 10 the best move? Is Louisville a better addition? Would killing the Big East by adding three Big East teams be sensible?
And, to reiterate, what role will Texas politics play in all this?
Regardless of the answers, there’s no question in my mind that adding TCU is a very, very good move.
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Maybe Moronatto will schedule another meeting to set out the to-be-ignored rules of how his conference should be pillaged.
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I don’t see how it is a great move. TCU has had a great run in football the last decade, but they don’t add a new market, they will probably hurt the Texas recruiting for all the schools other than Texas and Oklahoma, and they don’t bring stability (though I don’t think anyone would). They are a nice add, maybe a single or a double, but definitely not a home run, and with only a six year grant of rights, they shouldn’t get too comfortable.
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1) No. If Missouri stays its is because it cannot get a SEC invite. If LSU and Auburn think there are enough Tigers in the SEC you may have the Missouri Mules (MO official state animal). That is how much Mizzou wants to leave.
2) Do not have a clue.
3) This was the political move. SMU and Houston are out.
4) Doubt if there are any.
Texas believes in addition (more money) by subtraction (fewer weak teams that do not generate above average TV$). Therefore, any move to 12 members is against what Texas wants.
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This puts the Big East on life-support. West Virginia leaving would be pulling the plug. That puts Notre Dame in a tough position. This could lead to Notre Dame and a 14th (Rutgers?) joining the Big Ten.
Add BYU and BSU to the Big 12 and all of a sudden, that’s a really good conference.
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Big East football falling apart doesn’t really cause ND to do anything. The basketball schools aren’t going anywhere, so ND can just stay in whatever comes out of the BEAST.
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I’m reading that Texas is nixing all the high school content on the LHN and will agree to a 13 year committment for sharing TV funds..two thinkgs Mizzou pushed for. Maybe that’s enought o keep the Tigers in the league. I’m also reading that there may be a surprise (better) candidate option for the SEC. I’m thinking FLorida State or Virginia Tech. L-ville looks like a lock for the Big 12 too. BYU?
Only God knows right now…
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include a link and we can read too…
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The Big XII-2-1-1+1 ought to take Boise State as a football-only member and extend an offer to Notre Dame for all sports but football.
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Two problems for Notre Dame on the near horizon though:
First off, ND has tie ins with the Big East on its non BCS bowl games. If that conference loses its BCS status and/or essentially becomes another version of C-USA, then the Notre Dame’s present bowl line up becomes even worse. And by worse, I mean the current highest ranked non-BCS bowl that has Big East ties is the Champs Sports Bowl. In fact, the last two bowl games ND attended (Hawaii, Sun) become available because the conferences with tie-ins to those bowls didn’t have enough teams to fill them.
The second is football scheduling for the latter two months of the season. Outside of its annual games with USC and Navy ND’s depended on the Big East and the ACC to provide most of the teams on its schedules in October and November with the Pac 12 providing another program (Stanford). With Pittsburgh and Syracuse now going to the ACC by 2014, it’s very possible that the conference could go to a nine-game conference schedule. The ACC would join the Pac 12, Big XII (as presently constituted) and Big Ten (by 2017) as conferences with nine game conference schedules. Depending on how the SEC finally sets itself up when it has 14 teams, they could also go to a nine-game conference schedule (that said, it’s been awhile since any SEC team played Notre Dame and there aren’t any of ND’s future schedules).
What does that mean for Notre Dame football? It means putting together a football schedule could get much more difficult–even a bit more so if independent BYU joins the Big XII (along with Louisville, West Virginia and Cincinnati from the Big East. It’s not impossible and the Pac 12 has cooperated with USC and Stanford by giving them a waiver to play ND in the latter parts of the season. But it does mean there’s a potential there for Notre Dame to have to go thru major hoops to put together a really good football schedule.
There’s a reason why ND had Western Michigan, Army and Tulsa on last year’s schedule. Now unless Notre Dame has a burning desire to play Rutgers, South Florida, UConn, East Carolina, Villanova, Memphis, Temple, Rice, SMU and Houston on a regular basis (if Louisville, West Virginia and Cincinnati leave for the Big XII), they’re going to have a potential scramble on their hands. This is essentially the same situation BYU is facing now–they’re schedule is toploaded and then ends up with a bunch of WAC teams.
I do agree with you that Notre Dame could put its non-football teams in most any other conference and ND’s officials will have to figure out what they want to do. A Big East without a lot of its better basketball schools could be on destination, but that’s a pale imitation of what the BE used to be if WVU, UL, Cincy, SU and Pitt are gone (and that doesn’t include UConn which wants to get into the ACC pretty badly).
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cutter, you make excellent arguments as to how the BEAST decline negatively impacts ND. But as long as their independence and National Title Game invite possibilities are there (even if they can’t put together a team good enough to be invited), they don’t have a need to move. Everything else is window dressing for them.
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cutter:
You’ve been trotting this argument out for months now, but unless ACC schools refuse to adjust their schedules to play ND late in the season (and I don’t see that happening, no matter how many league games they play), ND doesn’t face any “difficulty” with late-season scheduling (BTW, their schedules for the next 6 years or so are already almost all set). I don’t think that ND has any problems with playing 4-5 ACC teams a year (they play BC & Pitt pretty much annually, have a rivalry with GTech, play Syracuse to get exposure in NYC, aren’t averse to playing academically good publics like UMD, UVa, & UNC as well as privates like Wake and Duke, and probably occasionally would revive rivalries with Miami & FSU). Add in the Navy game, B10 triplet, and USC/Stanford, and you’re almost at 12 games already.
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Missouri is still on the table too. If you get ND, you don’t need Rutgers. Grab ND and MO and call it a day.
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It would be beyond stupid to get Notre Dame and not bring in an Eastern school to leverage the Irish popularity in the northeast. If ND is coming, you add Maryland or Rutgers.
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Huh? What? Why? The B1G already has Penn State. Sorry.
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You’re kidding right?!?
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All we have heard is that the only school worth bothering for to get NYC is Notre Dame. In fact, PSU was constantly being touted as worth more than Rutgers, Syracuse, or UConn in that market.
Meanwhile, the talk is still that ND is the final King. Kings don’t need to be accompanied by anyone to be worthwhile. Texas doesn’t need “Texas Tech” to leverage Texas. Nebraska didn’t need Oklahoma to leverage the Midwest. Penn State didn’t need Pitt to leverage Pennsylvania. And so on.
Now i see the genius of JD. It’s keeping people from wanting expansion for expansion’s sake.
If you can get MD, you get them because they are Maryland. It is what it is. But you don’t need Maryland to leverage ND. And you don’t need a NE team to leverage Notre Dame.
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I’ve got to side with SideshowBob and joe4psu on this one. If you add ND, you definitely expand to the east for #14 (unless it’s UT). The B10 has never gotten the full value out of PSU in the east. ND would help a lot, but I think you have to add Rutgers at that point. That gets you the NJ TV’s (non-NYC ones, at least), ND and PSU games near NYC and better Philly penetration, too (BTN is not on basic cable in Philly).
MD would be my second choice, since it doesn’t help leverage NYC with ND, but it still adds TVs and gets extra value from PSU.
MO would be my third choice, since they have TVs and built in rivalries, because they don’t leverage ND at all.
I’d be OK with adding MO, but only if RU and MD said no first.
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Brian, in a Rutgers vs. Maryland battle for #14 with Notre Dame, Maryland — a big-time program for several generations — is more of a sure bet to deliver the Washington-Baltimore market than Rutgers, a relatively young big-time program, is for New Jersey and New York.
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Ah well… I wouldn’t worry about who the B1G needs to add to ND to get full value just yet. A lot of obstacles to be cleared long before then. Even so… ND to the ACC makes more sense anyway. Away games all along the East Coast… from Boston to Miami. Throw in Syracuse games played in NYC 2 out of every 4 years and you are talking extreme exposure. Games in DC. They can still play USC. They can play Navy in San Diego in the years where they are home for USC.
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vp19,
Brian, in a Rutgers vs. Maryland battle for #14 with Notre Dame, Maryland — a big-time program for several generations — is more of a sure bet to deliver the Washington-Baltimore market than Rutgers, a relatively young big-time program, is for New Jersey and New York.
That’s all true. However, MD gets you a bigger piece of a smaller market while RU gets you a smaller piece of a bigger market. Add to that the popularity of ND in NYC versus DC, and the proximity of Philly to NJ (having PSU, ND and RU, would the BTN make basic cable in Philly finally?). Plus, the BE is much weaker than the ACC so RU may be an easier get.
I’m not saying MD would be a bad choice, I just think RU would work a little better with ND.
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In these discussions of relative value between Rutgers / MD remeber its not just ND and PSU that helps penetration in those markets. UoM and tOSU are routinely touted as favorite college sports teams in the NYC and mid-Atlantic regions.
Point being, ND really helps more for NYC and north into New England. Rutgers / MD would be more “amplifying” for PSU/tOSU/UoM.
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Leverage the Midwest? We already are the Midwest!
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It’s already a really good conference. Excluding Texas A&M, the league already has #3 Oklahoma, #6 Oklahoma State, #11 Texas, #20 Kansas State, and #25 Baylor. Missouri has turned into a pretty good program over the past 7 or 8 years, which is to the B12’s credit if it stays.
The league is really strong almost every year. For all the lumps it gets for Iowa State (which is vastly better than it used to be), Baylor (ditto), Texas Tech (bowl appearance for, what, 20 straight years?), and Kansas (even they made the Orange Bowl a few years ago), it’s a solid league on the field.
The problems have always been cohesion and collegiality among the members. Really, it’s kind of the opposite of the ACC. The ACC has had enormous trouble earning football credibility, but ACC schools get along very well. Sure, FSU and Clemson may wish the focus on basketball compared to football was more like the SEC than the ACC, but they still have great relationships with the conference comrades.
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The question, can anyone afford to pull the plug on the BEast? As Josh stated, doing so would finally force ND hand. And chances are they lean more heavily to the ACC than any other conference.
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The reality is the plug should be pulled on the Big East. First off without TCU, they will likely lose their BCS Bowl slot to the Mountain West. Next, they know that there is no unity within the Conference, because schools like UConn, West Virginia & Louisville would leave in a nano-second. The question is when does it happen? If Missouri goes to the SEC (If I was them I would), then Louisville leaves and it will sooner rather than later.
It goes without saying the TCU is a huge winner in all of this. Not only can they play regional teams like Baylor,Texas Tech, and of course, UT in football, but they bring their excellent baseball team to a better Conference. Baylor also is a huge winner, keeping their place in a BCS Conference alive, and bringing back their biggest rival (TCU into the fold). However, the fox that is lurking in the woods is Delaney. Think about it, the Pac added fair (At best) schools in Colorado and Utah, the ACC added Pitt & Syracuse, the SEC added A&M, and maybe Missouri (A school the Big 10 rejected), the Big XII lost schools and added TCU & maybe Louisville, and the Big 10 added an elite school in Nebraska. This means that while the other Conferences fill up their slots, with schools that fall below Oklahoma State on the quality level, the Big 10 can simply bide its time until schools like UT, OU and Notre Dame eventually have enough of playing the garbage that ends up on their schedule (For example: See Texas/Rice or Tulsa on ND’s schedule last year, and OU this year). Keep in mind, the Big 10 has proven it can afford to wait (Adding only Michigan State, Penn State & Nebraska since World War II). In addition, UT no longer has an A&M problem, since they are in the SEC, so they only have a Tech problem left (They could easily schedule them as a non-Conference game, if they left the Conference). If and when OU gets their Academic act together, the Big 10 (Even if they have to wait 10 years), can add UT & OU, and really be the ultimate winner in the Conference reallignment game.
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I don’t think the B10 adds OU, because both Texas and OU going could very well make the B12 collapse, and that just isn’t politically acceptable in TX or OK. However, if the B10 adds only Texas, I think a B12 with OU + middle-of-the-road programs like TTech, Boone Pickens State, WVU, and BYU with TCU still being strong would still be a decent BCS conference on par with the ACC. With OU having likely no where to go, the best scenario possible for the B10 (adding Texas with the B12 surviving, so not suffering political blowback) is possible. Heck, the TX politicos may even like it if it means Houston or SMU get promoted to the big leagues if Texas leaves.
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Is this the possible worst case scenario for A&M recruiting?
Think about what just happened. The rest of the Big 12 will be heavily opposed to scheduling A&M after all of this. TCU most likely will follow suit. As it is, A&M has to fight and fight hard against the OKSt and the other middle of the pack schools in the Big 12 and could always hold the BCS/close to home tag over TCU recruits. Not only is that argument gone, but instead of having 8 games a year in Texas, A&M will most likely have 6 at most.
Unless A&M can replace “away” games of either Baylor, TT, or UT ( or approximately 11/2 a year) with other instate opponents, they begin to lose the local exposure and travel factor among Tex HS kids. It will be a slow erosion that can be held off by winning, but with A&M expected to have an EXTREMELY weak squad next year they may build a hole they cannot escape from.
Less games in Texas and now a new name that will have essentially the same name and brand power as A&M. As huge of a state as Texas, there is still only so much to go around. The question will be will the additional influence of other SEC schools in Texas further erode the A&M recruiting base.
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That is what I have thought all along. Texas can just play Tech or TCU on Thanksgiving too.
Be careful what you wish for….
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“The rest of the Big 12 will be heavily opposed to scheduling A&M after all of this.”
That’s insane. If Bill Byrne calls Texas Tech, Baylor, or TCU and says A&M wants to schedule a home-and-home with their school, they would try and get A&M to fax the contract with his signature before the phone call ended just in case he was drunk and would change his mind once he sobered up.
Just this weekend the Tech head coach was saying they would like to keep the A&M series going as a non-conference rivalry but doubted A&M would find the space.
I’m not sure why OU or OSU would have any hard feelings about A&M. An occasional series with one of those schools might be possible and desirable.
I won’t even speculate on Kansas, KSU or ISU turning down an A&M offer for a football series. I’m not sure what scenario would have to happen for A&M to offer. Maybe an exchange for Kansas basketball visits?
The only school that might turn down A&M would be the Longhorns, even though (despite their protestations) losing the series hurts them at least as much as it does A&M.
Other than the Longhorns, I don’t see A&M setting up an annual home and home series with any of those schools, though occasional home and homes with OU, OSU, and/or TT might happen. Any other school would likely only be added as a 2/1 type deal.
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How few games do you think A&M will play in Texas?
If SEC goes to 9 games that’s 5 games in Texas (4 home, 4 away, 1 Arlington vs. Arkansas)
If A&M then schedules 1 home and home out of state + 2 games in state (either buy games or some type of series with the numerous FBS schools in Texas) that’s 2.5 games in Texas.
So, “worst case scenario”*, A&M will alternate 7 and 8 games a year in Texas.
On top of that, A&M will still be covered by the state media, even when they play in such far off locales as Louisiana and Mississippi.
*I think ‘worst case scenario’ is a silly thing to call a school playing a less parochial schedule, but since you think it implies doom and gloom, I’ll go with that.
If the Big 12 was really trying to hit A&M’s recruiting they’d probably try UH; Houston now has an SEC school on either side of it (A&M and LSU). But I don’t think adding either school will really affect A&M recruiting.
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If Texas wants 10 teams, rather than 12…. what are the odds that dropping any opposition to TCU was contingent on TCU agreeing to join Texas in not wanting 12 teams?
As it stands:
Texas, TCU, TTech, Baylor
Oklahoma, Okie State, Kansas, KSU, Iowa St.
If Missouri leaves… maybe stay at 9?
if BYU? How do you do divisions? Hard to make that make sense. So maybe you just stay a 10-team, no division conference with 9 conference games. Why not?
Either way, that keeps the Big East “alive” (with WVU, Lville, and Cincy being rejected).
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TCU won’t get a vote until its a full member, next July. I imagine the Big 12 will be done expanding by then.
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You can’t have a CCG (and divisions) with fewer than 12 members.
For the Big 12, it’s goodbye aggy, hello froggy.
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Great addition for the Big 12.
Clearly the best football addition by far. Markets are less relevant for the Big 12. Not like they’re going to sew up Kentucky or Ohio or Pittsburgh with the other available choices.
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I also do think that this will be a good way to “replace” A&M’s presence in Texas. Yeah, it won’t fix things entirely but with every team in the conference having 2 games in Texas, the recruiting impact of A&M’s departure on schools outside of Texas will be nullified.
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A&M does not really have a “presence”. That is the entire problem with a lot of this. They have been heavily eroding their fan base for the last 10 years due to poor choices on and off the field and are just now starting to pull out of their tailspin.
All this does is effectively limit the options A&M has for more in state games and recruiting while continue to damage the BE. The SEC has effective killed the BE one way or the other now. Either Missouri goes to the SEC and the Big 12 takes WV/Louisville or they stay and the SEC takes WV. Either way, the loss of 4 football members is going to be a huge blow that should kill of the BE.The real prize in all of this is ND. If ND becomes in play then we will begin to see the real fireworks.
The only way I can see that ND does not come into play is if you see a raid on the MWC/CUSA. The problem is that with the loss of TCU there is going to be problems trying to keep the criteria for the BCS with any of the other potential choices.
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So, at the end of the day, the Big 12 loses a big state school (A&M) to a stronger conference, replaces it with a smaller private school from a weaker conference, yet might get a football upgrade in the process.
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add
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add (attempt #2)
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Dodds statement:
“We’re proud that TCU has been invited to join the Big 12,” Dodds said in the statement. “Their commitment to academics and success on the field make them an excellent fit. With a solid budget and strong financial support, they have been proactive at improving facilities. Their close proximity to all conference institutions makes for a comfortable travel situation.”
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“Ya’ll promise to forget about ’96 now, right?”
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GO BLUE
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Go Orange
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This has been irritating me since I started reading this blog last summer… what does “add” mean?
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Sam B., a lot of us follow this blog by subscribing to the comments. But you have to subscribe to each blog post individually. So when a new post gets posted, you get all these folks posting just get subscribe, so a lot say “Add”. I usually post how awesome the Hawks are….
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Usually? Maybe our senile coach has one more gameplan that works. Go Nitts!
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Now the question is whether BYU would be a replacement for Missouri or an addition on the road to 12.
I still think BYU to the Big 12 makes too much sense for both sides to be left alone. BYU gets to keep their network and all of that and they get the coveted road to the BCS. As I mentioned in the previous thread, there’s a lot for BYU to like about being the anchor of a Big 12 North that gets to do battle with OU/Texas in a Big 12 CCG.
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Other Info. Texas get more football games, no high school.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/bohls/entries/2011/10/06/big_12_invites.html
Texas has agreed to equal revenue sharing of Tier I and II television rights to football and men’s basketball games and has agreed to forego its desire to show any high school football games or even highlights on its new Longhorn Network. In exchange, the league will allow Texas to show two or three football games on the network.
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione told me his school hopes to launch its network as early as next fall. He called it “very likely” its unnamed network would be up and running by then and has already shown up to 30-plus softball and baseball games on Cox cable in cities like Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
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That will eventually change when the NCAA makes their ruling and OU and Missouri gets their networks up and going. This is just a PR move. The real problem is that now the 2 to 3 games is in stone and UT will never budge from that. The HS content will eventually happen. There is too much money to be made by the NCAA member schools for it not to happen.
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So if Cox will be Oklahoma’s TV partner in a Sooner (or Later) Network, I wonder if LSU and Arkansas get their own networks, as well.
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kbohls kbohls
Big 12 is not considering any other Texas schools.
1 hour ago
kbohls
kbohls kbohls
Big 12 will still consider inviting BYU, Louisville, West Virginia no matter what Missouri does; Dodds, Castiglione prefer 10 team-league.
1 hour ago
Stuff from Bohls.
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Geaux #1 LSU Fightin’ Tigers!
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If, and it’s a big if, they can keep Missouri, they should add BYU and Louisville. Those seem like the two strongest choices.
If Missouri leaves for the SEC, then they might just invite BYU as a replacement. Either way, TCU as a replacement for A&M is sensible.
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zeek:
However, I think WVU is more likely to leave than Louisville. At L’Ville, bball actually brings in more money that football, which is why Pitino has such a big influence on keeping Louisville in a conference where he can use his East Coast connections.
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And here I thought Texas was “booming” and Michigan was “dying”:
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2011/10/05/texas-experiences-high-tech-job-losses.html
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Michigan has no where to go but up.
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For my part, I’m hoping this hastens Pitt’s departure to the ACC.
I don’t wish football limbo on the other schools but if the Big XII puts the final nail in Big East football’s coffin, there’s nothing to keep us from joining even just next year. Plus if WVU lands in a (less unstable) major conference like the Big XII, maybe they’ll be amenable to keeping the Backyard Brawl on an OOC basis. Wait till y’all get a load of the hicks who call themselves Mountaineers!
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Update from Mizzou. Greg Swaim says Chip Brown is a sabateur. DeArmond says no. (only one link per post. Greg Swaim’s twitter is @gswaim)
http://campuscorner.kansascity.com/node/2109
1. An MU administrator is anonymously the source of an AP report that Missouri would prefer the Big Ten over the SEC. Last year’s news. There is no credible indication the Big Ten is courting Missouri or that Missouri is playing the Big Ten off against the SEC. And whether you believe that or not, the only perception that counts is among SEC presidents and commissioner Mike Slive.
2. A self-proclaimed Big 12 insider out of Oklahoma this morning has tweeted that Chip Brown, last year’s media star from Orangebloods.com during the first round of Big 12 movement, is actually the AP’s MU administrator. Chip says it is hilarious and a lie. And you should believe Chip. He’s a polarizing figure, but Chip Brown is not nor would he claim to be an MU administrator, professor or janitor.
3. A columnist in the Birmingham News has written that Missouri does not yet have the votes to be welcomed into the SEC. The number noted in that column that favor MU inclusion was seven. Since then, I am told by a person I trust in SEC country, that favorable vote total has risen to eight. Nine votes are needed. And that person I trust in the SEC said this morning that he anticipates Slive will ultimately get the minimum nine votes needed to sweep Mizzou into the SEC.
Read more: http://campuscorner.kansascity.com/node/2109#ixzz1a1U3b27m
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Update from Mizzou. Greg Swaim says Chip Brown is a sabateur. DeArmond says no. (only one link per post. Greg Swaim’s twitter is @gswaim)
http://campuscorner.kansascity.com/node/2109
1. An MU administrator is anonymously the source of an AP report that Missouri would prefer the Big Ten over the SEC. Last year’s news. There is no credible indication the Big Ten is courting Missouri or that Missouri is playing the Big Ten off against the SEC. And whether you believe that or not, the only perception that counts is among SEC presidents and commissioner Mike Slive.
2. A self-proclaimed Big 12 insider out of Oklahoma this morning has tweeted that Chip Brown, last year’s media star from Orangebloods.com during the first round of Big 12 movement, is actually the AP’s MU administrator. Chip says it is hilarious and a lie. And you should believe Chip. He’s a polarizing figure, but Chip Brown is not nor would he claim to be an MU administrator, professor or janitor.
3. A columnist in the Birmingham News has written that Missouri does not yet have the votes to be welcomed into the SEC. The number noted in that column that favor MU inclusion was seven. Since then, I am told by a person I trust in SEC country, that favorable vote total has risen to eight. Nine votes are needed. And that person I trust in the SEC said this morning that he anticipates Slive will ultimately get the minimum nine votes needed to sweep Mizzou into the SEC.
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Of course if it ever happens, it will be announced as unanimous.
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Precisely. There was no Pac-12 vote on OU/OSU.
We live in a new media age vastly different from the pre-1995 mentality. None of these conference are going to air out disagreements.
The vote that goes to the record is going to be unanimous in either direction, but it won’t tell you what the principals actually thought…
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“BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Missouri demonstrated it’s ready to publicly dance with the SEC. But will enough SEC presidents agree to the overture?
Two sources familiar with the SEC’s discussions about Missouri told The Birmingham News Wednesday that as of now it appears that a majority of SEC presidents and chancellors would support Missouri’s application. But the sources said that majority falls just short of the nine votes required to add a new member.
One source said there’s a group of presidents that wants to sit tight, believing the SEC can do better than Missouri and that No. 14 should come from the East. According to both sources, Alabama wants to look East and not risk losing its annual game against Tennessee, while Auburn favors adding Missouri and moving to the Eastern Division.”
From Solomon over at http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/10/majority_of_sec_presidents_fav.html
I have no idea whether any of this is in fact the case but it would make a great deal of sense. We do know that Auburn’s president (I think it was president) said that they’d be willing to go to the East. We also know that Alabama doesn’t want to lose the Alabama-Tennessee game and Tennessee probably feels the same way given that Tennessee has more to lose from losing it than Alabama (in terms of losing a top tier rivalry).
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So who’s against? Alabama & Tennessee? Almost certainly UF and UGa. Vandy? USC?
Of course, they could just stick Mizzou in the East . . .
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Is this the other “big announcement”?
According to multiple sources, Texas, after talking to ESPN, has agreed not to air any content involving high school athletics, not even the news-style highlights that had been approved by the NCAA, sources told Orangebloods.com Wednesday night.
http://texas.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1275023
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Statemen is saying that they’ll get 2-3 games on the network as a compromise…
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Where is the compromise? As I said months ago, HS games could easily be a stalking horse used to gain what UT desired while “giving up” something they really had little expectation of having, and may never have the right to.
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My thoughts exactly.
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Doubt it.
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Best case scenario for the Big East:
1) SEC takes Mizzou and stops at 14.
2) Big 12 takes BYU and stops at 10.
Still, the Big East would look an awful lot closer in quality to C-USA and the MWC than it would even to the ACC.
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I’m just wondering what the Big East reaction will be to this. Losing TCU and possibly Louisville and WVU along with Syracuse and Pitt is going to force some major decision.
I really like the idea of adding Army/Navy/Air Force to the Big East so they’ll be politically covered and adding entire sports programs (no football or olympic sport only schools).
I also think the Big East needs to let Notre Dame (and the rest of the Catholic schools) go. The only value ND provides is with their basketball program. And the number of national marquee matchups between Notre Dame and other Big East opponents dwindled considerably with the departure of Syracuse and Pitt. With ND and the catholic schools gone, the “fat” will be trimmed from the conference and the Big East can in earnest build a real conference and not a hybrid basketball-football conference.
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they can’t, though – in any BEast TV network deal PowerPoint presentation, slide 1 will be all of the major markets they’re in, regardless if it’s BB only. besides, ND’s affiliate with the BEast gives some assistance with scheduling bowl games
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I also think the Big East needs to let Notre Dame (and the rest of the Catholic schools) go.
Given that four of those “Catholic schools” (Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Georgetown) were among the Big East’s seven original members in 1979, I don’t see that happening. What the rest of the country views as “fat,” the Big East views as a cornerstone. I don’t think it has any desire to build a “real” conference, one of its inherent problems.
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I’m kind of thinking the BE is going to end up giving up on sponsoring football. Pitt and SU are gone. TCU isn’t coming. Louisville and WVU are very likely gone. ND to the ACC or Big Ten probably drags along Rutgers or UConn (and even if that doesn’t happen, Rutgers + UConn to the ACC is still in play). Cinci to the Big 12 is definitely in play if Mizzou is gone. If there are only one or two of the projected 2012 football members left, doesn’t make more sense for USF to go back to CUSA or for Rutgers/UConn to just play football in the MAC rather than scrounge up MAC and CUSA schools and just maybe the service academies for a CUSA-level football conference?
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“Is this the possible worst case scenario for A&M recruiting?
Think about what just happened. The rest of the Big 12 will be heavily opposed to scheduling A&M after all of this. TCU most likely will follow suit. As it is, A&M has to fight and fight hard against the OKSt and the other middle of the pack schools in the Big 12 and could always hold the BCS/close to home tag over TCU recruits. Not only is that argument gone, but instead of having 8 games a year in Texas, A&M will most likely have 6 at most. ”
yeah, UTSA, Houston, SMU, Texas State, UNT, UTEP, Rice would never schedule A&M, because they are so incensed by A&M’s defection to the SEC.
there goes A&M’s recruiting. must be hard for Alabama and Auburn to recruit in Alabama because they only have 1 game with in state rivals.
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So A&M gets to go on the road to play those teams… Which will be an OCC game and not televised. That is going to offset going to UT,TT and Baylor every 2 years?
It is a simple numbers game. AS it is A&M plays their OCC games at home most of the time with the occasional road game. On top of that they play their entire home schedule and then 11/2 more games a year in conference in the state of Texas and then 1 more in OK.
Your new scenario: Play ALL OCC games at home or have to pick an away game against UH, SMU,UNT,UTSA,UTEP,RICE,TSU or UTSA. Play the full conference home schedule and then no away games in the state of Texas, but closer trips to Ark and LSU.
That is the problem. There is no longer the built in advantage of having 3 other teams within the state and now the one lone other potential BCS, which would have been a great match up for A&M is now in the Big 12 (and most likely will be frown upon for playing A&M). Now the exposure away game within Texas is essentially UH or SMU, with neither being a huge media draw. That us a major issue that people continue to gloss over.
Unless A&M wins in a hurry in the SEC the recruit advantage they think the move will give them will never materialize. As it is, TCU is the recruiting rival with A&M, not UT. Further increasing the TCU presence within Texas at the same time as A&M reduction in exposure can lead to some serious issues for A&M.
Be careful what you wish for.
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I maintain this is the reason why the SEC loves the TAMU addition. Mediocre team that will allow the “big boys” of the SEC exposure to Texas and over-sign the hell out of the locals.
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A&M will play seven games at home every year, same as Texas.
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Texas generally plays 6 (with the neutral site game in the Metroplex). TAMU may do the same with the Arkansas game always in the Metroplex.
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TAMU will play 6-7 games at home in eastern Texas. Which will be heavily recruited by the SEC west.
TAMU will lose all its games (mostly) against the rest of Texas (and the exposure it will have there).
…speaking as someone who watched this largely happen to my alma mater.
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Not really, A&M will still play second fiddle to UT in most head to head recruiting matches – that isn’t a result of Big12 vs SEC, it’s a result of Texas vs A&M.
I think the SEC still plans to keep playing an 8 or 9 game conference schedule – so plenty of room to schedule SMU, UH (DFW/Houston) and the Arkansas game will stay at Cowboys stadium. Between those games and the A&M home games in College Station there will be plenty of exposure in Texas.
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A&M never scheduled those teams when in the Big 12. Maybe that changes, but I suspect not.
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A&M has a series going with SMU right now. According to future schedule websites, its actually a home and home series, which seems unnecessary with the Arkansas games at Jerryworld. I’ve read a few rumors that say that it’s not really a home and home series, but I really don’t know.
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Via Dave Sitter (@davesittler)
Big 12 sourche: “We need an answer from Missouri ASAP.”
Big 12 source: “I think for now we’ll stay at 10. If Missouri leaves we have several candidates.”
Bi 12 source: “Louisville next in line.”
Bi 12 source: “BYU, West Virginia and Tulane also on list.”
Bi 12 [snicker]
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Rick Pitino is not going to like that…
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More
Bi 12: source: “Could stay at nine for a year if Missouri leave.”
Bi 12: source: “Could stay at nine for a year if Missouri leave.”
Big 12 source: “TCU’s revenue sharing will be phased in over two or three years.”
Big 12 source: “BYU still on list, but there are some complications.”
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that second “could stay at nine” should be
Big 12 source: “Tulane very strong academically. In important media market.”
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“In important media market … that it doesn’t deliver”
Rice is in a more important market to the Big 12 than Tulane. It also has a good college football stadium and better academics.
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New Orleans is not a large media market, in any case. The New Orleans metro area is less populous than Louisville.
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I can only see this as a move to stem the bleeding or, perhaps, as a Machiavellian move to get more BE teams. TCU does nothing for the B12 in terms of markets. They have a good football program today, but who has faith that will last?
The B12 strategy is probably to grab TCU now, find out what Missouri and BYU are going to do, and then fill out to 12 with other BE teams. Actually this is a pretty good strategy considering the dire straights the B12 is in.
The B12 staying at 10 is just PR. They will go to 12 provided they can do two things:
1. Expand their media markets.
2. Get a program with a pulse (i.e. non-BCS other than BYU need not apply)
If they can’t get to 12, well, “We think 10 is the optimal number.”
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Big 12 doesn’t need markets. They’re getting decent money for first/second tier rights (mainly for Texas-OU and their home games along with anyone else ranked), and the third tier rights are in school networks or whatever setup.
TCU brings them a good football school. That’s all they really needed.
Does anyone think that Cincinnati is going to deliver Ohio or WVU will deliver Pittsburgh? Even if they do, it’s not like there’s a Big 12 Network to take advantage of it.
This was a solid replacement for A&M.
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‘Solid’ is a stretch. A&M’s alumni base dwarfs TCU’s. The Houston market is a huge casuality for the Big 12.
The only thing I like about this move is from a game theory perspective. It keeps another AQ league out of Texas and it cripples the Big East further. Probably not the best mechanism for adding schools.
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Getting this could lead to West Virginia and Louisville joining Brigham Young in a Big 12 North with Iowa State, Kansas State and Kansas, with the six Oklahoma and Texas members in the South. With the Big East decimated, Dodds could persuade Notre Dame to move its non-football sports to the Big 12.
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How did the Big 12 lose the Houston market? The Houston market is owned lock, stock and barrel by the University of Texas. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
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Afraid someone (who has lived in Houston more than 20 years and didn’t attend either UT or A&M) is going to tell him otherwise.
Lock, stock and barrel? That’s a massive exaggeration. Plenty of A&M fans in Houston.
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Probably more A&M fans in Houston than Longhorn fans. Probably more Students from Houston go to A&M than Texas for just the distance. Only about an hour or less from NW Houston to College Station. Almost three hours to Austin.
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It’s solid because none of the other replacement candidates can be what TAMU is either, and TCU would be better than most choices as a brand.
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Also, I really think part of TCU’s appeal right now is that it isn’t in an AQ conference. Once it is, it’ll just be “another small college in Texas” and much of the national appeal will be lost (no more “under-dog status”).
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TCU to the Big 12 as #10 is the biggest surprise to me in any of these realignments. I could see them as #12 due to the limited number of options, but #10? The expansions have all added new markets (of varying sizes). TCU isn’t even 4th in their own market and are probably just 4th if you only look at Ft. Worth. They were the weakest program in the SWC over the last 30 years of its history. They are the 2nd smallest AQ school after Wake Forest.
This says, 1) Academics matter. TCU is a much more highly regarded undergrad institution than any of the other serious candidates;
2) Athletic budgets matter. TCU has a big time budget. That shows committment.
3) TCU has value to ABC/ESPN. I can’t imagine this being done without consultation.
4) Big 12 other than UT and OU was probably a little concerned about the impact of TCU in the BE would have on the ability of the other BE schools to recruit Texas.
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bullet:
It also tells us that the B12 doesn’t have many good choices. I assume that BYU has decided to stay independent (if the reports that Louisville is next on the list are to be believed). If so, then the only other choices in the same league as TCU for the B12 would be Louisville or WVU, neither of which are big markets either (or Boise; also a non-big-market).
Plus, you could argue that the B10 decided on brand instead of market when they added Nebraska, and TCU’s brand isn’t bad compared to the alternatives.
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That’s really my point #3. It also supports Zeek’s and my argument against Duffman and Alan that “brand” is a very much “what have you done for me lately.”
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Maybe, maybe not….it does however show that conferences fighting for survival (BEast, B12+/x) have a very different set of options than the ‘predators’ (ACC, B1G, Pac 12, SEC).
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Tulane? Huh?
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AAU school, New Orleans market. Could have been a BCS team in 98(?). Why not?
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Tulane missed the boat when they resigned from the SEC in the 60’s They could be another Vandy sucking up all the cash thrown out by LSU, Alabama, etc. BCS is just not going to ever happen for Tulane. That was a 100+ year wrong decision. Georgia Tech was the other school that resigned from the SEC in the 60’s but at least they have landed in the ACC.
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Same story for UChicago in the Big Ten.
While a lot of people applauded that decision at the time and some still do, I’ve spoken to a lot of undergrads/alumni who wished that they were still a D-1 football school…
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I have a feeling that if Chicago made the effort and wanted back in, they’d be accepted.
Hell, they’re still apart of the family, even if they don’t play sports.
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UChicago is still in the CIC, but jumping into D-I athletics would be a gigantic stretch for them, particularly football.
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ND would be insane to pass up B1G money, exposure, proximity to head to the ACC. ND is big on the East Coat, no doubt, but all Domers know that the heart of Domer Country is Chicago. JMO
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Not a Domer, but ND’s independence isn’t about money at this point. I don’t think anyone’s doubting they’d make more money in the B1G. Independence for them is part of their identity, it’s in part what makes them special, and I think most Domer fans fear being regarded as ‘just another Midwestern team.’
Exposure for them isn’t an issue now, at least for football. And proximity works against the B1G in this instance. ND fans don’t seem to like to see themselves as a small school in Indiana — they see themselves as a fancy East Coast school that just happens to be really far inland. 😛
Personally, I vacillate between wanting them and feeling that they’d be toxic in the B1G, but if anything ND fans’ hatred of the B1G would make the games more interesting.
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No disagreement w/ any of that at all. If they had to pick between ACC and B1G for full conference membership, I think they’d be crazy to go for the ACC. If the BigIIX was smart, they’d offer ND non-football membership.
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They did offer ND a bid long ago, along with Arkansas. Guess what they both said??
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I thought they only offered full membership to ND?
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The BIg 12 needs to decide if there is any chance of forming an aliiance with ND (yes – Domer Law). Non-football membership would offer them as many games as they would want/need late in the season (UT-ND T-day? yes!) and an opportunity to be part of the bowl agreements. The Big 12 then needs to go after teams that would entice ND. Per haps a similar arrangement with BYU? Louisville and their basket ball/geographic proximity? USF and its Florida access? Rutgers/UConn east coast games?
If Swarbrick tells Dodds no way or ND joins the ACC the Big 12 needs a diffferent strategy and Tulane and USF (Rice?) might not be bad adds.
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“Just another Midwestern team”.
I know they don’t really follow college football on the East Coast, but that’s just downright ignorant.
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I have to ask any Irish fans out there…if given the choice of A) remaining independent in football but joining a shaky Big 12 in non-football sports OR B) joining the Big Ten for all sports…which would you choose?
I know football interests trump all else…but Texas Tech/Notre Dame in bball twice every year? Notre Dame/Oklahoma State? Independence in football is really worth THAT?
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Big XII in all but football. Easiest decision I’ll make all day.
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Interesting. Do you think 90% of ND fans agree with you? 50%?
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Guessing, I’d say >90%, but your surprise made me double check to see if my strong gut reaction is out of line. However, the only sport ND plays and the B1G has a championship while the BXII doesn’t is Women’s Field Hockey. There’s no reason to forfeit Football independence for that.
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1) Football independence is a huge part of their “brand” and identity as a national school not tied to a single region. They will leave $ on the table to preserve that.
2) If they have no choice and must affiliate, the ACC offers more schools that mirror ND institutionally — BC and Duke most obviously but also Syracuse, Wake and (yes) Miami. Pitt also is a historic rival of the Irish. Northwestern aside, B1G is made up exclusively of flagship, research-oriented schools, which is not at all ND’s profile. ACC would also entertain the idea of an ND network or a separate TV contract for ND’s OOC slate. B1G would not.
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I’m going to trot out the same arguments that I always do…
First, the schools that best mirror ND institutionally don’t play football (the other Big East basketball schools). If they would like to mimic their peers, they would drop football. Duke is a major research institution, so I don’t know how they are similar. Wake Forest is quasi-Baptist. Miami is the definition of “rogue program”. Syracuse is a basketball school.
Second, attendance. In the ACC, only FSU and Clemson are over 70,000 attendance, compared to 7 Big Ten schools. The average attendance at an B1G game in 2010 was 20,617 more than the average ACC game. This was before the addition of Nebraska, which will push the Big Ten average up by roughly 1000 (without considering any secondary effects of Nebraska road games). It’s also before the addition of Syracuse and Pitt, who will push the ACC average down by approximately the same amount.
Third, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (containing 8 ACC schools) are 38th or lower in per capita Catholic population. That is not a hotbed of Notre Dame support.
In short, Notre Dame would be joining a conference with half the schools in Catholic-lite states to play in smaller stadiums against dissimilar schools (except BC). Basically, it would be worse than joining the Big East circa 2002.
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First paragraph is apples and oranges. Duke is a major research institution, but then you shift to religion and athletics. ND and Syracuse are VERY similar institutionally. BC too. if Duke is not like ND, then NW isn’t either. And then nobody in the Big 10 is anywhere close to ND.
Second, what does ND care about attendance? ND brings the people. The ACC games can be scheduled in NFL stadiums up and down the coast if necessary to accommodate more fans.
Third, while the south is low Catholic, the ACC now has a northern presence. Moreover, I am sure that the Catholic presence is fine in Florida and in the urban areas. Games in Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, DC, etc., will supply plenty of fans. And if there were zero fans, it would be a good chance to spread the word.
The ND folks may very well choose the B1G someday, but I am skeptical that the reasons are going to be the ACC’s institutional dissimilarity, attendance in games not involving ND, and per capita Catholicism.
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I think you missed the point. It isn’t a question of stadium capacity, it is fan interest. The 2008 ACC Championship Game, played in the Buccaneers pro stadium, drew 27,000. Image:
http://www.haaba.com/sites/default/files/photos/2008-12-06/083952-01-02.jpg?0000-00-00%2000:00:00
The 2007 ACC Championship Game, played in the Jaguars pro stadium, drew 53,000 (but looks even emptier even in the fourth quarter of a tied game). Image:
So, here you have two ACC Championship Games played in pro stadiums aren’t even close to being sellouts.
I hazard a guess this wouldn’t happen in the Big Ten…
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Why on earth would all the ACC teams agree to give up home field to play ND in an NFL stadium for conference games?
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My point on institutional similarity was that schools like Notre Dame (small, private, undergraduate focused, Catholic) do not play top level football. The only conference ND could join with peer schools would be the Big East basketball conference.
Schools do not like to play conference games away from their home stadium. I can’t think of a single BCS school that regularly allows their home games to be moved at the whim of their opponent.
The attendance is a proxy for fan support (or buzz if you prefer). While ND does bring its own fan base, the Michigan and USC games drive the ticket lottery. If ND wouldn’t schedule a home-and-home with a team, why would they ever join their conference?
The best possible division for ND in terms of Catholic presence would be Miami, Boston College, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, Maryland, and FSU. The Big East in 2002 was Miami, Boston College, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia and Temple, plus the Catholic basketball schools and UConn. I don’t see how that’s a substantial improvement, especially considering that I doubt the ACC would put ND, FSU, and Miami in the same division.
If you doubt that ND doesn’t want games in those states, consider that this year ND will play its 5th game in those states over the last 50 years. If they don’t want to play there now, I don’t see why they would change their mind in the future.
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Brian, 2 reasons come to mind. First, because they want the national exposure. Whats one home game, when it gets people across the country to watch. Second, a number of acc schools are either located in/have their support in a city already. See gt in atl, miami, pitt, syr in ny, md at fedex which is 20 minutes from campus. Sure, the carolina and virgininia teams dont match like this, but seeing as how they would probably add an extra conference game anyhow, seems like an overall win to me.
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Chris,
GT doesn’t play anybody in the Georgia Dome, and their home field is small. Even UGA/GT is never a neutral site game and you can be sure they’d make more money playing it there.
It’s one thing for schools to move an occasional OOC game to a neutral site for the money, but regularly moving a conference game makes no sense.
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What makes Notre Dame a “national” school? Your claim is that Notre Dame isn’t tied down to any region, but is that really true?
Take a look at ND’s schedule this season and you’ll see the Irish play seven home games. Six of them are in South Bend and one will be in the Washington, DC area against Maryland. Of the five remaining games, you have Michigan, Purdue, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest and Stanford.
By my count, ten of those twelve games would be played in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic/northeast regions. If the Big Ten had become a 16 member conference and expanded into those regions with teams that have been mentioned before like Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rutgers and Maryland, then Notre Dame would have been playing in those same geographic areas.
Maybe the only outliers to this were the games at Wake Forest and at Stanford. If Notre Dame had added them to their non-conference schedule, then the game locations would have been pretty much the same.
Now the opponents might have been different–or not. ND’s home games included two current Big Ten teams (Purdue, Michigan State), USC, Air Force, Maryland (which could have been in a Big 16 Conference), Navy and Boston College (which could have also been in a Big 16 Conference. Only two of those home games are with opponents outside that Midwest/mid-Atlantic/New England envelope (USC, Air Force).
So what makes Notre Dame a national school is essentially four games–USC, Stanford, Wake Forest and Air Force. All of them could have been made non-conference games by ND if they’d been part of a Big 16 Conference.
The truth of the matter is that Notre Dame relies heavily on playing Big East and ACC teams in the latter two thirds of its schedule (outside the regular games with USC and Navy). Of course, this also doesn’t count bowl games as well, where the Big Ten has the Rose Bowl tie in plus major bowls in Florida.
The fact of the matter is if the ACC or the Big Ten get into becoming super conferences with at least 16 teams, then there is going to be a wide geographic spread for both of them–the ACC on a north-south axis and the Big Ten on an east-west axis. Both conference will reach into the northeast in the end.
But let’s assume Notre Dame joines the ACC with Connecticut and becomes a member of the ACC North with Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Virginia and Virginia Tech. Let’s also assume they play nine conference games and continue their series with Navy and USC.
That means ND will play eight of its twelve games with teams located between Boston and Charlottesville, VA–the seven teams in its own division plus Navy. Two games will be opponents from the ACC South and one of those games will be in South Bend. That leaves the two remaining non-conference games–USC and an opponent to be determined. That’s about as much regional diversity as Notre Dame has on this year’s schedule as an independent.
You can do the same drill with the Big Ten. Add Maryland, Pittsburgh, Missouri and Notre Dame to the current conference membership with ND in the Big Ten East with MD, Pitt, PSU, OSU, UM, MSU and Purdue. Notre Dame would play four games with eastern opponents (Penn State, Pitt, Maryland, Navy) plus four more with teams in its own division (Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue). Note that three of those last four are already on ND’s schedule. Add two games from the Big Ten West with one of them played in South Bend (Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Wisconsin) plus USC and one non conference opponent to be determined.
So if you’re Notre Dame and you want to keep the vestige of a national presence, which one of the two conferences do you pick to become a full-time member? ACC or Big Ten? Also ask yourself which opponents are bigger in terms of national recognition–Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State or Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and let’s say Boston College over Syracuse? Which game would get a bigger television rating–Michigan-Notre Dame or Virginia Tech-Notre Dame?
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Except the acc will not go north/south. Im guessing their division would happen to have pitt, bc, and miami in it. its not impossible to have them with md and syracuse, too. So every other year they could play in boston, dc,atl, miami, raleigh, and pittsburgh. That is a substantial footprint.
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Chris:
The Big Ten could set up its divisions to mirror what you just suggested as well so that Notre Dame could get games in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, DC and Boston and extend its footprint as well.
Heck, both conferences could go to a pod system with Notre Dame playing from Plains States to the East Coast (Big Ten) or Miami to Boston (ACC) over a four year period as well. There are all sorts of configurations they could use to make it work.
If the ACC did four pods, then it might look something like this in order to maintain the rivalries in place and make sense geographically:
Pod A: Boston College, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Syracuse
Pod B: Maryland, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Pod C: Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest
Pod D: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, FL
In Years 1 & 2, ND’s schedule would include Boston College Connecticut, Syracuse, Maryland, Virginia, Duke, North Carolina State, Clemson and Florida State.
In Years 3 &4, it be BC, UConn, SU, MD, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and Miami-FL
Here’s the same setup with the hypothetical Big 16 Conference:
Pod A: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin
Pod B: Illinois, Missouri, Northwestern, Indiana
Pod C: Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Ohio State
Pod D: Maryland, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh
In Years 1 & 2, ND’s schedule would be Maryland, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Minnesota
In Years 3 & 4, ND’s schedule would be MD, PSU, Pitt, Ohio State, Michigan State, Northwestern, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa
My larger point behind this exercise is that the ACC and the Big Ten could both provide Notre Dame with attractive options using a divisional or a pod system. In a super conference, both will have a pretty big geographic footprint. You can rearrange it any way you like and I think you could still have attractive options to Notre Dame from both super conferences.
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I agree with your overall premise. Certainly, each conference has much to offer, though it is clear they are quite different from one another. The major downside that I see with the pod system, however, is that fans only get 3 repeat rivals, which means only 1 annual rival comes to town some years. Of course, some could be OOC games, but thats equal, so its moot.
But then again, pods aren’t going to happen. They only made sense in the pac-16, and there it was due to large distances with few in between schools. To have pods necessitates an awful time trying to balance teams, rivals, etc. And then geography either takes precedence, or it has to go out the window to try and achieve a four-way balance. Besides, geographic based pods only serve to reinforce gripes when they inevitably come down the line…..See Big XII
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chris:
Depends on how you configure it and how many conference games there are, etc. If you don’t have to play every other team at least half the time, you could have 4-5 annual games, or 4 annual games and another 2/3rds of the time, etc.
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I can’t believe you are still on this issue of ND’s love of its national schedule…
Since the B1G has been interested in ND (1991, with the signing of the NBC contract), the Irish have averaged 28.7% of their games to be outside of B1G states. This is especially interesting because that exact same percentage (28.7%) is the percentage of the schedule during that time of teams that are now in the B1G (including Nebraska and PSU). In the last 20 years, ND has kept up the idea of playing all over the country, even as it plays a higher percentage of home games.
During the last twenty years, ND has made it’s schedules by front loading the Big Ten in September, playing USC when it prefers, Stanford when it can, and the rest with Big East/WAC/MWC/ACC/Independents who are available. There was a stretch when LSU and Tennesee also made appearances later in the year, but with the rise of the SEC, but note lately. Including Pitt, there has not been one ND schedule in the last 20 years more where than 5 Midwestern/PA teams appear, and typically it’s only the usual suspects (UM, MSU, Purdue, and Pitt).
“So what makes Notre Dame a national school is essentially four games–USC, Stanford, Wake Forest and Air Force. All of them could have been made non-conference games by ND if they’d been part of a Big 16 Conference”
Not with 9 conference games! =( And, for that matter, there’s no reason to play them all on the road annually. Since WWII, ND has played 20-30% of it’s games outside the B1G footprint.
The issue is a scheduling straightjacket that occurs when you try to get a national schedule playing 9 conference games, USC, and Navy annually, leaving only one truly open slot to schedule. Those 9 conference games will be in the and with teams in the Midwest (potentially PA, I suppose) if ND joined the Big Ten. Our only out of region games will be @ USC, Navy (neutral site), and whatever else we can scare up. In the ACC, well, it depends on what the schedule would be. Eight games obviously is better than nine. Four conference home games, and two OOC will be at NDS in the Midwest. This is consistent with current scheduling. 4 conference road games varying along the East Coast from New England, through the Mid-Atlantic, the Tidewater, the Carolinas, to the Deep South and all the way to Miami will bring much more geographic diversity than B1G can provide. Add the California Trip, and it seems quite similar to what we have now.
Dang, I’m talking myself into this…
“Also ask yourself which opponents are bigger in terms of national recognition–Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State or Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and let’s say Boston College over Syracuse? Which game would get a bigger television rating–Michigan-Notre Dame or Virginia Tech-Notre Dame?” Let’s try to compare more similar things, please. If your using PSU, UM, OSU as your B1G examples, let’s use FSU, Miami, and your pick of VT or GT. With the gistoric animosity between ND and UM, and the comparatively recent animosity of Catholics vs. Convicts and the ’93 game of the Century, it’s kinda six on one, half a dozen on the other.
—
“ND fans don’t seem to like to see themselves as a small school in Indiana — they see themselves as a fancy East Coast school that just happens to be really far inland.” is accurate. Mostly because maybe 1 student in 6 there is a Hoosier.
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FLP,
If the B10 brings in ND, they won’t stay at 13. If the B10 reaches my dream ideal by adding ND, Texas, Miami, and Rutgers/UMD with an 8 game conference slate and a permanent inter-pod rivalry with Texas, ND would play Midwestern/PA teams roughly 6 times a year (1 vs. Texas and almost 1 vs. Miami & UMD/Rutgers. That’s not a huge increase from 4-5. This is even with ND being in the same pod as PU, Michigan, and MSU.
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When I lived in central Indiana, there were very few Notre Dame fans. It wasn’t really thought of as an Indiana school.
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Richard,
That’s:
4 Conference home games in NDS.
3-4 Conference road games in Midwest/PA
Every other year 1 Conf. road game in TX
2 Home OOC games
2 Road OOC games likely outside midwest.
So ND goes from the typical 3-5 road games outside the midwest to 2.5. Um, actually, that’s a pretty big percentage drop.
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FlP:
Actually, 3. ND would play Miami 1/3rd of the time and Rutgers/UMD 2/3rds of the time in my scenario (you’d play your 3 podmates and one interpod rival annually + another school 2/3rds of the time; the rest 1/3rd of the time with the 16-school rotating pods with 1 interpod rival and 8 conference games system that Frank drew up several posts ago).
Looking at future ND schedules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_Dame_Fighting_Irish_football_future_schedule
They play outside the Midwest/PA (in the US):
2 times in 2012
4 times in 2013
4 times in 2014
3 times in 2015
4 times in 2016
That’s not a huge difference from 3.
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On the other hand, UMD and Miami are already in the ACC, so it’s really a push counting those 2 for and B1G/ACC type comparison.
So, Richard, the B1G schedule for ND becomes:
Permanent
*UM
*MSU
*Purdue
*Texas
USC
Navy
Miami 4 outta 6 years
2 outta 6
*Penn State
*Ohio State
*Indiana
*Illinois
*Northwestern
*Iowa
*Wisconsin
*Minnesota
*Nebraska
*UMD/Rutgers
2 to rotate against
Air Force
Army
BC
BYU
FSU
GT
LSU
Oklahoma
Stanford
Syracuse
Tennessee
Vandy
Washington
WFV
etc.
Assuming the B1G would go back to an 8 game schedule and the pods?
And the ACC schedule, for comparison, would be?
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On your last point, if you honestly think Notre Dame can talk itself into a pod within the ACC that includes Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech or Georgia Tech as the three other members, then have at it. The other thing I suppose you could do is the zipper division setup like the Pac 12 was discussing at one time and apply it for the ACC so ND would have all those teams within its own division. The only problem with that is Notre Dame’s 15 other “partners” in the conference would have to agree to that setup and with all the major football programs in one division, you’re going to have a problem with competitive balance. Protected rivalries are a possibility in any conference set up, so maybe ND gets one of VaTech, UM or FSU on its schedule on a regular basis, but there’s no guarantee Notre Dame would have all three.
The other question we’d have is the status of Pennsylvania–is it Midwest or is it East for our discussion? Specifically, are Pittsburgh and Penn State midwestern or eastern institutions?
We can also play with the Big Ten expansion so that in lieu of Missouri, the conference brings in a third eastern school such as Rutgers or Syracuse. You can reconstruct the four Big Ten pods like this:
Pod A: Maryland, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
Pod B: Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State
Pod C: Illinois Indiana, Northwestern, Purdue
Pod D: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin
Notre Dame would play Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State each year plus two eastern schools from Pod A (if you consider PA an eastern state), two schools from the states of Illinois/Indiana and two schools from states that border the Mississippi River. Add in Navy and USC plus one more non-conference school and you have a schedule with teams that border the Plains state to the Atlantic Ocean plus one game with a team in California and one TBD. That TBD program can be from Texas or Florida or anywhere ND wants to get it from (such as this year’s games with Air Force or Wake Forest).
That’s about as “national” a schedule as Notre Dame could get in a 16-team conferene. And yes, we could do the same thing in the ACC as well with game spanning the entire Atlantic seaboard.
Perhaps Notre Dame fans need to rethink what they consider the national aspect of the schedule and weigh it against the overall quality of the opponents that a super conference might be better able to afford it. Wake Forest, for example, might be in keeping with ND’s desire to have a national schedule, but does playing the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem really make for a compelling matchup? That’s not to say there won’t be clunkers if ND joined a conference, but there might be some more high end opponents in a conference schedule than an independent one.
One other consideration Notre Dame fans will have to make is the post-season. I’m not talking about bowl tie-ins or even a potential playoff. What I am saying is that with the possible exception of the Big XII (and that’s still TBD), all the major BCS conferences will now have conference championship game in early December and the Big XII is currently committed to playing some major games (ex. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State) on that Saturday. How will this effect Notre Dame in the BCS bowl picture or even for the national championship game when the Big Ten, Pac 12, SEC and ACC all have teams that will have played one more game in a conference championship setting? How would a hypothetical 12-0 Notre Dame fare against a 13-0 Alabama or 13-0 Oregon or 13-0 Texas or 13-0 Ohio State for a berth in the NC game?
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FLP:
If ND joins the ACC, they’d have even less space to play OOC games as USC, Navy, Michigan, Purdue, and MSU would pretty much take up the entire 4-game OOC slate (assuming the ACC has at least an 8-game conference slate). So forget about Stanford, OU, Texas, BYU, AF, Army, Washington, LSU, etc.
ND would actually play less games on the West Coast and pretty much never anywhere between IN and CA.
In any case, LSU? You guys don’t even play them now. Last time (in the regular season) was over 12 years ago, when Bob Davie was coach.
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OK, let’s try to get a fair comparison:
Rule 1: Only move teams from the Big East of Big XII
Rule 1a: So definitely no moving ACC teams to the B1G
Rule 2: Keep new additions feasible
Rule 3: B1G and ACC get 8 game schedules.
Rule 4: ND’s OOC games against Navy (neutral site) and USC are annual.
Rule 5: Conference adds:
ACC: Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, UCONN
B1G: Notre Dame, Rutgers, Texas, Mizzou
Main conference Rivals:
ACC: BC, Miami, GT
B1G: UM, MSU, Purdue
Advantage: B1G? More historical, but don’t underestimate the bad blood between the BC and ND student bodies
Geographic Diversity:
ACC: New England, New York, Western PA (Midwest), Mid-Atlantic, South, Florida
B1G: Midwest, Eastern PA (Mid-Atlantic), Great Plains/Texas
Advantage: ACC, but Texas would be sweet.
“Best” Pods:
ACC: Miami, FSU, BC
B1G: UM, PSU, Texas
Advantage: B1G
Feasible Pod:
ACC: BC, GT, UCONN
B1G: MSU, NU, Purdue
Advantage: ACC
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Richard, I forgot to address your OOC comments.
In the ACC the scheduling will be much more limited. It will be Navy and USC, but my guess is that Michigan will go off the schedule permanently and the schools will argue about who’s fault that it. The only B1G game ND would play would be either trading off with Purdue and Michigan State, or forcing them to compete against each other on the bid for the game.
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FLP,
I don’t get your “rule” about the B10 not being able to add ACC teams. In reality, they can, “fair” comparison or not.
In any case, you forgot to include another category, which is the rivalries that would have to be dropped. With 4 OOC games and USC and Navy taking 2 of them, let’s say 1 of the others is reserved for the rest of the country. That means that in the ACC, ND would have 1 game for Michigan, MSU, and PU (and none for other B10 schools ND has played frequently in the past, like NU, PSU, & Nebraska). In the B10, ND would have one game for BC, Pitt, and the rest (GTech, etc., though you guys rarely play GTech any more as it is).
You stated yourself that Pitt isn’t considered a rivalry game, so it comes down to playing BC less or playing Michigan, MSU, and PU less (or not at all). That’s a big advantage to the B10.
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Notre Dame’s less of a “national school” than Alabama at this point.
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Exactly.
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You make an excellent point. The only criteria that’s been discussed at this point about Notre Dame being “national” is its schedule. But as a number of posters have mentioned, if ND was in a 16-team Big Ten or ACC, with a nine-game conference schedule, it’d essentially have the same geographic range in terms of opponents it plays as it does as an independent.
Is Notre Dame a national program because of its on the field success? ND’s largely been out of the conversation for a national championship for the better part of two decades and its the Irish’s winning percentage since its last NC calibre team is 59.2% which puts it in 34th place.
Notre Dame games are seen on television all the time, but so are a bunch of other major programs, so that’s a wash. There are alumni and fans of major schools throughout the country, so that doesn’t make ND unique either. Schools also recruit nationally when they have to, so again Notre Dame isn’t that unique either. In sum, programs like Alabama and Texas and USC and Ohio State are just as “national” as Notre Dame is right now.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that ND is one of the kings of college football. But the important phrase here is “one of the kings” and not “the king”. Notre Dame has a story and tradition and a brand tha’s easy to market, but so does Oklahoma and Michigan and Florida State and LSU.
With Texas now seemingly entrenched in the Big Ten, a lot of attention is going to be given to Notre Dame because of its position vis-a-vis conference expansion. If Missouri leaves the Big XII for the SEC and Lousiville/West Virginia/Cincinnati become members of the Big XII, then everyone know ND is going to have to face a decision because the viability of the Big East as a football conference (especially in the BCS) is going to be a question.
If Notre Dame wants to be an independent in football and wants to position its other teams in a conference, then it won’t be in the Big Ten. The modifiied Big East or perhaps the ACC or even the Big XII would be possibilities. But this concept that Notre Dame is a “national team” as an independent would still be a myth.
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random idea for appeasing ND in the B1G:
one of the biggest concerns for ND is playing a “national” schedule, right? what if the B1G expands to 16 (say by adding ND, UConn, Rutgers, and Mizzou) and creates 4 pods. then the inconference scheduling could be based around swapping which pods play over different years (you always play all the schools in your pod, then year 1 – North vs East, West vs South, year 2 – North vs West, South vs East, year 3 – North vs South, East vs West). that’s 7 in-conference opponents with 5 open dates on the schedule. now, what if the B1G opens up “Flex-Scheduling” on those 5 open dates: based on how many in-conference opponents you schedule for those 5 dates, you receive a bigger cut of the TV cash, so, if a school plays 2 in-conference opponents, they’ll get more TV cash than if a school schedules 0 in-conference opponents. this would allow ND to still schedule USC, Navy, Pitt, ect, or allow Penn State to schedule Pitt without losing a body-bag game, but, no hard feelings would be created because the school would forfeit a small percentage of the TV cash to pursue this route
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Why do people want to “appease” ND? If they don’t want to be an equal conference member, they can choose to remain independent. They don’t want the B10, and we shouldn’t want them.
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Notre Dame isn’t worth going to 7 conference games.
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I agree. If the Big Ten (16) were to set up a pod system with four teams in 4 different pods, that should provide plenty of rotation for any team, including Notre Dame. That would give them three non-conference games to schedule–one with USC, one with Navy if they opt to keep that series intact plus one TBD.
This doesn’t have to get fancy and if Notre Dame doesn’t like it, they can go to the ACC or perhaps the Big XII and DeLoss Dodds will let them become a member for all sports except football and play footsie with them.
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1. ND’s first problem: The only B1G schools that have been consistently on the schedule since the NBC contract was signed are Purdue, MSU, Michigan. Since there is NO WAY Michigan would allow that, there’s minimal incentive there.
2. B1G problems: Since there is not the same number of conference games, how would you determine who the goes to the CCG? Why schedule away OOC games against B1G teams? Unequal revenue sharing is also against B!G principles.
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Agree on all those points.
It just doesn’t work for either side.
Big Ten wants more conference games so teams like Iowa-Wisconsin or Nebraska-Wisconsin can play more.
Notre Dame wants control over the teams that it rotates (which is more than 4-5).
The objectives are completely opposed to one another.
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SO… basically… the one team that will give the B1G an expansion woody is ND and ND has a pretty good reason to not want to jump on board.
Meanwhile.. from the comments above… the lure for ND is apparently Rutgers, Miami, and Maryland. 2 ACC’s teams… and a 3rd that could be added with ND to the ACC in a snap of the fingers.
Not saying it is impossible, but the B1G folk still don’t understand ND’s issues. They don’t WANT to be in a geographically contiguous conference. Their interests are different from the interests of Iowa and Illinois.
If they HAD to, they would. But some people drink their own urine because they have to. Doesn’t mean they start ordering it at restaurants when there are other options. The ACC is positioning itself as ND’s best option.
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As a Baylor alum, I am very happy to see TCU back in a conference close to home. Congrats to the Horned Frogs. Its a good day in Ft. Worth.
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Finally nice to see the Big 12 making logical moves.
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Ain’t that the truth. I can step off the ledge for a little bit. Now that TAMU is replaced it doesn’t put near as much pressure on finding a Mizzou replacement if they decide to leave.
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You have BYU sitting right there too. BYU for Missouri is an even trade if it comes to that.
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Hail to Pitt!
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The other Big 12 news..
From Pete Thamel (@petethamelNYT)
Busy day in the Big 12. They have also agreed to a “grant of right” for “a minimum of 6 years.” Mizzou didn’t vote.
The Big 12 language gives them some leeway if they want to add to the 6 years grant of rights. Something Missouri would likely want.
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Seems like that would eliminate the PBC idea that Texas would join the B1G in 2014. Although in fairness to him he only said there were talks on that front and that UT would prefer the Big 12 to survive.
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PBC is just channeling the B1G view, IMO. That spadework may turn out to be valuable at some point.
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Texas prefers the Big 12 to survive. And I still think a major move like HEADING NORTH TO THE BIG TEN would be a final move…not a preemptive strike by them. I’m still a UT-to-b1g homer, but I’m not dismayed by this news. The Big 12 is still viable…so Texas doesn’t have the political cover.
However, giving TCU a solid home does help them politically long-term.
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Bye-bye Big East …
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Hopefully we’ll get more news on the holdup over BYU.
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/10/01/20111001bcs-opponent-tied-to-scandal.html
I love this.
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That is great.
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TCU a smart move for the Big 12. They don’t open any new markets but what school really would other than BYU? DFW is great for recruiting and this assures all Big 12 teams in a 10 team scenario that they get at least 2 games in Texas every year and at least 1 in a 12 team league. They have a very good football brand right now and they are fairly competitive in all sports except men’s basketball.
TCU is very similar to Baylor except in a better city and have been allowed to flourish outside the shadow of the big state schools. It will be interesting to see if they can keep that up.
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Not often you seeing “similar to Baylor” & “great move” as being connected.
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Indeed. I’ve called TCU “purple Baylor.” But we’re going to get to see.
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I was glad to see them get invited to the BE and thought they could thrive there. Not so certain about the Big 12. They’re half the size of Baylor and a lot closer to the Cowboys. They’re the 2nd smallest AQ school.
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Well the one thing that TCU has done is upgrade their AD department to be competitive with peer institutions (mid pack range BCS schools). If they have done so in a fiscally responsible manner (ie without digging into their endowment like Cincinnati) then they have a very good shot at maintaining respectability. I don’t think they will maintain anything close to the run of success they’ve had over the past decade but I also believe they are going to slip back to anywhere close to where they were for the last 20-30 years in the SWC.
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Frank, I was going to send you an email, but will put it here since you started a new thread.
First, Notre Dame joins ACC with UCONN to get to 16 !!!!
😦 😦 😦 😦 😦 😦 😦 😦
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.
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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT ????
2010 Brand Distribution
B1G = OSU, UM, PSU = 30%
B12 = UT, OU, UNL = 20%
SEC = BAMA, +1 = 20%
PAC = USC = 10%
IND = ND = 10%
2012 Brand Distribution
B1G = OSU, UM, PSU, UNL = 40%
SEC = BAMA, +1 = 20%
B12 = UT, OU = 20%
ACC = ND = 10%
PAC = USC = 10%
The ACC just bought a seat at the CFB adult table!
The 16 team “super conference” is reality, and no longer a myth!
To cement the deal the ACC locks down with a 5 year 50 million exit fee
What happens next?
The SEC is already at 13, and need 3
The B1G is now at 12, and needs 4
The PAC is now at 12, and needs 4
The B12 is now at 9, and needs anyone? anyone? (spoken as Stein in Ferris Beuller)
The Big E is now in nuclear winter
Say the ACC / B1G / PAC / SEC can not raid each other, and you (specifically you, but open to any Frank the Tank reader) are Jim Delany holed up in the B1G* bunker deep underground @ 600 West Chicago, what is your next move?
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* yes I know the actual HQ is in Park Ridge, but you know they have a bunker at the transmission point! Also, I googled B1G and got Breast International Group (is this a cover for a B1G move to add a european school near belgium?)
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Did the state of Florida disappear into a hole in the ground while I wasn’t looking at the map? Pretty sure there are 3 brands from there…
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zeek,
BAMA is an undisputed brand, UT should be next, but have fallen. Unlike the B1G or PAC, the SEC really does go “6”. LSU and UGA have been there, and LSU is back. Auburn has always waited in the wings, and Florida is the new kid, as Pell got them across the river so Spurrier could take them to the promised land.
The question was who would you add now if you were Jim Delany?
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Florida isn’t an undisputed brand now though?
It’s probably among the 4 or 5 most valuable football programs in the whole country; yes it is nouveau riche but I’d say it’s more valuable than Alabama because of the population footprint that it brings.
If I had to rank the SEC schools in terms of total value:
1) Florida
2) Alabama
3) LSU
4) Tennessee (used to be in the top 2-3 but has slipped and might be down to 5 if it never gets back up)
5) Georgia
6) Auburn
7) Arkansas
8) South Carolina
9-12) Kentucky/Miss State/Ole Miss/Vandy
I’d say that Florida/Alabama are the undisputed brands. LSU is right near them (might even be a true king if they win it all this year). Tennessee has slipped and is now in the near pack with Georgia and Auburn; those 3 are all similar in value. Arkansas and South Carolina haven’t really distinguished themselves until the past year or two. Then the rest.
You basically have a top 6 in the SEC, but the top 3 are the main brands right now. I agree that there can be movement, but Florida has lorded over the SEC for the past 20 years… (10 of 19 SEC CCG appearances with 7 SEC Championships; over that time no one has won more than 3 (Alabama and LSU each have 3 wins)).
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Zeek, I am going back to conversations with Bamatab and Alan on here awhile back. Brands survive generations not just decades. The best way to identify brands are winning generation after generation, and fans that travel when they are down. Not sure anybody in the country travels like Alabama football and Kentucky basketball. The 3 Florida schools are all rockets now with the Gators leading the pack, and Miami bringing up the rear as they can’t sell 40 K seats when they are down. The state of Florida is big, but UF has to share with other colleges and pro teams, so the eyeballs wander. Alabama eyeballs are from cradle to grave.
I have never see the plague of the locusts described in the bible, but I was in Nashville once and saw the Kentucky fans descend on that city, so at least I have an idea about how to interpret the biblical version. If an Alabama football fan bred with a Kentucky basketball fan I think I know what you get when you cross breed a Jehova Witness with a pit bull. Just as scary!
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zeek – duff hit the nail on the head. Florida is a 20 year phenom. I do think the Gators are here to stay, but prior to Darth Visor’s arrival in Gainesville (due to the LSU BoS’ stupidity) as the Head Ball Coach, Florida had NEVER won the SEC title. They were (pardon the comparison, Frank) the Illinois of the Southeast.
When Florida is riding high, the jean shorts are everywhere, but if you tune in this Saturday on CBS at 2:30pm EDT, you’ll probably notice some empty seats in the southeast corner of the endzone and the east upper deck of Tiger Stadium. That’s the visitors’ section. Most all of the other SEC schools sell out their allotment, and show up. When the Gators are down – even a little – they stay at home.
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While I agree with what both of you are saying, even in a sport as tradition based as college football we do live in a “what have you done for me lately” kind of world.
That’s the whole reason why Les Miles would choose LSU over Michigan or Urban Meyer would choose Florida over ND.
Even if you didn’t want to arrange those 3 in terms of tradition or what, I’d think it’s clear that those 3 are a step ahead of the rest in the SEC with Auburn/Georgia/Tennessee bringing up the next 3.
Yes, the distinction between those 3 and the next 3 in the SEC isn’t as big as the top 4 in the Big Ten from Wisconsin/Iowa (former all have multiple MNCs whereas those two don’t in the Big Ten), I’d still put that out there.
That’s what make the SEC different from the Big Ten in a way; right now they have 3 national brands going but it rotates over time based on who’s up or who’s down (because they have 6 to choose from). The Big Ten has 4 but if any are down, the Big Ten’s top looks thin.
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zeek – I think stating that “Florida has lorded over the SEC for the last 20 years” is a little strong and doesn’t take into account recent trends. From 1992 (the first year of divisional play) until 2000, I would agree with you. During those 9 years, UF won 5 SEC titles (5 more than they had ever won) and played in 6 SEC CGs. Over the last 10 years, the wealth has been shared, as Louisiana native Huey Long might say. LSU leads in conference wins, conference championships, and CCG appearances, but 8 different schools have participated in the SEC CG, 5 different schools schools have won the SEC, and 4 different schools have combined for 6 BCS NCs during that time.
Here’s how the schools stack up from 2001 to the present:
LSU – 4 SEC CG apps; 3 SEC titles; 2 BCS titles
Florida – 3 SEC CG apps; 2 SEC titles; 2 BCS titles
UGA – 3 SEC CG apps; 2 SEC titles; 1 2nd place finish in the final polls
Auburn – 2 SEC CG apps; 2 SEC titles; 1 BCS title and one 2nd place finish in the polls, behind USC’s vacated title
Alabama – 2 SEC CG apps; 1 SEC title; 1 BCS title
Tennessee – 3 SEC CG apps
Arkansas – 2 SEC CG apps
South Carolina – 1 SEC CG app
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That’s entirely fair. I’m not disagreeing with what you guys are saying.
I do get the “Alabama + whoever’s up” approach to the SEC historically given that there are 5 other clubs that could be in that “whoever’s up” category.
With respect to Florida though, I think they have staying power more than anyone in the country outside of Texas. Those are the two easiest recruiting jobs in the country and they’ve been huge drivers of TV ratings.
I just think if I had to bet on the next 20 years of SEC football, I’d take Florida/Alabama and probably LSU or Georgia to be the top schools (of course Georgia is the school that never seems to put it all together…).
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I’m with Zeek that there is a very much what have you done for me lately. See TCU to the Big 12. I was checking to make sure that wasn’t an internet hoax.
Florida, FSU and Miami are taken seriously whenever they have halfway decent teams. That in my mind makes them brands, even though, none of the 3 were anything prior to the 80s and FL really the 90s. The population and talent growth in Florida has made them permanent (as much as brands are permanent) brands. I heard a talk show host talking about the 70s when both FSU and Miami had votes to drop football and Tampa was the Florida football power (he also made the comment that Tampa defined cheating). But things have changed.
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Les Miles never chose LSU over Michigan. He was never offered the job, either time.
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Ross – you are correct in that Les Miles was never formally offered the Michigan job. He has too much love and respect for his alma mater to allow Michigan to make a formal offer and then humiliate them by turning down the offer. But make no mistake about it, Michigan wanted Les both times. Lloyd Carr may not have wanted Les, but the job was his if he wanted it. Les let Michigan down easy and allowed them to say that Rich Rod and Brady Hoke were their respective first choices. If you really believe that, then . . . .
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Les Miles chose LSU over Michigan because he was never offered the job in the first place.
Urban Meyer: that remains to be seen. I still think he’s going to be in Columbus next year, and am already picturing the ensuing ESPN feeding frenzy.
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Les Miles didn’t have the unanimous support he would have probably wanted the second go around with Michigan. He saw what happened to Rodriguez and knew that he’d never get Carr’s support or the help from the former players that Hoke has been receiving.
Miles burned too many bridges in Ann Arbor when he was an assistant there and didn’t enamor himself with Carr on the recruiting trail. He would have been persona non grata by a lot of important elements at Michigan.
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Assuming ND is gone, you add nobody unless UT wants to join.
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Pretty much this.
There’s nothing wrong with the Big Ten at 12.
Texas committed to the LHN (and through that the Big 12) means that we are in a 5×12-14 world.
Expect the 5 conferences to keep AQ (probably will shove out Big East eventually since it’s just a C-USA rerun at this point and especially if it loses WVU) for themselves. That’s the world we live in…
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Brian,
Playing devils advocate, ACC is at 16
PAC adds UT / TT / MU / KU
SEC adds TAMU / OU / oSu / (pick 1) Rice / Tulane / SMU / USF / ????
The model is 16, and the B1G is still at 12, you are saying you stay there?
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The odds of the SEC adding Rice/Tulane/SMU are, um, low. The odds of the SEC adding USF are negative.
Plus, we just saw the Pac & Texas reject each other. What’s going to change?
Also, Texas to the Pac while OU and little brother to the SEC? About as likely as the SEC adding Rice.
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richard,
It tied back to the OP up at the 2pm mark that I made:
It assumed the ACC went to 16 with ND and UConn, and that B1G could not take a team in the ACC / SEC / PAC. Brian responded about UT, but the following post meant no team in the ACC could go to the B1G or SEC.
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Duffman,
If ND and UT are both off the board and the rest of your scenario stands, the B10 will not expand in the next 50 years. Nobody else is worth it. Someone might grow into being deserving, but nobody else is now.
Staying smaller and close knit trumps expanding just to expand.
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Duff:
How does the ACC going to 16,
1. make the SEC choose Rice/Tulane/SMU/USF?
2. force the Pac and Texas to work out the LHN issue?
3. make OU & OK State go to the SEC while Texas goes to the Pac?
None of these are realistic scenarios regardless of what the ACC does.
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Maybe two from Florida…Miami has another ten year downturn on the horizon.
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I can only imagine that tonight somewhere in Columbia, MO, Brady Deaton will be drowning his sorrows and singing to himself……
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SECilia, your breaking my heart
You’re shaking up my conference daily
SECilia, I’m down my knees
I’m begging you please for a home
SECilia, your breaking my heart
You’re shaking up my conference daily
SECilia, I’m down my knees
I’m begging you please for a home
Need a home….
Conference calls in the afternoon with SECilia
Up in my boardroom (conference calls)
I got up to wash my face
When I turned on the tube
TCU has taken my place
SECilia, your breaking my heart
You’re shaking up my conference daily
SECilia, I’m down my knees
I’m begging you please for a home
Need a home….
Humiliation, B1G dumped me again
Neinas calls and I’m crying
Humiliation, B1G dumped me again
Neinas calls and I’m crying
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Hey guys, did I miss anything?
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Jake, congrats!
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Really great day for TCU, goes without saying.
As a lot of us have thought, TCU has clearly been a BCS school in terms of the things that matter (revenue, wins, etc.), so it’s great to see them earn a spot in one of the conferences that is sure to have AQ for a long time.
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In future news, Big 12 dissolves after realizing it just invited TCU.
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In a way, looking back over the past 20 years; TCU took a much harder road than Baylor which relied on its connections, but TCU actually used that time to build itself into a legit football power.
Easier to write that with the invite in hand for TCU, but still, of all the expansion stories of the past 2-3 years, TCU to the Big 12 definitely is the one that was hardest earned.
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TCU’s was hard-earned, but so was Utah’s.
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How mad will you be when the TCU they invited was actually Tennessee-Chattanooga?
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http://twitter.com/#!/DanBeebe
If this guy was still in charge, we wouldn’t all be laughing at that suggestion.
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Big Dan
Glad you’re back
Your tweets are funny
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He is right about Missouri. They are dead last in conference championships with 7 in 15 years and 3 of those are North division football championships.
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Pete Thamel
PeteThamelNYT Pete Thamel
If Missouri stays and the Big 12 doesn’t swoop up Louisville, that’s a huge break for the Big East. But these things are fluid.
2 hours ago
Pete Thamel
PeteThamelNYT Pete Thamel
The Big 12 would like Missouri to be No. 10. “It looks promising right now.” If not, its moved on to Louisville.
2 hours ago
Pete Thamel
PeteThamelNYT Pete Thamel
Big 12 administrator just told me that the league is expected to settle at 10 schools.
2 hours ago
If Thamel’s source is right then BYU is totally out and we’re just down to Missouri or Louisville. I don’t know that Thamel is right that it would be a huge break for the Big East. SEC will still need a #14 (WVU anyone? or FSU/Va Tech which leads to UConn -> ACC?).
Seems to me that the Big East will almost certainly lose someone when the SEC makes its move to 14.
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It could be a break for the BE if they only lose one team. They might be able to limp around for a few years with a weak replacement waiting for the landscape to change, but if they lose two teams – game over. I think we all agree either way the BE does not come out of this a winner.
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Agreed. I meant that Thamel is wrong that the losses stop at Pitt/Syracuse/TCU. I think they lose Louisville or WVU or UConn when all is said and done, given that BYU doesn’t seem to be able to work out a deal to enter the Big 12.
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Kind of a big jump down for West Virginia. Hoping and expecting SEC, ACC, or Big 12 and possibly left in a Big East down to 5 teams.
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I know some people have said this wouldn’t hurt A&M, but I think it does. We all know that Texas gets its picks and OU gets its picks. But A&M tends to go for the top of the rest. That’s where TCU, Tech, Baylor, Missouri, whomever are going to be aiming. I don’t see how it doesn’t hurt A&M specifically and probably Baylor/Tech (in terms of recruiting, but they’re happy the conference is stable) on the recruiting trail.
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
It’ll be fascinating to watch the recruiting dynamics of all of this unfold.
3 hours ago
Geoff Ketchum
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
I expect the top three recruiting teams in the Metroplex (in order) to be Texas, Oklahoma and TCU.
3 hours ago
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
TCU heading to the Big 12 could be a real thorn for A&M in recruiting. Those two schools have been squaring off more than either vs. UT
5 hours ago
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DaveSittler Dave Sittler
Big 12 source: “Missouri needs to fish or cut bait.”
4 minutes ago
We could see resolution on Missouri really soon. I’m pretty sure the rest of the Big 12 members want to get Louisville in their place ASAP so they can settle in at a group of 10 that actually wants to be a conference for the medium/long term…
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Wouldn’t BYU make more sense than Louisville regardless of what happens with Mizzou?
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Not if you want to eliminate NDNFSHC (Notre Dame’s non-football sports homeconference).
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If Dodds wants Notre Dame’s non-football sports in the Big 12, it would behoove him to get both West Virginia and Louisville in the conference to help destroy the Big East as a football conference. ND basketball needs some games at least on the fringe of the east; being in a league where your easternmost rival is in Ames, Iowa won’t cut it for the Irish.
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I just don’t see it. Why wouldn’t ND just park it’s non-football sports with whatever league the bball Catholic schools form?
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@Richard
The general consensus seems to be that the Catholic schools would be a mid-major or worse, especially outside of basketball.
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Being in a basketball league with Marquette, Villanova, Georgetown, St. John’s etc. would be great from ND’s POV. But ND has big ambitions for its Olympic sports, and those schools do not have depth in their sports programs. Standings in the Directors’ Cup tend to bear this out.
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That doesn’t fit ND, outside of football? ND made $4M in bball during 2009-2010, which was dead last in the BE in bball. DePaul, Providence, and Seton Hall all easily outpaced ND. Marquette and WVU made triple what ND did.
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With the usual caveats about Director’s Cup standings, here are the results from last year:
18 Notre Dame
50 Villanova
55 Georgetown
94 St. Johns
96 Marquette
113 Providence
140 DePaul
238 Seton Hall
Notre Dame’s AD is on a different level than the others. For basketball, this conference would be relatively respectable, but in several sports, this conference wouldn’t have enough teams.
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Yes, but I would have expected BYU to be the replacement for A&M if BYU was going to happen.
BYU was/is the most valuable school available to the Big 12, but if they already took TCU and are willing to stay at 10 regardless of Missouri’s decision, then the guess would be that the BYU ship has already sailed.
After all, it’s foreclosed if Missouri decides to stay, so the fact that it didn’t already occur is telling.
But this is all just an assumption. You’re right that BYU is the most valuable choice…
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Wouldn’t Louisville have to wait 27 months to leave Big East like Pitt and Syracuse ? If they do they wouldn’t be available to Big12 til 2014. Maybe why Big 12 takes Louisville,Cincinnati and WVA. You would have 5 votes to disband Big East football at that point. Leaves Rutgers,UConn and So Florida in tough spot though.
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That’s not a good enough reason to go from 10 to 12. I mean it won’t be a disaster for the Big 12 to just stay at 9 for two years until Louisville becomes #10 to replace Mizzou.
After all, they’re agreeing to grant their TV rights for T1/T2 to the conference.
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I’m not at all convinced SU & Pitt will really have to wait 27 months. They may very well have to stay through the end of the 2012-2013 academic year, but 27 months would force three lame duck seasons for them (and given the issues with expanding non-football sports further, probably for any new all-sports members as well) unless they wanted to switch conferences mid-year.
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I think the Big East wants time to figure out the future and after that is over will negotiate for an earlier date. They want to delay things if need be though.
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Marinatto is basically a jerk, but the Presidents will be reasonable. 2012 would make it really tough on the remaining schools-and on the conferences any additions leave, but 2013-14 is probably when they leave.
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Just yesterday I saw Boren quoted as saying the conference would expand in 7-10 days. Think that moved up a little quicker.
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Awesome, more Big 12 ultimatums. That hasn’t worked out very well for the Big 12 recently.
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This was a horrible move for UT, but they got 2-3 conference games on LHN (which makes getting LHN on cable in Texas easier, esp if this game is a Tech/Baylor or TCU game). Texas will lose out by legitimizing TCU, this will cost the Longhorns some in recruiting in DFW, but not much. Also TCU will not be an easy out like Baylor was, they’ll at least be a Tech level difficulty in conference play.
Great move for TCU – gets them in to the conference they have always wanted to be in and they get to play Texas, OU, Tech and their biggest rival, Baylor every year.
This spells doom for the Big East. Either the Big12 goes back to 12-14 and takes the remaining BE schools or SEC takes WVU and kills BE football.
Bad for ND – the Irish are gonna be cornered but I suspect they will be happy to keep their olympic sports in the now very catholic and very east coast BE Basketball league.
I suspect the rest of the Big12 (the non OK/Texas schools) will want to go back to 12 at a minimum if not 14.
SMU, Houston got screwed.
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It won’t cost Texas anything.
You know who it will cost? Texas A&M, Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State. TCU and Texas A&M don’t go head-to-head with Texas for recruits; they’re much more likely to go against each other.
Texas gets all the top 5 star and 4 star talent. Oklahoma gets its pick of top 5 star and 4 star talent. Then the rest get to take from the top 3-4 star talent in the state. That’s how it’s been in Texas.
If anything, it’s the other 4 who are going to be competing more often with TCU on the recruiting trail who are going to be harmed.
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
I expect the top three recruiting teams in the Metroplex (in order) to be Texas, Oklahoma and TCU.
3 hours ago
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
TCU heading to the Big 12 could be a real thorn for A&M in recruiting. Those two schools have been squaring off more than either vs. UT
5 hours ago
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If I were Gary Patterson, I’d be making a few more trips to Aledo, just to see if this guy might change his mind:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/04/22/3019619/aledos-johnathan-gray-chooses.html
And I would probably say that SMU is TCU’s biggest rival. It’s close either way, though. And it could change now.
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Baylor-TCU is like the Big 12’s version of Iowa-Wisconsin. Although I think both of those will shift to the latter teams a bit if current coaches stay where they are.
Will you guys still play SMU annually? I mean if the Big 12 stays at 10, you’re looking at a 9 game set right there.
I guess Utah does play BYU, but I’d doubt SMU is as important to TCU as BYU is to Utah. But I don’t really know enough to comment on that.
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I’d be shocked and disappointed if we dropped the Battle for the Iron Skillet. It’s hard to find a solid comparison for that rivalry. It’s kind of like the biggest cross-town high school rivalry game in the state. Stanford-Cal might be a good comparison, I guess. The main problem is that it hasn’t been very even since the ’60s. I imagine TCU’s OOC scheduling will be FCS home game, SMU home-and-home, BCS or academy home-and-home (opposite of SMU). Patterson’s a big fan of the academies, and since AFA isn’t a conference game anymore, I’d expect to see Army and Navy on the schedule frequently.
I’m looking forward to TCU-Baylor being an annual thing again. IIRC, when the SWC broke up that was something like the second most-played rivalry in FBS (or 1-AA, if you don’t want to be anachronistic). With Nebraska-Kansas, A&M-Baylor and A&M-Texas no longer being annual games (or likely so, at least) we can climb back up the list.
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In Dallas the SMU-TCU rivalry is big and might have some religious undertones as well. But nationally it’s much less relevant than Cal-Stanford or Iowa-Wiscosin, not even close. All four of those schools are big state institutions (except private stanford) are well known nationally and excellent academic reputations.
I like SMU and TCU but face it back in 1996 those schools were left out of the Big12 for a reason, can you imagine the BigTen without Iowa/Wisc or Pac10 without Cal/Stanford?
TCU – BU has been played 107 times, and at one point in time both schools were in Waco, TCU relocated to Ft Worth in the 30s or 40s I think. Again with the religious undertones its pretty heated.
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I never heard that TCU relocated. wikipedia tells me:
Origins in Fort Worth, 1869-1873
Move to Thorp Spring, 1873-1895
Move to Waco, 1895-1910
Return to Fort Worth, 1910-present
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Christian_University
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Yeah, TCU’s Waco campus burned down, and Fort Worth offered some land and traveling money, so away we went. Frogs and Bears played two or three times a year back then. We also changed names a couple of times. TCU sure beats the heck out of AddRan Male & Female College.
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Wake Forest University was once located in the town of Wake Forest (a few miles due north of Raleigh) before the campus moved to Winston-Salem in the mid-1950s.(There’s an old story, probably apocryphal, that in the ’40s, Wake’s football coach, a guy known as “Peahead” Walker — I have no idea how he got that nickname — would take recruits to the fancy Duke campus in nearby Durham and pass it off as Wake’s.)
The town/college names still confuse some people — in the 1970s, some members of the Maryland baseball team drove down for a game vs. Wake and actually went to the town of Wake Forest before someone set them straight! (Which reminds me of when Jim Valvano, newly hired at N.C. State, was scheduled to speak to a Wolfpack Club gathering in Greenville, N.C., and mistakenly took a plane to Greenville, S.C., right in the heart of Clemson territory!)
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@vp19,
Wake Forest the town is now essentially a bedroom community for Raleigh now that Raleigh has sprawled so far north in the past decade or two.
Anyway, I was curious how and why Wake Forest University left for Winston-Salem, and here’s the story:
Wake Forest, the college, had opened Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem in the 40’s. The school quickly developed a good relationship with the RJ Reynolds family in Winston-Salem, where the headquarters of the tobacco giant was (and is) located. Meanwhile, the school had a desire to grow, but the WFU campus in the town was tiny and surrounded on all sides by residences and small businesses. It was also very remote at the time, yet close enough to Duke, NC State, and UNC that the school was very overshadowed even its immediate surroundings. So, the RJ Reynolds family approached the school and offered them a vast portion of their estate, located few miles north of Winston-Salem, on the condition that the university completely relocate. The decision wasn’t too hard. Winston-Salem was the second in population only to Charlotte in the state at the time.The new location allowed the hospital, medical school, and university to be in close proximity and allowed the school the chance to stand out in its own city. The campus in Wake Forest, the town, remains very much in use to this day. Since the 50’s, it has been Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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I meant evenness of the teams in making that comparison.
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Waco? Fire?
Too soon?
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bobo:
Seriously, if Texas gets to the stage where it has to compete with TCU for recruits, Texas football would have much bigger problems to worry about.
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I don’t think the signing of the six-year agreement TV rights deal by U Texas disproves the assertions that Texas has agreed to join the B1G in 2014. So what if Texas has to give up four years of its top two tiers of TV rights, when it stands to make more money as a B1G member anyway? And so what if the B1G loses four years of Texas TV income, when it won’t have to pay much to Texas for those four years, due to Texas getting to keep its LHN money? Both might have to take a small, short-term loss, but it’s well worth it in the long run for both. And it GETS RID OF THE TECH PROBLEM. No school will be able to follow Texas out of the conference because none of them can afford it, and the B1G wouldn’t take them anyway. The six-year agreement guarantees that neither the B1G nor Texas will cause the collapse of the Big 12, or even the loss of another school for the conference. This is a brilliant move by Texas, as it gets them off the hook from any possible legal or political hassles, and they get to go to the best conference for them.
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Would Texas keep its tier 3 rights? They would of course be on the LHN providing significamt revenue for Horns. Would the remaining big 12 teams promote Longjorn games to tier 1 or 2 just to spite Texas?
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Good point. I suppose details of a buyout clause (like the ACC’s recent 20-million clause) is probably more significant for Texas’s actual commitment to the league. If the buyout is just 5-10 million, they could leave the others sitting in decent shape. Even OU might be fine in the Texasless Big 12…
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Texas wouldn’t be breaking any commitment agreement to stay in the conference, and it would be paying a stiff penalty to the Big 12, so no team in the Big 12 would have any legal grounds to stop Texas moving to the Big.
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Alan,
Off topic, but do you have a kid going to Sewanee? Somebody on here did, and now I have forgotten.
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Duff – we visited Sewanee this past summer. My daughter is a Senior in high school and she will probably attend TCU next year. I really liked Sewanee though.
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What do they do well in? Have a family member mention them and was a bit surprised.
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Duff – Sewanee is a wonderful small liberal arts school and Episcopal seminary located on the top of a mountain between Nashville and Chattanooga. It was just too small (about 1400 undergrads) and too remote for her tastes. While touring the campus, we ran across 7 deer who were not one bit afraid of us.
Formerly a member of the SEC, the Sewanee Tigers are now D-III and their colors are purple & gold.
Here’s some Sewanee trivia – the campus was one of three finalists to serve as the setting for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films.
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Alan,
Does it have decent enough status for a good grad school?
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Duff – Sewanee is the #33 National Liberal Arts school according to USN&WR.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/sewanee-3534
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She didn’t pick Faux Hogwarts? For shame. That sounds awesome.
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I’ve decided what I want to happen. Missouri to the SEC. SMU, Houston and Rice to the Big 12. It would be like the SWC kicked out A&M and Arkansas, followed by a raid to take the Big 8’s worst teams (and Oklahoma).
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Sounds like AOL-Time Warner.
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Why do you hate the Big 12?
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Air Force to the Missouri Valley? I’m not sure I fully understand this.
http://www.gazette.com/sports/gen-126331-west-names.html
Air Force and the Mountain West have discussed the possibility of Air Force remaining in the conference for football, but taking its other sports to another conference.
Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson confirmed the discussions between himself and Air Force. The Missouri Valley Conference would be the most likely destination for Air Force’s non-football sports if it pulls those programs out of the Mountain West.
Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/gen-126331-west-names.html#ixzz1a3oCiOpe
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Maybe they read where I suggested it here the other day when they were talking about Air Force to the Big East!
The Mountain West is really not a good fit for Air Force as far as the type of schools and their “national” brand.
I’ve thought AF, Navy and Army ought to join CUSA (Navy and Army for fb only) and play together in the West with Rice, SMU, Tulsa & Tulane. They could be in a conference, play similar high level academic schools, help Texas recruiting (which all 3 do a lot) and have more schedule flexibility than they normally would in a conference since they would all be together and they would be playing some common ooc opponents in conference.
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Air Force to the Missouri Valley? I’m not sure I fully understand this.
http://www.gazette.com/sports/gen-126331-west-names.html
Air Force and the Mountain West have discussed the possibility of Air Force remaining in the conference for football, but taking its other sports to another conference.
Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson confirmed the discussions between himself and Air Force. The Missouri Valley Conference would be the most likely destination for Air Force’s non-football sports if it pulls those programs out of the Mountain West
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We heard about Navy, Army, Air Force to Big East the past couple of days, but dunno if they want to compete at such a high level? That or travel costs probably lower?
Probably makes it easier for them to run their AD (read cheaper) if they do this…
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Air Force might, I doubt Army and Navy would.
Doesn’t anyone else remember when Army joined CUSA hoping to get a bump like AFA did in the WAC but ended up putting all of their programs back like a decade? Navy’s been a bowl team for nearly a decade now in no small part thanks to creative scheduling. I see no reason for either of them to get involved with the Big East now.
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Does anyone know, when the service academy teams travel, do they travel commercially or do they use military transport? The reason I ask is that I’m curious whether the costs are such that they have to pay their own way or are for all intents and purposes “cost-free.”
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@84,
Travel is conducted just like any other school. Navy travels commercially out of BWI for its trips. As has been mentioned previously, the AD via football and donations has positive revenue.
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According to my cousin, who works in the athletic department at Air Force, they travel on military transport whenever possible.
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Money doesn’t really matter to the service academies. Since they don’t give scholarships (tuition is free at the SAs) and don’t need to recruit in the traditional sense, their costs are significantly lower than literally any other FBS athletic departments. Plus, they bring in lots of money in donations.
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“Money doesn’t really matter to the service academies.”
Unfortunately, that kind of opinion is too prevalent in our government.
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I guess I should rephrase.
Money probably matters to them, they just don’t need it in the same way other schools do. They already operate in the black every year (the only non-AQs besides BYU to do so), so reduced travel costs or more conference payouts are not going to help them all that much.
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Also off topic, but discussed here. Can’t link the article since it is in the archives, but Astros purchase proposal expires November 30th. Jim Crane says he may walk if its not approved by then. Thinks delay is baseball working on moving Astros to AL. He won’t go to AL without compensation. Astros would be in West with a lot of 9pm starts and AL payroll is $9.2 million higher on average.
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I’m not sure how many games MLB teams play intra- and inter-division these days, but say it’s 18 & 9, respectively. That’s 45 games against western time zone teams in the NL vs. 54 against western time zone teams in the AL. Granted, 2 of the NL teams are in the Mountain time zone, but AZ doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so really, 4 of the NL teams play on Pacific time during baseball season. That means there are 18 more games in the AL against Pacific time teams. Half of those will actually be played on the West Coast, so he’s balking due to 9 more 9PM starts out of 162 games?
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I could see the Marlins moving to the AL East, getting a bump from the Yanks and Bosox (something the Fish might need even with a new ballpark), with Toronto heading to the Central and the Royals to the West. Meanwhile, the Pirates would go to the NL East, renew their rivalry with the Phillies and foster a new one against the Nationals (a la Capitals-Penguins).
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Vincent:
Royals would hate it, and unlike the rest of the teams moving, they wouldn’t even have a local rival to assuage the hurt.
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@Richard – from someone who puts up with this from two of his pro teams, it’s not the number of West Coast games, but the importance. It really stinks when a key match-up with a division rival doesn’t get over until 12:00 or later on a work night.
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Dammit. Houston is an NL city. Always has been. Even before the Astros we were the St Louis AAA team since the ’20s. Stop this madness.
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As a Reds fan I absolutely LOATHE the Astros but they belong in Houston, in the NL & in the same division as Cincy & St Louis.
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Don’t think I’ve seen this here:
http://cincinnati.com/blogs/uc/2011/10/06/east-carolina-central-florida-next-big-east-members/
UCF and ECU to the Big East, possibly announced tomorrow.
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Well, they’ll need at least one more, as the B12 and/or SEC and/or ACC will need at least 1 more team from outside those conferences, and BYU seems off the table for the B12. Go back to Houston for SMU or Houston? Both?
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I’m suddenly much more in favor of SMU joining the Big East. Might give the rivalry with TCU a boost.
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Big East to Strike Back?
The inevitable defection of Texas Christian to the Big 12 conference has left the Big East with just six members in football and a sense of uncertainly about its future in that sport. The league’s presidents will be holding a conference call on Friday morning to discuss expansion possibilities. While nothing is guaranteed, three people with knowledge of the call have indicated that invitations to new members will be discussed and could be decided on the call.
The Big East is staggering right now, as only Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Rutgers, Connecticut and South Florida remain in football. The league had appeared determined to lure Air Force and Navy, but those possibilities diminished with the instability that came with the news of T.C.U.’s departure to the Big 12. But East Carolina, Central Florida and Temple are all clamoring for a spot, and that could strengthen the league’s dwindling numbers. The Big East lost both Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast Conference last month.
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So that would leave 10 in C-USA, and 10 in MWC. If the C-USA/MWC championship game idea comes about, those numbers work perfect (this in not to say C-USA will be happy to go down to 10). The proposal is that there would be no cross over games, so each conference could play 9 games in a round-robin with their champions meeting in a championship game, perfect.
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I bet Villanova is looking better and better, especially as the better FB programs leave.
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Finally figured out what ND and Texas *really* have in common:
Both ND and Texas have TV deals that the conference around them resents terribly.
ND was of no interest to the B1G, as far as I can tell, until the 90s when Lou was winning and NBC was showing every home game nationally. When ND won 4 National Titles in 7 years and applied to the Big 10, they were turned down in favor of MSU. I don’t remember any big outreach to ND when PSU got invited. However, once the money and TV appearances started rolling in, the BIg Ten came calling to TPTB under the Dome.
Of course, the Domer theory is that the B1G wants ND to join both to kill the NBC contract by making ND give it up as a condition of entry and to make the B1G TV contracts that much bigger based off of ND’s national name recognition and fanbase that first began in a large part due to being blackballed from the conference for literally generations.
When UT’s conference mates were upset by Texas’s uneven revenue share and private TV deal on the LHN, Oklahoma and the others didn’t handle it by changing the conference rules to make them similar to the B1G, but by trying to get away from UT. UT has no interest in Independence, so it has been making compromises and deals to keep the Big XII/Neo-SWC together.
If it keeps ND independent, I hope it works out for everyone.
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Lou stopped winning in 94, so if that were the reason, the Big Ten would have invited ND in 1993. The Big Ten only invited ND once they started playing poorly. Make of that what you will.
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I actually think the whole ND separate from the Big Ten thing worked out better for both sides (even the later times it didn’t happen in the past few decades). ND wouldn’t have been that different from Northwestern or UChicago as a draw if it had been in the Big Ten all this time, and so you get a weird kind of thing where independence has been optimal for ND, exposure-wise.
I actually do think ND will be able to stay independent for the long haul. NBC doesn’t sign a deal for ND’s hockey unless it expects to be renewing the football contract, and with 5 conferences at the 12-14 level, there’s really no threat of 4×16.
After all, the Big Ten is not moving off 12 and the Pac-12 will stay because Texas wants the LHN.
I mentioned this earlier, but the Big Ten’s goals are the opposite of ND’s with respect to scheduling. ND wants to play teams in different regions more, whereas the Big Ten wants to get rid of MACrifice weekend for more Iowa-Wisconsin among other discontinued annual rivalries.
Texas’ choice this summer along with the Big 12 losing all of the schools that would be coveted by other conferences makes it unlikely that ND will lose independence barring some kind of dramatic turn of events with respect to the BCS.
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You forget that Chicago was a major program in the conference until they started on the road towards deemphasizing football. Chicago was a founding member in 1896 and 73 Big Ten championships over fifty years fielding up to 19 sports. U of Chicago had won seven football championships up to 1933 when Stagg left as head coach.
If Notre Dame had joined the Big Ten in the early part of the 1920s, the ND story would have undoubtedly been different, but that wouldn’t divorce the Irish from being a very successful football program or from prospering as a long-time member in the Big Ten.
But even if there are people who doubt that Notre Dame would have flourised in the conference at that time with big, bad Fielding H. Yost at Michigan being their personal nemesis, imagine what Notre Dame would have looked like in the last dozen years if it’d joined the Big Ten back in 1999. It’s certainly something the faculty wanted, even though the other stakeholders didn’t.
First off, the conference could have split up on a north-south axis for competitive balance and rivalry preservation:
North: Iowa, Michgian, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin
South: Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn State, Purdue
With eight conference games, ND would play the five in its own division, three from the other plus four non-conference games. Add in conference championship games, the Rose Bowl and other major non-BCS bowls in Florida against SEC teams. If ND ran the gamut in the regular season and won the conference championship game, they’d certainly be in an excellent position to get into the BCS championship game (especially if they kept USC on the regular season schedule).
You can argue how well Davie, Willingham, Weis and now Kelly would have done in this sort of set up and how being in the Big Ten would have changed the school’s recruiting strategy, but as a platform for success, the B10 would have probably been just as good if not better than ND’s strategy to go independent. Would Notre Dame have been allowed to keep the NBC contract? Or would NBC have become the Big Ten’s “second network” like CBS is now with the SEC?
I know a lot of the Notre Dame backers say the conference was run by Michigan and Ohio State and they’ll quote Parseghian about how ND would be voted 11-1 on most issues because of the nature of the institution and its goals. But seriously, before running out the party line, I’d love to know what issues woud cause Notre Dame to be in a minority of one within the conference. Are we talking about referee assignments? How time is kept on the field? Conference championship tie breakers? What issues would ND and the other institutions would have them so split that no one else would side with Notre Dame on them?
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Frankly, I neither know nor care at this point what B1G votes on. I think it is an articulation that there are massive cultural differences between the two sides, and I think we all agree on that.
Correction: Despite the oft-cited faculty senate vote, Professors were considered 50-50%. Only the Grad students were in favor in 1999. Also, the B1G demanded the dropping of the exclusive NBC contract as a condition for entry.
That schedule also is awful from an ND fan perspective. IU and Illinois annual when we rarely play them now? UM and MSU only occassionally? At that time only 3 Non-conference games meaning we rotate only once since USC and Navy are carved in stone.
No wonder this is the one thing we marched for when I was there.
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For Notre Dame to join the Big Ten, I think these two conditions would be prerequisites:
* 16-team conference
* Pods, with ND in a pod with Michigan State, Michigan and Purdue.
ND would likely prefer an 8-game conference play so it could schedule two other games in addition to Navy and Southern Cal.
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Once the 12-game schedule was adapted, Notre Dame would have had four non-conference games and not three. That’s USC, Navy and two more teams TBD. Since those games would take place in September, it’d mean ND would be in a better position, for example, to get an SEC team on the schedule (which seems to be a bit problematic these days).
Secondly, these divisions could be easily changed so that Notre Dame could play Michigan and Michigan State every year instead of two years out of every four, if you want. Frankly, if I were a Ohio State or a Wisconsin fan, I’d be miffed. 🙂
I’m surprised you have problems with playing Indiana or Illinois since Purdue and Northwestern would alternate with them two years on/two years off. ND would just be swopping schools within the same states. At the very minimum, that’d be better than playing Tulsa or Army or Western Michigan and they’d be easy games for ND fans to attend in person.
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FLP_NDRox,
Frankly, I neither know nor care at this point what B1G votes on.
Lately, it would be things like playing 8 or 9 conference games, how to align divisions and adding NE. I doubt ND would have lost 11-1 on any of those issues (with ND, NE would never have been an issue because the 12 were set).
I think it is an articulation that there are massive cultural differences between the two sides, and I think we all agree on that.
There are some major differences, but also some similarities.
from cutter’s post:
North: Iowa, Michgian, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin
South: Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn State, Purdue
That schedule also is awful from an ND fan perspective. IU and Illinois annual when we rarely play them now? UM and MSU only occassionally? At that time only 3 Non-conference games meaning we rotate only once since USC and Navy are carved in stone.
I agree that cutter’s divisions are less than ideal. Maybe try this (listed in order for locked crossovers):
North – MI, MSU, PU, ND, WI, MN
South – OSU, NW, IN, PSU, IA, IL
ND would have gotten MI, MSU, PU and PSU every year, plus WI and MN. The other 5 schools would have been 40% of the time, leaving 4 OOC games for Navy, USC and 2 others that rotated. With ND added, I doubt the B10 would have gone to 9 games for 2017 (maybe later once ND was more used to being in a conference).
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I’ve been trying to come up with a Pod system that makes ND-UM-MSU-Pur something the rest of the conference would go along with, and I’ve yet to do it. Things get weird around the Minn-WU-Neb-Iowa stage, and the OSU-PSU-Eastern filler causes the IL-IN-Northwestern-etc. to just make everything look silly.
zeek put it quite accurately, ND and the B1G want vastly different things from their schedules.
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FLP_NDRox,
I’ve been trying to come up with a Pod system that makes ND-UM-MSU-Pur something the rest of the conference would go along with, and I’ve yet to do it. Things get weird around the Minn-WU-Neb-Iowa stage, and the OSU-PSU-Eastern filler causes the IL-IN-Northwestern-etc. to just make everything look silly.
Cutter’s supposition was what if ND had joined in 1999, so that’s why you got sets of divisions.
Pods are hard, because geography and balance don’t match up very well for the B10. Divisions might be better, with:
West – NE, WI, IA, MN, MO, IL, NW, OSU
East – ND, PU, MI, MSU, PSU, MD, RU, IN
You’d have to lock OSU/MI, and OSU would definitely get the short end of the stick (6 B10 schools in neighboring states all in the other division) but it’s about the only way to balance the power and keep the major rivalries annual. You’d have to have 9 games (7 division) so ND would be back to 3 OOC for Navy, USC and 1 rotating. ND would get lots of eastern exposure, plus MI (like now) and IN. They could potentially lock in NE as well (OSU/MI, NE/ND, WI/PSU, IA/MSU, MO/PU, NW/RU, IL/MD, MN/IN).
zeek put it quite accurately, ND and the B1G want vastly different things from their schedules.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. Both want to play familiar teams a lot (MI, MSU, PU, Navy, USC, Stanford, Pitt, etc) and get a lot of exposure. The big difference is that ND wants more geographic diversity (for now). I’d say KC, Minneapolis, Chicago, OH, Detroit, NYC, Philadelphia, DC and CA is pretty good exposure. They can play Navy all over the country as a neutral site for more locations, or play some big neutral site games (ND/AL in Dallas to open the year, ND/FSU in Atlanta, etc) or big home and homes (Miami, UT, BYU, etc).
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Pods are hard, because geography and balance don’t match up very well for the B10. Divisions might be better, with:
West – NE, WI, IA, MN, MO, IL, NW, OSU
East – ND, PU, MI, MSU, PSU, MD, RU, IN
You’d have to lock OSU/MI, and OSU would definitely get the short end of the stick (6 B10 schools in neighboring states all in the other division) but it’s about the only way to balance the power and keep the major rivalries annual.
Would swapping Indiana and Northwestern work? That at least gives Ohio State an adjacent state, and two cross-division rivalry games at season’s end (OSU-Michigan, Indiana-Purdue). Also, Michigan State likes playing Northwestern for the exposure it receives in metro Chicago.
Still prefer the pod concept because everyone in the conference will want to play Notre Dame on a semi-consistent basis.
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I think B1G-ND would prefer 2 divisions of 8 with one cross div rivalry, and an 8 game conference slate. But, since that means only playing the 7 other teams 2 in 14 years, I think that’ll get shot down double-quick by the rest of the league.
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With 16 teams, you’d need pods (in the B10, anyway).
FLP, how about this:
East: PSU, OSU, Miami, Rutgers
Central: ND, Michigan, MSU, PU
South: Texas, Illinois, Northwestern, IU
West: Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minny
Primary crossovers (play annually):
Michigan-OSU
PSU-Nebraska
ND-Texas
IU-PU
Iowa-Illinois
Miami-MSU
Wisconsin-Rutgers
Minny-Northwestern
Secondary crossovers (play 2/3rds of the time):
Michigan-Minny
OSU-Illinois
ND-Rutgers
Wisconsin-Texas
Iowa-Miami
MSU-Northwestern
IU-Nebraska
PU-PSU
Everyone else is played a third of the time (I have Northwestern-Iowa sacrificed so that MSU can play NU 2/3rds of the time). I also have a series of “Big Ten Kickoff Classics” where B10 schools play nonconf against another B10 school on a neutral field (in Chicago, Meadowlands, and Jerryword), every B10 school plays 8-9 B10 opponents on average (but ND can play theirs in NYC).
East is a beast and Texas gets off easy, but OSU & PSU at least get yearly trips to south Florida (for recruiting and alums) for their troubles, and PSU finally gets its Eastern “rival”.
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So technically Ohio State is no longer in the Big Ten?
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Scarlet:
All the scenarios I saw had OSU. Which one are you referring to?
AD
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Shoving the Buckeyes in a pod with Joe Pa’s dream eastern schedule & no traditional B1G teams is completely unacceptable.
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Scarlet,
Well, you get to visit FL (your second-most important recruiting ground) every other year and play a team from there every year. Plus, playing in NJ every other year also would help recruiting. In fact, the East pod has probably 4 of the 5 best recruiting states in this new B10.
You’d still play Michigan every year and Illinois 2/3rds of the time. The biggest change from the current divisional setup is that instead of playing IU, PU, & Wisconsin every year, they’re substituted by Miami & Rutgers. Does OSU really want to play the IN schools that badly?
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Playing traditional rivals vs being ghettoized in the guido division? Yeah the importance of the former far outweighs any alleged benefits of the latter. Those long term ties are what binds a conference together and you need to made the best effort possible to keep them strong. Outside of bowl games the game at Miami this year was the first time Ohio State has EVER played in Florida. The importance of playing schools in an area you want to recruit is grossly exaggerated IMO. As far as playing a crappy Indiana team vs a crappy Rutgers one? Yes I’ll take the de facto home game four hours away in Bloomington every time.
I would be saying the same thing if it were being suggested for another school…say placing TSUN with ND, Syracuse & Boston College…or Illinois with UNL, MO & Kansas. Those are the types of moves that make it harder to fully integrate newcomers into the conference and also risk alienating current long term members.
Ideally in the mythical move to 16 each pod would contain 3 current members (yes UNL now falls into that category) and one new addition.
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vp19,
My divisions:
West – NE, WI, IA, MN, MO, IL, NW, OSU
East – ND, PU, MI, MSU, PSU, MD, RU, IN
You’d have to lock OSU/MI, and OSU would definitely get the short end of the stick (6 B10 schools in neighboring states all in the other division) but it’s about the only way to balance the power and keep the major rivalries annual.
Would swapping Indiana and Northwestern work? That at least gives Ohio State an adjacent state, and two cross-division rivalry games at season’s end (OSU-Michigan, Indiana-Purdue). Also, Michigan State likes playing Northwestern for the exposure it receives in metro Chicago.
I considered swapping NW and IN, and it certainly could work. I went for divisions that wouldn’t require locked rivalries (except OSU/MI) to maximize the frequency of playing the other teams. I figured MSU gets plenty of Chicago exposure playing ND, so they could sacrifice playing NW every year. Plus, the western teams really need some Chicago access since so many of their students are from there.
Still prefer the pod concept because everyone in the conference will want to play Notre Dame on a semi-consistent basis.
In theory, pods are great. The best pods systems either are based on geographic proximity or on spreading the new guys out so they get integrated.
In practice for the B10, I think they have a lot of problems.
1. Balance
2. Confusion for national and casual footprint fans
3. Gimmicky
4. Preserving rivalries
5. Enticing ND (in this case)
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That’d be a recent development. Notre Dame has had the NBC contract since the 1990s whereas Texas and the LHN is virtually brand new.
Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1990 and started playing in the conference in 1993. Notre Dame received its first invite to the Big Ten in 1999 and there were indications ND would join the B10 in 2003 when the Big East lost three members and the thinking then was that the BE was kaput.
No one’s denying Notre Dame’s value for any conference, but ND’s not making anymore money right now than any Big Ten team when you look at what makes up the annual conference distributions. The conference is scheduled to disburse over $23M in FY 2012 to each team in the B1G with the revenue sources being television (football and basketball), net bowl revenue and money from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Depending on which bowl Notre Dame gets involved in, the Irish may get roughly that same amount from similar sources.
In terms of any conference, what Notre Dame and Texas have in common that more important than any of their television deals is the larger value they can bring to a conference. That’s why people who have followed expansion and the Big Ten have long hoped to see ND and UT in the B1G. It’s not going to happen with Texas and the jury’s still out on Notre Dame at this point.
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Conspiracy theories are almost always nonsense.
The B1G isn’t interested in ND with the intent of injuring the school. That would be self defeating and the folks running the conference aren’t so foolish and petty.
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Fits the evidence pretty well, tho’, Lutefisk
Cutter, your comment is accurate, but that’s no reason for Texas to buddy up with us. I’m starting to think this recent development is tied to their recent LHN issues, and more specifically, how the Big XII reacted.
Thanks M and Zeek, great points.
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“Fits the evidence pretty well, tho’, Lutefisk.”
–Like with any conspiracy theory there may be some superficial correlation but to any reasonable observer it doesn’t fit.
Anyone who honestly thinks the B1G would seriously entertain the notion of adding a member for the sole purpose of damaging said member has a screw loose.
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It was suggested on this very blog that the Big Ten “was content to add PSU and turn them into a second tier program”.
People are crazy.
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@Greg: That’s silly. I can’t imagine any serious B1G fan believing that. If PSU has fallen to second-tier status, it’s not the B1G’s doing; PSU has fallen because their coach has held on too long, and it’s been like that for quite a few years now.
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I don’t know what’s so hard to understand. The Big Ten is trying to add ND in order to damage them, unless the Big Ten is trying to keep out ND in order to damage them.
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lol
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You Domers are sure long-suffering…..it all goes back to Yost kicking Rockne in the nuts……
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Rockne 3 Nat’l Titles, first in ’24
Yost 0 Nat’l Titles after ’24
Stagg, 0 Nat’l Titles after WWI
When we could have used security and scheduling help the B1G was nowhere. Once we were getting more TV and Lou was gone all of a sudden the B1G appears? Why should ND believe that the B1G has their best interests at heart? For nearly a century, ND has been competition not only on the field and in recruiting, but in the business of college sports. In the age of Television, ND and its corporate partners are not only competing against individual Big Ten schools, but now against the B1G itself, and its corporate partners.
Hostle takeovers are rather common in business, y’know.
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Well passing on ND in the ’50s was more the result of political pressure from Michigan pols than the Big 10 actually preferring MSU, and the decision not to approach the Irish in the early ’90s was the result of a four year moratorium on expansion the conference enacted after adding PSU (that’s the same reason they passed on Texas in ’96).
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I know there’s been talk of Fielding Yost forcing all Big Ten schools to stop scheduling Notre Dame, but how true is it? According to Wikipedia, Purdue has played Notre Dame at least twice in every decade since the 1890s, and the longest break in the series (1908-1917) overlapped with the time that Michigan was kicked out of (or voluntarily left) the Big Ten.
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It’s bunk. Fielding Yost wouldn’t schedule Notre Dame, but other Big Ten teams did. And contrary to what Golden Domers say, Yost didn’t not schedule ND because he was an anti-Catholic bigot, but rather because he believed Notre Dame was cheating and paying players.(Which was true, although they weren’t the only ones.) But if you look at ND’s schedule in that period, you can see Indiana, Wisconsin, Purdue, Northwestern, etc.
And Michigan left the Big Ten for a while on their own accord. Michigan thought they were too good for the Big Ten and wanted to schedule more prestigious teams like Penn, Harvard and Cornell.
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Watch out, your blowing holes in the Domer’s favorite anti-big ten rant. Some how they have conflated their problem with michigan (and really with just one man, Yost) into a problem with the whole B1G, even though many B1G schools have never had a problem with scheduling ND.
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Just double checked, and ND did not play ANY B1G teams from 1908-1917, and IIRC Stagg was behind that. The first few years we ended up playing Marquette and a bunch of future DIII schools that weren’t much even then. When Michigan left/got kicked from the B1G we played in 1909, but after ND won and embarrassed Yost, Michigan would not play ND until WWII. That didn’t improve until ’13 when Jesse Harper showed the Priests that a road trip could actually make money, and our success eventually allowed us to play and beat the Eastern powers. During the Rockne Era, ND typically only scheduled 2 B1G teams in a 10 game schedule. During the 30s, a third B1G game was added, and from the 1940s-until the late 60s ND would often play 4-5 Big Ten games. I think that was due to trying to keep the travel budget in line and because Fr. Hesburg was sorta trying to keep the football-factory comments down by keeping the travel time down. Since the “Era of Ara” it’s been primarily 3 B1Gs on the schedule.
BTW, in an era where there were no athletic scholarships and recruiting at all was illegal, ND was only giving out real jobs and doing only limited recruited, as opposed to Michigan, Chicago, and OSU who just got hammered by the reformers for all their improprieties. Say what you will about the Hierarchy at ND, they don’t put up with much funny business.
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ND played WI in 1917. The gap was 1906-1916 according to Stassen.com. It doesn’t change your point, I just figured you’d want to be accurate.
To be more honest, this is who ND did play from 1901-1920 that is still a I-A program:
Army 7
MSU 7
PU 7
NE 6
IN 5
WI 3
UT 2
NW 2
WMU 2
KU 1
MI 1
PSU 1
Rice 1
Syracuse 1
Of the 14 schools, 8 are now in the B10 (including 5 of the top 6), 1 is independent, 2 are B12, 1 is ACC and 2 are non-AQ. I can certainly see why ND would be mad at the B10 for this. They only provided 70% of ND’s games against current I-A’s. The nerve. And before you say it, I’m well aware MSU, PSU and NE weren’t in the B10 by 1920. We’re talking about the relevance of this issue to the current B10.
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Sorry, typo. There *was* a 0-0 tie in Madison in ’17. But the last B1G opponent before the conference’s refusal was a game against the Boilers in November of 1907. Second typo I just saw on Fr. Hesburgh, C.S.C.
But the B1G deserves no points for MSU, who was also on the outside looking in and for opponents then, PSU an eastern independent, or Nebraska who’s anti-Catholic fans were the impetus to drop them as our “Western” rival in favor on USC.
And, since Nebraska’s played all of ONE B1G game at this point 🙂
Also, with actual B1G members during that time, only 17 games were played in twenty years. An entire generation came of age when ND averaged less than a game a year against B1G competition.
And we’re not angry, we’re grateful for the opportunity to become what we are today. By 1928, a sizable percentage of the fan base already believed Independence was the best option.
On the other hand, any offer from the B1G is going to seem like Greeks bearing gifts to Domers, and rightfully so.
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Notre Dame’s identity is shrouded in a mythos of anti-Big Ten origins. We are the mysterious powers that be that tried to strangle them in the cradle, only to see them rise to glory and victory.
None of that is really true, but people aren’t exactly rational. We are the others, and no matter what, they will always hate us. It’s basic human behavior.
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Memphis with Mike Leach as coach would be an exciting BigEast add.
Instant football interest.
Stadium to grow into.
Basketball brand name.
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A hypothetical question: If you were the University of Louisville administration and had verbally agreed to enter the Big 12, but Rick Pitino then tells you that if UL leaves the Big East, he’s resigning, do you still go forth with the conference change? I say yes. (I’m not intimating this scenario happening, just throwing out a “what if.”)
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You don’t base a hundred year decision (well, according to aTm (six year decision in reality in the B12)) on the whims of one coach in one sport.
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FSU, Bobby Bowden and the ACC would beg to differ…
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vincent,
maybe not, as they just built YUM
a) BE allows booze, not sure about B12
b) Pitino is the franchise, look at how Knight’s son did @ TT
c) They can not fill the Pizza Pit, but they can at the Double Down
d) As tight as Jurich is with Rick, impossible to believe there is no communication
ps, I keep meaning to ask, is that barbara stanwick as your avitar?
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Good guess — but no, it’s not Stanwyck, but Carole Lombard. (Yesterday marked the 103rd anniversary of her birth.) I’m a classic Hollywood fan, have a blog on the topic called “Carole & Co.” (http://carole-and-co.livejournal.com), and; we’re currently in the midst of a blogathon called “Carole-tennial(+3)!”
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The problem is the pic is so tiny and grainy, so you can see cheeks but not well enough. Like Frank’s his kind of looks like a guy in a cowboy hat.
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Just saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith yesterday. I agree that your avatar has a Barbara Stanwyck vibe.
That’s the ticket.
Personally, in regard to women movie-stars-of-old, I’ll take the brunettes.
Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner etc. etc,
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The Lombard avatar is from “My Man Godfrey,” arguably the greatest screwball film ever made, co-starring William Powell, my all-time favorite actor.
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Everybody loves The Thin Man. I just learned that Powell grew up only a couple blocks from a girl named Harlow Carpenter, who became Jean Harlow. Small world.
Anyhooo, I promise not to turn this into an old movie thread. Interesting stuff though.
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I was looking at a similar discussion on a UL board and they, for the most part, seemed to be glad to let him take a hike. UL isn’t about Pitino. They can get another great coach.
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But can they find another coach that will dress like Colonel Sanders and have really quick sex at a restaurant? That’s the question.
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http://nittanylionsden.com/2011-articles/october/the-missouri-compromise.html
Blog on Missouri’s importance to b1g’s expansion plans. Next few days should be interesting…
Speaking as a Big Ten fan, it would be nice to beat the SEC at something!
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I could care less about what the SEC does.
My problem is that the B1G, through basically sheer dumb luck, has been handed large populations who value state funded educational systems and have a rabid sports affinity. Now to their credit, the B1G schools have maximized those assets (for the most part), but in the end they have acquired (from my POV) an almost arrogant air of superiority. Its like they think they’re the most wanted community to live in “in town” and that if they wanted to add a few more homes down the line, anyone else would be more than willing to come along (probablem being of course even the best neighborhoods get run down in time).
The facts as I see them are thus…the Big Ten has a legitimate chance to completely reshape the entire college landscape (and I think for the better). If it were to expand to 16 members (the right 16 members) it would have a huge say in how the NCAA runs its business from a rules standpoint. Since the B1G tends to voluntarily engage in “ethical” rules like not over-signing & focusing on the “student” portion of “sident athlete” they could actually push for transparency and change in these areas and all the while continuing to solidify their ability to provide for their member institutions in the future.
IMO, getting Mizzou and Rutgers into the B1G is the first step of that…but in the end I think they’ll be content to rest on their laurels and “ride it out” at 12 for the next 20 years (while the rest of the conferences catch up by just following through on what the Big Ten did in the first place).
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I’ve seen several people saying that college sports and its rules are going to change dramatically in the next 18-24 months. The Cam Newton, SEC over-signing, SEC dumping athletes on medical hardship or dumping them totally, Ohio State, UNC and Miami messes are driving the presidents to act. The increase in TV money probably gives them a little breathing room and lessens the financial pressure to win.
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I’ll believe it when I see it.
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A) You’re assuming that they want a change in the NCAA rules. By and large, I believe they’re for most of the rules currently in existence.
B) It might be arrogant, but it’s true. These institutions have a real interest in maximizing their revenue; they’re not-for-profit institutions that have a plethora of non-revenue sports to offer for their students.
I want the B1G Ten to jump to sixteen as much as anybody, but I don’t see it happening unless one of the major dominoes fall. Texas and Notre Dame currently have everything they want, and Missouri would’ve gotten an invite already if Chicago felt they were crucial to their long-term plans.
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That blog isn’t fully researched. Maryland’s own actions seem to indicate they don’t feel the ACC is off-limits at all, so long as its them doing the leaving. It’s odd for Maryland to be doing what it did (they founded the conference), but there’s only one explanation. If the B1G asked them, they would go.
The B1G asking them is an entirely different matter. That involves declaring war on a fellow conference and that’s just not how they operate.
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But with Connecticut openly campaigning for an ACC slot, it could easily replace Maryland as #14 if the Big East collapsed as a football conference. That would make things a bit easier on the Big Ten from a public relations perspective.
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What actions by Maryland are you referring to? I haven’t seen any solid leads hinting that Maryland would leave. What did I miss?
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It, Florida State and a third ACC member successfully lobbied to limit the exit fee for leaving the conference from a proposed $34 million to $20 million ($4M above the previous fee). While Maryland has no complaint with expanding the ACC to 14 with Syracuse (a semi-traditional football rival) and PIttsburgh (which it’s sporadically faced in football and both men’s and women’s basketball), if the Big Ten ever decides to expand, it wants to be available; it would provide an immeasurable benefit to the university, academically, athletically and in research.
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http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/10/07/100711-sports-wolken-tcu-big-12-1-3/
“Since Nebraska moved to the Big Ten last year, not a single football program of longstanding national relevance has changed conferences, and look how much has changed, how much more is on the verge of destruction.”
Ouch.
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A house of cards isn’t built entirely with kings.
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Seems to me that BYU told the Big 12 they weren’t interested unless it was a 12 team league and they could be in the North, or at least in the division opposite of Texas & OU.
BYU probably believes an independent schedule makes them more relevant in terms of record. After all, in the warped world of college football, no matter who you play, an undefeated season means you’re in the BCS discussion. That makes more sense than virtually scheduling 2 losses every year to big time programs.
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Seen some speculation by BYU people that BYU was being a pain in the neck with demands. Don’t know if those people have any reliable sources, just comments by the administration that BYU wouldn’t compromise its principles. BYU has been very tight lipped, unlike most schools.
BYU was the 1 most logical addition from an athletic standpoint. It may be that Neinas was driving the Big 12 east. From a geographic standpoint, BYU is a significant outlier. There was some discussion about eastern vs. western expansion and BYU may have been viewed as too far west without other good alternatives out west.
There has been some speculation BYU is off the list, but it still wouldn’t surprise me to see BYU get the next invitation.
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Supposedly OU has changed its tune and now prefers 10.
http://www.crimsonandcreammachine.com/2011/10/6/2473645/big-12-expansion-rumor-update-missouri-is-staying-maybe
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I saw that BYU was a pain on another post, with sources coming from MWC. That’s fairly believable and I can see them acting in a similarly stubborn manner to Notre Dame.
Since BYU is an outlier and sandwiched between the Pac-12, which will not take them, and the Big-12, that affords the Big-12 the luxury to offer an invitation to BYU when the Big-12 pleases. No one else is going to come knocking on BYU’s door.
I think 10 is smart for a year or two, especially if Missouri leaves. Poor decisions can be made in a panic. However, if Mizzouri leaves, that makes Louisville almost as much of an outlier to the east as BYU is to the West. That would seem to make BYU more logical for 10 than Louisville. Then again, BYU may not want that to be in a 10 team Big-12.
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Another interesting reminder:
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/09/29/1820011/broncos-byu-extend-series-to-2023.html
The non conference series with Boise St., Notre Dame, and Utah sort of makes BYU’s schedule pretty unflexible. They may be digging in for independence long-term.
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meant to say “would make BYU’s schedule…” not “sort of make BYU’s schedule…”
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Oklahoma may well be right about the fact that there are no really good candidates for Big XII expansion beyond ten teams at this point. West Virginia, Louisville and Cincinnati aren’t exactly major programs, although I can see why they like UL because it has the biggest budget of the three and is closest to the conference’s current geographic footprint.
I wonder what the other conference members think. Missouri, I understand, wanted to see the Big XII get back to twelve members and have a conference championship game. With just ten members, do the other programs think the conference is still vulnerable (sort of the same reason why the ACC added Pittsburgh and Syracuse).
I think that one article touches on an important point–there aren’t any really great alternatives out there for conferenes to expand beyond the numbers we’re seeing now with the exception of Notre Dame unless there’s some major poaching, such as Florida State or Virginia Tech going from the ACC to the SEC.
The ACC, for example, could invite Rutgers and Connecticut and move up to 16 members in short order, but would that be a really worthwhile move at this juncture? The answer is probably not, and like the Big Ten, they’ll leave an opening available for Notre Dame because ND’s the #1 free agent right now.
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BYU, UL and WVU are all solid.
The championship game pays for #12. They need to get enough from #11 and #12 on their own to pay for one, or at least close to pay for one team.
If I were the AD of someone other than UT or OU, I would be pushing for 12 to solidify the league in case UT or OU do eventually leave. It would also strengthen the Big 12’s negotiating position as the Big East would no longer be taking up many TV slots.
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bullet other reason is competitiveness. At least if you separate back into Big 12 North/South, you can get a chance to get to a Big 12 CCG. In a Big 12 without divisions, what are the odds that a school outside of the Texas or Oklahoma schools wins the Big 12? Near 0.
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If Brigham Young is out of the Big 12 derby, does it still make sense to go to 12 members if Cincinnati takes its place alongside West Virginia and Louisville?
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If you remember back last year Bill Snyder said a bit tongue in cheek that he thinks the Big 12 should keep the divisions even with 10 teams. NO SCHOOL wants to be in the same division with OU and Texas.
I can’t see any schools other than OU and Texas not wanting 12 teams. And I would think they would want OU and Texas in opposite divisions in any new construct with a guaranteed crossover.
If B12 can keep Mizzou and add BYU, the CCG should pay for #12 no matter who it is.
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@bullet
One thing to keep in mind is that Fox agreed to keep paying the conference $10 million a year for the CCG even though it is not being played.
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Bullet: A conference championship game might pay for one school, but not the two or more that would be needed depending on what Missouri does.
I’m not saying that UL, Cincy and WVU aren’t solid, but they also aren’t wow choices either.
Truth be told, the inventory of possible kingmakers in any conference expansion scenario we can look at in the near future is pretty thin. Notre Dame is certainly the primary candidate now that Texas and Oklahoma seem set in the Big XII. Missouri would be a nice addition to the SEC, but given the choice, most people would identify FSU as having greater value than Mizzou.
A conference like the ACC added Syracuse and Pittsburgh as a preeemtive move. The SEC added Texas A&M so they could get a foothold in the state. Missouri presents a nice market addition and evens out the conference, but again, they’re not Florida State.
The Pac 12 tried to add two kingmakers and failed. Even Oklahoma with Oklahoma State in tow wasn’t enough for them to make the move to 14.
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How about South Florida accompanying West Virginia and Louisville? Tampa-St. Petersburg is somewhat larger than Cincinnati, and Florida has long been a target of Big Eight/Big 12 recruiting. Moreover, USF has established itself as a competitive force in football. If it went to the Big 12, it probably wouldn’t worry about seeing Central Florida join the Big East.
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@cutter-Not sure if we are saying the same thing. That was my point that a conference championship game pays for #11. Then #11 and #12 have to add (excluding the championship game) at least half as much as the average of the existing 10 schools. If the BE was worth $11 million per school, WVU and UL may very well add enough to bring a little extra value to the Big 12 when they add a championship game in addition to $11 million or so apiece.
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Jim D needs to stop golfing and start getting aggressive. His “sit back and wait for ND” strategy is going to blow up in his face when they choose another conference. He was hoping that by destroying the Big East, ND would come to him… That might not be the case. The BiG needs to move on Maryland asap.
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Even if Notre Dame is never coming, I don’t think the Big Ten wants to expand. I agree with that sentiment. There is no reason to expand just for expansion’s sake. For every team that enters the Big Ten from this point, we play each other less. We add 1 to each division and (with 9 game schedules) we go from playing most the other division 6 out of 10 years to 2 out of every 6 years. That’s not worth it unless the teams are ones we really want to play.
Beyond that, no one is going to 16 here and most are staying at 12. 14 isn’t so high up that we are going to be seen as behind because we are staying at 12.
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I don’t think Delany necessarily needs to be aggressive at this point of time. In three years from now, the Big Ten will be negotiating with ABC/ESPN and a host of other networks for the rights to B10 college football and basketball. If the past television deals we’ve seen with the ACC and Pac 12 are any indicator, then the conference will be in the cat bird’s seat with the twelve current members.
But that upcoming negotiation also gives him leverage in terms of potential revenues with any of the target programs the Big Ten looked at during the most recent conference expansion exercise that brought Nebraska into the conference. Many of the programs that have been mentioned as possible targets outside of Notre Dame could probably still be brought into the Big Ten if they desire it.
Until there’s some conference strutcture that’s a prerequisite for a post-season playoff which doesn’t allow independents, Notre Dame is probably going to exercise each and every option available to keep its football team independent. To a lesser extent, the same goes to schedule and access to bowl games as well.
But the bottom line is revenue generation with an eye to the Big Ten Network. In FY 2012, the conference will distribute over $23M to each program in the B10 thru revenue from television (football and basketball), net bowl game proceeds and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. As long as that number continues to go up and there’s a prospect for a major spike in a few years’ time when the new contracts come into effect (which is what happened in 2006 when the current contract with ABC/ESPN started), conference members may then be getting over $30M per year by FY 2016. That’s going to be a major hurdle for any new program to add to, which is why Delany’s best strategy in terms of confernce expansion is to do nothing at this point.
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Cutter, your final point is a great one. After the new contract is signed the ‘degree of difficulty’ of adding a new school goes up tremendously. Adding a new school too far ahead of that window is merely dillutive. Seems like the conference would not need to have any additional school playing by 2014, only identified so that it could be properly valued in the negotiations. Maybe Jimbo can afford to hit the range after todays round after all.
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start getting aggressive? who do you suggest he targets? Mizzou? Rutgers? UConn? Nebraska was a home run addition, plus getting the CCG makes it a grand slam – at this point, any schools the B1G adds has to at least equal, if not exceed, the Nebraska + CCG revenue increase, otherwise all of the current schools are going to be taking a pay cut. there’s only 2 school (in my mind, but I feel many people would agree) which could individually produce that kind of increase: ND and Texas. so, are you saying that Delany should call up DeLoss and beg him to join the B1G? maybe leave a 400th voicemail for Swarbrick? the only other option is to hopefully get the NYC market (which has been analyzed and reanalyzed by Frank as neigh on impossible). so, should Delany target UConn + Rutgers + ‘Cuse + BC if ND’s off the table? I think Delany knows he done good, and at this point, unless Swarbrick makes the phone call saying ND’s gonna join the B1G, there’s really nothing left for Delany to do…
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To everyone repeating this “pay cut” line, please explain how the ACC taking Pitt and Syracuse is not effecting a pay cut….and why we hear nothing of “pay cuts” when discussing A@M and MO to the SEC…..also, the ONLY reporting of whether the BIG’s study of whether expansion would be profitable indicated it was.
The Smaller 10 is being fat and arrogant because everything is not going according to their timetable.
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ACC payouts are $15M per team and Big East had a proposal for $11M per team. It’s easily imaginable that Pitt and Syracuse being among the most valuable teams in the Big East (WVU/TCU are probably the only bigger brands) were above that $11M per team average in terms of value that they brought.
Most likely the ACC gets a pro-rata increase or maybe more from ESPN for killing off the Big East.
Before the Big East was going to receive $100M per year for its 9 teams (after TCU’s entrance).
Now, ESPN can just give the ACC $30M per year to take Pitt/Syracuse and can just pay the Big East $30-40M per year. Net gain for ESPN…
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Although I guess the Big East’s proposal included basketball so that per 9 teams wasn’t really correct.
Regardless, my point stands. There is a lot of “deadweight” value in the Big East given that most of its teams were in the C-USA just a few years ago and don’t bring traditional value.
By taking 2 of the most valuable teams (and the Big 12 taking 1 of the 2 remaining), the Big East’s contract is now worth significantly less, and ESPN gains that loss back…
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The estimate of the split between bb and fb was slightly more heavily weighted towards football and it came to $11 million/school for the football schools.
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As for A&M/Missouri to the SEC, I tend to agree with you.
Not really sure either will bring value to the CBS contract (they really going to get that many games there?), and as for ESPN, I guess they’d give them a pro-rata increase.
Future valuations (and especially a TV Network for 3rd tier rights) would probably do a better job of bringing out the value of A&M and Missouri…
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I’ve often found this comment section to be informative as well as entertaining but somehow the group here is misinformed about tv contracts and expansion. Please read this.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/09/26/Colleges/ACC.aspx
Here is part of the article:
…The opportunity to reopen its 12-year, $1.86 billion deal with ESPN was a significant factor in the ACC’s decision to expand with Syracuse and Pittsburgh, Commissioner John Swofford told SportsBusiness Journal. The ACC signed that media agreement in May 2010, but subsequent rights-fee deals signed by the Big 12 and Pac-12 were considerably richer than the ACC’s.
…The ACC’s contract with ESPN, which is valued at $155 million a year, contains a standard line called a “composition clause” that allows either the conference or ESPN to reopen the deal if membership increases or decreases by at least two schools. The conference or the network can act on that clause any time the conference’s membership changes by at least two schools.
The agreement does not permit the ACC to take its rights to the open market. But the addition of two schools does create the opportunity for a new negotiation and, undoubtedly, more money. If the two sides cannot come to an agreement, the deal would go to an arbitrator.
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The SEC has never mentioned any type of composition clause. I believe that is unique to the ACC, although I presume the Pac wrote one in. The SEC discussion has been about “look-ins.” Its been very clear from ESPN’s comments, comments in the paper from insiders and Slive’s careful language that the SEC doesn’t have significant ability to get the contract changed.
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Bullet:
Not saying I disagree completely, but if Sports business daily calls a composition clause a standard line I’d consider other factors as to why Slive wouldn’t cite it. If it is there could referencing it prior to actually expanding be construed as the conference seeking new members, as opposed to responding to unsolicited petitions from schools (see: Baylor)? Does Slive care what anyone outside knows or doesnt know for a public fact? Obviously the SEC sees an advantage to expanding at this time or they wouldn’t be doing it. Perhaps it’s planing for a future we don’t yet see rather than gaining some imediate increase in $$$s.
I’ve been told it is far more instructive to watch what people (schools, conferences, etc.) actually do, and pay much less attention to what they say, especially if they seem to conflict.
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bullet,
————————–
“The SEC has never mentioned any type of composition clause. I believe that is unique to the ACC, although I presume the Pac wrote one in. The SEC discussion has been about “look-ins.” Its been very clear from ESPN’s comments, comments in the paper from insiders and Slive’s careful language that the SEC doesn’t have significant ability to get the contract changed.”
————————
The “composition clause” is described in the article as standard in these types of contracts. That doesn’t mean that it is in the SEC contract but to believe that it’s not you’d have to believe that the SEC and/or their lawyers are stupid. I don’t believe that by the way. The “look-ins” Slive talked about were set up to happen throughout the contract without changes in membership.
Without access to the SEC contract this is all just hot air.
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More on the ACC’s negotiations.
Expanding ACC will reopen ESPN deal – Michael Smith & John Ourand, SportsBusiness Daily
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/09/26/Colleges/ACC.aspx
The clause in the ACC-ESPN contract that permits the deal to be reopened is standard among college conferences. The SEC is expected to exercise its right to a new deal if it adds Texas A&M and another school, as reported. ESPN and Fox, meanwhile, could void the Big 12’s contract or ask the conference to give it a reduction in fees if it loses teams. Network sources say that is an unlikely option, especially if Texas remains in the conference.
The ACC-ESPN deal that went into effect this season pays about $4 million in new media revenue for each existing ACC school. Three percent escalators are built in annually.
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To say ESPN would allow the conferences to just add schools and totally re-open contracts would assume ESPN is stupid. It looks like none of the conferences have much leverage. If the B1G got $7 million for adding Nebraska from Fox, the ACC and SEC aren’t going to do much better than maintaining the per school average for Pitt, SU and A&M. The only way they get more is to give more (more scheduling flexibility, 9 game schedules), which is something they can do without expansion.
There’s been enough consistent talk by all sides to have a pretty good idea of what rights the SEC has.
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ESPN is not allowing the contract to be totally re-opened. With the addition of, or subtraction of, 2 or more schools the conference and ESPN attempt to come to terms and if they don’t it goes to a mediator. No other network can bid so the contract is not actually open and ESPN is in no danger of losing a contract. As to whether it would be stupid of ESPN to allow for this, I don’t think it is stupid if it is industry practice as stated in the Sports Business Daily by Michael Smith & John Ourand. On whether this is in fact industry standard, I’ll defer to those guys.
I’m guessing the ACC will profit from this. Since their contract was signed the value of fb has skyrocketed. ESPN may not want to do anything more than give the minimum to let the ACC schools maintain their current levels but a fair mediator will probably be inclined to take the new reality into account. As I said, it’s a guess. I have no knowledge of, or experience with, mediated settlements.
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Joe:
I believe that the way these things work is that the deal can be reopened to add the current value of the new members to the old deal. So Pitt & ‘Cuse right now may be worth more than the $12.9M per school that the ACC currently gets. I’d be shocked if they added more than the $20M-$25M average per school that the Pac12 got. Divide that by 14, and it increases the take of each ACC school by a million or couple per year.
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well, I think before grouping the ACC, SEC, and B1G expansions’ objectives together, we should analyze the purpose of each expansion:
ACC: let’s be honest, the ACC needs to protect itself from a future raid, whether it’s from the SEC or B1G. the first course of action was for the ACC to raise the buy-out to $20m. the second course of action is to proactively beef up its ranks so that in the event a conference does take 1 or 2 teams, the ACC is still sitting pretty at 12 and gets to keep its CCG. also, a side benefit is that by further weakening the BEast, the ACC has made that conference a better target for raids, thereby deflecting attention to itself. because of these factors, taking a slight pay-cut is a worthwhile tradeoff to securing itself against further raids
SEC: everyone and their dog wants to tap into Texas at this point. let’s be honest, if DeLoss called up the B1G right now and said they wanted to join (and would make concessions about the LHN), Delany would be all over that like white on rice. the SEC is such a valuable brand that it knows it can negociate with its TV deals to ensure that the current membership continues to receive the same payout. so, adding a Texas market/recruiting base is definitely worth expansion
B1G: we’re good to go, honestly. we got our CCG, we added a grand slam in Nebraska, we don’t NEED to add anyone else. we’re not suring up ourselves against raids and, frankly, MO isn’t exactly the most stellar recruiting hotbed, so, unless we get a new, major market (Texas, or the entire country via ND), we’re taking a pay cut for no reason
and, finally, we can be arrogant: we got the only major program to move conferences via Nebraska, no other conference is adding any school anywhere near that caliber
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In another thread I cited a direct quote from the ACC commish that said the additions will allow the ACC to reopen their TV contracts. You can expect at the very least ESPN will increase the value of their deal proportionally so that no school takes less money. Otherwise, there is no incentive to expand. Look what happened with the B1G and Nebraska, Nebraska was added and ESPN (and CBS?) increased the value of their contract to a proportional value for 12 teams instead of 11. The direct immediate benefit of Nebraska came from the Championship game and the BTN.
Has there ever been an expansion where the schools in the expanding conference made less money?
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Mike, I don’t think we’ve seen any confirmation either way that ABC/ESPN upped the value of the B10 contract with the Nebraska addition. If so, I’d love to see a link.
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I don’t have the time to find the link but a quick Google search and I found a reference to Fox doing it. I am confident that I’ve seen or posted a similar reference to ESPN.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2010/11/20101129/This-Weeks-Issue/ESPN-Negotiating-For-Pac-10-Title-Game.aspx?hl=nebraska%20espn&sc=0
During the title game talks, Fox also reopened its Big Ten Network contract to account for the addition of Nebraska, which is leaving the Big 12 for the Big Ten next year. Fox agreed to pay the conference an additional $7 million a year and extend the Big Ten Network’s rights deal with the conference by an extra year, sources said.
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Mike, thanks for the link. I’m surprised the BTN contract was opened, but was hoping to see if ABC/ESPN upped their contract. I believe that all we know is that they opened the 2:30pm exclusivity window they previously enjoyed.
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The ACC is trying to fortify against raids to survive. The B1G is trying to make more money. There’s a difference, and its pretty major. A university CEO can vote his university’s best interests if it keeps a conference together even if it doesn’t increase the TV payout. No BCS conference, lower payout anyway.
Since it is impossible to raid the B1G, THOSE university CEO’s are all about the academic profiles and increased financial payouts.
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From a “political” standpoint, the b1g standing pat and taking a “non-agressive” stand might actually help them with Notre Dame’s fan base. If the Big Ten plays hard to get with Notre Dame, it might make public opinion with ND soften a bit. Part of the reason they are resisting so much is because they don’t want to feel forced. Nobody wants to be strong-armed.
But if things play out over the next few months and ND begins to see the Big Ten as their best option, they’ll come to us.
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@allthatyoucantleavebehind – Agreed. To the extent that Notre Dame is ever going to join a conference, you’re going to have to “kill them with kindness”. Some of the suggestions that I’ve seen that would “force” them in (i.e. Big Ten schools stop scheduling them) would likely have the opposite effect.
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Just look at some of the sentiment shown even on this blog. There is a belief that the B1G despises ND and that is why they would like to see the Irish join…not as a partnership that would be mutually beneficial but rather out of jealousy and a desire for revenge towards ND.
If you are asking someone to marry you and they believe you are doing so because you want to keep them from ever having sex…well it is hard to reason with that mind set.
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Question for you northerners: Would the B1G ever be interested in inviting BYU? Would BYU and Notre Dame be a good for numbers 13 & 14?
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Nope. Pac-12 isn’t interested either in BYU.
BYU’s only shot at a BCS slot is/was the Big 12. There must have been some kind of mismatch to not make that happen (either BYU was hesitant about Sunday competition or the TV network thing or leaving the WCC after just placing other sports there).
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You’re probably right that, if BYU were going to the Big12, it would have happened already.
I suppose their very insularity could mean a much different process than we’re used to seeing and that it still might happen. Oddly, if Mizzou stays put, then the Big12 will need a “northern” team to balance UT-TCU-BU-TTech-OK-OSU in the south. I’m still unconvinced Louisville is a strong addition in any scenario, but it looks like I’m in the minority.
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For all the talk of geography being important or not, I think it still holds some weight and BYU is too far away to be considered. Very few names would warrant consideration at that distance and BYU isn’t one of them (I love the program, just not in a Midwestern conference).
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Apart from the financial reasons, BYU is out for the same reason its out of the PAC – cultural/political mismatch. The California schools were an absolute veto on the admission of anything affiliated with the Mormon Church after the Proposition 8 mess. I can’t imagine Oregon State much liked them either…
The B1G doesn’t exactly have more toleration for that sort of thing. The states may be more politically moderate than the “left coast” but that is manifestly not at all true of the university towns or the university leadership. These are research universities. Apart from BYU not being one at all (they have no real graduate education to speak of), that also means you can pretty well guess how most of the B1G politics lean. They don’t want a theocratic institution.
Hell, Notre Dame has a lot of cultural fit issues as well and they know it. They are literally religiously opposed to some of the CIC’s research. These concerns are why they are so hesitant. It has nothing to do with money. Texas A&M would also have been a lousy cultural fit for the B1G, even though it does have the academic/research profile and was the only one who would be acceptable as a “pair” with Texas. Texas A&M is considered right-wing by TEXAS standards.
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Are there any Big East programs that conduct the same sort of research that Notre Dame might find itself religiously opposed? ND plays at least three Big Ten teams per year–if they’re religiously opposed to research done at these schools, why does ND play them?
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From a Catholic perspective, there is a huge difference between playing someone who engages in research you don’t like, and being part of a research consortium with them. The B1G is the only conference with anything like the CIC.
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The Pac’s view of BYU goes back to long before the recent Prop 8 silliness.
The treatment black athletes often received in Provo left a sour taste in the mouth of many Pac schools that will take a LONG time to go away.
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It’s not just BYU. The PAC gave Larry Scott a no religious schools order last year and it remains in effect.
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Irregardless BYU is an absolute no go for reasons beyond mere religious affiliation (said affiliations role in the events I mentioned previously non-withstanding). If for some reason ND wanted in they would have a potential shot at making…BYU will never happen.
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BYU has too many flags for the Big Ten
1: Distance. I’m not saying that the Big Ten would never consider a school that far away, but it’s definitely a negative.
2: Support. BYU is by far the best remaining non-AQ program, but I don’t think they measure up to the Nebraska/Penn State (or ND/Texas) level.
3: Academic freedom: BYU has had a number of issues in this area (much more so than ND)
Conversely, the Big Ten is not particularly appealing to the Big Ten, as a very low percentage of Mormons live in the Midwest (Idaho has more LDS members than any Big Ten state).
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M,
To be fair, a very low percentage of LDS live outside of the west. Of non-western states, only TX and FL have more than 100,000 members and that’s purely due to their huge populations. Idaho has more LDS members than all but UT and CA, so it’s probably not a fair comparison.
Percentage of population as LDS members:
>10% – UT, WY, ID
5-10% – NV, AZ
2-5% – NM, CO, MT, WA, OR, CA, HI, AK
1-2% – TX, OK, KS, NE, SD, MO, VA
0.5-1% – ND, MN, IA, AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, FL, SC, NC, TN, KY, WV, IN, OH, MD, DE, VT, NH, ME
<0.5% – WI, IL, MI, PA, NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA
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I would have thought MO’s LDS population would be higher given it’s importance in their history.
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Well, it is the “Show Me” state and Smith couldn’t show the tablets to anyone.
If you look at the map, MO is an outlier as the only state on the eastern shore of the Missouri River with more than 1% LDS population. The only other outliers are ND (only state west of MO that doesn’t have at least 1% LDS), and VA (only state east of the Mississippi with over 1% LDS).
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Reading that Texas is pushing for ND to park non-football sports in Big 12. WHat’s the chance of that ever happening?
Probably zero.
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Why not? The Big 12 is the de facto ‘appeasement’ league now that the Big East is dead. It can cut a deal that the ACC or B1G won’t.
Let them in for all sports, but indy in football. Guaranteed UT/ND annual game, plus 3 additional rotating games for the rest of the Big 12.
(1) ND gets a parking spot in a strong league for its other sports & no conflicts for hockey.
(2) UT & ND get their pairing.
(3) ND gets 8 other slots on its schedule to maintain its rivalries, plus guaranteed scheduling for games that fall late in the season (hard to do with 9 game scheduling becoming popular).
(4) The other Big 12 schools get a ND game every three years.
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Here’s my opinion why they won’t:
Waco, Lubbock, Manhattan, Stillwater, and Ames. I’m sure they would find Lawrence (KC), Norman (OKC), Dallas, and Austin fine but if they are a “national” university they need to stick to either big names or big cities.
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Let’s note that it’s games, not HOME GAMES. If Baylor, K-State, and Iowa Sate want to come out to Notre Dame for game in Oct/November, we’d probably have no problem with that. It beats having a Non-AQ, as far as I’m concerned. On the flip side, perhaps a one-time trip out there wouldn’t be too awful, since every BXII school has a 50K capacity stadium.
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On (3), why do you assume the Big XII would have open schedule slots late in the year? The previous published schedules didn’t and we don’t know if the conference would be willing to do that for Notre Dame.
Besides, the conference was committed to a nine-game conference schedule, so that means the number of slots availabe to play Notre Dame is limited. Texas has a four-game series with ND, three of those four are season openers and the other is in the second week of the season. Oklahoma has a home-and-home with the game in South Bend in September and the return game in Norman in October. That’s one out of six games where OU and UT have accomodated Notre Dame.
The Big East was supposed to get three games with Notre Dame each year when Kevin White was the Athletic Director. What guarantee would the Big XII have that ND would honor the three games per year requirement when ND didn’t do that with the BE?
Could ND do three games a year with the Big XII? Possibly, but keep in mind that Notre Dame generally plays three Big Ten teams per year, USC, Navy and four teams from the ACC/Big East. That theoretically leaves three games, but ND likes to make an annual trip to California (thus Stanford and USC are both on the schedule), so that gets you down to two per year. More likely than not, that will be Texas or Oklahoma plus one more school, which means the remaining members of the confernce would play ND maybe one years in eight.
That doesn’t preclude ND from perhaps shifting one game from the ACC/Big East and adding one to the Big XII, but ask yourself this–where are most of the ND fans located? In the mid-Atlantic/northeast areas or in the Big XII’s current geographic footprint?
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I don’t know if this says more about Mizzou or the B12 tv deals, but Missouri’s homecoming against ISU this weekend will not be televised.
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they play kSU this weekend, ISU is the 15th…and you’re right, it will not be televised…unless Mizzou beats KSU who is ranked #20. Maybe someone will pick up the game if Mizzou is ranked.
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Missouri turned down an offer to put the game on Fox College Sports because an 11 a.m. or 6 p.m. start time was required and the school preferred 1 p.m. and no TV as that’s the best time to coincide with homecoming activities.
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If Mizzou turned down TV coverage due to an 11am kick, they’d hate the B10. 🙂
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“gkketch Geoff Ketchum
It’ll be fascinating to watch the recruiting dynamics of all of this unfold.
3 hours ago
Geoff Ketchum
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
I expect the top three recruiting teams in the Metroplex (in order) to be Texas, Oklahoma and TCU.
3 hours ago
gkketch Geoff Ketchum
TCU heading to the Big 12 could be a real thorn for A&M in recruiting. Those two schools have been squaring off more than either vs. UT
5 hours ago”
he also thought Garrett Gilbert was gonna be great to, so I think Ketchum’s opinions are just that.
how come A&M losing games in the SEC causes A&M’s recruiting to suffer?
but TCU’s losing games in the Big 12 recruiting goes up?
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TCU’s addition to the Big 12 will probably hurt A&M, Tech, Baylor, Mizzou, etc. in terms of recruiting. Those are the recruits that TCU will most be able to shake off the tree by being able to say they’re in a top BCS conference (especially the one with Texas/OU).
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Doesn’t he run Orangebloods? That would make him a little biased against the Aggies.
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Last week the B1G this week Texas. Geez Paawwwwl.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/paul_finebaum/10/06/texas/
However, short of SMU in the ’80s and the University of Miami since, has anyone done more recently to diminish the integrity of the game than the self-indulgent people who run Texas?
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I guess Finebaum doesn’t want to look out his window at all the SEC schools around him. He’d probably get tarred and feathered and run out of town.
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“Texas A&M is considered right-wing by TEXAS standards.”
ummm not really Texas is pretty conservative…Bush 1 & 2, Perry, even former long horn cheerleader K B Hutchison is more similar to A&M in politics then UT.
The mayor of Austin is an Aggie.
Austin is by far more liberal than most of Texas, Granted I don’t think Austin is as liberal as most places in the B1G. If it came down to it UT culturally doesn’t fit in much better than A&M does in the PAC or B1G.
Texas is a whole other country and A&M, UT and TT and all of the other schools in Texas reflect that, Even OU and OSU fit Texas politics better than the B1G or PAC.
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The ‘stay weird’ Austin took a real hit when the tech companies invaded and it became an ‘it’ town, jacking taxes and forcing a lot of the old mainstays on Guadalupe St. to shut down. The hippy vibe of Austin today feels like a contrived remnant of days gone past. It’s still liberal, don’t get me wrong, but Ann Arbor and Madison it is not.
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TCU’s recent success doesn’t change that it is still a small school with limited “brand” and enrollment. It’s done great with the lemons handed to it, but if they are going to be playing in a top conference they will still need to step up their game.
I’m also not sure of how academic standards will change for TCU coming up a level. They may have been able to let in academic risks more than Big 12 schools.
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I think ND will go to the Big 12 in all sports except football if the BE completely collapses.
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I could see it, but the remaining Big East (combined with some new basketball schools like Xavier and others) would still give them exposure in the areas of the country they are most concerned about.
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Re: TCU recruiting
Over the last 5 years TCU has a .500 or better recruiting record against every Big 12 school except Oklahoma (7-10), Texas A&M (8-15) and Texas (0-29). I have to think that whatever bump A&M receives from going from the Big 12 to the SEC, TCU would have even more improvement going from the MWC to the Big 12. A&M may find itself going from third to fourth in its own state.
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That would surprise me. TCU has done well, but it’s overachieved in the Mountain West and A&M just has far too many more fans in the state for me to believe TCU would be able to surpass them on any kind of perment basis.
When they have gone head to head, have they been for starts, or different positions? I’d imagine TCU would be looking for some people as starters that A&M might have wanted to wait redshirt a year or be back-up for awhile.
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A&M’s recruitting will improve in the SEC – simply because SEC recruiting is a little shady.
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Think like a President.
I just don’t see the B1G Presidents sitting around with strategies as to how to ruin other conferences or keep up with them even. The B1G saw an opportunity to expand to increase the value of the BTN and add a CCG and did so with Nebraska. That was a Home Run.
So what if adding Maryland adds a new market? The BTN does fine financially already. Same with Rutgers and Missouri. So what if they can make a few more millions? A few more million to Rutgers means a lot. A few more million does not mean as much when you are already comfortable.
The B1G doesn’t need the BTN to become TBS. It’s just a nice way to ensure that every school gets to see it’s team play AND it makes money that could not be earned otherwise.
Accountants and lawyers? Yeah, we would want to expand. The budget director? The state legislators? Sure… anything that improves the bottom line.
But I am just not sure the Presidents of the B1G think that way. I think they prefer the B1G to act as they want the world to be–not as it is.
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I agree with most of these points except the part about the BTN not trying to be TBS. quite the contrary: the only reason the BTN makes as much revenue as it does is because it’s on the basic cable package (so, customers get the channel (and therefore pay for the channel) without having to order a special ‘sports pack’, which nets the conference cash for every viewer, regardless if they’re a B1G/football fan or not). if the B1G could get the BTN on every single basic cable package across the country, you’d better believe it’d do it in a second. the whole point about adding more schools is that the B1G has to research whether or not the BTN would get on the basic cable package for the customers of that state (considering we’re a conference of large, state universities for the most part). with Nebraska, this was a no brainer: the cable customers in Nebraska are rabid about their college football (as are all the other fans/alumni for the rest of the B1G schools), so, the BTN didn’t have a problem becoming part of the basic cable package in that state. let’s say that Rutgers could absolutely guarantee that the BTN would be part of the basic cable package for NYC/NJ, the B1G would have invited them yesterday, unanimously. unfortunately, that’s not the case, so, the B1G takes on a huge risk adding them. but, if the BTN could become like WGN, Delany would have had all of the contract written up last week
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All this expansion talk is driven by a perceived need to obtain more money. If you take money out of the equation, would the B1G take:
Penn State? Yes.
Nebraska? Yes.
Those are moves you make even if not a big financial winner.
But then you start coming down to moves that might make more money, but money is really the main reason. And I just don’t think that the B1G Presidents think like that.
If ND wants to come on board, then I think the B1G would gladly accept them (without special rules, of course). In that instance, adding a non-King to get to 14 presents many options, such as Missouri, Rutgers, or others.
But you are still talking about a football home run to move the dial… not a financial home run.
This does not mean that individual universities do not think about money. Rutgers cannot expand its stadium due to funds. Other schools have other issues. Those are very real. But that cannot be extrapolated out to the B1G too.
Just an observation. I think people are confusing Frank’s “Think Like a President” to mean “Think Like the University is a Corporation That Must Increase Annual Profits” Maybe I am wrong, but that’s how I see it.
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Here’s part 10 of Mr SEC’s own expansion index.
http://www.mrsec.com/2011/10/expansion-by-the-numbers-10-the-big-finish/
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The most important quote, to me, is:
“First, we’ve been told by two sources inside the SEC that there is no gentleman’s agreement to blackball schools from within SEC states.”
Can we let that argument drop now?
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I never really believed it was a hard-and-fast rule, just a good idea in most cases. The SEC needs markets a lot more than it needs strong football brands. Hence, A&M and (maybe) Missouri. VT would be a strong add for them as well. North Carolina would be a great addition – they wouldn’t upset the order too much in football, but they’ll move the SEC into a fairly populous state and make the league a lot more relevant during basketball season. I’m not much of an oddsmaker, but I’d say that one qualifies as a long shot.
FSU might be good enough, and in a big enough state, to get in anyway.
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Post from a BYU board:
B12 TV deal, as is, would be a significant step back…
… in exposure for BYU. B12′s deal has ESPN selecting only 18 games for Tier 1. Even in a 10-team confernence, that’s unlikely to produce more than 2 or 3 for BYU in a good year. Fox gets all remaining game except for one and can place those games on either F/X (comparable to Vs), one or more of their FSN regional networks, or on FCS. Fox selects one game to leave for BYUtv. In addition to our home games, our road games will be subject to the same deal, which means that perhaps half or more of those games will end up on a Fox regional channel or on a local affiliate.
As an indy, we have a minimum of 4 home games guaranteed on ESPN and we can write our own scheduling deals with our opponents to ensure that games don’t get buried (like OSU, scheduled pre-indy). Bottom line is that this season, all but one of our games, home & away are on ESPN. Under a B12 package, we’ll likely get 3 to 5 on ESPN, 1 on BYUtv and nearly half on F/X, Fox regionals or even local/online only networks. People should also remember that it’s not just BYU that would have concerns here, it’s also ESPN. If BYU just plugs into the B12 TV deal, ESPN loses several contracted games to Fox.
This has been an issue in joining the B12, especially when they needed the 10th team to replace A&M in the Fox deal as is to preserve it (remember, the Fox deal is signed with each of the 10 schools individually). This “minutae” as some fans call it, is in reality more described as the devil being in the details. BYU learned a whole lot from the MWC TV debacle. They’re not going to repeat those mistakes in the B12.
Bottom line is it may be far better for BYU to not be #9 or #10 replacement school, but #11 or #12 instead, with some negotiated exceptions. The current Big 12 schools all have regional fan bases. The B12 TV deal is structured for those regional fans. BYU has a national fan base and likely needs some tweaks to ensure the vast majority of its fans can see nearly all the games like the fans of all other B12 schools. With exposure and fan access being the BOT & BYU’s top priorities, they’re going to negotiate hard in this area.
http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=7538493
Not sure I agree with everything in there, but this might tend to be what the BYU brass is thinking. They want exposure and in a conference where Texas and Oklahoma are taking the ESPN slots, that’s probably their biggest concern. These are probably close to the actual reasons why BYU dropped off the list.
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that and BYU is run by the LDS church and not the AD. Wilner said it best a week ago, the hardest player to read is BYU. I’m guessing BYU fans are not happy though, just because you’re indy doesn’t make you ND, the cougars still need a seat at the AQ table to get back to equal with Utah.
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Good interview with KSU President (chairman of B12 expansion committee) on why TCU and what the Big 12 has been thinking about beyond that.
http://www.themercury.com/K-StateSports/article.aspx?articleId=dfe442cf86a942508d770d51ee94dfb0
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The comments on 10-14 are probably the most interesting.
Given the drop in BYU->Big 12’s stock; I could see them not doing anything in the near term if Missouri decides not to go to the SEC.
If Missouri does go to the SEC, I think they’ll just take Louisville.
I think BYU + 1 would be a strong enough justification to go up to 12 if they can work out an agreement with BYU down the road…
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LOL Best quote – , ‘hey are they all gonna disperse and go elsewhere in six years.’
That’s EXACTLY what is gonna happen. The 6 year thing is a play by UT (and a lesser extent OU) to get their TV networks up and running so that by then the Pac/B1G or whatever conference takes them WILL HAVE to accept those TV networks.
KU/ISU/BU/KState are really dupes if they can’t see that. They should insist on handing over media rights for at least 13-30 years if they really want stability.
BTW if UT had just given into this demand when NU asked for it 1.5years ago, all this stuff would have been averted, Nebraska would still be in the Big12, and likely A&M, MU would be staying put – and UT would have been able to keep LHN without all this self created instability.
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Nebraska might very well have left anyway.
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Nebraska and Texas A&M both would have left if they had invites from the Big Ten and SEC respectively. They both coveted that much more than a long-term commitment to the Big 12.
As for the Big 12, there’s no way they would have gotten anything longer than the Fox deal out of Texas. Texas isn’t going to lock itself in when the Big 12 is clearly less valuable as a whole than the Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC.
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Nebraska would not have reached out to the B1G last year if Texas had gone ‘all in’ in regards to the Big 12.
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Nebraska had already reached out to the Big Ten. It was just that driving back from that meeting Perlman basically said he had a deadline to commit to the Big 12.
Plus, Powers had already tipped off Perlman about the possibility of a Pac-16, so although it may have delayed things, the ball was already in motion re: Nebraska to the Big Ten. The whole ultimatum thing just moved the Big Ten’s timetable up by a half year.
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There was contact in Jan 2010 but not at the level you seem to be suggesting. Nebraska was exploring it’s options because of a tip that the landscape was about to blow up. If the Big 12 had taken the necessary steps to remain a stable and viable conference Nebraska would very likely not have left.
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Well, what you’re saying would have had to have happened well before all of this. I’m talking about the incident where Perlman told Texas that the only way to secure the Big 12 was to grant rights, and Texas said no. By that late in the game the Pac-16 was clearly on the table and Perlman had already had fairly deep discussions with the Big Ten. He called Delany after that meeting and told him that it was basically put up or shut up time. By then, even if Texas had said they’d consider granting rights, I’m pretty sure Nebraska would have still made the jump because the threat of a Pac-16 at some future time was already out of the bag.
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Ahh understood. We are just talking about different points in the time line.
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Delany Speaks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/07/sports/s124435D97.DTL
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany says the league has what it wants with 12 members.
Delany was at a Nebraska booster luncheon Friday. He says he hasn’t received many phone calls from schools looking for membership because they realize he’s serious about wanting to stand pat.
Delany said expanding the Big Ten beyond 12 teams wouldn’t be appealing now because it could compromise scheduling and chemistry among the schools.
Nebraska was accepted as the Big Ten’s 12th member last year. The Cornhuskers became active members this fall.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/07/sports/s124435D97.DTL#ixzz1a84Cbh9e
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Some of you have been asking for it. Here it is. Delaney once again says, not now.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j6v-7x0tCddU5G4xxttog4j74P4A?docId=1d0ff011c80f45eea81f047f7d1d073f
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The plan is to ask ND around 2015 when they’re redoing their NBC contract and the Big Ten is redoing its 1st/2nd tier rights. Most likely it’ll be a privately done inquiry that will be met with a polite rejection. Doubt we hear anything about it.
As much as I love expansion news, it looks like we could be at a 15-20 year detente between the major conferences.
This one could be much more permanent than the last given that there’s very little space left in the 5 biggest conferences. Pac-12, Big Ten, ACC-14, SEC-14 could all be unchanged in 20 years.
If Texas ends up sticking with the LHN, Big 12 might go back to 12 and settle there for a long time, just so it will be considered again as an equal to the other conferences with the prestige of the CCG, etc. This is especially more likely if a school like BYU asks to join. Barring something dramatic, we could be at the end of the major upheavals among the biggest conferences.
And it makes sense given that the only coveted schools outside the 4 bigger conferences are Texas, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma. There’s no reason for the Big Ten or Pac-12 to go anywhere unless the first two schools are on the table. There’s no reason for the ACC to go to 16 without either of those schools. There’s no reason for the SEC to go to 16 without an ACC school, and even if that happens, the ACC would just stay at 12 or go back to 14…
Hard to see any scenario that would lead to dramatic upheaval although as others have pointed out, these are being driven by media contracts. If we move to a world in which media changes (which it seems as if we are), then that will change everything including the successfulness of things like the BTN or Pac-12 Networks or LHN or whatever model the conferences are using…
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What Delaney is saying should shock no one. Guess why Missouri was rejected? They did not fit what the Big 10 wanted, the same applied to Pitt & Rutgers. I know people love to bring up politics, when mentioning The Big 10, but that is NOT the issue (For example:Tom Osborne and Nebraska were not rejected, despite being more Conservative than Madison, Wisconsin). It is more about the system itself, which benefits ALL schools involved (Which is why the Conference remained intact even when major changes have occured around it (Including wars & The Great Depression)), and will any added school make the system better or simply gum up the works (For example: See UT in th Big XII. They certainly brought in lots of $$$$$$$ but at the same time, made life miserable for everyone else (Guess why “Little Brother” A&M wants to get far away?)) The feeling was Nebraska would the Conference better, Missouri would not. Simply put:The only way a school will be added, is if their presence benefits every school in the Conference, not just a few.
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Delany said there’s a perception that realignment is done willy nilly.
“I just think we have to make a compelling case for change,” he said. “We don’t look at it as something insignificant. We look at it as fundamental to who we are. There are a lot of fans who look at it differently than a conference commissioner might. They look at it more like a fantasy sports experience or Monopoly.”
Even if a conference expands for the right reasons, Delany said, it can be a painful process.
“Whenever there is that much change and uncertainty, there are winners and there probably are going to be some losers,” he said. “We always want institutions to feel good about where they are. The instability is hard. Not everybody will be hurt. Some will be hurt. Some conferences will be hurt and some conferences will get stronger.”
Delany said expanding the Big Ten beyond 12 teams could negatively affect scheduling and relationships among the schools.
“Our objective is to have great competition, a great student-athlete experience, have institutions that understand each other and can collaborate and do things like the Big Ten Network, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation,” he said. “For us, we always would need to make a compelling case for expansion. Not any case. A compelling case.”
============================================================================
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. The B1G has already won. Nothing has changed (except instead of ‘Think Like a President’, now Delany says “Think Like a Conference Commish”).
See you in 2014 or when the Big East blows up, Notre Dame. Or not.
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I hate it that he left out the “We are the fat and arrogant Smaller 10” part…..
Sorry Jeff, letting MO go to the SEC is about as stupid as it gets. The Diminished 10 is a big loser coming out of this round.
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I don’t see how the Big Ten will be the “Smaller 10” or the “Diminished 10”. In a couple of years, the Big Ten will have the richest television deal, and share it amongst fewer teams than the ACC and SEC. The ACC, SEC, and Pac-12 are locked into their current television contracts until the early to mid 2020s.
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Please tell which of these is the best move:
A. Big 10 adding NU + CCG
B. PAC-10 adding CU + UU + CCG
C. SEC adding TAMU + Mizzou
D. ACC adding SU + Pitt
(I’ll give you a hint; it’s A)
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The Pac 10 has benefitted the most financially. And they may in exposure.
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The PAC’s new TV deal was (mostly separate) from expansion. Given the current environment they were in line for a big day anyways. Not saying Colorado and Utah didn’t help, but I can’t imagine they increased the per team value of the conference all that much outside of the CCG, which is less valuable (based on the TV deal) than the Big 10s.
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Latest rumor update from a South Carolina forum:
1. Mizzou does have the votes for acceptance if placed in the East.
2. Alabama is adamant that they not loose their rivalry game with Tennessee.
3. Alabama is also demanding that Auburn not be moved to the East, due to the fact it moves the Iron Bowl to earlier in the season.
4. with Mizzou in the East, they would get Arkansas as the cross divisional opponent. Carolina, would be paired with Texas A&M.
5. SEC presidents/chancellors will meet this weekend with Commissioner Slive to vote on Mizzou.
If true what will the Big12 do? Gut the Big East?
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Louisville. I’d stick with the theory that if BYU was coming it would have already been accepted with TCU holding off to replace Missouri.
Plus, BYU is valuable enough that it could be the Big 12’s justification for #11 with WVU or someone else as #12 (money justification being the CCG).
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Of course, Louisville probably can’t come next year. Now with WVU, UL and Cincinnati, maybe everyone does get out next year. BYU can come next year. Big 12 really wants to stay at least 10 to avoid TV contract and scheduling problems.
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Missouri might not be out as quick as A&M though. The SEC seemed to expect a 13 team season and Missouri starting this so much later means waiting an extra year is certainly understandable (and much cheaper presumably).
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BYU can come next year-UL can’t.
If its UL/WVU/Cincinnati they could probably get out early, but I would think the Big 12’s preference would be 10 now and if they do 12, to have them come in 2013 or 2014 closer to contract renewal. Although, there has been discussion of re-doing and extending the current contract with ABC/ESPN.
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Wouldn’t be a total disaster to have to do 1 or 2 years at 9 teams if they had to… as would be the case for Louisville replacing Missouri.
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If the Big12 were to destroy Big East football by taking Louisville, Cincinnati and WVU, there would only really be USF,UConn and Rutgers left. At that point I am pretty sure that the conference would simply dissolve and so no 27 month period would be needed.
Also the 27 month time period can be negotiated, Pitt and Syracuse definitely think so, by paying more than 5 million schools might be able to leave earlier. The Big East members know that if people are leaving its best to leave asap so they can extend invites out asap.
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You think that USF, UConn and RU would let the BE fb conference break up? The BE is their only chance of being in a BCS conference in the near future. Why would they do that? I believe that no matter how many schools from the BE are left, they will rebuild the conference. They will not give up BCS status that easily.
There may be a question about them retaining BCS status but they would be foolish to just give up.
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I think the question is how many votes are necessary to simply dissolve the football conference. If it’s a simple majority then the departing schools can threaten to dissolve the conference if UCONN, Rutgers and USF don’t waive the 27 month requirement.
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Well, I suppose if Missouri is in the East they’ll get disgruntled with the SEC and be ripe for the 14th in the Big 10 in 2015.
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SEC indicate that they won’t lock teams in, so if MU decides to leave they can add FSU/Clemson/GT/WVU/Lville.
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From the weekend….
WEEK 5 summary – Top 25 and conference alignment – teams with loss in [bracket]
B1G 5/25 = 20% : Wisconsin, [Nebraska], Michigan, Illinois, Michigan State
5 wins vs 6 losses = 45% : losses to B1G schools = 5 : OOC losses = 1
SEC 5/25 = 20% : Alabama, LSU, [South Carolina], [Florida], Arkansas
7 wins vs 4 losses = 64% : losses to SEC schools = 4 : OOC losses = 0
B12 5/25 = 20% : Oklahoma, oSu, [TAMU], [Baylor], Texas
4 wins vs 4 losses = 50% : losses to B12 schools = 3 : OOC losses = 1
ACC 4/25 = 16% : [Virginia Tech], Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech
8 wins vs 3 losses = 73% : losses to ACC schools = 3 : OOC losses = 0
PAC 2/25 = 8% : Stanford, Oregon
5 wins vs 5 losses = 50% : losses to PAC schools = 5 : OOC losses = 0
MWC 2/25 = 8% : Boise State, [TCU]
2 wins vs 3 losses = 40% : losses to MWC schools = 0 : OOC losses = 3
BE 2/25 = 8% : [USF], West Virginia
4 wins vs 4 losses = 50% : losses to BE schools = 2 : OOC losses = 2
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WEEK 6 beginning – Top 25 and conference alignment – Conference and OOC
SEC 6/25 = 24% : Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, *South Carolina, *Florida, Auburn
11 teams : 5 SEC : 0 B12 : 0 B1G : 0 PAC : 0 ACC : 0 MWC : 0 BE : 0 IND : 1 OTR
OFF : Mississippi
B1G 5/25 = 20% : Wisconsin, Michigan, *Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan State
10 teams : 0 SEC : 0 B12 : 5 B1G : 0 PAC : 0 ACC : 0 MWC : 0 BE : 0 IND : 0 OTR
OFF : Wisconsin, Michigan State
B12 5/25 = 20% : Oklahoma, oSu, Texas, KSU, *TAMU
10 teams : 0 SEC : 5 B12 : 0 B1G : 0 PAC : 0 ACC : 0 MWC : 0 BE : 0 IND : 5 OTR
OFF : NONE
ACC 4/25 = 16% : Clemson, Georgia Tech, *Va Tech, FSU
10 teams : 0 SEC : 0 B12 : 0 B1G : 0 PAC : 4 ACC : 0 MWC : 1 BE : 0 IND : 1 OTR
OFF : Duke, Virginia
PAC 3/25 = 12% : Stanford, Oregon, Arizona State
10 teams : 0 SEC : 0 B12 : 0 B1G : 5 PAC : 0 ACC : 0 MWC : 0 BE : 0 IND : 0 OTR
OFF : USC, Washington
MWC 1/25 = 4% : Boise State
6 teams : 0 SEC : 0 B12 : 0 B1G : 0 PAC : 0 ACC : 1 MWC : 0 BE : 1 IND : 3 OTR
OFF : Colorado State, New Mexico
BE 1/25 = 4% : West Virginia
6 teams : 0 SEC : 0 B12 : 0 B1G : 0 PAC : 1 ACC : 0 MWC : 2 BE : 0 IND : 1 OTR
OFF : Cincinnati, USF
moved in : Auburn, Kansas State, Arizona State
dropped out : USF, Baylor, TCU
* teams losing in previous week
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15 undefeated teams left, 14 max by end of week:
B12 33% = Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, KSU, TT
Oklahoma vs Texas in week 6
B1G 20% = Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois
SEC 13% = LSU, Alabama
ACC 13% = Clemson, Georgia Tech
PAC 7% = Stanford
MWC 7% = Boise State
CUSA 7% = Houston
What are your 3 “must see TV” games for the weekend?
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13 undefeated teams left, 13 max by end of week:
B1G 23% = Wisconsin 11/19, Michigan 11/12, Illinois 11/12 & 11/19
Wisconsin vs Indiana / Michigan vs Michigan State / Illinois vs Ohio State
B12 23% = Oklahoma 11/29 & 12/03, Oklahoma State11/05 & 12/03, Kansas State
Oklahoma vs Kansas / Oklahoma State vs Texas / Kansas State vs Texas Tech
SEC 15% = LSU, Alabama : November 5
LSU vs Tennessee / Alabama vs Mississippi
ACC 15% = Clemson, Georgia Tech : October 29
Clemson vs Maryland / Georgia Tech vs Virginia
PAC 8% = Stanford
Stanford vs Washington State
MWC 8% = Boise State
Boise State vs Colorado State
CUSA 8% = Houston / OFF
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Frank,
Contracts can be opened?
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7071841/acc-reopened-tv-deal-negotiations-commissioner-john-swofford-says
Looks like the ink is barely dry, and Swofford and ESPN are at the table! So much for how impregnable these things are. If the ACC can get more money for Pitt and SU you have to think Slive can get more just for adding TAMU (and possibly MU).
“The commissioner said the ACC and ESPN had informally discussed changes to the existing TV deal before starting negotiations last weekend following last month’s decision to add Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East. This year, the ACC and ESPN began a 12-year deal worth $1.86 billion to give the network exclusive rights to conference football and men’s basketball games.”
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The difference is that ESPN probably won’t be paying that vastly different an ACC + Big East sum, as the latter’s shaky status almost certainly lessens its contractual power; Central Florida and East Carolina are not Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Even if the wording and conditions of the SEC contract with ESPN are identical (unlikely), its tie-in with CBS alters the landscape Slive has to navigate.
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Other big difference might be ACC informally talking with ESPN before move. The Big 12 being pushed down several pegs probably is not in ESPN’s interest (particularly if it indirectly led to schools heading to the PAC-12) and they probably weren’t going to give the SEC any incentives to do it. The ACC and Big East might be another matter though. The Big East contract is up next year and an ACC raid means less money on that contract so ESPN might have been more open to a renegotiation there.
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“Reopened” can mean one of several things. It could mean revaluing the whole deal at present market rates (which is what many SEC partisans believe could/should happen when the SEC expanded and which I doubt will). It could also just mean adding the current value of Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC deal.
Note that the B10 also reopened and renegotiated its TV contracts with Fox and ESPN after adding Nebraska, but the main thing the B10 got was the right to show BTN games during ESPN/ABC’s afternoon window. I believe the BTN payout just increased by a pro-rata share and the ESPN contract was the same or less.
No one ever said that TV deals can not be renegotiated after adding a member (they have to be, because the inventory has changed). What is disputed is whether current members of a conference would see a big jump in TV revenue after adding a member. I seriously doubt the ACC schools will see more money per school from adding Pitt & ‘Cuse, and I doubt the SEC schools will see significantly more as well.
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I agree with everything you’re saying. And what seems to be the case is that most of the situations are pro-rata increases to account for the new member/inventory.
We have yet to see a situation where the rest of the conference benefits from a new member. The Big Ten received a $7M per year bump to the BTN contract which basically covers Nebraska’s BTN portion (new inventory).
All indications are that the same will happen for the SEC and ACC. Unless a school like Texas or Notre Dame or UNC or FSU moves, it’s hard to see why anyone would get a significant enough contractual bump as to make everyone else better off.
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And I’m only referring to contracts in place.
Obviously, Nebraska being in the Big Ten will be fully valued in 2016 when we get the new ABC/ESPN numbers (or whoever the Big Ten signs with)…
I’d expect the same to be true for the SEC in the 2020s…
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@Richard – This is essentially what it is. I don’t believe that conferences can just completely tear up their existing deals or else leagues would just expand for the sake of expanding. Of course, that might be what’s happening right now with respect to the ACC, but it’s more likely along the lines of what Richard has said. ESPN is a pretty tough negotiator and to have such an “easy” trigger for a full-fledged reopening of an agreement doesn’t make sense for them to ever agree to.
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I don’t think a contract “has” to change. Depends on the deal. Both sides would want some such terms I would think. Are these ks public?
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It’s also possible the ACC (and Pac12) may have demanded an expansion rider, something conferences (incl. the SEC) may not have asked for before. Based on the ACC and Pac12 contracts, a true market value for the SEC is probably 30-35 million/team/year, 40+ if the SEC can convince the networks their football dominance is “permanent.” ESPN/CBS are going to avoid paying the current market rates at all costs.
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ESPN’s incentives are very different. They have the BE schools and are about to go to bid. They are re-shuffling. They have A&M and Missouri in Tier I and are now going to get them in Tier II in the SEC.
Here’s an anti-expansion article from SEC land. Someone from SEC land not worshipping Slive & Co., points out the brilliant people in the SEC office hadn’t even considered scheduling.
Bright people often do pretty stupid things when they are tired and in a hurry. Also true when egos get involved. We shouldn’t give them all too much credit for doing things right. Saw one article that Slive at age 71 is trying to create a legacy.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20111008/SPORTS/110080337/Extra-point-Expansion-crutch-major-programs
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Honestly, I don’t think the SEC fully thought this through. That’s no disrespect to the people running the conference, but Mr.SEC has continually pointed out that this seems like Texas A&M forced the SEC to move with the SEC being unprepared for it.
The SEC clearly hadn’t thought of a #14 and now might be ready to settle for Missouri because they haven’t been able to shake FSU or Va Tech out of the ACC.
It was like when that Vanderbilt administrator was joking about inviting Yale to be #14. And I was like “you people can’t be serious, how have you not thought of #14, is anyone thinking about 5 years from now let alone 5 minutes from now.” We keep getting told that these are 100 year decisions, but no one’s acting like that. People are acting like this is musical chairs and the music is going to stop extremely soon.
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Perhaps the “music” is anticipated to stop when the BCS contract is up and the potential exists for dramatic change?
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You bring up a good point zeek about the SEC. When they invited 13 they had no idea who 14 was, TAMU completely forced their hand. When the ACC and Swofford saw the SEC go for 13 he knew he had to strengthen his flank and did so. I posed a scenario over at Mr. SEC and would love everyone else’s take on how the SEC would handle it.
First we have to start with what does every conference need/want:
From Easy to Fill to Hard to Fill
The Big East needs warm bodies
The Big 12 – 2 – 1 + 1 needs football ready schools
The ACC needs kings and football ready schools
The PAC 12 has no needs but wants kings, academics and to expand westward.
The B10G has no needs but wants kings, academics and to expand eastward.
The SEC needs cultural fit and new markets and wants kings
My scenario I posed was as follows: Assume Nienas can keep Mizzou at home and grabs WVU and Louisville getting the Big 12 back to 12. Both Louisville and WVU satisfy the need for football ready schools. Of course a move to take both would put the Big East in serious jeopardy. Also, this would in effect take three schools out that fit the SEC’s needs the best and are easiest to poach at the moment.
Afterwards, the Big 12 is locked up for 6 years, so the Big 12 is off the table.
Does Slive and company go hard after Clemson/FSU/NC State in the ACC?
Would they take a flyer on a Big East leftover, USF?
Would they bring a school up from a non-BCS conference?
or would they try to wait it out?
What we have seen throughout this entire process is when decisions are made the speed of movement increases dramatically. Sticking at 13 is not the same as sticking at 11 so I don’t think the SEC would be able to wait 5 years stuck on 13. Scheduling is going to be a nightmare for one year let alone 5 and a decision made now would be the same made two years from now because the tectonic plates of realignment would be roughly the same. So the question, what does the SEC do if the scenario bares out?
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I agree with you, and I think that if Missouri stays in the Big 12, the SEC would probably have to settle on WVU if the Big 12 started making eyes at WVU.
13 is clearly a very, very bad spot to be stuck in…
11 is not really that different from 10 or 9 other than that you don’t get round robin. But 13 makes divisions a total mess because you end up with strange scheduling.
If the SEC lets Missouri and WVU end up locked into the Big 12, then they really don’t have an obvious #14 if the ACC is strong enough to repel interest in FSU or Va Tech, that’s probably why Slive is going to push through an invite for Missouri…
All of this is also why the SEC can’t be too happy about Texas A&M forcing their hand. In some sense, it would have made sense to take FSU or Va Tech as #13 and then go to Texas A&M (who would jump in anyways) as #14. But of course, the Aggies weren’t going to wait that long…
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What you suggest is a real scenario where USF finds a good home. And USF wouldn’t be all that bad for the SEC. Going to 14 means all the western schools get less exposure to Florida which is critical for all of them. USF could also easily be moved west if they go to 16 with two eastern teams at some point.
But I don’t think the Big 12 is going to lock up WVU before Missouri makes their decision. I think they should go to 12 and should think about doing that. I suspect they will be deliberate and wait until Spring to decide on 10 or 12. They will still have Louisville and BYU available to get to 12.
Neinas is saying 9 and 14 and 16 are out. Its 10 or 12.
http://sportsblogs.star-telegram.com/colleges/2011/10/big-12-final-configuration-to-be-10-or-12-teams-neinas-says.html
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If we think in game theory, BYU is an open call option to the Big 12.
1. The Pac 12 won’t take them on religious grounds
2. BYU is too far away and too different for any of the other leagues to contemplate them (unless you buy into Frank’s Big Flyover Conference)
3. BYU is ok being an independent at the moment
BYU’s value is in its ability to be plugged in almost immediately exactly like TCU was. The difference is TCU had a little more value currently and the expiration on that option was fast approaching. BYU’s option given the above is open-ended.
I believe Mizzou’s move will dictate whether the Big 12 goes to 10 or 12.
If Mizzou stays:
The value to the Big 12 is grabbing WVU and Louisville as it forces the SEC into a quicker decision on 14 and ultimately makes the Big 12 more stable by satiating the beast to the east (SEC). You put the SEC in awkward situation of either grabbing a Big East team (USF) during the implosion or pray you can pull an ACC team in the next two years (and by the way Swofford will know your coming).
If Mizzou leaves:
At that point, BYU is the plug. Why? Well, you only need one school and the SEC is fat and happy so they won’t be grabbing anyone. Thus what value is there to blowing up the Big East when you may need schools down the road. The ACC won’t do it, the B10G won’t, and the SEC certainly won’t. Better to have Louisville and WVU in a BCS conference then having one scramble.
The key to all this is that 13 in the SEC is unsustainable and whether the SEC fills that void or is forced too – its going to happen in the next month or two – not two to three years from now.
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Was it Delaney saying it wasn’t game theory? And if it was, TCU was always there, just like BYU. Noone else would take them and the BE couldn’t hold them.
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bullet,
Don’t know if it was Delaney or not, but its complete game theory – the key is everyone has different goals and objectives. If UT was on the block tomorrow without TTU and LHN, Delaney and Scott would be jumping over themselves to get UT. Everyone has different needs and wants. Delaney wants another king in his conference and he will not move for anything less. The only two kings left are UT and ND. That makes it pretty easy to guess Delaney’s moves. If they don’t involve one or the other then it will not happen. Same goes for Pac 12, but they are probably a little more open-minded about little brothers. That leaves use with 4 players, ACC, SEC, Big 12, and the Big East.
The easiest to determine is the SEC. They need a cultural fit. I highly recommend the Mr SEC series on expansion that just wrapped up as a primer. It basically comes down to pulling one of the southern ACC schools (Va Tech, Clemson, FSU), grabbing Mizzou from the Big 12, or settling on Louisville or WVU. That’s it. That’s the extent of the SEC’s list. We still don’t know if the ACC plans to go beyond 14, but they most likely won’t make a move on the Big East unless the SEC raids them for 14 (hence why Swofford bulked up and is letting UConn sweat it out). The Big East is pretty much out of it and is getting turned down by service academies now. That leaves us with the Big 12 and what the Big 12 does hinges on Mizzou.
You are correct in that TCU was always there, but they were not always needed. This year they were needed. I think if all of this had happened a year from now we would be talking about BYU and not TCU. The key was the impending move to the Big East put them on the market and possible political thoughts behind their move into the Big 12. Don’t discount the Texas politics involved. If the Big East were to fail with TCU still in it due to the actions of TAMU and UT, and there had been a way to save TCU don’t think that wouldn’t have repercussions in 2013 once the Texas legislature came back into session. Of course, I don’t think this would happen a year from now because TAMU would have never moved while the legislature is in session. In a word: Right Place, Right Time, Right Scenario for TCU.
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If Brigham Young says yes to the Big 12, it stops at 10. If BYU says no, it’s the eastern trio of West Virginia, Cincinnati and Louisville.
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Are you saying the PAC wants into Hawaii?
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There is an untapped market of boats between Hawaii and California. 🙂 Eastward would be what I was going for there.
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If West Virginia becomes the Big 12’s prime target to replace Missouri, does it likely mean a 12-member conference? If it’s the only school east of the Mississippi, that’s quite an outlier. Louisville and Cincinnati would seem to be its most likely partners.
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http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7077468/new-big-12-chairman-burns-hargis-missouri-stay-big-12-conference
“Hargis says the Big 12 is still considering expansion options and would prefer schools that are in the league’s footprint and that would not dilute the revenue the current members are generating.”
That doesn’t make any sense at all, since there are no choices like that. (And it probably doesn’t mean anything).
We’re probably looking at WVU as the main replacement for Missouri as others have said. It’ll be like Miami in the Big East in terms of outliers (although the time change is an additional factor versus Miami-Big East).
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I saw that. I’ve also seen it said no more Texas schools. Houston is the only school “in the footprint” that is halfway rational. It may be that he’s talking Central Time Zone (no Boise, perhaps no BYU, definitely no UConn, Rutgers or USF). That would pretty much limit it to Louisville (CST), WVU (EST), Cincinnati (EST), and two real Central Time Zone longshots-Tulane and Memphis.
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So its definitely musical chairs for the BE. Pac 12, Big 10+2, ACC done for now. SEC-needs 1. Big 12-needs 0 to 3 depending on if the SEC takes Missouri. So that means there are 1 to 3 slots and 6 Big East schools and BYU looking for AQ homes. UConn and Rutgers are in bad shape unless ND decides to give up independence. USF needs hangtime’s scenario. Cincy, BYU, UL and WVU are sweating.
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Yep. Hard to see how the Big East comes out of the SEC’s #14 conundrum intact. Maybe if BYU ends up being the replacement for Missouri…; outside of that, it seems as if the Big East will lose at least 1 more in any scenario.
And if BYU does join the Big 12 someday, they could lose another…
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Looks like same interview-different questions-including one on what “footprint” means.
http://newsok.com/article/3611757
Basically he doesn’t know, but is looking at “this Midwest culture that we have would be great.”
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I know a lot of people complain about DeLoss being in charge of the Big 12.
But some of these clowns make me glad that Texas is running the show there…
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Although the Big East may lose Louisville, West Virginia and possibly Cincinnati don’t be surprised if Marinatto still forces the football members to stay for 27 months. I think their strategy will be to add UCF, East Carolina, Memphis and Temple to play at 12 teams for next 2 years and attempt to use the league’s performance in that time to preserve their BCS status. If WVU and any of those departing schools have have good seasons during that time the BE will get to count those towards retaining BCS status.
I could also see also them inviting Villanova, giving them 3 years to transition from FCS to FBS and begin play in 2014. That would put them at 8 (or 9) teams and if they want to get to ten or more FB members perhaps offer SMU and/or Houston. Knowing the Basketball schools, my guess is instead of the Texas schools they would offer UMass or Colonial Athletic Assoc. schools UNC Charlotte, Old Dominion, James Madison or Delaware football only memberships to get to 10 or 12. All those schools are reportedly interested in moving up to the FBS and UMass will begin play next year in the MAC.
It’s the only explanation I can see for them to just sit here and do nothing after Pitt and Syracuse announced they were leaving. They are going to force these schools to stay a full 27 months and ride their coattails for as long as they can. It sounds petty but a lot can happen in 2 years; will those conferences have patience and wait that long for their new members? Or will some other changes happen during that time?
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The other explanations are: 1) fb schools don’t want to stay; 2) bb schools aren’t sure fb is worth it.
If you are left with UConn, Rutgers, USF and Cincinnati, maybe the bb schools don’t want football requiring them to select teams. They’ve got a good 12 team conference. Those 4 could join another conference for football. Obviously, that’s not what the fb schools would want, but do the bb schools think its worth it to be anchored to ECU and UCF? I think that’s why they’ve been talking about Villanova, Navy, Air Force and Temple, schools they wouldn’t have to admit for basketball. That’s also why Pitt and SU were so anxious to get out.
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My understanding is the BCS status of everyone is re-evaluated after the ’03-’04 season so anything that happens now is pretty meaningless regarding your BCS status come ’04-’05 & beyond.
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I assume we have to move everything you said up a decade, to ’13-’14, ’14-’15 and the like.
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Good assumption.
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One of the dirtiest hits you’ll ever see was committed by an aTm piece of trash tonight, ending a young man’s season and possibly career. Should be suspended the rest of the season.
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Somewhere in here, someone made a comment in the last couple of days about Air Force and the Missouri Valley being discussed. Here’s an interview with AF AD indicating its being strongly considered. Also shows money isn’t everything to everyone. Air Force declined to pursue the Big 12. A week or so ago when someone asked where AF other sports would go if they went to the BE for football, I suggested the MVC. The MVC is evenly split between private schools and state schools and is pretty strong in a lot of sports, especially basketball.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/FBC-AIRFORCE-EXPANSION_6259075/
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Swofford’s comments on expansion:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/10/08/2676657/when-it-comes-to-acc-swofford.html
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Syracuse played Tulane in the Superdome today. I know Syracuse is not a big draw… but there is NO way that the announced crowd of 23K was accurate. If there were 5 digits of fans, I would be surprised. Seriously… you need to see the footage. How can the Big XII even consider a team that was likely outdrawn by high schools this weekend?
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Looks like Air Force is still interested in the Big East (very much so if all 3 service academies are members) and, whether or not they switch football conferences, it’s likely that they’ll send their other sports to the Missouri Valley Conference. Also, Air Force turned down interest from the Big 12, although it seemed to be more for competitive reasons than stability issues.
http://www.gazette.com/sports/mueh-126443-names-john.html
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That’s the first administrator that I’ve seen actually think about fitness for an institution. Good to see that the AFA is in good hands.
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An academy admin who is basing decisions on athletic recruiting has very possibly lost focus on what his actual core mission is.
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Scarlett,
While the AD core mission is athletics, I guarantee you the Superintendent of AFA understands his school’s core mission. The BE only play here is if it can convince all three D-1 Service Academies to join. And I can tell you that as they are comparing notes, Army’s experience in C-USA is being heavily discussed.
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Given the Air Force Academy’s recent history with major leadership lapses I don’t believe anyone can guarantee that. Unfortunately, the same hold true for Annapolis where the ‘diversity’ scandal has been bubbling for a few years now.
All of that is of course outside of the scope of this forum.
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Scarlet,
In the article, he says it’s for recruiting, not just athletics recruiting. I can believe it (well, not a lot, but a little). Just as BYU likely wants to remain independent to spread the faith, AFA may want to get their school noticed in areas of the country where they usually are not in order to get their name in the news and in front of high schoolers who may not have considered them otherwise. West Point and Navy don’t need more brand recognition. AFA being in the news & being on more national channels may reach high schoolers who would consider Army, Navy, or ROTC but not AFA as strongly before.
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Gotta think that $9-$10M per team projection is a bit nuts without Pitt, Syracuse, TCU, and whomever else leaves to complete the Big XII or SEC.
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Question is whether that is everything or just football.
They were thinking $12-$15 million all sports with those 3. No way they get $9-$10 football only now. May still be there with the right schools for all sports.
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http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_760984.html
6 years, 218M from ESPN. 36M per year.
1/3 of the $$$ goes to the football schools to split evenly.
12M/8 teams = $1.5M.
2/3 of the $$$ goes to all schools to split evenly.
24M/16 teams = $1.5M
Another $9M/year from CBS for hoops.
$9M/16 teams = .600
Pitt takes in about $3.6M per year from TV.
I question the $1.4B #. Everywhere else I have seen $1B.
At 1.4B, Pitt would have increased by $10M per year to $14M.
Even at $1B, that is 3 times the money the Big East was taking in. I can see why ESPN got royally pissed off at the Big East for rejecting a 300% raise.
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A guest columnist and former dean of the celebrated Newhouse communications school at Syracuse University details how ACC membership may work to SU’s academic advantage:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/syracuse_university_acc.html
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The real Dan Beebe speaks.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7080495/ousted-big-12-commissioner-dan-beebe-puts-onus-nebraska-cornhuskers
Some of his comments:
Nebraska was one of the biggest objectors to equal revenue sharing that he had pushed and believes this all could have been done earlier with no defections
Thinks Colorado is the one move that made the most sense
HS games and 2nd game were objections to LHN, not the money
Schools wanted 4 Texas teams for exposure
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The Colorado move certainly makes more sense for them now that the Pac-12 has its shiny new TV contract. Financially it seemed questionable at the time, with the exit penalties they were paying.
I doubt we’ll ever get the straight story on the last year of the Big 12. Now it’s Nebraska that opposed equal revenue sharing? Sure, whatever.
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Nebraska was always against equal revenue sharing. That wasn’t a disputed fact last year. Nebraska, along with Texas, OU, and I believe A&M made more money without equal revenue sharing.
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Kansas was the other that made more than the average from unequal revenue sharing (due to basketball). Not sure whether Kansas supported equal revenue sharing though…
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The real irrelevant Dan Beebe speaks.
FIFY
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One other thing, how does his version square with the fact that Texas A&M bolted this year?
And with Nebraska gone, they still didn’t get revenue sharing done despite the fact that it was on the table 3-6 months ago. They left it to languish on the board room desk and regardless, A&M still bolted.
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SU academic says ACC move may benefit SU academically. Article discusses CIC (she was formerly at Michigan) and demographics. Northeast high schools graduated 543k student in 2007-8 and are projected to graduate 463k in 2019-20.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/syracuse_university_acc.html
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Vincent also posted this.
But I really have my reservations as to whether there’s much academic benefit to these kinds of moves for undergraduate focused institutions.
Let’s be honest, how many high schoolers actually watch college football/basketball? Maybe some do, but not that many. And they certainly aren’t going to choose private institutions based on strength in athletics. High schoolers who are looking at elite institutions look at US News mainly among other things. In that respect, getting the highest possible US News ranking is the most important goal if you’re a private school trying to get students from other regions.
The difference between the ACC and the Big Ten is that ACC institutions are way more in competition with one another for students because there’s more private institutions as well as more state overlap (only a few state flagships). Big Ten institutions mostly serve their own state (as the flagship) and try to grab some students from Chicago (like Iowa or Michigan State) or other states including some outside the Big Ten footprint.
From personal experience, I knew next-to-nothing about college sports when I was applying for colleges. My graduating class was made up of students that mostly ended up choosing among out-of-state private institutions. In terms of getting students to go to institutions, this kind of thing really won’t affect any decisions being made.
I had no idea that Northwestern was a Big Ten institution until I joined, although I chose Northwestern over JHU because Northwestern had a big time athletics program and I thought that’d be a better experience for an undergrad. But Syracuse going from the Big East to the ACC doesn’t create that kind of distinction…
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It might depend on your area somewhat. Most people around here follow Ohio State closer than the Browns or Bengals. With that said though, most also couldn’t tell you most other Big Ten colleges or that there is even an academic link.
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Yeah, I mean I’m from Florida so I really had no clue. Then again, no one really follows college sports at a young age in South Florida, so that’s probably why. In places like Alabama, Louisiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, it’s probably far more important.
But again, I’m not sure it’s really going to help with student recruitment. I’ve helped a lot of kids with SAT prep-work among other things, and all of those kids choosing colleges had no idea what Big Ten or ACC or Pac-12 really meant in terms of the institutions involved.
Kids these days figure out where they’re going based on a set of factors that really doesn’t include that at all for almost all of them…
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I think the one way sports, helps colleges recruits is that it gives the colleges a little name brand. You’re in south Florida. Have you ever heard of Miami (OH) as a school? If so, I’m guessing it’s probably mostly because of college football. That’s the only thing I think probably helps the colleges a little. If you are looking to go somewhere further away, you probably instinctively have a little more likelihood of going if you have actually heard of and the big name brands probably get an extra boost beyond that.
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Yeah that’s fair.
Also, one thing about Syracuse that I hadn’t realized is that it has a large undergraduate population for a private institution. It’s kind of like USC-sized in that respect, so I could see this having a bigger impact on them than other institutions in similar situations.
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Schools are really convinced that having football helps them. A lot of schools, especially in the South are adding it. Everyone who does it says their applications and enrollment are up.
I suspect the visibility is the biggest factor. I followed college sports quite a bit when I was in HS and knew all the conferences (but then I had lived in SEC, Big 10 AND SWC territory). That didn’t impact my college choice. I remember listening on the radio to Grant Teaff’s Baylor team’s seminal upset of Texas in ’74 and rooting for the underdog. I didn’t seriously consider Baylor and I went to UT.
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Football helps in other ways too. I can tell you from talking to my relatives who are professors at Boise State that since the Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma, they’re getting three and four times as many applicants for each academic or administrative position. The people they’re hiring are far more qualified than before. Some of that is the economy, but invariably when they ask applicants “What made you interested in Boise State?” they always say that they first heard of the school because of the football team or the smurf turf.
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Even in elementary school I could have named the B10 teams. I didn’t know about the CIC, but I knew who OSU played in conference.
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On the other hand, where ACC is likely to be better is probably for image in graduate research programs. That’s where the ACC could end up making its IAC into more of a CIC to try to get some benefits for graduate research.
Prospective graduate professors are the ones who are going to look at ACC membership as a boon to the institution.
Of course, again, the ACC institutions are wildly different in terms of graduate focus. Some institutions are way more research intensive (UNC, UVA, Duke) than others in that conference. No idea how that will square out…
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zeek,
Let’s be honest, how many high schoolers actually watch college football/basketball? Maybe some do, but not that many.
I think this is highly dependent on where you live and what kind of high school you are in. Public high school students in many areas are very interested in college sports. Private school students may be less interested on average. Certainly region makes a big difference (think AL versus DE). I certainly followed college sports in junior high and high school and so did many of my friends.
And they certainly aren’t going to choose private institutions based on strength in athletics. High schoolers who are looking at elite institutions look at US News mainly among other things. In that respect, getting the highest possible US News ranking is the most important goal if you’re a private school trying to get students from other regions.
No, but it does improve the academic neighborhood while getting them more southern exposure. Joining the ACC will probably improve their USNWR ranking, and will certainly get them more interest in FL and GA.
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I think it is notable because Syracuse’s chancellor has the B1G/CIC experience. Trying to duplicate some of those benefits has to have a positive impact on academics. This is particularly true where there is no academic side to the Big East at all.
Also, I don’t think students choose a college based on sports teams. However, students can know of a college based on sports teams.
You didn’t know about NW. But you had heard of Duke, right? What’s the difference? Elite basketball.
I also think that there are a lot of students that would prefer to be aligned with a college that gets itself in the news periodically based on athletic prowess. What is more fun… going to a TCU game with 40,000 fans or going to a Tulane game with 4,000? Having a sports program to rally the students around also contributes to the experience.
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I definitely agree that there’s an impact, but I really don’t think it’s that big unless it’s seriously sustained excellence that creates that kind of impact.
I just don’t think that it’s going to really help make the decision unless you’re comparing two institutions and one has big time sports and the other doesn’t.
But there’s no difference between the Big East and ACC in that respect. Where the difference is going to be is at the graduate level. I think the ACC could work there and that would help with bringing in graduate researchers, etc.
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ACC vs. Big East as academic brand (EZCUSE)
Aside from whatever actual research cooperation benefits ACC membership provides SU or BC or Pitt, the brand or association with schools like UNC, UVA, Duke, GT, and others vs. Louisville, Cinn, WVU, USF is of huge value, especially for private schools.
Association with ACC schools in a north-south coastal conference affects perception of quality: and is almost certainly going to have an impact on alumni donations, interest by potential students, not to mention recruits, fan interest, and media coverage.
It’s not even close.
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Is Florida State in danger of losing King status?
1999: National Champions
2000: 11-2, Orange Bowl
2001: 8-4, Gator Bowl
2002: 9-5, Sugar Bowl
2003: 10-3, Orange bowl
2004: 9-3, Gator Bowl
2005: 8-5, Orange Bowl
2006: 7-6, Emerald Bowl
2007: 7-6, Music City Bowl
2008: 9-4, Champs Sports Bowl
2009: 7-6, Gator Bowl
2010: 10-4, Chik-Fil-A Bowl
2011: 2-3. Only wins so far are over Louisiana-Monroe and Charleston Southern (a city directional school?) I get that Oklahoma and Clemson are tough… but losing to Wake too?
I get that from 1987 to 2000, they had a streak of all 10-win seasons. But FSU has been in BCS bowls with records of 9-5, 10-3, and 8-5 since then. That’s an average record of 9-4. About the same as UConn last year.
According to this report (http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/), which has been tossed around here in support of adding or not adding various teams, FSU’s fan base is not that much different than new adds Pitt and Syracuse…and was already only 8th in the ACC. I am sure that there are no shortage of FSU fair-weather fans in various cities that were under-reported. But even from a home attendance standpoint, FSU fits between Michigan St. and Iowa.
Even if not in danger now… at what point will seasons of 3-6 losses lead to FSU becoming something other than a King?
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It would take a while in my opinion.
The easiest measure of a king is perception. “How easy is it for the team to get a high ranking?” is one question to ask that’s a rough measure on how the media views a school’s importance.
When enough time has passed and a school that was formerly a king struggles for relevance, that’s when you know that it’s not a king anymore. The best example of this is Tennessee.
Tennessee would easily have been seen as a king during the 90s. But how many people consider it to be a king nowadays?
FSU on the other hand is still fairly easily a king. Their recruiting rankings are easily top 5-10 every year, and they got that absurdly high preseason ranking this year.
Once the media stops buying into it, that’s probably around when you lose the king status. Of course, there are other things like fanbase size, etc. that will keep some schools kings regardless of mediocrity, but FSU is nowhere near that. If FSU kept having seasons of 3-6 losses and eventually stopped receiving high preseason rankings and the buzz died down, then sure.
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Interesting about no Florida teams in top 25 for first time since 1982.
With USF, UCF, FAU FIU, and all of the other schools spending so much time recruiting in Florida, it has to cut down the margin for error somewhat if you recruit a bust. Perhaps even more so defensively than offensively.
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Yeah, that’s an interesting thing to note.
It’s also interesting how so many teams from other conferences are now recruiting Florida especially hard, not just SEC teams like Alabama or Georgia. ACC teams and Big Ten teams have really been hitting Florida hard. Wisconsin should have 10+ Floridians and Michigan/Ohio State have really been going after recruits this past decade. I’d imagine that Syracuse/Pitt will join the fray along with Penn State’s eventual successor to JoePa (especially if it’s Urban Meyer).
Combined with USF getting into the Big East and becoming a BCS team along with possibly UCF soon, you’re right that the margin in Florida is now much smaller.
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Syracuse’s roster in the early 1990s had a surprising # of Florida players. Especially the skill positions. Among the things that contributed to Syracuse becoming mediocre, and then GERG-awful, was abandoning Florida.
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USF,UCF,FAU,FIU aren’t taking many recruits, if any, from UF, FSU, Miami. Now the other SEC schools and ACC schools may be.
I think FSU has plenty of time. Note that they made bowls all those seasons and had no losing seasons. If they went through what OU went through in the 90s, they might be at risk as they don’t have 60-100 years at the top, but it would take a while.
I didn’t view TN as a king in the 90s. Boise has had a lot of success and clearly isn’t one. TN was a step below as they were pretty mediocre in the 70s-80s. They just had a good run. With UGA struggling under Goff and Donnan, they competed just with UF for an SEC championship game birth.
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IMO, that is short-sighted. In the 1990’s, Syracuse used to get a lot of skill players from Florida. They would not get a stud player ahead of Florida, FSU, or Miami… but they could sneak out diamonds in the rough. A WR that would be starting as a Junior or a DB that would make crushing hits on special teams for a few years before working his way into the starting lineup.
Back then, the big 3 would get both the top players and a bunch of diamonds in the rough too. Those teams had incredible depth and always had players ready to step right in and become the next big thing.
Now, while USF and UCF might not be taking the stud players, they are further eroding the high-quality depth. And then you have FAU and FIU also eroding some of that depth.
I just pulled up ESPN’s top 100 recruits from Florida for 2009. USF picked up #13, #26, #30, #31, #45, #58, #66, #74, #78, #90, #91 and #100. Add 3 more guys to each of the Big 3… multiply that by 5 years… and that’s a lot of talent being dispersed just within the state.
Now you are seeing some guys choose USF over the Big 3.
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Good info, but I’d be surprised if any but a handful of those players were in positions that UF/FSU/Miami needed. I believe it was Mike that had recruiting info from Rivals on school vs. school. It would be interesting to see the Big 3 vs. UCF and USF. I can’t imagine FIU or FAU getting anyone the Big 3 had any interest in.
Saw a quote onetime talking about players who chose a school because they wanted playing time. Those are players the bigger school really doesn’t want. They want players who believe they are going to get playing time.
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Recruiting is why I think South Florida shouldn’t be overlooked in the Big 12 expansion derby, particularly in a 12-member scenario. Many of the old Big Eight schools have recruited heavily in Florida for years, and getting a foothold there could aid the likes of Iowa State, Kansas State and Kansas if the Texas well runs dry. Having USF, Louisville and West Virginia in a “north” division could bolster the Big 12’s talent base, and it probably has a better long-term future than Cincinnati. (This is assuming Brigham Young is off the boards.)
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Well, with USF involved, perhaps that division with UL, WVU, ISU, KSU and KU should be called the “East.”
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EZCUSE:
Um, MSU and Iowa would be in the top 2 in attendance in the ACC if they were in that league.
Also, while that NYT blog post is mostly correct, there are a few major deviations from reality (mostly because the poll data they rely upon isn’t scientific and has a rather small sample size for some schools/regions). For example, no one who lives in the real world believes that there are more GTech fans that UGa fans. FSU is also undercounted (not as active on the ‘nets?)
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#1 So? Does anyone think MSU and Iowa are Kings? Hells no. So how does FSU get the attendance pass?
#2 I don’t buy the blog post at all. But others rely on it as gospel.
#3 Is FSU a permanent King? Or are they in danger of losing it if another decade of relative mediocrity passes by.
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Not that there was much doubt, the Big 12 has narrowed their options down to 10 or 12 team models.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/10/09/3430471/big-12-to-have-10-or-12-members.html
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http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/mens_basketball/articles/2011/10/09/power_move_by_acc/?page=1
“While Syracuse presented no problem, UConn did – to BC, which was still fuming over what it perceived to be vitriolic comments made when BC was finally invited to join the ACC and started competing in 2005. UConn and Pittsburgh filed a lawsuit against BC, and Calhoun made comments about never playing BC again.
DeFilippo does not deny that BC opposed the inclusion of UConn.
“We didn’t want them in,’’ he said. “It was a matter of turf. We wanted to be the New England team.’”
Although BC and UConn are the only FBS schools in New England, BC officials were reluctant to give UConn any more credence. Membership in the ACC would do that.”
BC-centric article on ACC expansion. While I think there’s a bit of chest thumping going on with respect to the storyline presented; I think it’s obvious that BC doesn’t want UConn in the ACC.
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This is why college football dies over there. That’s the stuff of rivalries.
UConn gets some play in NYC, and Boston College matchup would’ve done wonders for both schools.
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That has always been a problem for the schools in the Northeast; they have been petty, short sighted and willing to make decisions that have been against their best interest long term. BC was never crazy about UConn moving up to D1 in football because they feared if successful, UConn could become New England’s favorite college team. UConn’s Basketball programs have become national powers thanks to the Big East and enjoy a lot of media attention in New England, overshadowing BC’s programs. While BC has had the better football program overall the past decade, UConn has the resources and potential to grow into one that can compete with BC for recruits and already has a better base of fan support.
BC might’ve been successful in keeping UConn out this round but it if UNC and Duke want UConn for it’s Basketball value in a future expansion, BC will not be able to stop it.
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True, but there are also plenty of other people with no ties to Boston College who have no love for Connecticut either, seeing it as ESPN’s “house team” that would be nowhere close to what it is without the “mothership,” as Dan Patrick describes it. (Jim Calhoun’s recruiting tactics and an obnoxious nouveau riche base compound matters.) These critics are hoping that without a strong Big East, UConn programs wither on the vine. Maybe the Huskies will eventually join the ACC, but by that time a few years in the conference wilderness may diminish the hubris emanating from Storrs.
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For some reason, Dan Beebe holds grudge against Nebraska. He doesn’t point out that Nebraska alone couldn’t prevent rule change and doesn’t point out that after Nebraska left there was no equal revenue sharing until now. Nebraska didn’t want equal revenue sharing, but neither did Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma. To have Beebe suggest that all the Big 12’s problems are Nebraska’s fault is silly. Just like blaming everything on Texas is.
Behold the birth of a zombie lie.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7080495/ousted-big-12-commissioner-dan-beebe-puts-onus-nebraska-cornhuskers
It was a “bittersweet” development for Beebe, who said in a wide-ranging interview with ESPN.com that it was something he attempted two years ago.
But the Nebraska Cornhuskers stood in the way, he said.
It was a “bittersweet” development for Beebe, who said in a wide-ranging interview with ESPN.com that it was something he attempted two years ago.
But the Nebraska Cornhuskers stood in the way, he said.
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I can kind of see why he might be a little extra bitter toward Nebraska. They were really the key to a lot here. Colorado leaving wasn’t a huge deal, but Nebraska leaving gave the PAC-16 deal more time to be considered and led to A&M discussions with the SEC. Definitely not saying they should have, but if Colorado alone had left or maybe even Colorado and Missouri, the league might have been fine this year. Nebraska leaving looked like the straw that broke the camels back last year though and even though the league held in the end, I could see how he’d feel the issues from last year were what led to everything this year including him being canned.
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Nebraska leaving severely hurts the long-term value of the first tier rights of the TV contract. That’s why he’s bitter and that’s why Texas and company didn’t want Nebraska to leave.
Also, Nebraska’s easy to point to as the villain in all of this because everyone wants to paint Texas as the hero that saved the Big 12 (even though no one really believes that outside of the Big 12).
But Texas was standing against equal revenue sharing until they got the LHN deal that finally got them a way to monetize their brand outside of first/second tier rights, etc.
And it still doesn’t answer why Texas A&M would leave even after Nebraska left, and why equal revenue sharing wasn’t completed until after A&M bolted and OU tried to bolt…
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OU and Kansas were probably still opposed to equal revenue sharing. We know A&M was despite all their SEC is equal BS as they were the only ones wanting a special deal. Texas proposed it after CU and UNL left. Traditionally, UNL, CU, UT, A&M, OU, KS and MU were the haves who wanted “earned” revenue sharing while the other 5 wanted “equal” revenue sharing.
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I think it’s safe to say the only schools for uneven sharing were Texas, A&M, OU, and NU. Both Missouri and Colorado complained publicly about the uneven system. I have never seen anything about Kansas but generally they would be better (exception for their Orange Bowl year) off had there been even sharing.
The appearance model hurt schools that followed the Bill Snyder “cupcake” model for non-conference scheduling (i.e. Kansas St, Leach era Tech, Mangino’s Kansas, Missouri to an extent).
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Really equal revenue sharing, in my opinion, has always been a red hearing. Not one team left the conference because they wanted more equal revenue sharing. The Big 12 just had the problem of being a new fairly new conference with a several very choice programs. The loyalty wasn’t there from anyone. It wasn’t Texas’ fault or Nebraska’s, or Baylor’s or anyone specifically. It was just that the history to the Big 12 was never as strong as other programs to the Big Ten, SEC, or PAC-10 and if consolidation started to happen, there was going to be too much pressure on the conference.
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I’ve felt like CU leaving was inevitable for a very long time. UNL was simply the case that the B1G was tired of passing up CCG revenues waiting for ND and considered going west instead of east (and the Pac 16 idea was stirring at the time). Anyone in the Big 12 North except CU would jump at a B1G invite. The geography and culture work as well as Big 12 and the $ are better.
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Colorado would have taken an invite anywhere if it meant more money. Their Athletic Department needed money, badly. That last year of Hawkins was because they couldn’t afford to buy him out (they were still paying money to Barnett).
The PAC12 was the luckiest thing to happen to them. It worked for them on pretty much every level, but if it meant less money they would still be proud members of the Big 12.
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It looked like it was at best equal money at the time. Now it meant more $ because they could connect better with their California alumni.
They would have taken B1G, but they wouldn’t have jumped the moment Delaney called-they wanted Pac.
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The reason there is absolutely no love lost for Nebraska in Big12 country is that they voted in near lock-step with Texas on all revenue and other conference issues, which helped create perceived instability. Then, after votes go their way, they leave for greener pastures while ex-conference mates get thrown under the bus as the bad guys.
The truth is Nebraska and Colorado weren’t really holding up their end of the bargain in the North. At the inception of the conference they were expected to hold up the North for football but they failed. All of a sudden they quit winning championships and the conference is too “Texas-centric”.
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Joe4PSU, I know that you enjoy the thought that goes into expansion and realignment. You may have already read this link. If not, perhaps you may find it interesting.
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Joe4PSu, had a little trouble the first post. Trying again:
http://www.mrsec.com/2011/10/expansion-by-the-numbers-10-the-big-finish/
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Thanks swesleyh. I try to keep up with mrsec but haven’t read this latest. Time to take a look.
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Sunday afternoon thoughts, a study of models and wealth
Note : long, but historical progress is included which takes up much space.
While we have been discussing realignment (and it is realignment, not expansion) we have forgotten at times to look at the math in where this came from, and where this is going. Frankly I am getting tired of the “super conferences” = (4) 20 team conferences, when this has never made sense in the first place. Several things come into play here, and they seem to be overlooked as people play “what if”. Feel free to add other things but there seem to be immutable laws and rules to college football. Here are some that come to mind:
#1 The law of diminishing returns
Since college football is an expensive sport compared to basketball there is a barrier to entry in the first place. To move to a top tier the cost is less linear and more exponential. Western Kentucky University moving to D 1 football was a huge expense, but once there, getting to the spending levels of a Texas or Ohio State is pretty much impossible. Like in america where the minority of the population controls the majority of the wealth, football is no exception. The issue is where this break is most obvious, and where the “grey area” provides the actual “central point”. Western Kentucky is easily defined at the bottom, and Texas at the top but in between are roughly 120 teams which need to know where they stand in the ability to actually compete at the top level. I think many think the draw pool is 120 teams +/- but I would argue it is actually 48 teams +/- as it always has been, and always will be. Sure you have a large number of schools that compete in March Madness, but the barrier to entry means the threshold for teams is much higher because of the associated costs. Plain and simple foot ball is expensive, and here are some examples:
more players vs fewer players
equipment (pads, helmet) vs shorts and shirt
stadiums (75,000) vs arenas (10,000)
large support staff vs small staff
large transportation cost vs small transportation cost
large food / lodging cost vs small food / lodging cost
#2 The standard bell curve in a zero sum game
Since the elimination of ties in college football we live in a world where (+1 = Win) + (-1 = Loss) = 0 (the zero sum game). Like students in a history class in college, some will fail, many will pass, and some will excel. While we take such things daily in school, we seem to ignore this when it comes to sports, even tho it is so much more obvious. We have a “top” list, and thanks to ESPN a “bottom” list, but the majority of teams and games fall in the middle. That looks pretty much like a standard bell curve to me, yet folks always seem to gloss over this obvious point. If 90% = top 10% = “A” student in school, then 10% of 120 D 1 schools = 12 (what I have referred to as “brands” and many on here refer to as “kings”. The problem is twofold tho in that only 50% of the 120 can compete year after year, and only 1 “brand” can dominate a division in any given year. This is again why I believe we are only looking at 48 +/- teams. If Notre Dame and Texas could survive as independents that gets you to 50 and not a whole new conference. The problem is at say the #50 cutoff point, many are in denial that they actually matter in the grand scheme of college football. The thing unspoken during the entire history is that this is actually the way it is.
#3 Conferences are just replications on a smaller scale
There are a few winners, a few losers, and a bunch of teams in the middle. This difference is the “smoothing” effect can be studied at the micro level instead of the macro one. On the macro level you have a winner from say the B1G, even tho on the micro level that winner can change. Macro = B1G winner, Micro = winner in given year (say Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State). Simply put a B1G football school will be on the national stage year in and year out, even tho the specific school may change. Ohio State is the “A” student, Indiana is the “F” student and by and large Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan State are the “C” students. (IU has historically soothed the wound of being the “F” student in football by being the “A” student in basketball) Go conference by conference and the pattern is replicated, along with the football vs basketball contrast. Alabama vs Kentucky, Southern Cal vs UCLA, Oklahoma vs Kansas, North Carolina vs Florida State. The issue then becomes the ability of a non AQ or lower AQ conference to gain ground long term.
#4 The “Law of 48” as observed by myself since about the 1970’s
In the 1970’s Carver Mead at Cal Tech took an observation that had been around but put a name on it so that an obscure concept (which was obvious to those involved) became a mainstream communication concept. Before that time many discussed, it but once the term “Moore’s Law” became the spoken term it has integrated into the mainstream so many can at least understand what is really being said. Hence “Duff’s Law” of 48 teams 😉 being necessary for the efficient operation of D 1 college football. While the number 48 is NOT exact, it is close to the “galactic central point” of the football galaxy. I do think 48 is the minimum (in modern and future form) but there is room for a 10% – roughly 5 team – set of possible exceptions.
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The evolution of the 48 team constant = 8 teams => 12 team => 16 teams => 24 teams
A) THE EIGHT TEAM MODEL means the majority of the major conferences have roughly 8 teams. I make several observations in saying this as 5 things guide the observations.
#1) From the beginning of college football to the post war era, there was the growth period that allowed the (6) 8 team models to emerge in the first place.
#2) The top Independent schools were a defacto conference, even if they were not viewed as a named conference, like the Big 10 or SEC.
#3) The number 8 per each conference is not an absolute, but a guideline – The Big 10 had more, and the ACC had less.
#4) The SIAA founded in 1894 is the granddaddy of them all, but it was so large I instead chose to focus on the primary offspring of the SEC, ACC, and SWC.
#5) The ACC has not been able to create a brand! Sure you could argue Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Pitt, et al – but they were Independents in their rise, not conference members.
Group #1 = The Big 10 – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
Formed as the ICFR in 1895 with Chicago, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, and Lake Forest. Founded in 1896 when Lake Forest drops out and Michigan is added. Since it had only 7 teams it was known as the Western Conference. In 1899 Indiana and Iowa joined and it became the Big Nine. In 1912 Ohio State was added and the Big Ten became the norm. In 1939 Chicago withdrew and Pittsburgh, Nebraska, Michigan State, Marquette, Notre Dame, and Iowa State were mentioned as replacements till Michigan State got the nod 1949. It is interesting to note that Nebraska petitioned in 1900, and 1909 but was declined both times (the Big 10 could have happened in 1900 – 50 years earlier – without Ohio State) for membership.
“Historic 8” = Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa
“outliers” = Ohio State + Michigan State
Group #2 = The PCC – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
Formed as the Pacific Coast Conference in 1915 with Cal, Oregon, Oregon State, and Washington. Washington State is added in 1917 and Stanford is added the following year in 1918. The 1920’s adds Idaho and Southern Cal in 1922, Montana in 1924, and Los Angeles in 1928. The major cheating scandal in the 1950’s would disband this conference and reform it as the PAC 8.
“Historic 8” = Cal, Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, Stanford, USC, UCLA
“outliers” = Idaho + Montana have since been dropped
Group #3 = The SWC – Bowl affiliation = Cotton Bowl
Formed in 1914 when SIAA break away schools Texas and Texas A & M joined Oklahoma State, Baylor, Rice, Southwestern, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The SWC attempted to have LSU and Old Miss leave the SIAA as well but they declined. Over the following years Southwestern would drop out in 1916 and was replaced by Southern Methodist in 1918, and Texas Christian in 1923. Phillips joined for a year, Oklahoma would drop out in 1919, and Oklahoma would follow them in 1925. Former Border Conference member Texas Tech would join in 1958.
“Historic 8” = Texas, TAMU, Baylor, Rice, Arkansas, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech
“outliers” = Oklahoma + Oklahoma State + Southwestern + Phillips have all been dropped
Group #4 = The SEC – Bowl affiliation = Sugar Bowl
The roots were formed in 1894 with the formation of the SIAA (core members = Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee, Vanderbilt, Clemson, LSU, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Tulane, and Texas) core by 1896. In 1921 schools break away from the SIAA and by 1922 the Southern Conference has formed a set of foundation members (core members = Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Washington & Lee, Florida, Louisiana State, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tulane, and Vanderbilt. Since the SEC was formed in 1932 with 13 teams I listed the “historic” schools as ranked by SIAA membership instead even tho you can look at the SEC 10 the same way you look at the Big 10 as a unit, and not the individual parts. Sure the last state schools added to both conferences were long enough ago to be considered hard to break off the group.
“Historic 8” = Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, MSU
“outliers” = Ole Miss 1899 + UK 1906 + UF 1910 – Sewanee 40′ – Ga Tech 64′ – Tulane 66′
Group #5 = The Big 8 – Bowl affiliation = Orange Bowl
Formed in 1907 as the MVIAA when Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Washington University in St. Louis get together. Iowa joins late in 1907, and is joined by Drake and Iowa State in 1908. Kansas State joins in 1913 and Grinnell joins in 1918, but Iowa dropped out in 1911, and rebuilds in 1919 with the addition of Oklahoma and 1925 with Oklahoma State. In 1928, the conference split with Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma remaining together to form the Big Six Conference. Colorado leaves the Mountain States Conference – the former home of BYU, Colorado, Colorado State, Denver, Utah, Utah State, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico – in 1947, and Oklahoma State rejoins in 1958 to fill out the Big 8.
“Historic 8” = Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, ISU, KSU, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma State
“outliers” = Washington in St. Louis + Drake + Iowa + Grinnell have all been dropped
Group #6 = The IND’s – Bowl affiliation = varied
There is no official conference, but school that were good enough to be considered “48” team status by performance on the field or fan support off the field. The Georgia Tech is listed as IND they won 3 of their 4 MNC’s under the SEC and its roots. South Carolina was an ACC that went Independent. The early success Pitt had was replaced by Penn State and JoPa. So while not exact, this group is a catch all for schools that would be good adds, but by and large not great ones when compared to the other 5 groups. Notre Dame is the only one that has full brand status in the group.
“Historic 8” = Notre Dame, Pitt, Army, Miami, Georgia Tech, Florida State, BYU, Syracuse
“outliers” = Virginia Tech, Boston College
.
becomes….
.
B) THE TWELVE TEAM MODELmeans the majority of the major conferences have roughly 12 teams. I make several observations in saying this as 4 things guide the observations.
#1) Most top Independent schools are absorbed by BCS conferences
#2) The ACC has still not been able to show it can create or maintain a brand!
#3) The SWC and Big 8 merge to form Group #4
#4) The addition of a Conference Champion Game provides the economic spark
Group #1 = The Big 10 – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
In 1990 adds Independent Penn State, but fails to add Independent Notre Dame
In 2009 5 schools (Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Missouri, Syracuse, Rutgers) are listed for possible B1G expansion in the infamous “Blair Report”. In 2010 Nebraska is invited, and joins in 2011
“Historic 8” = Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa
“Historic 12” = Ohio State, Michigan State, Penn State, Nebraska
Group #2 = The PAC – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
In 1978 the PAC 8 becomes the PAC 10 with Arizona and Arizona State
In the mid 90’s the PAC expresses interest in Colorado and Texas, but both join Big 12
In 2010 the PAC invites former Mountain States Conference members Colorado and Utah
“Historic 8” = Cal, Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, Stanford, USC, UCLA
“Historic 12” = Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
Group #3 = The SWC – Bowl affiliation = Cotton Bowl
ELIMINATED
“48” schools Texas, TAMU, Arkansas find new homes
Group #4 = The SEC – Bowl affiliation = Sugar Bowl
With the collapse of the SWC the SEC has six schools on a list of possible expansion targets. I remember Arkansas, TAMU, Clemson, and South Carolina. I think Florida State and Texas were the other two, but if someone can provide a link it would be appreciated. In 1991 the SEC adds Arkansas and South Carolina. In 2011 the SEC invites TAMU for the 2012 season.
“Historic 8” = Alabama , Auburn, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, MSU, Mississippi
“Historic 12” = Kentucky + Florida + Arkansas + South Carolina
Group #5 = The Big 12 – Bowl affiliation = Orange Bowl
Formed from the Big 8 and SWC in 1994 and in operation for the 1996 season. Has been a power conference in football since, but the loss of “48” schools Nebraska, Colorado, and TAMU they are now a shell of their former self. The loss of Texas and / or Oklahoma would send this conference the way of the SoCon and modern oblivion.
“Historic 8” = Kansas, Missouri, ISU, KSU, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech
“Historic 12” = Baylor, TCU
Group #6 = The IND’s – Bowl affiliation = varied
ELIMINATED
“48” schools South Carolina, Penn State find new homes
Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Pitt, Syracuse find apartments
“Historic 8” = Notre Dame, Army, BYU
.
becomes….
.
C) THE SIXTEEN TEAM MODELmeans the majority of the major conferences have roughly 16 teams. I make several observations in saying this as 3 things guide the observations.
#1) BRANDS ARE IN BOLD
#2) The ACC has still not been able to show it can create or maintain a brand!
#3) The B12 and ACC are below B1G, PAC, and ACC. Big East is DOA
#4) Save the winner of the B12 playing the winner of the ACC in a “pre BCS game” like an early december ACC vs B12 game, they will lose relevance over time as they have smaller footprints or less powerful teams on the national stage.
Group #1 = The Big 10 – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
“Historic 12” = Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, MICHIGAN, Indiana, Iowa, OHIO STATE, Michigan State, PENN STATE, NEBRASKA
“the added 4” = Notre Dame, Texas, Oklahoma
Group #2 = The PAC – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
“Historic 12” = Cal, Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
“the added 4” = Notre Dame, Texas, Oklahoma
Group #3 = The SWC – Bowl affiliation = Cotton Bowl
ELIMINATED
Group #4 = The SEC – Bowl affiliation = Sugar Bowl
“Historic 12” = Alabama , Auburn, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, MSU, Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina
“the added 4” = Notre Dame, Texas, Oklahoma
Group #5 = The Big 12 – Bowl affiliation = Orange Bowl
Formed from the Big 8 and SWC in 1994 and in operation for the 1996 season. Has been a power conference in football since, but the loss of “48” schools Nebraska, Colorado, and TAMU they are now a shell of their former self. The loss of Texas and / or Oklahoma would send this conference the way of the SoCon and modern oblivion.
“Historic 12” = Kansas, Missouri, ISU, KSU, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU
“the added 4” = Notre Dame, Texas, Oklahoma
Group #6 = The IND’s – Bowl affiliation = varied
ELIMINATED
“Historic 8” = Notre Dame, Army, BYU
CONCLUSION
I do not think the 24 team model will happen as it is to hard to operate and limits the years a team in the middle or bottom can have a breakout year. I think the 12 team model is already here tho, and will be the minimal option going forward. Since you have an imbalance between the top 3 and the next 2 this may continue to exert pressure to make the 16 team model the rule instead. The B1G has still show a desire to add Notre Dame, and the PAC has already made several attempts to raid the Big 12. It may only be a matter of time till they succeed.
The B1G / PAC / SEC will get stronger, and the B12 (which was once a viable threat) and the ACC (which had potential getting to 12 teams by adding the “sub brands” of Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Pitt, Syracuse) will get weaker as they fail to find a place where they can contend year after year. If the ACC went to 16 by adding Notre Dame, and the B12 could stabilize on their way to 16, they could play each other to remain in the mainstream. If some of the ACC 3 (FSU, Miami, VT) could break out and dominate the ACC the way USC does the PAC, or UT / OU does in the Big 12 then they could be viable, but so far that has not happened. The problem is, as Kansas found out in 2010, that an excellent basketball school with AAU status in no sure bet to make the cut of the “Final 48” even tho they should.
Long term the one who may have done the best is Colorado who made the smart move quickly. With no stellar football or basketball program, they have gained the most with the least based on the new deal in the PAC.
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Well its old home week for the deceased SWC. TCU finds its way into the Big 12 and the rankings are very neighborly:
21. Texas
22. Houston
23. Texas A&M
24. Baylor
Also receiving votes:
34. SMU
35. Texas Tech
38. TCU
And early leavers of the SWC:
1. Oklahoma
6. Oklahoma State
11. Arkansas
Only the Owls didn’t get votes this week. And they did have a 28-6 victory over Memphis to remain unbeaten at home.
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bullet,
The sad part of all this is the B12 really did have a chance to contend with the SEC as the #2 conference in the country. B1G would be #3, PAC would be #4, ACC would be #5, and BE would be #6. Say Houston (because it was a state school) had been swapped with Baylor and allowed to grow since the mid 90’s they should have been farther along. With 3 solid brands (UT, OU, UNL) and the passion of football in the state of Texas you really did have an advantage. If the Cotton Bowl had kept its place, and been the BCS bowl instead of a #2 B12 vs #4 SEC the B12 would really be rolling now.
Problem is because of the weak pre season puff schedule of the B12 teams are looking better than they may be right now.
KSU = undefeated against EKU, Kent State, Miami (currently 2-3), BU, and MU – not impressive body of work yet
OU = undefeated against Tulsa, FSU (currently 2-3), MU, Ball State, and Texas – not impressive
oSu = Undefeated against LaLa, AZ (currently 1-5), Tulsa, TAMU, KU – most unimpressive
To be fair, and in defense of KSU and OU, scheduling Miami and FSU should have been better wins, and a better gauge on the B12 teams right now. I give them a plus for scheduling, but you have to give them a minus for the wheels falling off Miami and FSU.
I think this “B12 is tough” was started with the Baylor upset of TCU (now sitting at 4-2) on national TV and the Iowa State upset of Iowa (now 3-2) the following week gave the B12 an early season boost. Missouri was a top 25 team early in the season, but has now fallen to 2-3. I think as the season plays on you will see OU, oSu, and TAMU rise above the rest but I can see each beating another in a close game. TAMU already lost to oSu, oSu could beat OU in Stillwater this year. TAMU could beat OU, and oSu plays at Tech and ISU. Because there is no CCG and only 10 teams only 1 team is even possible to remain undefeated at the end of the year. The B1G could have 2 undefeated teams meet in the first B1G CCG with the winner jumping an undefeated B12 team because of the extra win against an undefeated team.
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Wow quite a bit of work there…gonna take a little time to digest.
Just off the top of my head I would argue that the “Historic 6″ = Kansas, Missouri, ISU, KSU, Oklahoma State, & Oklahoma (you accidentally left Okie off the list)
And the “Texas 3″ = Texas, Texas Tech & Baylor
From the standpoint of the Big 12 being a continuation of the Big 8 + Texas 4
You could include TCU in with the Texas 4 or start a third category for them and whatever teams become fillers for the defections.
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duffman,
While we have been discussing realignment (and it is realignment, not expansion)
I disagree. Utah, TCU, UCF, ECU, etc – expansion. CO, NE, TAMU, SU, Pitt, etc – realignment. Only the AQ conferences really matter for your theory, so every time more schools join the party it is expansion.
Group #1 = The Big 10 – Bowl affiliation = Rose Bowl
Formed as the ICFR in 1895 with Chicago, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, and Lake Forest. Founded in 1896 when Lake Forest drops out and Michigan is added. Since it had only 7 teams it was known as the Western Conference. In 1899 Indiana and Iowa joined and it became the Big Nine. In 1912 Ohio State was added and the Big Ten became the norm. In 1939 Chicago withdrew and Pittsburgh, Nebraska, Michigan State, Marquette, Notre Dame, and Iowa State were mentioned as replacements till Michigan State got the nod 1949. It is interesting to note that Nebraska petitioned in 1900, and 1909 but was declined both times (the Big 10 could have happened in 1900 – 50 years earlier – without Ohio State) for membership.
“Historic 8″ = Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa
“outliers” = Ohio State + Michigan State
I have a problem with this. OSU joined in 1912, but that only got it back to 9 since MI dropped out from 1908-1915. MI rejoining made it the B10 for the first time. Also, I think OSU should be in the historic group since MI only has 9 more years in the conference. It messes up your numbers but is more realistic. This is OSU’s 100th year in the conference, but they aren’t a historical member?
If you want to look back, ND also wanted in. You could have had a B10 without OSU or MSU, or maybe MSU got the B10 to 12 (and they probably would have changed the name to Big 12 back in the day before marketing majors). Would they have added PSU to get to 13? Would PSU have made it instead of MSU? How different would today be with PSU as the wildcard instead of ND?
Group #4 = The SEC – Bowl affiliation = Sugar Bowl
The roots were formed in 1894 with the formation of the SIAA (core members = Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee, Vanderbilt, Clemson, LSU, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Tulane, and Texas) core by 1896. In 1921 schools break away from the SIAA and by 1922 the Southern Conference has formed a set of foundation members (core members = Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Washington & Lee, Florida, Louisiana State, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tulane, and Vanderbilt. Since the SEC was formed in 1932 with 13 teams I listed the “historic” schools as ranked by SIAA membership instead even tho you can look at the SEC 10 the same way you look at the Big 10 as a unit, and not the individual parts. Sure the last state schools added to both conferences were long enough ago to be considered hard to break off the group.
“Historic 8″ = Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, MSU
“outliers” = Ole Miss 1899 + UK 1906 + UF 1910 – Sewanee 40′ – Ga Tech 64′ – Tulane 66′
I’m not sure what time period you are using to determine “historic,” since it seems to change to find a convenient cutoff for you. How can GT be both a historic member and an outlier, while old (and current) members aren’t historic? Is there a system to this?
Group #4 = The SEC – Bowl affiliation = Sugar Bowl
“Historic 8″ = Alabama , Auburn, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, MSU, Mississippi
“Historic 12″ = Kentucky + Florida + Arkansas + South Carolina
You changed the historic 8 from the first set.
.
becomes….
.
C) THE SIXTEEN TEAM MODELmeans the majority of the major conferences have roughly 16 teams. I make several observations in saying this as 3 things guide the observations.
You have everybody adding ND, UT and OU. I don’t understand that.
I also don’t see any substantial progress towards the 16 team model. 1 conference is at 14, 1 at 13 and looking to get to 14. Another tried to get to 16 but struck out and stayed at 12. This still seems like the 12 team model to me.
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Brian,
The terms “historic 8” and “historic 12” were keeping with the model principle. I stated at the very beginning the the number “8” was not exact as the PCC had 10, but dropped Idaho and Montana to get to the PAC 8. The Big Nine became the Big 10, then went back to 9 when Chicago dropped, and back to 10 when Michigan State was added. Historically the Big Ten has been above the curve as they passed “”8” early on, and got to 11 (nearing the next model) before all but the SEC (as holding at 11 let the SEC, Big 12, and ACC pass them). You are reading to much into the term instead of the thought process. Note how I determined the same for the SEC below.
The SEC actually got to 12 first (actually 13) but it was not sustained, and more importantly, it did not have the primary reason for the 12 team model at the time. Back in the 1960’s when the SEC was at 12 there was no move to a CCG (which has been the financial reason to adopt the 12 team model). Because of this the Dodd feud with Bryant and the fall from grace of Tulane did not offer the added financial reason to stay. Since the SEC was formed in 1932 with 13 tams it did not meet the “8 team model” I went to look at their roots and took the first 8 in the SIAA, then added the rest as they were added to the SIAA. Again it was a way to smooth data over time because that is what has actually happened. The CCG in the 90’s was a game changer as it greatly affected the fortunes of the SEC and B12, while killing the absorption of the Independents in the ACC. Since the ACC has gone to 12 they have not been able to sustain the history of FSU and Miami prior to going to 12.
On the AQ equation you are missing what I am trying to observe, in that all AQ’s are not equal, and really never have been. The B1G and SEC have always been the top, and because of the wealth and power, will continue this dominance. The PAC is next just because they have Southern Cal, and have the cache that specific school brings through the history of college football. A school like Utah joining was serendipity for Utah as a big jump up from the old Mountain States Conference, just like Arizona and Arizona State were a jump up from the old Border Conference. The probability of Utah, AZ, and ASU challenging U$C long term for football dominance in the PAC is very, very low. This was the observational point I was trying to convey. While the 3 primary conferences may “expand” by taking the bottom of the top, it will be to “constrict” the schools left behind to serve as the next tier below the “48”. Sure you can argue ECU and UCF till you are blue in the face, but to you really think they can displace Ohio State or Michigan in football prowess? Do you really think Ohio State and Michigan will stand by and let this happen?
Remember my original “predator vs prey” and “brand” arguments on here prior to the june meltdown of 2010. The accumulation of brands makes the predators stronger, and the prey always are vulnerable. My “brands” have always been – Southern Cal, Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame, Alabama, and SEC #2 (rotation of Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, Florida, and Auburn) – and it will be very hard for one of these to slip unless they fall down and stay there for a quarter century and beyond. Schools like Minnesota and Pitt show this can happen, but in the modern era of money and media, no current “brand” will let this happen if they can prevent it.
Only predators can eat other predators, so you saw a 12 team predator like the Big 12 get taken down by fellow predators – B1G (ate Nebraska), PAC (ate Colorado), and SEC (ate TAMU) – until they become the prey in the next model cycle. In the 12 team model you had 4 predators that got you to the “48” and now the 4th predator has been crippled enough to fall behind the other 3. While it is easy to see the PAC / B1G / SEC adding UT, OU, Notre Dame it is impossible to see the B12 adding a team from the PAC / B1G / SEC (which is why listed it the way I did. You said you did not understand, but I suspect you are looking at it today, and not in what it must evolve into. I put the 3 brands of ND / UT / OU in all three because that is where they have the highest probability of winding up.
I doubt ND will wind up in the SEC, UT has a low probability, and OU has the highest. The PAC has a high probability of adding UT, a lower probability of OU, and Notre Dame has the smallest probability. The B1G desires to add ND and UT, but has a lower probability for OU. The question is not that we are at 16 now, but having passed the 13 threshold (as the SEC now has) we are in the 16 team model already. TAMU leaving the SEC and Nebraska leaving the B1G seems impossible now, so going back to the 12 team model is like stuffing the realignment genie back in the bottle. My point being as we are now here, what is the move by the B1G to “ease the way in” to 16?
If the real targets are UT and ND, and little or no desire for oSu and TT, why not adopt a strategy now that fixes this in the future. Adding say MU in the west and MD in the east gets you to 14 while expanding the B1G and the BTN. Then you can hold until UT and ND say Yes or No, at which point you can add 2 more from the best of the rest. If you do not add MU and MD now, it means adding TT with UT and / or adding oSu with OU. The problem is that by the SEC adding TAMU it means neither the PAC or B1G would get them as a pair with UT. Ponder that thought for a second, and think of how the SEC won that part of the battle! If UT goes to the B1G or PAC it now brings tech with them with is much less agreeable than TAMU. UT and TAMU were close in academics and research as an A+ UT and A- TAMU. Now the PAC and B1G must deal with TT as a B- or C+, which is a big drop to add.
In the past the B1G was so far ahead it took others decades to catch up. The CCG gave the SEC (followed by the B12) a 20 year head start, and adding TAMU at 13 has given them a very solid add to 16. This time around waiting for everybody else may not be the best method this time around. If the “last 3” of ND, UT, and OU find homes in the SEC and PAC (with ND in the ACC) , then the B1G will have lost the edge it has now probably for the long term future. The ACC “buying” a seat at the predator table by adding Notre Dame still means it is the weakest of the group because the ACC has not shown the ability to compete at the same level as the primary predators of the B1G or SEC.
in short:
Don’t worry that I segregated Ohio State from the B1G any more than I did Florida from the SEC. It is ancient history for both, and does not affect either team leaving their respective conferences today. Arkansas, South Carolina, and Penn State were added much later, but I can not see any of them leaving either.
In realignment only ND / UT / OU really matter, and the rest are just fluff. Sure there are segregated levels of fluff that means MU and MD are better fluff than oSu and ECU, but they are still fluff.
TAMU is a serious add by a predator conference, so like it or not we are at least at the dawn of the 16 team model. Short of an NCAA ruling mandating a 12 team conference limit, and forcing TAMU back to the B12 we are here, and the proactive will be gain, and the reactive will lose. Scott has already shown his hand on a 16 team model, and the SEC is already on their way there.
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Duffman,
You talked about it being realignment not expansion long before you got to your rule of 48. All I did was point out that several schools were expansion (new members of the AQ world) while other were realignment (AQs moving around). UCF and ECU won’t supplant OSU and MI, but there’s no reason they can’t supplant IN and ISU.
I assume your 6 listed historic 8s were intended to be the original 48, and then the 4 historic 12s. That means your model didn’t include OSU until the 12 team model kicked in. I find that to be a significant flaw in your system. I’d like to see you expand your hypothesis with a list of 48 by decade (or every other decade to save time) to show how the 48 changed over time but stayed at or near 48. That would make your argument easier to follow and dissect.
At the end, your sending UT, OU and ND everywhere confuses me because it makes it unclear how the conferences will all get to 16. Do all 3 go to 1 of the conferences, or are you assuming they split equally or what? Why do the conferences expand if they don’t get 1 of the 3, and why do they move past 14? There seem to be a tremendous number of assumptions in your model but you never state any of them. It’s hard to follow as an outsider, while I’m sure it’s perfectly clear in your head.
Don’t worry that I segregated Ohio State from the B1G any more than I did Florida from the SEC. It is ancient history for both, and does not affect either team leaving their respective conferences today. Arkansas, South Carolina, and Penn State were added much later, but I can not see any of them leaving either.
I’m not worried about OSU leaving, but I was trying to understand your system for categorizing teams. I fail to see a significant difference between OSU and MI for the B10 in terms of historic membership, so it struck me as inaccurate. How can 1 of the Big 2 not be a historic member? How can 100 years not be historic? Your categorization struck me as arbitrary and forced to fit your model rather than fitting the model to the reality. There weren’t 6 groups of 8, but you tried to make it look like there were.
I also didn’t see any real evidence to support your rule of 48 (+/- a few). I think there were fewer, then more, and now it may be plateaued due to TV. I also think it is a mistake to pick the 48 based on conference affiliation as several non-AQs are clearly more important now than the worst AQs, but they make a lot less money. At what point do you let recent success trump conference membership in importance for picking your 48? Are IN and MN grandfathered in forever, or can they get bumped for more relevant schools now? Exactly which of the current AQs (and ND) count now and which don’t? What is the criteria (success, money, etc)?
In realignment only ND / UT / OU really matter, and the rest are just fluff. Sure there are segregated levels of fluff that means MU and MD are better fluff than oSu and ECU, but they are still fluff.
I disagree. TAMU matters. NE matters. CO matters. Even TCU matters.
TAMU is a serious add by a predator conference, so like it or not we are at least at the dawn of the 16 team model. Short of an NCAA ruling mandating a 12 team conference limit, and forcing TAMU back to the B12 we are here, and the proactive will be gain, and the reactive will lose. Scott has already shown his hand on a 16 team model, and the SEC is already on their way there.
In retrospect you may be right, but you cannot know whether we are headed to the 16 team model or not right now. Nobody has successfully played with even 13 or 14 yet. There is no evidence that the P12 can go to 16 (they’ve tried and failed twice) or that the B10 wants to go to 16 (even with ND as 13, would they stop at 14?). Will the ACC stay at 14 or grow to 16? What about the SEC?
At best you can say we are headed for the 14 team model right now. Unfortunately, that doesn’t fit into your scheme as neatly. In addition, the 16 team model assumes 3 conferences so you need to explain how the B12, ACC and BE all go away. What if UT and OU don’t want to go anywhere? What if ND doesn’t ever feel the need for a conference? These are huge assumptions in your model.
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Multiple reports of Boise to Big East tonight?
http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2011/10/big_easts_newest_expansion_tar.html
http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/extras/colleges_blog/2011/10/big_east_ready.html
Hard to believe. But I suppose the BE needs to get desperate.
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Big East Pres/ADs meeting tomorrow per:
PeteThamelNYT Pete Thamel
Big East will have an AD/Pres conference call tomo. Among discussions will be raising exit fee to $10 million range.
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Too little, too late. As usual.
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Seriously, wasting just 1 minute on exit fees is rearranging the deck chairs.
Even a $30M fee wouldn’t be enough to stop anyone from instantly accepting an invite to the ACC or Big Ten or SEC. Long-term security versus a conference only guaranteed BCS for the next 2 years would easily justify paying any exit fee…
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Yup.
Seriously, I think that West Virginia and Louisville, and possibly Rutgers & UConn, are going to end up being the 2010’s equivalent of the 2000’s Utah, BYU, and TCU: AQ-quality programs stuck in non-AQ leagues. USF is no more AQ-quality than UCF is; the program would not be where it already is without luckily getting the nod to the Big East over UCF in the first place. And Cincinnati draws less than 10,000 more fans than App State, an FCS program, and its facilities and budget are dwarfed by about every AQ program.
Actually, Rutgers and UConn, without the benefit of the AQ moniker, might be hard to distinguish from the best of the non-AQ’s: BYU, Boise, Air Force, Navy, SMU, Houston, UCF, ECU, Temple, Tulsa.
So, by all means, any school with a chance to jump ship from a league in serious danger of losing its existence (or at least AQ status) would be more than happy to pay a $30M exit fee, let alone a $10M exit fee.
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Yeah, the only exit fee that matters is an assignment of rights. I can’t see either the Big East or the ACC actually doing one of those now. Too many schools transparently want to go elsewhere.The ACC looked like they might do it until Maryland and FSU (and “School #3”) made clear they didn’t even want a higher exit fee. Florida State in particular would leave before assigning rights.
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Guess the Big East should have taken ESPN’s offer.
http://twitter.com/#!/mattsarz/status/123147930965258240
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Some support
The overwhelming force behind the move, DeFilippo insisted, was television money.
The ACC just signed a new deal with ESPN that will increase the revenue for each school to approximately $13 million. With the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, said DeFilippo, another significant increase will come.
“We always keep our television partners close to us,’’ he said. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV – ESPN – is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.’’
http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/articles/2011/10/09/power_move_by_acc/
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odds of
Pitt < 13 million a year
SU < 13 million a year
Pitt = 13 million a year
SU = 13 million a year
Pitt = 13 million a year
SU = 13 million a year
when NCAA 2010 attendance average was
#1 Clemson = ~77,000
#2 FSU = ~71,000
#3 VT = ~66,000
#4 UNC = ~58,000
#5 NCST = ~57,000
#6 Miami = ~53,000
Pitt = ~52,000
#7 GT = ~46,000
#8 UVA = ~45,000
SU = ~40,000
MD = ~39,000
BC = ~38,000
WF = ~30,000
Duke = ~29,000
If this is about the value of football, Pitt is right at the average and Syracuse is around the bottom quartile. It looks like Clemson, FSU, and Clemson are just giving up more of the pie to their lesser football brethren. At some point that is going to cause some friction. Especially when they are looking at their SEC neighbors (including teams like Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi, and Mississippi State making about 10 million more a year!
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Maybe. Or maybe restoring some traditional rivalry games in the Northeast will rejuvenate the attendance for Pitt, Syracuse, Maryland, and BC.
Also… how is attendance going to be when Va Tech, Miami, Clemson, and Florida State come to town? Only West Virginia really moves the dial in the Big East right now for either Pitt or Syracuse.
Finally… why is attendance the end-all, be-all measuring stick for TV revenue? Both schools have been hurt a bit by the rise of UConn, Rutgers, Temple, and USF. BC too. The recruiting base just cannot support that many teams and have them be perennially great.
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EZCUSE,
I look at attendance numbers for 3 reasons
1) Learning about Baylor their stadium lists seating at ~50,000 but the average is actually ~40,000. I think one reason Baylor was upset at TAMU leaving was the TAMU games being their high sales game of the season. With TAMU gone that ~40,000 number may drop to ~35,000 or ~30,000. That is a big drop, but it also shows how much you depend on an opposing team to sell out your own stadium.
2) It shows relative strength to top schools. If Michigan averaged ~112,000 the same year it means every time Michigan plays at home it takes Baylor roughly 3 home games to equal it.
3) It shows the competition from pro teams in the area or state. Ohio State can count on the football team selling well because it is a pro substitute, which means fan preference is fairly inelastic. Pitt plays in the same stadium as the Steelers so they must compete for eyeballs and entertainment dollars. If Pitt is averaging ~52,000 but Heinz Field seats ~65,000 means you are running at about 80% of capacity. South Carolina, Clemson, Kentucky and Arkansas all sell well even when the team is not doing well because they have a captive football market.
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I wouldn’t say be-all-end-all of valuations, but that attendance list is probably somewhat close to the valuation list although Clemson is too high and Miami is probably too low.
For the 85% of the contract (from the BC AD number although I think that’s an overestimate considering the value of Duke/UNC basketball along with Pitt/Syracuse in the future and Maryland, etc.) that is football, I’d say that Pitt is valued near the #7 range right below Clemson and Georgia Tech. Syracuse is probably closer to Maryland or NC State in terms of valuation in the 8-10 range. (1-4 are probably FSU, Miami, Va Tech, UNC).
That would probably put them squarely around the middle of the ACC as a pair. Maybe they increase the value of BC and Maryland, although I’m not sure that’ll be that important. We’re talking about 1st/2nd tier rights, or who’s on ESPN/2/etc. They’re probably worth pro-rata increases taken alone in that respect.
But like I said below, that’s not all this is about. This move severely downgrades the valuation of the Big East along with the departure of TCU.
That’s worth the extra premium above giving Pitt and Syracuse pro-rata increases; maybe a $1-2M increase to everyone in the conference…
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Attendance is a good gauge of resources available and fan support.
One of these articles expected a $2 million bump for the ACC from those two, making the addition worth $54 million(12 X$2 + 2X$15). Don’t know that ESPN would be that generous (unless they are enticing FSU to stay on ABC instead of CBS and the SEC). Still, those two are above the $11-$12 million average for the Big East that ESPN offered last year. Now what those schools are worth in the BE and what they are worth as #13 and #14 in the ACC won’t be exactly the same, but it is a rough gauge (could be worth a little more or a little less depending on the situation).
Some are making BC’s ADs comments about ESPN to be a conspiracy, but I think the ACC went to ESPN 1st and said we want to expand, what are these combinations worth? ESPN probably ranked them 1) UConn, 2) SU, 3) Pitt and BC said UConn’s #3 on our list and so they went with SU and Pitt.
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It’s different from that though. This is like game theory.
Just think that the Big East had a rejected offer around $11M per school (football + basketball for the 9 schools).
Pitt and Syracuse were among the most valuable of those schools (along with probably WVU and TCU being the two most valuable TV properties) so their value could have been around $13-15M per year. That’s right around where the ACC’s valuations are.
But now think about it from ESPN’s perspective. Without those schools and TCU to the Big 12, the Big East’s football contract is probably worth around $7-8M per school.
That means the Big East’s yearly payout has gone from a $100M offer down to around $70-80M (even if they invite 3 more schools to replace the 3 they lost). And ESPN may not even take that contract now because instead of having to overbid to $110-120M per year (if the Big East hadn’t been raided) against FOX or NBC Sports or whoever, they can just offer $70-80M.
The ACC will probably get something like a small bump above the pro-rata increase for taking those two and helping (along with the Big 12) to gut the Big East.
I could see a $1M or so bump to every school along with Pitt/Syracuse’s full payouts. That would cost ESPN like $30-40M per year.
Well worth it for gutting the Big East and making that contract much less valuable if you’re ESPN…
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zeek, no I totally get that part, but what is the end result if:
a) the ACC does not land ND
b) it forces a football school to jump to the SEC
Reading that article it was all basketball centric. The Duke guy was the head of the expansion committee and they kept referencing basketball and Tobacco Road. In the 3 pages of the article I did not read 1 quote from a current ACC football school (if I missed one please correct) so how can they be happy knowing football is carrying the load, and watching it go to basketball schools. If I was FSU or VT it would not make me real happy to see that, especially when VT is selling at or near capacity every season. They must feel constricted expanding their stadium by say 15,000 if they stay in the ACC, but selling 15,000 extra seats in the SEC should be no problem. Say 50 bucks a ticket X 15,000 seats X 7 home games = $ 5,250,000 a year. Add in SEC TV deal and a pipeline for VT tier 3 football and you could be looking at 10 – 20 million a year over what you are making now. That is real money, and would pay the ACC exit money in a year or 2, after that it is just gravy money.
I see some similarities in TAMU and VT being sleeping giants. Now that TAMU is SEC bound their 12th man foundation is shooting up, and they are talking about a stadium expansion that could take them to 115,000 in their stadium.
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That’s entirely a fair point.
But this isn’t all about money. I mean some part of it is, but if you’re FSU and Va Tech, you have a decent road to the BCS without having to go through Florida/Alabama/LSU/Georgia/Tennessee/South Carolina/Arkansas.
I’m not saying they’re ducking the competition; I’m just saying the ACC is a good competitive fit for those two.
The money would be larger in the SEC due to probably better $ from ticket sales (whether due to expansion or more marquee opponents), but then you have to consider academics, politics (in the case of Va Tech), geographic proximity, etc.
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zeek,
I think Wake Forest is more than enough of a challenge by itself to compare favorably with that SEC gauntlet.
Ugh… what a disappointing 3 games for the Noles! NC State fans keep telling me that Wake Forest is good & that they beat State. My response, “They beat State because State stinks. And not Alabama or Oklahoma or LSU or even Clemson. They’re freaking Wake Forest!”
End rant.
That said, yes, zeek, you’re right. FSU would be out of their minds to join the SEC. They’ve got their hands full as it is, and that’s with a very talented team (supposedly).
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I think of it as a value play. They moved two of the most valuable Big East properties to a partner they have locked up. If they resign the Big East they get it at a discount and when the Big East reloads with CUSA or military schools it diminishes their competitor’s (FOX and CBS) product. If they don’t, their competitor gets a diminished Big East product that they will have to pay more than ESPN thinks is worth. Brilliant.
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I’ve got an idea regarding conferences’ AQ status that I think might actually go into effect once the current BCS contracts expire.
Regardless of whether the Cotton Bowl becomes a fifth BCS bowl or whether a plus-one goes into effect, it’s going to be overwhelmingly difficult to justify the Big East’s automatic bid into the BCS. I expect there to be enormous pressure from three different sources going against the Big East’s continued status as an AQ league.
First, pressure would come from the bowls, who wouldn’t want any more lightly-traveling Cincinnatis or UConns. Second, it would come from the other AQ leagues, who would object to a league they do not consider to be anywhere close to a peer to take up a coveted spot in the BCS bowls (Seriously, Rutgers and West Virginia, assuming they’ll still even be around a few years from now, will soon be the only teams in the league that even had AQ status as recently as 2003.) Third, the MWC and C-USA’s arguments that they are an equal (or near-equal) to the Big East in terms of on-the-field results will be bolstered even more with the absence of TCU, Pitt, Syracuse, and whoever else leaves.
And the Big East’s only real counter-argument will be, “Hey we’ve got the service academies!”
How about a compromise?
After the current contracts expire, it would make perfect sense if the Pac-12, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and ACC kept their automatic bids. Meanwhile, there would be a sixth bid guaranteed to go out to a sixth league… but that league would change year to year depending on which of the remaining conferences is the strongest in a given year. The payout for the bowls would be the same as it would be for the other AQ leagues.
What do ya think?
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All the talk I’ve heard is that none of the service academies are now interested. Sorry, Big East, you can’t wrap yourself in the flag anymore.
I like the idea of giving the best one of the BE/MWC/C-USA the automatic slot, but it should be based on individual team ranking. Collective conference ranking should only come into play when none of the three conferences has a member in the top 25.
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The BCS should just allow the best team from any non-AQ conference–provided it has a top 8 BCS standing–to qualify. That’s pretty simple. If Boise St. is #3, they are in.
Now, it gets complicated when you are talking about two or more teams qualifying… think a few years ago with 5 undefeated teams. But those situations are always ugly. Just like the 3rd team in a conference gets excluded now, the 2nd best team in a non-AQ conference could get screwed.
Then again… there is no limit… so the BCS could still take two teams from non-AQ conferences. If the 2016 Boise St. and Cincy teams are undefeated… maybe they both get a slot.
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I think the current rules are fine. Maybe even loosen them up a bit. The polls and schedules work against the non-AQ schools. I think the current rule is top 12 or higher than the lowest AQ. Make it top 25 if there are only 5 AQ conferences. Only take the top one unless two get picked as wildcards.
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Actually… they could just have the same rule for AQ conferences and non-AQ. Don’t they have some rule in place with respect to AQ conferences? By allowing “all other conferences” to get the 6th AQ spot–they would ensure that all conferences have a seat at the table (sort of).
Not perfect, but better than a sharp stick in the eye. If, say, Toledo were to run the table… I have to think that coaches would vote them high enough to get into the top 8, 10, 12, 15… whatever it took.
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6 AQ get in automatically. Now the wild cards have to be in the top 14 to be considered. Non-AQ champs have to be in the top 12 to guarantee a slot or top 16 if an AQ champ is lower than 16. ND has to be top 8 to be guaranteed (which is silly since they will be picked if they are top 14-don’t know why the others allow them to have that as a recruiting advantage.) So actually wild cards have it easier than non-AQ champs.
This year its 66 schools + ND getting 6 guaranteed slots, with the potential for ND and 1 non-AQ getting a guaranteed slot. It could be 64 + ND getting 5 guaranteed slots + ND + 1 non-AQ if the conferences end up 14, 14, 12, 12, 12 in a couple years and BE loses its slot. There’s no justification for not making it easier for the non-AQs if they add the BE remnant to the non-AQ group.
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Somewhere I read the SEC only costs 50 bucks to join, and nothing to leave. If this is true, it tells me who the most stable conference is.
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Frank,
Is ESPN adding SU and Pitt to the ACC to prevent the BTN / FOX from gaining ground?
I started thinking about realignment and who is really in control. It should be the schools, but what if it is the media companies?
Look at these events as parts of the whole.
#1) ESPN gets the LHN, and keeps UT from going to the B1G / BTN
#2) ACC adds SU and Pitt for ESPN (keep them out of the BTN portfolio)
#3) SEC adds MU and keeps KC and STL from being BTN monopoly
#4) ESPN has SEC and ACC so will not let SEC raid the ACC (no MD to the B1G)
Instead of it being Delany, Scott, and Slive, what if this was all about keeping schools out of the BTN because it means giving schools to FOX?
If the ACC lands ND (and ND goes ESPN) and ESPN will never let UT go to the B1G (keeping it ESPN), could this hurt the B1G longterm?
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To be fair if the B1G had wanted Missouri, the Tigers would be a member & ESPN would have been unable to stop it (if they even wanted to).
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Pitt was never a serious Big Ten candidate, and any slim chance Syracuse had fell by the wayside when it lost AAU membership.
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I definitely agree that ESPN was behind all this. BC’s AD just said that they were in constant discussions with the ESPN. The big loser in expansion this time was the Big East.
But this doesn’t hurt the B1G. Far too stable and secure to matter.
ND does not make or break the B1G. It doesn’t make or break the BTN.
It is boring for the B1G to not be adding teams left and right… but it is a valid and smart play. And the Pac-12 will stay at 12 teams for quite a while too.
I think that Missouri, and its sequellae, will be the last moves for a while.
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I think it was more about ESPN preventing Comcast/NBC/Versus from being a competitor than Fox/BTN. Comcast was hot on the Big East for programming and taking away Cuse/Pitt seriously devalues that and the efforts to make Versus (future NBC Sports Network) a competitor to ESPN.
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I thought it was impossible to have your football team in one Division 1 Conference and your Olympic sports in another Division 1 conference that has football. Thought it was a hard NCAA regulation? That’s why ND can be in the BE for non-football sports (Indy in football, BE in others) and BYU (football indy, WCC for others), temple (mac for football, a10 for others – a10 doesn’t have football). How could Airforce/Boise State join big east in football and keep other sports in WAC? Missori Valley Conference doesn’t have football and might work.
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Revenge of the WAC?
http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2011/10/big_easts_newest_expansion_tar.html
Boise State to the Big East with non-football in WAC.
“We’ve had discussions with Air Force about joining in all sports but football,” WAC commissioner Karl Benson told Boston.com, the Boston Globe’s on line home. “And we would certainly be willing to talk to Boise State about the same arrangement.”
With Navy also on the Big East’s expansion radar for football-only, that could get the league back to nine football schools after Pittsburgh and Syracuse leave for the ACC.
One follow-up scenario being considered if Air Force, Boise and Navy do join is for the Big East to then add two schools for all-sports (from a group that includes Central Florida, Temple and East Carolina) and then push Villanova to eventually make the move to the FBS level.
That would get the Big East to 12 schools in football and 16 in basketball.
——————————————–
I kind of like this idea actually for the Big East, you end up with 7 non-football schools and 3 football-only schools along with 9 schools in both.
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A move both desperate and stupid.
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I think as an associate/football only member it might not be a bad move. If/when BSU falls back off the map they can just give them the Temple treatment.
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So does the rule that says FBS programs must play in their primary league if it offers FBS-level football somehow not apply to the WAC?
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Well lets keep in mind that reporters often don’t know what the heck they’re talking about…so I’d take that part of the story with a grain of salt. Of course the entire story could just be more crap being thrown against the wall to see what sticks…”Hey we love BSU…the Big East needs teams….BSU to the Big East!!”
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Michael, I’ve heard that rule spoken of many times, and it seems eminently reasonable, but I’ve never seen an actual citation to authority.
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duffman, one thing I think that got lost in all of these discussions over the past year is that the Big Ten does not have basic carriage across the full footprint.
Philly is notably absent. And the reason why I say notably, is that what are the odds that Rutgers or BC or Syracuse or even Texas A&M can deliver their big cities (NYC, Boston, or Houston/Dallas) if Penn State can’t deliver Philly?
Even if you look at Missouri, KC probably wouldn’t be delivered by Mizzou because it’s a KU city. Maryland is more likely to deliver Baltimore than any of the above, but it probably doesn’t get you basic in D.C. Maybe a combination of Va Tech, Maryland, and UVA does, but that’s too much like a big money grab even if successful.
Penn State is a bigger deal in Philly than any of those universities are in their major cities, yet the BTN isn’t on basic there. This should have been a larger consideration from the beginning, but I’ve only seen a few people reference it.
Outside of a Notre Dame-Penn State combo, it doesn’t seem like anyone can really deliver the Northeast, and maybe not even then…
I think EZCUSE is right, the best play for the Big Ten is to wait. Maybe someday Rutgers will win a bunch of BCS bowls and have a legitimate brand in the NYC-NJ area. Maybe Pitt or Syracuse will regain their glory days in the ACC. Maybe Maryland might becomes Oregon-East. Maybe Missouri will prosper without Nebraska there (it sort of did the past 10 year but never took the next step).
The right play for the Big Ten is to wait. The world is going to be different in 20 years, maybe one of the schools not in the Big Ten in the neighborhood will become a legitimate power, and then the Big Ten could try to make a move. It’s a lot harder to develop a national brand in the shadow of the Big Ten’s 4 kings than it would be outside. The closest is Wisconsin…
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Didn’t finish what I was saying; I meant the closest to getting to national relevance is Wisconsin. But they already have an 80k seat stadium among a natural ability to develop gigantic linemen.
I know we talk a lot about the SEC taking Arkansas and South Carolina, but those two were different. USC(e) was always going to be able to develop with the right coaching, since the facilities support is there in a state without pro-football. The same goes for Arkansas.
For the ones candidates near the Big Ten, it’s a lot more difficult than that…
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The one thing that I would add is that I just don’t think that the B1G Presidents will make a move SOLELY for markets. It has to be a combination of factors, including superior athletics (particularly football) and superior academics. Unless a new addition can be a rival for Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, I just don’t see the move being made.
Missouri, Maryland, Rutgers… all add markets. None are even close to being a football King. Not even sure that they are Princes.
It’s ND or bust. And I don’t even think anyone is losing sleep over ND. The B1G did what they could to shake out ND and ND didn’t blink. The B1G took Nebraska and must be very happy with that.
You never know what the future will bring, so no sense in making any broad statements. But, for now, there is no need to take any of the current options.
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The only #13 for the B10 will be ND, the only question is if and when. #14 will be largely based on who is available when ND is, but I think the B10 prefers eastward (NYC) to westward expansion. Nobody else brings anywhere near the athletics/academics/ratings/markets (ND is ‘national’) and most importantly $$$$ ND does…
What needs to happen is for ND to be interested in the B10:
1. Big East to lose its BCS status (imo this is likely)…
2. The BCS leagues (after #1 happens) take control of the BCS and don’t give ND any special sweetheart deals.
It might take awhile but I see this happening in the not so distant future.
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Even without a sweetheart deal, I don’t see this forcing ND’s hand.
ND is in the game to win national titles. Even if they are thrown in the “everyone non-AQ” bucket, if they are ranked in the top 10, they are basically guaranteed a BCS invite due to their popularity. They don’t need a sweetheart deal to make a BCS bowl. If they are ranked in the top 2, they are gonna make the national title game. So no issues there.
And their current deal is not as sweetheart as some people think it is. If they make a BCS bowl, their payout is roughly 1/4 or 1/5 what the BCS conferences get. They don’t live and die on that money.
All these plans to force ND’s hand are never gonna work. Unless a BCS/playoff system comes to be that TOTALLY locks out the non-AQs (which is improbable due to political pressure), ND has no reason to acquiesce.
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I have no doubt aTm can deliver Houston. Southeast Texas has historically been the most Aggie part of the state. It’s less than 90 miles away. DFW I’m not so certain of.
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That’s probably correct.
If you had a theoretical SEC Network, the two areas that I would question whether it would get basic coverage the most would be Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and Dallas through West Texas.
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Orlando/Tampa Bay south through Florida might be the “Philedelphia” of the SEC…on basic but at much reduced rates.
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As a related aside…USF (Tampa) and UCF (Orlando) have 36k and 47k undergrads respectively…with those kind of student body populations and the relative success they’ve had on the football field I don’t think its safe at all to say Florida, or even FSU, will dominate the Florida TV market outside of their immediate region in the near future.
Right now those are the top schools in the state, but I could quickly see the day where they are just “one of the pack”.
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Is there any reason to think USF and UCF have better long term potential than FIU or FAU? Obviously they got started on their football programs later than the first 2 schools, but they’re also further away from Gainsville. There’s still Miami to compete with, but I think they’re easier to pass than the top public university in the state.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those 4 teams became regular national contenders; I also wouldn’t be surprised if they all eventually became members of the same ‘just below BCS level’ conference (which might be the Big East, the way things are going).
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I was going to make a comment that UCF was one of the largest shools by enrollment and that large alumni base could be huge advantage, but after looking into it there isn’t much difference between between the schools outside of FAU.
UCF 56K
UF 50K
USF 47K
FIU 44K
FAU 27K
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_University_System_of_Florida
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Maryland probably would supply D.C. because it’s 1) close to the District, and 2) many D.C. students enroll there (a law allows District residents in-state tuition rates for any public university outside D.C.).
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Proximity is an advantage that Maryland has that Penn State or even Va Tech doesn’t with respect to Philly/D.C.
I could see Maryland or Rutgers in the Big Ten someday, but it’s probably a long time away.
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I agree about the time horizon. I’m beginning to think now that there is very little that would cause the B1G to want to add teams. A&M to the SEC didn’t seem to cause any worry; the possible ramifications of the B12 imploding didn’t seem to set off any alarms; who has lost any sleep over Pitt and ‘Cuse going to the ACC? The B1G made the appropriate exploratory moves and got Nebraska, a great choice that will probably still be in the conference in 50 years. Maybe 12, rather than 16, is the ideal number, especially for historically stable conferences.
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I think 12 or 14 is much more stable than 16.
At 16 you really lose what you can have at 12 or even 14 with 9 games (as I expect the ACC and SEC to go to someday). Pods just aren’t an ideal form of dividing up a conference. Two divisions where you get to play enough of the teams in the other division is probably ideal for maintaining rivalries.
The only 16 team model that’s made a ton of sense so far is the Pac-16 model from the point of view of rivalries, geography, and stability.
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@zeek
I disagree with the “14 more stable than 16”.
If you had 4 regional divisions with a 9 game conference schedule you could set up a series of rotating rivalries (one in each of the other divisions), play your “regional rivals” (in your division) every year. You’d run through the conference every 3 years (home-and-away every 6) and still play your main out of division rivals 2 out of 3 years (having back-to-back home-and-aways with one year off).
IMO, certainly better than playing the opposing division once every 4 years (8 for home-and-away) with half a decade going to between games for all teams for a straight up 7 team x2 division 14. team conference.
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PSUGuy,
I think it really depends on the conference. Some may split into pods well, others may fit divisions better, and some would suffer either way.
In a P16, the old P8 schools may prefer to play each other more in a division rather than regional pods that give them more games against UT and OU. The eastern 8 might prefer that as well (they just have to switch from CA access to TX access for recruiting). The SEC does divisions well because many of the schools have little history of playing each other (AL/TN, AU/GA and maybe MS/Vandy are the only crossover rivalries of importance). The B10 is hard to split either way bebi
Nobody has ever shown me a set of B10 pods that don’t suck for somebody, and the divisions aren’t great either. Pods increase the frequency of games against everyone at the cost of playing some rivals less often. You also have the issue of integrating the new teams if they get podded together.
The best conferences are 9 or 10 teams playing a round robin. That would work as two divisions of a super conference, too. 14 and 16 are too big to play everyone often and two small to be completely separate. I think the magic numbers are 9, 10, 12, 18 and 20, and realignment may be killing off 9 and 10 as possibilities long term. 12 is better without locked rivals, but few conferences split neatly enough for that.
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I live in Philly and the Big Ten network is part of Comcasts Basic Cable package. It is no longer in the optional “Sports Package”
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Well, there goes that part of my argument.
I think the rest of it stands though, considering that the original deal didn’t include that. Any idea when that happened?
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zeek – not sure when it actually ocurred but I found out about it during this past summer.
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BTN may be on basic cable in Philly, but it may not be receiving in-state carriage rates.
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According to PSU fans, eastern PA pays less per subscriber than western PA ($0.25 vs $1). I still haven’t found a definitive statement from BTN or Comcast that the BTN is on expanded basic in Philly now.
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It may depend where in Philly you live (in town versus suburbs). Also, are you sure it’s on basic and not one of their 17 other tiers?
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I have a theory that ESPN is driving the bus on this entire thing (Big12/ACC expansion), with the endgame of eliminating the Big East as a viable football conference.
Therefore, the only way to achieve that outcome is for the Big 12 to swallow Cincinnati, Louisville and West Virginia, money be damned. ESPN will kick in extra money to the Big 12 to make the Big East go away.
Which basically means Cincinnati is the luckiest duck that ever quacked.
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I don’t agree with your theory, but Cincy’s biggest break is that UConn went so hard after the ACC in 2005. Otherwise, they probably would have beaten out Pitt to the ACC and the Big 12 would be looking at UL,WVU,Pitt if they go to 12 and Mizzou leaves.
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Pitt being on the table would have made 12 much more likely than the current situation where the Big 12 is looking at probably staying at 10 the either way.
Pitt+WVU would be valuable to the Big 12 regardless of the #10 spot.
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Cincinnati doesn’t have Pittsburgh’s academics or football heritage, making it a non-factor for the ACC. If Cincy wants to escape the Big East, its only out is tagging along for the ride in a 12-member Big 12 (and if I were Neinas, I’d pursue South Florida to accompany West Virginia and Louisville before looking at the Bearcats).
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Interesting reasons for TCU:
a) geography; b) recruiting; c) academics; d) TV value
Cincinnati would have a,b,c advantage over WVU in a 12 team Big 12. Still think WVU wins out, but it could be close.
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Big East wants to go to 12 football teams.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2011/10/big-east-approves-move-to-12-football-team-league.html
“On a teleconference earlier today, our Presidents and Chancellors authorized the BIG EAST Conference to engage in formal discussions with additional institutions and are considering moving to a model that includes 12 football playing schools.”
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Seems to me like we could have a showdown over Temple v. Villanova.
Of course, that’s assuming 5 are UCF/ECU + 3 military schools…
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At this point, I don’t know why they don’t just add Villanova. They’re already doing a significant downgrade in fb strength by going after the academies in order to add strong academic schools that don’t need to have a bb conference. That gets them to 10 (assuming all 3 academies join) with still only 14 for bb. The only reason for Temple would be if they want Villanova to share the Linc (which Temple has rights to).
The interesting question at this point is a battle for a #6 AQ spot between the Big East, CUSA and MWC (or some combined CUSA/MWC).
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Temple needs to tell the Big East, if you want Villanova to share the Linc with us, fine. Just make us a Big East all-sports member, too.
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More likely you’d just see 5 AQ’s with the rest fighting for the annual bid. The Big East has been so decimated, and the replacements so weak, that I think it’s a huge uphill battle for them to keep AQ even w/o any more losses… and something tells me at least one more (probably West Virginia) is going to be out the door soon.
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Big East commissioners agree to expand up to 12 schools. They are currently at six and will need six more if they don’t lose any schools to BigXII.
My Guess –
Airforce (FB only – other sports to MVC like AFA AD said)
Navy (FB only)
Army (FB only) (the three service academies add “national exposure”, great 3 way rivalry and political cover to protect the AQ BCS bid, keeps BBall schools happy)
BYU (FB only) ) (no problems with not playing on Sunday, “national” LDS fan base, won’t upset BBall only schools, keeps BYU in WCC – a stated goal for the LDS church leaders)
Boise State (FB only) (other sports go to Big West, adds a TV draw, protects the BCS AQ, travel partner with BYU)
Final spot – UCF (all sports rival/travel partner for USF, recruiting grounds, more of the Florida market)
If Louisville/Cincinnati/WVU get raided by Big12, expect ECU/Houston/SMU to be added in all sports.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
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Why does BYU need a travel partner if they are both FB only?
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ECU v UCF will be interesting to see if that becomes a decision point. The word was that USF was blocking UCF in a similar way to BC-UConn, but we’ll get to actually know whether that’s the case soon.
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More fun…
http://twitter.com/#!/PeteThamelNYT/status/123388361611292672
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Yep. This is the aftershocks hitting the non-BCS conferences and non-FBS conferences.
Now that things are almost stable at the BCS level (of course, significant implications left for Big East and would-be Big East schools); everyone else gets to deal with schools trying to find better seats at the table…
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If the CAA is pursuing UNC-Chapel Hill (as N.C. State publicists gleefully referred to it in the ’70s and ’80s), I think it’s going to be severely disappointed.
(Of course, it’s meant to refer to UNC Charlotte — or “UNC Concrete,” as Chapel Hill wags tagged it.)
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SEC decides to do nothing today.
http://campuscorner.kansascity.com/node/2123
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One question: is TCU leaving (or not joining as it were) the Big East the first instance where we’ve had a school actually cut a check to the conference for leaving?
Most prior exit fees seem to have been covered by withheld TV money from 1st/2nd tier rights.
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If I am TCU I am not paying. The conference that invited them is much different than the one they were about to join. They may not mind taking it to court. I doubt there is anything in their internal documents that could embarrass themselves or their conference unlike a Big Ten, SEC or Big 12 negotiation.
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It’s $5M. Pretty sure they’ll write a check and move on…; their boosters will foot that in 5 minutes as the cost of going to the Big 12. Why try to draw this out with lawyers and the like…?
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The conference that invited them is much different than the one they were about to join. They may not mind taking it to court.
Actually the Big East will have exactly the same membership next year as it did when TCU accepted its invitation. Anyways, the lawyers fees and PR hit they would incur from a legal fight would almost certainly exceed $5 million.
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Word is we’ll see if we can’t negotiate that exit fee down a bit. I don’t see TCU putting up a fight over $5 million. First, we can raise that money faster than you can spit (we raised $105 million for the stadium in about six months). Second, despite TCU’s penchant for dropping a conference quicker than most people trade in cars, national press coverage of the moves has generally been positive. We start squabbling over what now amounts to a relatively meager amount, that could change in a hurry.
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http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7084900/missouri-tigers-study-outlines-sec-revenue-advantage
Latest Missouri news:
“Missouri curators voted unanimously last week to give Chancellor Brady Deaton authority to explore options to leave the Big 12. The curators reviewed the 45-page document that outlines the pros and cons of leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference. The AP obtained the report from a university official familiar with the discussions who is not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.
The report outlines how much money Missouri could expect from its network and cable television contracts. It suggests Missouri could get $17.16 million in Big 12 TV money in 2012, compared to $19.25 million from an SEC deal. It also envisions a far bigger share — up to $12 million more — should the SEC renegotiate its top-tier TV rights.”
So that estimate Missouri is working with is $29-30M per school for a 14 school SEC. Of course, we have no idea what that number is based on, so it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Is CBS really going to expand its contract that much? Probably not because neither team is going to be on CBS as much as an FSU would be if they were #14. The increase would mostly have to come from ESPN; we’ll see how far they’re willing to bend for additional inventory…
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Obviously someone with an agenda. Noone, not even the SEC partisans are talking $30 million ($25 seems to be what they are discussing). If they seriously believed that, Missouri wouldn’t be debating this. They would only be waiting on the SEC.
The $17 vs. $19 looks about right. But there’s some discussion ABC/ESPN may renegotiate the Big 12 Tier I contract now instead of 4 years, in order to extend it to 2022 without opening it for bid.
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This is obviously an intentional leak. They need a reason to leave the Big 12. $12-13mm/yr more in projected revenues may make it easier to make the leap.
I’m still suspicious of that number. It’d be interesting to see what else is in that report.
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Could Big East going to 12, indirectly hurt them against the Big 12? If even the Big East is at 12, the Big 12 might be less likely to want to be the only 12 team league.
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That’s interesting.
I was also thinking that going to 12 means more teams can leave without taking the Big East under water. In other words… add six teams…. that gives a few other schools “cover” to leave.
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Has anybody analyzed all the available non-AQ schools (that the Big East could add) with respect to the impact on maintaining AQ status. Not name brand. Just plain old numbers.
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There’s no analysis to do. Only TCU, Utah & Boise State had any BCS point value. Utah is now in the Pac & TCU has an invitation to join the Big 12. The only one that would add anything that is considered in that formula is Boise.
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UCF brings 1 BCS point.
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I remember some stuff on the Mountain West board a while back. And noone significantly improved their weak spot which was average computer ranking (other than Boise). The best teams were right around their average (I think it was mid-50s but don’t remember for sure). Noone helps on highest ranked team. And I don’t believe anyone but UCF, Nevada and Hawaii had been ranked at all (and them only once). They were looking at teams west of the Mississippi, but noone in CUSA East would help the BE on average ranking.
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But shouldn’t that give UCF a leg up over the competition. Every point will count.
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The thing to keep in mind is that the formula is only for adding a BCS conference, not for removing one. If the Big East is to lose its AQ status, it will be based on different criteria. And yeah, there’s no one out there who can make much of a difference. I calculated the heck out of that stuff back before Utah and BYU (not to mention TCU) left the MWC, and even adding Boise barely moved the needle. We would’ve had to push UNLV’s football program off a cliff to make a significant difference in the average ranking category. IIRC, even Houston didn’t do much – they get up pretty high, but they always seem to falter at the end of the year and drop out of the final rankings.
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Jake,
I know that the formula is only for adding a BCS conference, rather than removing one.
Removing one probably has more to do with, “Does your league move the needle?” Answer that question league by league…
SEC–Yes. Need I explain?
Big Ten–Yes. Need I explain?
Pac-12–Yes. USC is a king. Oregon is also becoming a big draw. The league’s supporting cast is THE league of the west coast, and is more than sufficient.
Big 12–Yes. Texas and Oklahoma are always very popular. Teams in the top ten out of this league also draw a lot of eyeballs, even their names are non-name brands like Texas Tech or Oklahoma State.
ACC–Yes, but requires more explanation. Florida State is as good a TV draw as anyone. Miami is close behind. Va. Tech generates its fair share of interest. Clemson, at the very least, will sell out its allotment of bowl tickets and most assuredly will draw eyeballs if it makes it through the season unscathed. NC State and UNC also travel well, with UNC being a fair TV draw when the team is really good.
Big East–Not exactly WVU moves the needle a decent amount, but how much more than, say, TCU or Boise State, who alone aren’t enough to garner the market demand for the MWC to be an AQ league? Rutgers requires an amazing 2006-like season to get any national attention. The attention on USF is based on the idea of, “Hey, this team we never heard of six years ago is in Florida and they’re in the Big East!” Louisville football, in my estimation, doesn’t draw in casual fans. Cincy and UConn have trouble drawing in their own fans.
Another way of putting it: How often can teams from the Big East get on ABC on a Saturday night? More generously, how often can Big East teams get on ABC in their own market in the 3:30 slot? The ACC can always have a game or two that can squeeze out a Big Ten/Big 12/Pac-12 game on the east coast, at least. But how is USF vs. Anybody going to get on ABC in Florida when FSU is playing any ACC team besides Duke or Wake Forest? How is Louisville vs. Anybody going to get on ABC in Kentucky over a Big Ten game?
If the Big East can’t get enough demand to have games on ABC regionally, how do the other five leagues feel about letting them keep their automatic bid?
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If this guy is accurate, BE is sure moving a lot faster than SEC or Big 12 or ulta slow Missouri.
According to article: UCF likely this week with Temple to follow. Navy, AF, Houston, SMU, Boise, Villanova also on the list. Article did not say if those were the only schools on the list.
http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/extras/colleges_blog/2011/10/big_east_ready_1.html
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I reserve the right to be skeptical. Blaudschun’s been a Big East shill for years.
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I was skeptical too, but I did see Weiss of NY report the same thing.
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UCF makes sense.
But to me, the best possible choice is ECU, probably followed by UCF.
Given the growth rate in NC and that ECU is the main public school that’s exclusively football focused, it has to be on the short-list.
ECU has by far the most upside of any school on any list. You put that school in a BCS conference (if the Big East maintains it), and you’re talking about the next Virginia Tech. Of all the schools, that has the most staying power and potential in terms of fan support and as a TV draw in the future.
It could even be the #2 school in NC behind just UNC as a ratings draw inside and outside the state for football pretty soon.
UCF is going to be in a battle to be #4-5 with USF, and I like the grab at Orlando-Tampa markets as well as the competitiveness between the two schools that will help the Big East in Florida.
If they’re really looking at the future beyond just the next BCS/AQ grab, those two schools are perfect gets. They’re not really going to end up in the ACC or SEC, so they’ll be safe for the future too.
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USF should just play UCF as an out of conference rivalry game
Too many directional schools and you become the MAC.
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East Carolina would be a smart move for Big East football. Unfortunately, conference members still have a basketball-oriented mentality, and would consider taking ECU a lost cause because it’s anonymous in hoops. More’s the pity for the Pirates.
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I think for a casual fan, any “Carolina” will create some basketball interest,
whether deserved or not.
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Nobody is that casual…
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Yeah, and it’s too bad if they pass up on it.
They’ve had a losing program and yet they sell out 50k+ per game with better ratings than NC State against BCS competition (although in fairness they typically play Va Tech or UNC or NC State as BCS teams).
But the point is, that program has staying power if it can pull those kinds of numbers while in C-USA.
If the Big East maintains its BCS for a decade, I could easily see ECU at 60-70k+ fans in the seats as well as pulling in strong ratings behind only UNC in terms of fan interest for football. Combine that with AQ talent recruits, and that’s a strong recipe for success.
Of course, I’m not sure the Big East would see that far ahead, but they definitely should be able to see that of all their choices, ECU has the most upside.
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I don’t Missouri is actually be that slow. They are just waiting on the SEC. The SEC has seemed to be the slowest so far by far. Pitt and Syracuse went from rumor stage to happening in 24 hours. TCU was under consideration for awhile, but as soon as news started to really break that it was on top, it was in. The A&M stuff on the other hand, even though everyone knew it was going to happen, took forever to make official and inviting Missouri seems to be taking just as long.
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Thats bc there is an element of desperation to the BigXII adding TCU (wanted to project stability) and ACC adding Pitt and Cuse (wanted to be proactive before ACC got poached). SEC is stable so therefore they can take their time and vet their choices (and they have multiple choices) and also clear any possibilities of lawsuits.
You will see BE add teams rapidly for the same reason – they’re desperate to stay alive in football. Wouldn’t be surprising to see 1-6 teams added in rapid succession.
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If the Big East could pull off a FB league of:
– FB only: BoiseSt, BYU, AirForce, Navy
– New: Memphis, ECU, Temple
– Orig: Louisville, Cinci, USF, Rutgers, UConn
it would be more TV worthy and BCS worthy than the ACC.
It would be a pretty good bball group as well.
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While I wouldn’t go that far, it’d probably be an AQ worthy group.
Whether they get that far I doubt it. In particular, BYU doesn’t seem inclined to join the Big East if they couldn’t work out a deal with the Big 12. And I have my doubts as to whether the Big East will go after Boise State (although I think it’d make a ton of sense in a football-only addition).
The Big East needs programs that bring buzz and have upside. Schools like Boise State, the academies, and ECU definitely provide that.
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In the BigEast, BYU could be in a league with some “brands” and exposure,
but also have a chance to be a dominant program.
In the Big12, they would have always been a second tier program behind Texas and Oklahoma.
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I think BYU would have considered a 12 team model if that was a concern.
BYU could be the anchor of a division opposite OU/Texas. Getting to Big 12 CCGs opposite OU/Texas would probably be enough of a draw.
I don’t know that they even got that far though.
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They should go all the way to 14, just in case they lose 2-3 to the Big12
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What strikes me about all these BE articles is who isn’t mentioned:
BYU.
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If BYU had any interest in being a FB only member of the Big East, it would already be a FB member of the Big East.
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The schools mentioned have changed. I wonder if the BE has woken up and realized their AQ is at risk. They seem to be trying to separate themselves from MWC and CUSA by taking their strongest programs.
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This is probably an underrated notion.
Moreso considering that C-USA and MWC are deep in merger talks (with Chuck Neinas consulting!) in order to try to grab a 6th AQ slot the next time around.
Big East did the same thing last time in taking TCU, and they might consider it with Boise State.
A lot of importance needs to be placed on the idea of maintaining the pecking order for the Big East relative to the MWC/C-USA and any proposed merged form…
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Totally random question:
About how far apart are the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses at UM?
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They seem very close on google maps. Less than 15min driving.
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There is a foot bridge (with a heated and covered section for winter use I might add)across the river that connects them. It maybe takes 5 minutes or so to cross the bridge.
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@MichiganDav,
Both sides of the campus you are referring to are the Minneapolis campus. The Mississippi River doesn’t divide Minneapolis and St. Paul. St. Paul is simply downstream to the east from Minny.
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thanks Michael, my fault
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Depends on rush hour. Even then, it’s very quick.
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Anybody think all the secondary conference realignment could result in a move for Butler?
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I lived in Indianapolis for a few years, and my best experience as a sports fan there, even over the Colts’ two runs to the Super Bowl, was watching Butler’s back-to-back runs to the national championship game. It was the most positive sports story I’d ever seen.
Anyway, I continue to be baffled to see how little interest Butler has been able to garner from other leagues. Now, many people who don’t have any idea how conferences choose their teams make the mistake of asking, “Why can’t they get into the Big Ten?” It’s just a ridiculous question.
But as small a television value as college basketball is compared to football, it still has hundreds of times more value than all the other sports. Butler is bound to draw some eyeballs to their games much in the same way Boise State’s and TCU’s regular season games after those programs spent most of their existence as “nobodies.” Surely the Atlantic 10, Missouri Valley, C-USA for non-football, or Big East if the b-ball schools break off have to find Butler as an attractive candidate. One thing is for sure: the program cannot grow in the Horizon League.
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CUSA got rid of their hybrid, A10 is 10 + 4. Big East will definitely take a look if they ever get rid of hybrid.
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CUSA may need to reconsider their hybrid if they lose all their best football programs. That league, without 2-4 among Houston, SMU, ECU, and UCF, would hardly have anything left to offer in football. So are they better off adding Sun Belt teams, or should they just get to 9 or 10 football programs and rebuild around Memphis into a quasi-power for basketball?
I think a hybrid may work better.
UTEP
Tulsa
Rice
Tulane
S. Miss
UAB
Marshall
Memphis
Temple
Richmond/VCU
Xavier
Butler
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Troy (Troy State) is probably the only team from the Sun Belt that would have anything to offer. I think the C-USA and MWC merger for football still works and possibly works better with the loss of 2 teams from C-USA. The MWC will be at 10 next year (with the loss of TCU and addition of Fresno State, Hawaii, and Nevada). Though that 10 could be taken down to 8 if in fact Air Force and Boise State take their football to the Big East. Lets say that MWC can stay at 10 by stealing from what remains of the WAC and C-USA stays at 10. The merger would only involve a championship game, so no crossover games. The MWC and C-USA each at 10 would set up a perfect round robbin format for each side playing 9 conference games, with a champion coming out of what would still likely be the two strongest non BCS conferences even with the losses of Boise State, Air Force, UCF and East Carolina…. sorry MAC and Sun Belt.
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I always thought Butler would be a great fit for the Missouri Valley . The MVC has a nice setup with ten teams and a true double round format. However, adding Butler (and St. Louis if they wanted to come back) would be natural adds and would make a fairly strong basketball conference that would almost always be the strongest of the “mid-majors”.
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Supposedly the Mizzou BOCs reviewed a 45 page document that detailed the supposed renegotiation of the SEC’s 1st and 2nd tier tv rights. Here is the link to the article:
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7084900/missouri-tigers-study-outlines-sec-revenue-advantage
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BYU and BigEast may be a perfect match. My impression is that BYU would like to keep their other sports in WCC. WCC makes a lot of sense geographically and culturally, plus WCC was willing to take them in. I’m guessing that the Big 12 would have wanted BYU to join completly, BE likely would prefer that they were football only members. If BE could do the same with Boise State… who just signed something like a 12 year football series with BYU, that would free BYU to play Notre Dame, Utah, and some Wac schools in the non conference schedule, while also playing a historic rival in Air Force.
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10 for 12
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7087967/big-12-set-10-teams-2012-including-missouri-tigers
looks like for now MU is still in the B12, of course 5 min from now this could change
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Sounds like Missouri decided leaving for 2012 is too expensive.
Its interesting that he says they can’t decide on 10 or 12 until Missouri makes its decision. They could do various scenarios. The combinations aren’t endless. There seem to be only 4 serious candidates for spots 10A, 11 and 12-BYU, UL, WVU and Cincinnati. I wonder if they are strongly leaning towards 10 if Missouri stays (or if they leave) and 12 if the opposite occurs. Or is it go west with BYU if they leave and stay at 10 or go east if Missouri stays?
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If Mizzou leaves for the SEC then its obvious the Big Ten made the right decision in not ever seriously considering Missouri. The only reason to go to the SEC would be for $$$. Now that is no small thing, but one of the articles on Nebraska to Big Ten mentioned how Nebraska said in a meeting “its not all about money” and the Big Ten agreed with that mentality.
Prime example of “institutional fit” if I ever saw one.
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Pretty silly post. Missouri would be interested in the SEC for the same reasons Nebraska was….$ being one of them, but also stability, prestige….and it is clear MO would prefer the BIG for academic reasons were the BIG interested…………
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I for one, as a UT Alum. living in Austin, am glad to have another road trip to Dallas every other year. I thoroughly enjoy my annual roadies to the state fair, and my semi-annual trips to Houston to see the Rice game (Nice stadium but I preferred playing in Reliant).
I wouldn’t mind scheduling an annual game with UTSA. I know they just started the team, but they do play at the Alamodome, a NFL-quality stadium.
By the way I only see this happening if the Big XII decides it needs an academic boost and adds Tulane and Rice for their AAU membership.
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TCU spurning the Big East for the Big 12 before even playing a game is the most logical thing that has occurred during this whole realignment circus. Since the SWC folded, the Horned Frogs have longed to be included with the rest of the money-grabbing elites of Texas D-1A football. Being stuck in the WAC, C-USA or the MWC has not been conducive to what TCU has been building over the last 15 years. The nation has missed out on opportunities to see standout players such as LaDanian Tomlinson, Jerry Hughes and Andy Dalton excel at the college levels on big networks such as ESPN. The Big 12 give TCU the opportunity to show the nation what they have quietly been building in Ft. Worth. It goes far beyond the Fiesta Bowl berth and Rose Bowl victory. Will they be able to compete against the OUs and UTs of the world? That’s to be seen. But the Horned Frogs will definitely remain a respectable football program when they join a BCS conference.
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